Just for the original purpose of this thread:

If you are in an area with a "5 Below" store, IE is going for 3.99 a pop. A 40% chance of a mouse droid at 3.99 vs a certainty greater than 3.99. You make the call.

See figure #56 in the Force Unleashed set. :) It's one PROXY that is always legal in tourneys or casual.

Take proxies out of it for a moment for sake of argument. I have two Caamasi Nobles I bought loose that didn't come with cards. Would you object to my playing them with a home printed card? What's special about an "official" card?

From my perspective the card is there to tell you what the character's rules are and nothing more. A printout, a list, an official card, can all do that. Why is it important to have an official card?

One issue is the card is authoritative in a sense. If an official card says the noble has a defense of 12 that's more trustworthy than a cocktail napkin that says the same thing. Still, if you suspect your opponent is trying to cheat there are bigger problems than the cards, and demanding cards isn't much help against a determined cheat (anyone with a printer can mock up a convincing looking card with an altered stat). Any tournament should have a comprehensive rules resource in the physical control of the judges, not the players.

The Caamasi Noble is a particularly good example in that the card is wrong (it lists the faction as Rebel). Getting the stats right (to a minor degree) and getting the errata and faqs right (to a much greater degree) requires either trust or independent judges. The card is a convenience, but so is a list or a printed card.

that would be fine for revan also, if you have the official card. Customs are legal even when wotc was in control as long as the represent the figure well. But you would have to have the official card. Even with Destiny of the force, you have to have an official card. ITs just the official cards can be printed off at home from DOTF.

Funny Don, I don't remember saying anything like that. Guess I'd better go back and listen to myself talk. I believe I talked about supporting the venders who sell our products, but that has nothing to do with Gamers per se. It's simply because I want there to still be people selling our product on the secondary market as long as possible. But I've said it before, I really don't think it would change the price of mouse droids to be honest. It would however, open the door to crushing secondary prices for VRs from all sources - gamers sponsors or not. (And to be honest, I have no idea who is a Gamers sponsor - I have nothing to do with it and don't pay attention to that). If that wasn't clear, then I apologize. But I honestly don't remember saying a thing about Gamers sponsors, your post was the very first time I've ever considered this topic linked to it in anyway.

As to the rest, proxy minis, are allowed, provided you have a WotC official card for it. You can most certainly use a Reborn for Darth Revan in a tournament, that point was 100% incorrect. You cannot however, use a Darth Revan mini with a home printed card of Darth Revan in a tournament by the rules. Never could. Now, a judge and his/her players could allow something like that if they choose to. Always could by the "unwritten rules". Just yesterday at the Chicago regional, someone was missing a card for his mini. But luckily we have a book printed with all the WotC stat cards. The judge asked the the players if anyone objected to using the book (a proxy card). Everyone said they did not mind, he played with the book card. If you want to cut up your mice, go to town. Make as many as you want. Its your risk. We aren't changing the rules because you think it's too expensive to get 20 mice. Sorry, that's just such a terrible reason to change the rules of the game that have existed since the beginning. But as long as no one objects, you could be allowed to play with something like that at a Regional. Personally, a person with a Cad Bane mini, but freaking out because he can't find his card, is a much better reason to allow it, than a person who shows up with 20 mice that look like greenstuff painted gray on a base, and 1 card. I'm pretty sure I would object to the latter.

And as we've said many times, as much as possible, we'd like to stay with WotC's part of the game untouched. $8 mouse droids is an extremely small reason to consider changing a rule. As I explained on the show, the last rule change to this, was not actually a change, it was a clarification that came basically out of the Universal floor rules, but was in effect before the floor rule change. Dean simply made that change to make it clear.

I've read every post in this thread, and I've seen nothing that changes my mind on the issue.

Isn't that a case of closeing the barn door after the cattle have gone?

I understand that Gamers are trying to entertain the loyalties of the gameing aspect and the collectable aspect of Minis.
But game progression and continuation will not be measured on 'how much sinlge minis are going for?' -(we will always still buy SW and D&D singles and any amount of proxy pieces thrown into the game will not do any damage to vendors and suppliers businesses, unless they are running them poorly in the first place and every other collector of collecting games stops buy stuff.)-
or 'how much I can get for my collection?', -(concern was voice about miniature devaluation by making certain minis more playable than others and maintaining the game and cost value of current 'chase' pieces)-
but on whether or not people have access to the gaming content or are allowed to use alternate content. This part has already begun with the introduction of V-sets. Waiting until there is nothing left and the Salt and Pepper pot become Luke and Vader is very poor foreward planning on any part, if thats the case.
I'm still holding out for someone officially taking the licence because Miniature demand is already exceeding supply despite what a lot of us think.

There are a couple of big elephants in the room that have been addressed in this topic which people are dancing around or ignoring for reasons I dont understand.

Oh well, its just a game at the end of the day

It's a pretty big stretch. That was mostly an aside if anything, and as I said, I am not connected with Gamers Sponsorship in anyway. The only coorelation between the two would be that the secondary market places I mentioned are likely highly common, well known, SWMs sellers, and most of those are sponsors. I'd also generally speaking view my points in order that I presented them, as an order of importance (not entirely, but that one is probably lowest on my list anyways as I've said.) You'd also have to assert that I wasn't being totally honest to assert that connection. If that were the issue, I'd have said it. I have 0 knowledge that Sponsors care one way or the other on the issue, and it honestly never occurred to me to ask them. Because even if they did care, I don't think it would affect the decision in large part. Rules changes are there to make the game more fair, not to affect prices. The game is a collectible game, and regardless of what some of us think of a person who wants to keep his figures "value", it's important to not change things willy nilly that would hurt a part of the community for the benefit of others. I think I've said enough on the topic this time around, I will wait a few months until someone else complains to re-post the same general points again.

Well said.

Can you be more specific? Unless they are explicitly brought up (and likely by multiple people) they may never be addressed. For example, are you talking about the money issue I raised earlier? I'd still like an answer to that question as it is a potential conflict of interest in many ways (i.e., in terms of what figures are being made, what and whose maps are being approved, what rules are being kept and changed, and even about not sharing info to drive up hits on one site over another). I'm not accusing anyone of anything. Maybe no money is being made. Or, even if there is (and if everything is fully and properly disclosed and the community is ok with it) then there may not be problem. I'd just like to know the truth, and I think we (as a community), have a right to know the answer to this question one way or the other.

I never realized how much of a hot button issue little old mouse droids were, 6 pages in this thread, going on 7? Of course the conversation has moved away from mouse droids for the most part anyway. lol


I started playing SWM in January and one of the really cool thing about the SWM community that I have been exposed to is that I was told flat out that if I ever wanted to try out a mini that I didn't have at our local league all I had to do was say the word and they could bring them for me to try out for the night. And obviously that isn't an isolated thing based upon so many of the comments in this thread. What's clear to me is that the majority of the people active in the SWM community are focused on growing the game, helping out others and just having fun.

And while I'm not going to mention a name here because I am not on here to call people out, argue or make enemies, using an example of a couple Camaasi Noble's with missing stat cards doesn't really bolster one's case in the context of this conversation. For starters there is an orphans thread in the trade section of this forum where someone might already have the cards they could send you (or you could post saying you were looking for them). Secondly, you can go on coolstuff and order 2 Camaasi Noble's with stat cards for .49 each plus another .99 for shipping. That's a $2 fix to the situation and probably doable for most budgets. And lastly, if you did show up to a tourney and didn't have the cards I'm guessing somebody is going to either loan them to you or else cut you a little slack.

It just seems to me that mountains are being made out of molehills. Particularly when it's been repeated so many times over that you are encouraged to do whatever you want at the local level and that it's only at sanctioned tournaments where they would like these rules to be adhered to. And frankly they seem perfectly reasonable to me even as a complete newbie to the scene.

I do think it's interesting to note that of the people who have a problem with the current rules that I don't recall seeing a single post of anyone relaying their experience of going to a tournament and having their use of a mini denied because they didn't have the stat card. Most of these arguments seem to be hypothetical and not based on any actual situation that played out in real life. Again, it seems far more likely that there is any easy fix to the situation rather than to change rules that don't seem to be broken in the first place.

Sure mouse droids might be a little trickier than other mini's due to the price point and sheer number you could drop into a build. But surely if you did show up a few mouse droids shy of what you wanted there would be someone running Republic or Imperials that isn't using theirs for the day and would be happy to help. And if you are 20 mouse droids shy for your build, well maybe then it's a good idea to bring a different squad to a tourney.

Again, not looking to make enemies around here, those are just my observations.