Alternate Sculpts

By Animewarsdude, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

So we've seen alternate sculpts for the miniatures with the release of the Storm trooper expansion, what other alternate sculpts would people like to see? Some that come to mind for me are:

Imperial Officers - Female officer sculpt.

Royal Guards - Action based pose, plus a way to distribute the fixed card more easily.

E-web Gunner - Standard Storm trooper or Snow trooper replacing the Scout trooper.

Heavy Storm Trooper - A pose more like this: http://media2.giga.de/2015/07/star-wars-battlefront_t21-blaster-rifle.jpg

Snow Trooper - New sculpt though really just a way to have it so people can run more of them without having to buy multiples of the big expansion.

HK Assassin Droids - Have them in a crouching sniper position or have them with sniper like rifles.

Of course expansions like these could say be made as a way to fix cards to like lowering Han and Chewie's threat costs if they decide to down the line, say like they release a Heroes of the Rebellion expansion which has four figures Han and Chewie with new sculpts and revised cards and then maybe an episode 4 Leia and a Bespin Luke. The only issue with that though is that it creates an issue where it kind of makes the old expansion useless which would reduce sales for it and might upset people who already bought the figure who might not want a new sculpt.

I think alt sculpts would most likely be figures that came in boxed expansions, as we saw with the stormtroopers.

So most likely I think might be

Royal Guards

Trandoshan Hunters

HKs

Snowtroopers

Imperial Officer

First and most important: I consider the alternate Stormtrooper sculpts be a failure because their pose was not visually distinct enough from the original sculpt. If you have 2 groups on the map intermingled, it takes quite a bit of examination to figure out which is which if they're not otherwise labeled or colored distinctly. So with that understood, I hope that any future unique sculpts would be much more distinct.

So based on that, I think Animewarsdude has some great ideas. Here's some of those mixed with some of my own:

  • A Stormtrooper group that was firing from a one-knee keeling position.
  • Animewarsdude's idea of a Snowtrooper manning the eWeb (great flavor since IIRC this happens on Hoth in the movie)
  • Animewarsdude's idea of action pose Royal Guard
  • Degobah-Training or Orange Speeder Jumpsuit Luke could be cool too (since it seems like we've done our Empire Strikes Back expansions we won't get a new figure for him in that movie period).
  • Hoth Winter Gear for Luke and/or Han would be neat (to match with Leia).
  • Finally: Female Officers would be so great!
Edited by nickv2002

I'd love an Alt Sculpt with more female figures.

Female Trandoshans and Wookies, all the way.

I'd love an Alt Sculpt with more female figures.

Female Trandoshans and Wookies, all the way.

Wait... The Trandoshans and Wookies arent female?

I'm of two minds on this.

I really had no intention of getting the Stormtrooper villain pack as the core set provided enough for my needs. As nickv2002 states, the pose was not different enough to really warrant the purchase. Plus with the AA card out there, I can easily run two eStormtrooper groups without needing to buy more.

FFG kind of forced my hand though by putting its map into the skirmish rotation so I purchased it. Luckily(?), I ended up losing one of the figures somehow so the remaining two are being converted into Luke and Han in Stormtrooper armor. :D

I'd really rather the ally/villain packs give us something different that what we can get in a larger expansion. If I want more of a specific trooper-type unit, I've found plenty of enterprising individuals who are breaking up sets and selling individual components on ebay to suit my needs. One just has to be patient. Picked up two squads of Snowtroopers last month for less than it would have cost to buy 2 villain packs. Granted there are less goodies (command cards, skirmish upgrades, etc) when doing so but I really just wanted the figures and deployment cards.

Now, getting alternate sculpts for Heroes with specific timeline outfits (Hoth/Endor Luke & Han, ANH/Endor Leia) with different Deployment cards? Yeah, I can get behind that!

Tusken Sniper? Only if you give me a different deployment card. Don't just repackage a new sculpt with the same deployment cards.

I think the inclusion of female imperial officers as an alt sculpt would actually reflect the inclusion of more female imperial officers in the new canon, plus it would provide a nice bit of variety. The whole point of the alternate sculpts idea being that people don't have to go and buy miniatures second hand or spend a fair bit of money for a couple miniatures by buying the box expansions. I'm sure there are a ton of people who ran Royal Guard skirmish lists that would have preferred buying expansion packs with the miniatures rather than having to the other methods I mentioned. Plus alternate sculpts allow for people to get the faq'd cards without having to go to and compete. As for the heroes like I mentioned before I think it might work or it might not, but that depends on whether they at some point choose to change the cost of Han or any other hero in their current incarnation rather than just make new ones as time goes on.

I think the inclusion of female imperial officers as an alt sculpt would actually reflect the inclusion of more female imperial officers in the new canon, plus it would provide a nice bit of variety. The whole point of the alternate sculpts idea being that people don't have to go and buy miniatures second hand or spend a fair bit of money for a couple miniatures by buying the box expansions. I'm sure there are a ton of people who ran Royal Guard skirmish lists that would have preferred buying expansion packs with the miniatures rather than having to the other methods I mentioned. Plus alternate sculpts allow for people to get the faq'd cards without having to go to and compete. As for the heroes like I mentioned before I think it might work or it might not, but that depends on whether they at some point choose to change the cost of Han or any other hero in their current incarnation rather than just make new ones as time goes on.

I'm not saying the idea is bad. It is just not something I personally would want to buy. I'm not inclined to pay $15 for three more Imperial Officers just to get a female sculpt. I'd also not purchase a Royal Guard pack with an alt sculpt. I have two units. I'll never play more. There are very few trooper units from large expansions I feel I need another set. That's just me.

Also FFG shifts the risk of unsold SKUs to the secondary market and lets that risk fall to people willing to buy and then break sets.

I think the inclusion of female imperial officers as an alt sculpt would actually reflect the inclusion of more female imperial officers in the new canon, plus it would provide a nice bit of variety.

Women are wonderful, you won't see too many female Imperials because being evil (thus inevitably losing by dying horribly) is reserved for white (preferably British) males.

Ideally we should have gotten multiple sculpts on the figures we already have like wookie warriors, ISB agents etc. We're paying a ridiculously high ultra premium price for 2 tiny lumps of unpainted plastic, they could have at least put some effort in.

I can't believe they can't even be bothered to use a different plastic color for scum. War Machine now, Battle Lore, like every freaking game will at least use different colored plastic for different sides. Uniques could have been differentiated with a different base or something too.

But for ally packs, right now the only mini I can think of that I'd want to field more of than what I have that doesn't have packs for is Wing Guard.

I also Agree on the Wing Guard argument. Again they only give us one Elite deployment card in the box with two groups. I want to run two Elite groups but not really looking to buy another Bespin box. Who needs 6 Ugnauts?

Edited by kowagaru

In terms of women in the ranks, there may be many women that we do not see on the movie screens. The actual focus of the stories is not based around the Imperials, so we know little of them and their demographic.

Howlrunner is female, there appears to be little reason to assume gender bias and there may be many more troopers in the field that are too.

New sculpts with the the same cards can be delivered by box sets, but in expansions, only models with that something special, I think. I wouldn't rush out to purchase a new Officer just on the basis of a new sculpt. I was hoping for an Episode IV Leia.

Mandalorians, bring them on! Also some Aqualish would be good to see, some Scum Smugglers, Pirates or goons, something one step up from Hired Gun.