I use miniatures in my Star Wars role playing games to enhance the experience of the game.  Why do I use miniatures?  Because not only are they really cool they are also invaluable to arbitrating combat.  In fact that is what I most often use them for.  There are a lot of gamers who don't like to use miniatures because they feel they are a hassle and they slow down the game.  While everyone has their own style and preferences I believe some people are opposed to using miniatures because they have never used them properly or they have never tried to use them.
     The primary use for miniatures in any role playing games is to represent the position of your character during combat.  Due to the abstract nature of combat in role playing games it is easy for players and game masters to get confused when tracking the movement of both player characters and non player characters during a combat encounter.  It is much easier to track movement and keep track of who is engaged with who with the use of miniatures.  You could use other methods of keeping track of things like using paper counters, coins, dice, or even action figures but since this page is dedicated to using miniatures in Star Wars role playing I won't go into those here.  The only other times when it is helpful to use miniatures are times when it is important to track the position and movement of the player characters and non player characters.  I have played in groups where, when not being used for combat, the player character miniatures were used to keep a kind of standard marching order of the party.  I don't usually do this because I feel it is only relevant in situations where the characters are going to be moving overland on foot or on separate vehicles or if the party is in a confined space that restricts them to a single or double file marching order and in those cases it is just as easy to jot the information down on a piece of paper.
     When collecting miniatures for a game there is no need to find a miniature to represent every non player character the party might come across.  It is only important to find miniatures that may be needed for combat encounters.  Of course every member of the party needs a miniature.  While it is nice to find miniatures that ideally fit the players individual characters it is often not possible.  While the new line of miniatures from Wizards of the Coast is nice it is also very limited.  Some of the major playable races are not even represented at the time I am writing this.  The old West End Games Star Wars line was very extensive but consisted primarily of characters from the original trilogy.  There were few miniatures available for someone who didn't want to play a clone of a movie character.  On top of that they are getting extremely hard to find.  Fortunately there are many miniatures from other lines available that work well for Star Wars miniatures.  I can't think of a single major line of miniatures that does not have anything useful for a Star Wars gamer.  The reason behind this is that a major stylistic element in the Star Wars movies is the juxtaposition of the ancient with the ultra high tech.  So you can use everything from fantasy to sci-fi and biblical to modern historic miniatures.  Since most aliens are humanoid conversions are often limited to the head and sometimes to the weapons.  In addition to party members it is good to find miniatures to represent major combative non player characters and commonly encountered troop types.  If you can't find, convert, or sculpt a suitable miniature for a situation try and find a miniature that comes close to represent it.  You should also consider how important a character is in relation to finding a good miniature.  If the character is only going to appear one time for a short combat it is not as important to find a good miniature for that character as it would be for a major combative non player character who is going to play an important role in a large campaign.
     Using miniatures in a role playing game is not like using miniatures in war games.
  Generally there are a lot fewer miniatures involved.  War games often need large spaces and lots of terrain.  Role playing combat encounters usually need only a couple square feet of space and a few small pieces of Terrain.  I generally like to use a separate table for miniature encounters unless I have a lot of table space on the main playing table.  It is not hard to set up a small card table next to the main table.  I also try and keep all the terrain and minis I think I might need for a session close at hand.  As a game master I try and set up as many things as I can before the game begins.  If I think it is something that might tip the players off I try and keep it out of site but close by so I can reach it quickly during the game.  A lot of times you may find that you don't even need to set up terrain for smaller encounters and you certainly don't need to build elaborate sets for every encounter.  In fact you should reserve building special sets only for very important encounters.  You can put as much effort into terrain as you want.  I have used milk crates set a few inches apart to represent an alley way on Nar Shadda.  I dressed that miniature set with a couple film canisters, three roles of wire, some bottle caps, a small box, and a piece from a broken toy.  It wasn't ideal but it worked very well for a random encounter and added not only to the understanding of the combat but also the cinematic feel of the encounter.  You can even keep track of such things using a battle mat or even a pen and paper but I find it works much better to attempt to use three dimensional objects to represent three dimensional space.  The main thing to keep in mind when setting up a combat is speed.  If you are going to need a major set then you should try and set those up in advance.  Random encounters are usually small and set in unimportant locations so getting them resolved is the priority and you don't want to spend a half hour setting the perfect scene.  For those it is best to just grab what is at hand to represent the three dimensional space if you determine that you need terrain at all.
     Miniatures can be a great asset to a game is handled properly.  If handled improperly they can be a major encumbrance.  With practice and time you can incorporate them into your game to great effect and you will find that they can really help resolve a confusing combat situation.  All miniature gaming builds on itself.  The more minis you buy and paint for one game the more you will have to chose from in the future.

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