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I was going over this bit of news from the original post and Knight's own Facebook, and wanted to post my conclusions up here to get everyone's thoughts, my line of thinking all seemed logical enough to me.

Back when they started producing the ‘Batman Miniatures Game’, I started thinking the language of contained in Knight Model’s (KM) product license that they held with DC. I was wondering what their contract covered in terms of the products that they were and were not allowed to produce. I Concluded that, based upon the fact that they game the rule-set and any accompanying material away for free, they simply only held a license from DC produce models and aside from that, not really anything else.

At some point the staff at KM hit upon the idea (as most companies do) to create a game (I suspect to help them drive their sales), but as it seems that none of Knight’s license contracts actually covered Miniature War-games, they opted to publish the game as a free PDF rule set; thus not violating the terms of the license they held with DC, as made no profit sale of the game itself.

Then the announcement of a 'Superhero Miniature game' got me back to thinking about this situation, as far as what they can and cannot do with licensed goes. Can they make a game Marvel Game that is compatible with their DC game? Can I see if Iron Man could defeat Batman in a fight? Eventually I noticed that in the small announcement itself, they where only showing a new line 32mm Marvel models, but the announcement was actually for a "Superhero miniature game", not a Marvel game, much as it says in the title of this topic; but it just didn't click until I started giving it more thought.

So this leads me to believe when the game launches at the end of the year they are going to launch it with the sale of a Printed and Bound Rulebook of some sort that will be entirely IP agnostic, and that they may in turn also remove their Batman Core Rulebook PDF from download.

I think its a smart move on their part, and speaking for myself; should KM end up publishing a rulebook that both has a decent level of editing, and also keeps with the quality level of layout presented in either of the rule-sets that they produced for the ‘Batman Miniatures Game’, I will probably order it along with anything else they putting out.

Edit:
When I started to compose my thoughts I collected some of the data thought might be interesting to others:

(1) I’ll Open on my hypothesis that they are a relatively small company, based on their somewhat glitchy website, slow shipping at times and rate of releases.

(2) I looked up a sample marvel licensing contract that only allowed for use of the ‘X-Men’, which was drafted in 1999. It appears to have been written for a small scale operation that wanted to make novelty bottle openers and the like, among the details of the contract are the following:
-Required $40,000 ($55,932.05 in 2013 dollars) advance.
-10% royalty on every product sold.
-Minimum 5% net revenues to be spent on advertising.
-4 year terms of renewal.
-Explicitly states that licenser is only allowed to do what they have stated in there contract.
http://contracts.onecle.com/collectible/marvel.lic.1999.10.01.shtml

(3) Margret Wise Productions (what I consider to be a midsized RPG publishing house) in 2012 published 'Marvel Heroic Roleplaying' and sales of it very announced to be quite promising, during the course of the year they announced a number of expansion books, but after publishing a single supplement (again to reports of good sales) they announced that the sales line was not profitable enough to justify the continuing cost of the marvel license.
At GenCon last year they then went on to announce that they will be releasing a Generic Super Heroes RPG using the same mechanics they developed for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, called simply ‘Heroic Roleplaying’.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/04/29/243400/

(4) Fantasy Flight recently (2012) started to produce Star Wars products, but cannot release PDFs of there products because Lucas Licensing considered that to be within the domain of a "Digital Gaming License", and forbade it, but FFG has been able to (after the previous license holder WOTC set the precedent) release PDF erratas and promotional material so long as they do not charge for it.

The conclusions I draw from this tell me that just a marvel gaming license is profoundly expensive to acquire and maintain, and from the language used by Knight, they have simply opted not to not do so. Although Knight has been able thus far (with DC, which I have not as extensively looked up, but expect to be a much cheaper license) via a loop hole much like the one FFG is using been able to put out a game.

I haven't played the Batman game yet, but from what I've read the game really seems to be made for the Batman franchise in particular. Thinks like planning your move in advance, the fact that it's always night, reputation points, etc.

So far they only made a handfull of DC characters not related to Batman and Green Arrow and Deathstroke still fit the bill perfectly for the setting. Bringing in Superman or a Lantern would need a new system just to make sure the power levels work.

I also do believe that they at least plan to bring out a print version of the Batman rulebook. Which I would buy. Because it's a Batman rulebook.

Does anyone know how the licencing issue worked back when Heroclix came out? I mean, they had Marvel and DC from the start.

Whilst there's some wishlisting going on; Deadpool and the Punisher for me please

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
I haven't played the Batman game yet, but from what I've read the game really seems to be made for the Batman franchise in particular. Thinks like planning your move in advance, the fact that it's always night, reputation points, etc.

So far they only made a handfull of DC characters not related to Batman and Green Arrow and Deathstroke still fit the bill perfectly for the setting. Bringing in Superman or a Lantern would need a new system just to make sure the power levels work.

Didn't they already bring Superman in?

Did he not get rules, and just a miniature?

They made a Superman but he wasn't meant for the game, He didn't get any rules.

Not sure about actually playing a game, but I would buy quite a few of these just to paint. I'd want at least three versions of Spider-Man (Original, Symbiote, and Miles Morales).

Just not been loving their miniatures lately for some reason. I thought their Star Wars stuff was great. Maybe the attempts at characters you see so often in so many different media is putting me off.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
I haven't played the Batman game yet, but from what I've read the game really seems to be made for the Batman franchise in particular. Thinks like planning your move in advance, the fact that it's always night, reputation points, etc.

So far they only made a handfull of DC characters not related to Batman and Green Arrow and Deathstroke still fit the bill perfectly for the setting. Bringing in Superman or a Lantern would need a new system just to make sure the power levels work.

I also do believe that they at least plan to bring out a print version of the Batman rulebook. Which I would buy. Because it's a Batman rulebook.

Does anyone know how the licencing issue worked back when Heroclix came out? I mean, they had Marvel and DC from the start.

I am as about informed as anyone else on the status of Knights full licenses, but the fact that they stated with Marvel (and DC even before they made a batman game) it think lends credence to my theory that they lack a proper gaming license from either company. As far a the mechanics being well suited to batman, I do agree that they really are, but they are not so thematically tied that the core of the game's system cannot be extracted and used for a great generic "Supers" game, with plenty of tools to help manage power levels (like playing with the will power stat to rebalance the "balance of powers").

I thought this was interesting conversation with the rules writer from Knight from the Arkham City Limits Facebook page that is a little illuminating on what is to come, do note that I have edited it down a bit to keep on to the core topic:

Gustavo Adolfo Cuadrado Egea: Superheroes game it's on development, i'm very impressed that KM revelat it on their FB XD
…
Steffen From Wifstrand: Gustavo, will it be compatible with the BMG? Like, can we play DC vs Marvel? The same way Privateer Press' Warmachine and Hordes are two separate games that play together.
Gustavo Adolfo Cuadrado Egea: Superheroes game will be a different game , with different stat for BMG miniatures
Ian Hendybadger Henderson: So it's Marvel AND DC together?
Henrik Becker: Why would you make it a different game? Much cooler to have DC vs Marvel, right?
Steffen From Wifstrand: Yeah it would be MUCH more sensible to use the same rules (if DC and Marvel allow it). Cross-compability would be much more reasonable. Please Gustavo, please please please look into this! Please!
Henrik Becker: OMG what about a face-off supplement? Pick a hero each, square off... that would be ace. Batman vs Iron Man!
Gustavo Adolfo Cuadrado Egea: I can't said nothing not closed yet
…
Kris Burton: Is it just me or did anyone else read Gustavo's comment as they would be re-writing the existing stat cards for BMG models so that they could also be used in the Supers game?
Gustavo Adolfo Cuadrado Egea: NO there will be a new ones for use only in the other game. In the future we will conffirm everything now it's only a project on development

After having read this I do now agree it looks like I am indeed wrong about the potential of the 'Batman Miniature Game' being dropped shortly after the release of the new game, but still do not believe it will see a print release.

Edit: I edited my post above to include some of the data I pulled together when thinking about KM's game as it relates to use of licence.

That is some VERY interesting news!

Thanks for posting it here...

Now I am REALLY looking forward to this game!

They are planning a print release of BGM rules for this year. I know a few people who are working on it right now.

They're working on the graphics layout right now, as well as making sure the wording is translated properly from Spanish.

The rules are pretty solid as it stands right now, but they wanna make sure there's no problems with the terms (which there still is some even now) before they commit to print from what I've heard.

That sounds good, I prefer my rules in physical form.

My order arrived. Here's a size comparison for the Marvel minis next to an Arkham City clown and a GW Plague Marine. The Arkham minis are ridicoulusly tall. It's a good thing that Wolverine is on the shorter side, but now characters like the Joker stand taller than Iron Man.



A closer look at the Iron Man is a bit disapointing to be honest. The body looks good but the head and feet are less refined. It's difficult to distinguish modeling details from mold lines.




On a related note: Their 70mm Wolverine is a real to glue.

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
.

That looks pretty shoddy TBH.

Are those slip marks on the thigh and shoulder, or just gaps in the armour plate?

I suspect this is a symptom of them trying to cast large numbers in limited time to meet initial demand, at least I hope it is, otherwise I won't be buying any in the future (and I'd prolly have bought them all eventually)

Looks like some metal texture issues in spots as well, like the earlier Confrontation metals.

A converted Infinity Janissary would probably look better.

 azreal13 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Anung Un Rama wrote:
.

That looks pretty shoddy TBH.

Are those slip marks on the thigh and shoulder, or just gaps in the armour plate?

They're part of the model. But the helmet will be difficult to paint.

That looks a bit disappointing... I wish I had waited to order these.

I do like that the models are smaller so they better fit the rest of my collection; but It seems that Wolverine is still too tall, since he is only supposed to be 5'3", and I wish that the 'Iron Man' model would have been a bit bigger so it looks like Stark could actually fit inside the suit.

Thank you sir, for posting some pictures of the kits.

Wolverines height will depend on whether they paid for a comic or movie Universe licence

as the movie universe one has to be as tall as that Australian fella

And I think he's a robust 6'2" give or take?

And he does a fine job as Wolverine too!

Good call on Iron Man not being big enough, or bulky enough - the suit is armor, nor a latex form fitter!

I might be sticking with Pulp City for my Super Hero Mini Gaming...

The painted version does indeed look a lot better than the actual cast. But I still have high hopes for this range. I am refusing to give up at the slightest set-back!

[quote=Knightflashman 578142 6609691 null

Now that's a nice looking Hulk!

And Capt. America too, of course!

If they give me a proper Comic Book Abomination, I'm in, no matter what!

And of course, Mysterio too...

HULK SMASH! Epic models.

Give me Doc-Ock from the comics, Ultron and Deadpool and I'm in

 happygolucky wrote:
Give me Doc-Ock from the comics, Ultron and Deadpool and I'm in

I'd say Ultron is definetly in the pipeline. Him being in a movie and all.

They both look very nice, but I'm surprised they're not closer to the movie versions like Iron Man. They really went the classic route with Cap.

Knightflashman wrote:

If this is to scale, Iron Man looks too small. :/


Looking forward to seeing Spidy, and his rogues.

Yeah, we've been complaining about IM for a bit!

As for Spidey - I wonder if they have the 'license' to do anything that they want?

It might be that they're sticking with the "Marvel Studios" stuff for now 'just because' - but I hope that they can and will be doing Spidey and as many of his villains as possible!

 Alpharius wrote:
Yeah, we've been complaining about IM for a bit!

As for Spidey - I wonder if they have the 'license' to do anything that they want?

It might be that they're sticking with the "Marvel Studios" stuff for now 'just because' - but I hope that they can and will be doing Spidey and as many of his villains as possible!

I think they previously did a Spidy figure in their 75mm line, so it seems like they could do it in this one as well. Additionally, these are not the the movie-verse designs, so it seems like its not just 'Marvel Studios'.

Good point!

Bring on the Green Goblin, Rhino, Doc Ock, Venom, Kraven and yes...


...Mysterio!

 Alpharius wrote:

It might be that they're sticking with the "Marvel Studios" stuff for now 'just because'

Wolverine being one of the first models puts that theory down before it starts.