Ship Minis?

E Nicely

Mongoose
I know that the B5 Ship Combat Game is still in the early stages of development, is there any word on who will be producing the minis? What scale (if any) ? Any hint as to the actual size of any of the ships? The B5W models were nice but had definete "issues" with scale (this was remidied with the Fleet scale minis though).

Thanks. I can't wait for this game. 8)
 
I hoping for fleet action scale, because of expense, mixing with other ship mini lines, table space, just to nmae a few.
 
The fleet action scale minis were indeed more economical. But bigger models take a paint job so much better.
 
FA models were nice for big games - fleet action or large B5W battles; everything where you have more then half a dozend ships per side...

But for small one to three ship engagements, nothing beats the beauty of full scale minis! Not to mention the possibilities of converting them as to make the different variants look different in the mini too - or scratch-build entirely new ships for special encounters (yees, I did all that)

Soo, it's a matter of scale and preferance.

Personally I hope if they revive the mini lines, they might do both; as I prefer full scale for big ships and FA scale for fighters & shuttles; mostly since I'm gonna use tactical ship combat more often in playing out encounters for RPG campaigns then simple wargaming, and it's just worth all those higher prices to see the players goggle when their small minbari flyer is confronted by the much, much larger mini or a patrolling Omega...
 
Back in December some of the Mongoose guys did a short seminar at the Dragonmeet RPG con/trade fair. It was basically about 'How we get and produce a game based on a licence', but the questions turned to future releases and heavy hints were dropped about producing miniatures.

Questions were asked about B5 ships and the answer was that they were NOT going to remake B5 minis, except maybe a few ships that AOG didn't get round to (ie Excalibur). They figured that those who were really keen would already have the AOG ships. I guess they intend to use card counters.

Minds change though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. My vote goes for FA scale - they look fine and they are cheaper!

cheers
Mark
 
Questions were asked about B5 ships and the answer was that they were NOT going to remake B5 minis, except maybe a few ships that AOG didn't get round to (ie Excalibur). They figured that those who were really keen would already have the AOG ships.
Yees - now.

But in a year or two the last AoG minis will be completely gone, and several people come to B5 setting through the RPG will be wanting minis.

So I hope then Mongoose will think about it, and do B5 ship minis...


On another track... how about B5 character minis? I do have the relatively few (especially among non-EA beings) minis Harlequin did before they lost the license during their transition to Icon, and they're certainly great for the RPG, but I'd really loove more like them!
 
MarkJN said:
Back in December some of the Mongoose guys did a short seminar at the Dragonmeet RPG con/trade fair. It was basically about 'How we get and produce a game based on a licence', but the questions turned to future releases and heavy hints were dropped about producing miniatures.

Questions were asked about B5 ships and the answer was that they were NOT going to remake B5 minis, except maybe a few ships that AOG didn't get round to (ie Excalibur). They figured that those who were really keen would already have the AOG ships. I guess they intend to use card counters.

Minds change though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. My vote goes for FA scale - they look fine and they are cheaper!


cheers
Mark

Man I hope they produce new ones. Financial problems caused me to sell all of my fleets (full scale: EA, Gaim, Brakiri; Fleet scale: EA, Drazi-all painted) :cry: . A dumb move in retrospect.
 
or another option instead of character minis would be full-color cardboard minis -- like Cardboard Heroes. better than no minis at all...
 
Yes some news would be appreciated.

Besides, I agree with TeknoMerk and Rongobard : full-color cardboard minis would rock for me. 8)
 
Cardboard would be nice, metal would be better. Just thought of something, the release of Mighty Armies would indicate that Mongoose has the resources to make minis. Ships forthcoming?
 
I haven't seen anyone mention this comment from Matthew Sprange over on The Miniatures Page under the 'Mongoose Bab 5' topic (http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=19883)

Just to quickly add something here. It is true the space combat game will be a box set and feature counters - however those counters will just happen to be in the same scale as your B5 Wars ships, so your fleets will still be useable.

However, we are casting one new ship for the range (again, in B5 Wars scale). Not saying too much right now, but it is a ship that was never done for B5 Wars and one fans have been asking for. Stay tuned to the forthcoming news pages on our site. . .
Now isn't that interesting. Any bets for what ship it is :wink:
 
Would the name have somethhing in common with an Artherian sword?

that possibility depends on wether or not Mongoose has the copyright for Crusade, if they do, they can make Excalibur and probably the Drakh ships as well.

not having copyright was the thing that stopped AOG from making them in the first place.

please make them metal, not cardoard, pretty please with sugar on top! :wink: :lol:
 
Quite possibly they do have the copyright. And quite likely it is the Victory-class - after all, AoG did do most of the ships we saw in Babylon 5, from Omegas to WhiteStars. Only a few show-civilians were not miniaturized by AoG... and what else have fans been crying most about... (Though it could of course also be EF-1, another mini AoG never got around to do. Or the Icarus, another non-background ship AoG never did. Blue Star - same. Hell, if they wanted to they could even make a Jumpgate mini, complete with yellow & blue plastic "vortex". But since a Victory would probably sell best I'd think they'd start with that one...)

Now, if Mongoose were to take up the mini line where AoG left it, and slowly do all the minis they never got around to do, or didn't get the license for, I'd be really happy.
Especially if they were to do all those minis that are usually overlooked in wargames, but so common in Roleplaying encounters - civilian freighters, small transports, shuttles, etc. - and scaled to fit in with the AoG-made B5W ships, most of which are still available from some sources.

I would be even more happy if they did revive the old AoG mini lines too some day (when all still existing stocks of AoG minis have disappeared). Maybe even improve some of the not-so-good ones... (hollow-bottom minis like the Avenger Carrier - an extra bottom plate would be easy to sculpt; or oversized ones like the Markab Shafab - though that could also be fixed by making it a battleship-sized vessel in their incarnation...) even if they would charge more for them... or if they did it on a pre-order base (as in - "We'll do that mini as soon as we get 200 binding orders for it, as then our production costs would be covered"; something like that exists with another company IIRC.)

Similar goes for the B5 character minis by the late company Harlequin - I'd like to see Mongoose do something similar or maybe even pick up the line if that were possible (dunno if the molds were all destroyed when Harlequin lost the license in their transition to Icon minis, or if a master still exists... or enough samples to recreate them... of if the legal entanglements can be untangled without too much hasslöe for Mongoose... well, time might tell.)

Cardboard... Yuck :? :(
OK, cardboard stuff is OK to include in a boxed game, as it allows new players get into it without having to spend a lot - "just buy the box, give it a try, and see if you like it"; whereas needing scores of miniatures does rise the price tag quite a bit, and thus is accepatable only for games that are well established and have a large following stupid enough to pay exaggerated prices for the miniatures they need...
But for those who stay with a game, and can afford to spare a bit of extra mones from time to time, miniatures are the way to go (most slowly start building their mini forces even before a sudden gust of wind wipes out a game they have played for hours...). Very nice for promotion of the game too, if you can do demos (and put pix into the 'net) with well-painted minis - the eye usually is the first sense to spot a new game after all, especially in our visual-oriented times.
So while I dislike cardboard, I have to say it'd be smart of Mongoose to do both - mini only games have a much harder start then cardboard-including games, and cardboard-only games have a lot less appeal and expansion possibilitis then games with miniatures avaiable. So if you do something, do both, cardboard now, metal minis later. It worked for others before...
 
I do not collect or use minis in my games, however, I do love displaying model airplanes and ships in my room. This would be a cool add on to my collection of models, albeit on a much smaller scale.
 
ShadowScout said:
Cardboard... Yuck :? :(
OK, cardboard stuff is OK to include in a boxed game, as it allows new players get into it without having to spend a lot - "just buy the box, give it a try, and see if you like it"; whereas needing scores of miniatures does rise the price tag quite a bit, and thus is accepatable only for games that are well established and have a large following stupid enough to pay exaggerated prices for the miniatures they need...

My suggestion to go with cardboard was aimed exclusively on figurines (characters minis). Of course for ship it is irrelevant. And of course I think all of us would prefer real minis. As TeknoMerk stated it in the first place (look at the second sentence):

TeknoMerk said:
or another option instead of character minis would be full-color cardboard minis -- like Cardboard Heroes. better than no minis at all...
 
I would be even more happy if they did revive the old AoG mini lines too some day (when all still existing stocks of AoG minis have disappeared). Maybe even improve some of the not-so-good ones... (hollow-bottom minis like the Avenger Carrier - an extra bottom plate would be easy to sculpt; or oversized ones like the Markab Shafab - though that could also be fixed by making it a battleship-sized vessel in their incarnation...) even if they would charge more for them... or if they did it on a pre-order base (as in - "We'll do that mini as soon as we get 200 binding orders for it, as then our production costs would be covered"; something like that exists with another company IIRC.)

Actually, those minis are awfully hard to come by today. You can get them on eBay for exagerated prices but I'd think that if they issued comparable minis at more reasonable prices they wouldn't lose as much. Plus, if they still have AoG's fabricating machine they could make minis with significantly better detail (I used to tweak Bruce all of the time over the quality of the Star Blazers minis!). If the quality tweaks were up, maybe with some photo-etch included, I think many gamers would be happy with slowly replacing thier AoG minis.

As for scale, I think if you bump the FA scale by 20% or so you would have ships that could handle some detail and look impressive without being too large and expensive. Of course, they can also settle the ship appearance differences between the old full size and FA line.

Cardboard... Yuck :? :(
OK, cardboard stuff is OK to include in a boxed game, as it allows new players get into it without having to spend a lot - "just buy the box, give it a try, and see if you like it"; whereas needing scores of miniatures does rise the price tag quite a bit, and thus is accepatable only for games that are well established and have a large following stupid enough to pay exaggerated prices for the miniatures they need...
But for those who stay with a game, and can afford to spare a bit of extra mones from time to time, miniatures are the way to go (most slowly start building their mini forces even before a sudden gust of wind wipes out a game they have played for hours...). Very nice for promotion of the game too, if you can do demos (and put pix into the 'net) with well-painted minis - the eye usually is the first sense to spot a new game after all, especially in our visual-oriented times.

Agreed. A lot of the appeal of tabletop combat games is the visual aspect of the minis. More importantly, a lot of people bought AoG minis and never played the games.

So while I dislike cardboard, I have to say it'd be smart of Mongoose to do both - mini only games have a much harder start then cardboard-including games, and cardboard-only games have a lot less appeal and expansion possibilitis then games with miniatures avaiable. So if you do something, do both, cardboard now, metal minis later. It worked for others before

yup, that would work really well.

matt
 
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