Ta Echo, that was fun!
i edited this bit coz I thought it was too harsh and not very nice

I'm pleased it ended on an up, I'm much happier when discussions are not heated.

I dont want the game to end, but if dogmatic principals are not addressed it will go the way of the Saber Tooth. Over specialised and nothing left.

Imagine two players, Andy and Bob.

Andy is a collector, he wants to own one of every figure. He tracks down the promos, he buys minis by the case, he spends all day scouring Ebay for deals.

Bob just likes the game and couldn't care less about the figures. He loves the strategy, the squad building, and the competition. Bob only plays on Vassal because he wants everyone to have all the figures so that budget doesn't distort tactical choices, he hasn't dropped one dime into the game.

Andy isn't hurting Bob and Bob isn't hurting Andy. If Bob shows up to a tournament with a duplicate mouse droid he doesn't impede Andy's efforts to complete his collection one bit. If anything it helps a bit because the more Bobs there are the less demand for the official models and the lower the price for the Andys of the world.

Whether you see the SWM as mainly a collectible with an attached game or mainly as a game with a collectible accent, I'm not seeing why you should oppose opening up the game to anyone with an interest and not just to people with an interest and a couple hundred dollars to drop.

Talk of appreciation or depreciation of people's collections just sounds crazy to me. If you're buying SWM as an investment you need to rethink your retirement plan. The game doesn't need dollars flowing into it to keep it alive, it needs players. The lower the cost of entry to the game, the more players. Look at Chess. Anyone can make the pieces, no one is funding it, and it does just fine.

What this essentially comes down to is that this is a discussion of Proxies. The Vsets, by their sheer nature, have to be proxied, since we can't exactly print out new figures. What applies to the Vsets shouldn't be applied to the WOTC stuff.

Proxies are always a difficult issue. I can't think of any game that allows proxies in official tournaments, alive or "dead". Even in SWCCG, which now has full card printouts, you can't print out the Decipher stuff to use it. They are still going pretty well 10 years later. Proxies will not be a concern till years later. SWM is still in fairly good supply. The main sites I use still carry SWM. When it gets near impossible to get (not impossible to get cheaply), then it will have to be part of the discussion. It is way, way too early.

I personally dislike proxies. It is a cheap and lazy way to get into the game. Especially when the supply is still fairly good. V sets essentially require proxies, sure that is a necessary evil going forward.

That said, alternatives to Mice and Ugnaughts should be made. Not the same, not necessarily as good, but altnernatives.

If my group can play in the highly competitive regional event world, any one can. Here are some facts about my group:

When WOTC officially pulled out, we had 5 players. We now have 12.
Because of the present economy, 2 of our adult players are out of work, and 1 is retired.
We have 4 students; 1 college and the rest junior-senior high school age.
2 of our players started playing in the last couple of months; 2 others in the last year.
We have a physically and mentally challenged player who has actually won one regional game.
6 of our group went to the Md regional this past week; we finished a combined 16-14. Our finishes were 5th, 9th, 11th (me), 14th, 21st and 28th out of 30 players.

Point being, there isn't a lot of money floating around our group, and most of the collections are smaller. How do we do it?

Those of us who have...share. 3 players from my group used my figures; I also provided figures for 3 of the Atlanta players. We don't complain about changing the rules... we just find ways to play within the rules despite most of the guys not having jobs, money or sizeable collections. I am certainly not unique in loaning out my figures. I have found that the tournament players will often do this. This is probably the most unselfish and friendly tournament community I have ever been a part in, including all of the sports I've competed in.

Like many have said in this thread, the restrictions we are arguing over are only at the top level of competition. Certainly in local venues do what grows the game. Like in Atlanta, our guys use proxies all of the time locally. When tournament time comes, we abide by the rules. Thats just the way it is, and should be.

I'm sure you're not trying to be intentionally insulting about the v-sets.

As for the comparison to Magic, who cares what Magic does? This is STAR WARS miniatures. Magic is a CARD game, the 2 are not really comparable at all.

If you're playing casually, use whatever proxies you like (I sure do), but for competitive play, you need to follow the rules. Simple enough I think.

Because it makes the game play better. The more figures your opponent has access to the wider variety of squads and tactics he can try. You both get a more satisfying tactical experience.

It can also make the game look better. I play Warhammer, all figures are home painted and there is a huge amount of conversion and love put into an army. When people paint their own figures they compete with each other to do it better. Google "Golden Daemon" to see what the results are at the top end.

Look at the two figures below. One is an official figure, the other is a total fake. I know which one I'd rather see on the board.



The Obi-Wan on the right is well painted. The blending on the robe and saber are particularly well done, but it doesn't take much of a painter to beat the WotC paint jobs. The diorama below was painted by a middle of the road painter.



On Coolmini or Not (a painting site I got these pictures from) this Han had received an average vote of 5.8 on a ten point scale where 5 is "tabletop quality" (i.e. the point at which you aren't embarrassed to put it on the table). I'd rather see this quality of work over even Wizard's best work, let alone abominations like:



If you tell me you wouldn't be excited to play against models like this, then I don't know what to say.


Open up tournaments to proxies, conversions, other manufacturers and you tap the huge reservoir of artistic talent that is out there. The spectacle is worth it.

No arguments there!

You're selling yourself short, if you have the dexterity to write your name you can paint better than most of the stock paintjobs. Give it a try, there is a whole world of tabletop wargaming fun out there you might like.


So no V-set for you? Everything in it is a proxy with a card someone printed out for themselves on cardstock.

The point about supporting retailers is well taken. Every week I go to my friendly local game store and sit at one of their tables to play, and every week I buy something while I'm there. They're offering a service, a place to play, and I'm happy to pay for it. Any business that does offer a good product or service will do fine. People will also gladly pay to go to tournaments, the venue is offering a service and people will pay for that.

actually no not every card is a card people printed on card stock for themselves. a lot of people have the professionally printed sets. I believe he was referring to using proxies for the non v-set stuff anyway. it is a special case for the v-set because they didnt get mass produced by wotc. there aren't a huge number of the v-set cards but with wotc (even with the numbers dropping) there are plenty of most of the sets. they mawy be expensive in some cases but that is the price of the game. if you got into the game because you expected it to be cheap to play competitively then you were sorely mistaken. They are not wanting everyone to use substitutions for anything wotc made because there were minis already made for them. The v-set stuff doent have minis made for it so its not unreasonable for them to allow other minis to be used. Either way it still has to be approved by a judge, and realy only for competitive play.

Now I'm confused. If while I'm playing a game I want to use the mini for Han Solo, Scoundrel instead of the mini for Han Solo, Rogue because I hate looking at the latter, but I still have the card for Han Solo, Rogue isn't this called using a proxie. Obviously in competition I would use the correct mini, but just confused on the semantics of what the process is called. I thought a proxie was using one mini for another minis card.