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Knight used to have the Star Wars licence, and dropped that in favour of Marvel.

I don't know the timings; if Knight originally took out the Star Wars and Marvel licences before those companies were acquired by the House of Mouse, perhaps Disney want more in licence fees than Lucasfilm or Marvel did.

From a selfish point of view, I should be able to pick up a cheap set of Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy at Salute this year. Rogue Stars or Blasters & Bulkheads should cover the latter fine, or there's Supersystem or Pulp City.

First DC and now Harry Potter; any chance of Babylon 5, while they're on the phone to WB?

Everyone is upset because of Marvel license being dropped by KM, and I'm sitting here being sad about KM losing the chance to manufacture Stormtroopers and Scout Troopers a few years ago.

Marvel was acquired by Disney before Star Wars. So...wouldn't be because of licensing through The Mouse for SW. Still could be for Marvel. But the two aren't related. This time...
Still mad.

Yeah, I doubt it's a case of picking Harry Potter over Marvel, but rather picking DC/Batman over Marvel, and Harry Potter comes along for the ride given that Potter and DC are both WB properties. Kind of bummed I'll never get to run that House Party list I'd been dreaming of though.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
Everyone is upset because of Marvel license being dropped by KM, and I'm sitting here being sad about KM losing the chance to manufacture Stormtroopers and Scout Troopers a few years ago.

er ... they did. there was a set of five Stormtroopers, another of five Sandtroopers and a scout on speeder bike. Not for long, but still for longer than the battle droids.

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Dropped seems... Unlikely. Being unable to afford the license, or Disney just withholding the license entirely, seems more likely.

I
You guys are all nuts. Since Disney bought anything merchandising goes thru the roof not depletes... See what they did with star wars???? anyone. Since they bought starwars i can't go to walmart without seeing a product with starwars insigna on it. So if anything the cost of licensing goes down, not up.

Disney has owned marvel rights for so long it isn't funny. With them expanding all the DC stuff it is because of the large push toward DC right now. Justice league just starting and the explosion about to start with those movies... kinda like Avengers.

I don't see them doing anything with the Marvel line other then adding to it. They got a decent foundation of models to build on.

That's an interesting position to take...

Aeneades wrote:Press statement up on Facebook, Marvel licence has been dropped.

Oops!

This is a bummer.

Hopefully someone else picks up the license for this type of game for the Marvel line - but if they do, would they also change the scale, even if only slightly?

I used the news an excuse to pick up a few figs I have been debating getting for a while. At least a couple (Daredevil and Punisher) will work with the Suicide Squad box game/Batman game I bought. Low level fighters/shooters ought to fit into the game decently even if they are the wrong franchise...

Lego happily covers DC and Marvel so I doubt they were forced to choose. Definitely feels a bit like they cranked out the popular Marvel stuff, realised anything else would have diminishing returns and so dropped the extra expense of the license.

That, and the fact that taking on HP and DC means that at the licensing level, they're only dealing with Warner Bros rather than them and Disney. So if it was a case that it wasn't financially viable to keep all 3 licenses, Marvel is the 'sensible' one to drop. Still a huge shame, though, there were so many models I was looking forward to seeing.

A shame to see, but it is what it is.

It's too bad they couldn't fill some holes in the MUMG but there are a nice amount of figures in the game.

At this point, my question is if any other companies will pick up this particular IP?

Knight models seems to be losing the IP for 35mm metal tabletop games model and 75mm metal collectors models.

Any companies out there than can take the lead and build their own gaming system based on the same 35mm metal tabletop theme? Preferably one that communicates and can continue to build on a model line, rather than abandon their project a year into release?

I could almost see FFG going after it, if you think about it Marvel could almost work on the same sort of model as X-wing. Pre-painted figures to cash in on popularity and get board gamers in as well, lots of potential for upgrades/alternative card content bundled with models, small model count, massive potential audience and scope for ongoing support....

I hope someone gets the license and keeps doing Marvel minis though. If they come with new rules that are even better (The KM Supers rules can be very fun, but do have a lot of flaws, I think) then brilliant, if not it'll be easy to house-rule new models into the MUMG rules with homemade cards.

I suppose that depends on how narrow the existing licencing deals are. If Wizkids have the licence to produce "Prepainted collectable gaming miniatures" that would pretty much rule out the possibility of an X-Wing like offering from FFG.

Shameful, really. Gave no warning, and already removed everything from the site. Even the free rulebook.

I was lucky I only had 5 miniatures left in my wishlist and got 4 of them from eBay this morning.

 Siygess wrote:
I suppose that depends on how narrow the existing licencing deals are. If Wizkids have the licence to produce "Prepainted collectable gaming miniatures" that would pretty much rule out the possibility of an X-Wing like offering from FFG.

They can be pretty narrow. A lot of people were surprised when Wizkids released unpainted Pathfinder plastic miniatures as Reaper already had them with bones but since wizkids were blind buys (boosters) they were considered different licenses as far as everyone involved was concerned.

On to Knight dropping Marvel, makes me wonder if poor sales were the reason more then anything. Looking, at least, for the spiderman game I think it was a misstep to make that a clone of the batman game. Maybe if they just focused on the larger power marvel game first might have helped things.

 Siygess wrote:
I suppose that depends on how narrow the existing licencing deals are. If Wizkids have the licence to produce "Prepainted collectable gaming miniatures" that would pretty much rule out the possibility of an X-Wing like offering from FFG.

I think the key to that phrase is "collectable."

So many things I dislike about the Wizkids version of a superhero tabletop game. Collectable is maybe the worst part. Plus, for me, the pre-painted, the game rules itself, and the horrible models.

Knight Models had done everything I was looking for--quality models, non-collectable (random), hobby-style modeling, but had a poor ruleset for Marvel.

I don;t know what exactly happened for the drop to occur, but we will likely never fully know. This is, for me however, a huge blow to my KM psyche. They had cornered my gaming budget for the last two years, being basically the only games I bought models for. Now, I just bought my last two Marvel models to complete the line, I'm likely not going to buy into the DC version of the game (I don;t even know who Black Adam is), and I'm going to be pretty exclusive in my BMG buys. I guess I should be happy, and KM just saved me $100 a month that I had been spending to keep up with their releases.

For what it's worth, Black Adam is a pretty cool dude in the DC universe.

He's kinda like DC's version of Doctor Doom crossed with Apocalypse in a few ways. - Ancient, mythical Middle Eastern figure with magical powers is revived in the present time. He then becomes (somehow, I'm not *that* familiar with the character), leader of the country of Khan'daq.

He's the typical enemy of Shazam but is also a major threat to Superman, having similar powers to the standard superhero stuff but being magical based.

How does the Knight Model stuff scale with the Pulp City line?

Is it...close?

Anyone have any side by side shots?

EDIT:

Can't find any Marvel stuff, but the Batman stuff seems to run a bit bigger:

His backstory is essentially just that he was a predecessor to Captain Marvel granted the same ability to become a magic powered Superman by saying "Shazam" by the wizard of the same name. Ultimately, his power drove him to tyranny and the wizard sought a new champion but couldn't take it away from Black Adam. He's pretty literally just an evil Captain Marvel (DC's Captain Marvel that is...).

As Compel said, what makes him interesting is that he's similar in a lot of ways to Dr. Doom. He's a dictator, but genuinely cares for his subjects and his biggest flaw is almost always that his power leads him to believe in his own decisions over the right of others to choose their own mistakes; even if what he's trying to accomplish is ultimately the actual "right" answer to things.

Seems, like Marvel license came up for renewal and Knight Models couldn't justify the cost.

Too bad because they seemed to sit on the license, then "produce" the Spiderman game, then finally got around to a proper MU game. A few steps more than SW* though.

Iain.

* sighing as I imagine a Knight Model's Rogue One skirmish game...

So very sad to see that go. Hopefully there will be some fan base stuff having to substitute hero clix models and make some stat cards for them. I was really hoping to see Juggernaut, warmachine, quicksiliver, scarlet witch, iceman, bishop, cable, stryfe.. To not see such beautiful models come to life makes me sad. I like the way the marvel game played too. boo knight models another step backwards.

Well, I guess I'll build and paint the very few KM minis I have, and move on.

Good news is the cards can be downloaded for free and heroclix are plentiful. If fans make a template for the cards, we can make new characters (ghost rider, red hulk, sooo many marvel characters and heroclix for them).

Sad to see it go, but KM dumped star wars after a few short years, now marvel after just over a year, LOTR after a few years, etc. I suspect Harry potter to not sell well (many more marvel fans than hp fans... esp fans that will play wargames). They will only have the license for a couple years and then they'll be onto another game.

The only license that is ongoing is dc. Bmg is a blast, and the bmg works well with the mumg. I just hope they make more dc characters that are power 6-8. Otherwise games are being over run by high power characters everywhere.

the cards and rules for Marvel are no longer on KM's site.

 455_PWR wrote:
Good news is the cards can be downloaded for free and heroclix are plentiful. If fans make a template for the cards, we can make new characters (ghost rider, red hulk, sooo many marvel characters and heroclix for them).

Sad to see it go, but KM dumped star wars after a few short years, now marvel after just over a year, LOTR after a few years, etc. I suspect Harry potter to not sell well (many more marvel fans than hp fans... esp fans that will play wargames). They will only have the license for a couple years and then they'll be onto another game.

The only license that is ongoing is dc. Bmg is a blast, and the bmg works well with the mumg. I just hope they make more dc characters that are power 6-8. Otherwise games are being over run by high power characters everywhere.

KM had the Marvel license for almost 8 years if I remember correctly. Although they only did 35mm for 3-4 years

erratyk wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Good news is the cards can be downloaded for free and heroclix are plentiful. If fans make a template for the cards, we can make new characters (ghost rider, red hulk, sooo many marvel characters and heroclix for them).

Sad to see it go, but KM dumped star wars after a few short years, now marvel after just over a year, LOTR after a few years, etc. I suspect Harry potter to not sell well (many more marvel fans than hp fans... esp fans that will play wargames). They will only have the license for a couple years and then they'll be onto another game.

The only license that is ongoing is dc. Bmg is a blast, and the bmg works well with the mumg. I just hope they make more dc characters that are power 6-8. Otherwise games are being over run by high power characters everywhere.

KM had the Marvel license for almost 8 years if I remember correctly. Although they only did 35mm for 3-4 years

Yepp, this is correct. They were starting out with the Marvel 75 mm Collector series, and was running it for several years before moving onto the 35 mm range. They started their sales early 2009, and then must have had the licence before that, so since 2008 for sure.

The cards are no longer available. All marvel product has been removed from their website completely.

You can still find the cards at

http://www.hero-builder.net

At least

Just saw this from KM on Facebook:


Of note, other than the Milita tanks, is a new Nightwing down the front, long overdue I think so I'm looking forward to that one.

That is pretty darned cool.