When Wizards of the Coast picked up the license to produce a Star Wars
Role playing game for their D20 system they also picked up the right to
produce miniatures for that game. Since that time they have produced
about 18 or so 30mm miniatures for player characters.
While the new Star Wars miniatures are well sculpted they are not exactly
the best miniatures on the market. In fact I would say they are fairly
average. There are some nicer minis such as the Wookie scout but
there are some not so good ones like the Female Human Noble.
The great advantage of the new line over the old one is that Wizards
of the Coast seems to be focusing on miniatures for player characters and
not just characters from the movies. Also the 30mm size makes the
compatible with most miniatures produced the fantasy and sci-fi games today.
There are however many drawbacks to the new line. They are quite
a bit larger than the old West End Games Star Wars line so if you have
a large collection of the old miniatures and the difference in scale bothers
you it will be a problem. Also there are no iconic characters.
There is not just a lack of major characters from the movies but a lack
of anything from the movies. The fact that there is no Darth Vader
is actually not a problem. The old line had nothing for player characters.
The problem is that there are no Storm Trooper, Battle Droids or any other
important supporting factions from the movies. If you play a rebellion
era game and you don't have the old West End Games Storm Troopers or you
don't want to use them because the new line is 20% larger then you have
a problem. Another big design era is a lack of aliens. The
first release of miniatures for the line was almost entirely made up of
humans. The second release was better but even then they could not
keep themselves from producing a couple humans. Since one can use
any number of miniatures from various companies that produce fantasy and
sci-fi miniature lines to represent your human character it seems a bit
odd that the new line is dominated by redundancy. Wizards of the
Coast is the only company with the rights to produce aliens and droids
specific to the Star Wars universe. Any company can produce a miniature
of a human with a laser pistol. Another final problem with the new
lines is that it appears to have been set on the back burner while Wizards
of the Coast has geared up of production of figures for it's fantasy skirmish
game "Chainmail". In fact many gamers speculate as to wether or not
the line has been dropped all together.
I own all the miniatures currently available from Wizards of the Coast
but I only have a few painted. You can view them at the bottom of
this page. I am trying to get them painted as quickly as I can so
expect frequent updates on this page.
Minis below painted by Nathan Miller
Minis below painted by Michelle Miller
Back to Star Wars Adventures in Miniature