The various information sources I have (WEG Sourcebooks, "Art of Star Wars" books, Blueprints, posters and cross-sections books) say that an X-Wing is 12.7 meters long, and that a TIE Fighter is 6.3 meters wide.

What the heck is "wide"? Are the referring to wingspan or what would be length on any other fighter?

Well, not even doing measurements but just looking at the cockpits and sorta visually superimposing pilots on them, it just seems to me that either the TIE is a bit big or the X-Wing is a bit small. I'm not gonna worry about it, though; they're close, and they look good.

Sooo…a 1/144 scale Slave1 or MF would look more or less correct? I know the WoW planes we're 1/144 - well, the WWI planes were.

Oh, and I really want to know the size of these ships and their bases because I want to make a Death Star game "mat".

Baphomet69 said:

NOOO!! Much too big. We don't know the ship scales with any precision yet, but from the videos they're plainly quite a bit smaller than F-Toys, and those are predominantly 1/144. Additionally, FineMolds makes a 1/144 Millenium Falcon model (quite spendy), and it's unassembled hull is just under 8 1/2" long. So, way too big.

But however, the F-Toys' 1/350 Millenium Falcon (and Stellar Envoy), as well as the Imperial Shuttle & both Slave-Is might well be in the ballpark. Don't be goin' out & eBaying them, though, until we know something more concrete!

Okay, let's have some FUN, shall we, while we wait? Twiddling our thumbs, or spinning on 'em?

Here's a miscellany of photos (disclaimer: NONE of them X-Wing minis) that might give you all food for thought. I've, eh, never tried this on these boards so i hope they work. I used Photobucket. My hand is in a couple pix; I'm an adult male, 5'10" tall, 190 lbs and my hands are about average; so compare that to shots from the FFG videos.

EDIT: Looks like 80% success. Direct linkies don't come through, but copy & paste into the browser window does. Eeeh - a work in progress.
First up: two X-Wings. Smaller is the one from WotC's Starship Battles game, larger is the 1/144 offering from F-Toys.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz127/imperator58/TwoX-Wings.jpg

Next! Three X-Wings; WotC, Titanium (appear to have lost a laser; hopefully it's in the box somewhere) and F-Toys.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz127/imperator58/ThreeX-Wings.jpg

Now, F-Toys' 1/144 X-wing & TIE fighter. F-Toys isn't perfect, but they're pretty danged good. This pic is to illustrate proper relative scale between the two.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz127/imperator58/StarWars1-144.jpg

Thye Millenium Falcon! This girl is a MAJOR bone of contention; no one can figure the precise scale because there wasn't any. Exterior shots varied, interior shots varied, and interior didn't match exterior. Folks can (and will) argue about it all day. That in mind, the smaller is F-Toys' best guess in 1/350 scale, and the larger is the Revell pocket easykit (fixin' to get repopped pretty quick). Actually, either one could be 1/350 - from a certain point of view.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz127/imperator58/TwoFalcons.jpg

Finally, here's the hull of the MF in 1/144 by Fine Molds. As you can see, a starship game in this scale would require half a basketball court (doesn't mean we can't try, though!). Side note: Fine Molds actually does the sculpts for F-Toys, so they'll both have the same scale interpretation - as well as the same superb detail.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz127/imperator58/1-144Finemolds.jpg

Aah; and a final note, here's my bet: in the hand, the FFG X-Wing will fall about in the middle between the WotC piece and the Titanium. That'd plant the series at about 1/350. I'll be interested to see how close I am!

Awesome size comparison. Thanks for that. I realized something else, no point in going with F-Toys or any of the others anyway as you wouldn't have the stand with relevant data or even stats for the ship anyway. I still need to know measurements so I can get started on my 3D Death Star terrain…C'mon, FFG!

Nice job on the photo-comparo, IG-58. I continue to be curious as to what scale the FFG minis will be, but my guess is that the X-Wing will be somewhere between the Titanium and the WotC. I'd be excited to find out that IG-58 is right, and that they are between the Titanium and the F-Toys.

If the TIE Fighters in FFGs pics are production models and not just test-shots, then I would have to say that they definitely look too big, especially referencing the F-Toys picture.

I tried to find a picture of a Fine Molds X-Wing and TIE Fighter in the same frame and failed. That would have been an excellent comparison shot. But I did find someone who measured the kits when assembled. This is what they posted:

______

TIE Fighter:

wingspan - 3.25"
depth (widest point) - 3.5"
depth (bottom of wing) - 2 7/16"
Height - 4 1/8"

X-Wing:

wingspan - 5 7/8"

______

As you can see, the wingspan of a TIE is less than the wingspan of an X-Wing. The FFG pics show minis that don't reflect that relationship. In fact, the TIE wingspan looks nearly as big as an X-Wing wingspan to me…

Assuming the demo games in the videos were using pre-production ships, they appear smaller in width than the bases, which just by looking at the bases compared to people's hands in the videos look to be about an inch square (big assumption). I would assume the base hasn't needed to be changed since then, but now the ships in the new promo pics look to be just about as wide as the bases. That info and a $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, but any math wizards here care to figure how 1" wide ships compare to IG's estimate of scale?

Where are those confounded videos? I can't find which thread the linkies are in. I was measuring the WotC X-Wing and think I might have to eat crow on my 1/350 prediction, but I'd need to watch the vid again to have a better idea.

Here:

About half way down the page, under videos.

I guess the link would help…

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/103885/star-wars-x-wing

About half way down the page, under videos.

Watching again, maybe the bases are about 1 1/4"?

So I looked at the latest pictures of TIE Fighters here on FFG, and I looked at pictures of TIE Fighters on boardgamegeek. It seems like someone sprinkled them with MiracleGro. They were definitely too small before. Now…they just look a little too big. Time will tell (but not fast enough ).

Interestingly, the X-Wings seem to have stayed the same size…or am I misperceiving things?

Baphomet69 said:

Struggling with the video in stop-motion on my broke-a** computer, I'm thinking I agree. perhaps even 1 1/2". Just looking at the bases compared to the mens' hands. I ALSO think DogSolitude's "WAG" of 1/300 is closer than my earlier take of 1/350. Might, in fact, be larger still; like 1/200. I say this 'cos I measured the eentsy WotC X-Wing, and doing the math based on stated length of 12.5 meters blahblah, it actually shook out at about 1/338 - even bigger than 1/350! Whatever the FFG versions are, they're clearly larger than Wizards' and so 1/350 is a non-starter. So much for THAT pet theory.

I really don't understand the big secrecy, or at least silence on FFG's part. What would be the big deal about a company rep posting some measurements on here. This extends to their overall silence. Don't they want to fire up and generate a good vibe with their customer base? Maybe I've just been spoiled by companies like Reaper.

I'm thinking 1.5" is a good guess. Assuming the bases remained the same size (which we don't know), I measured the bases in an image from GenCon that displayed both card games. I took the proportion of the base to one of the SW:TCG cards, then measured my LotR card to guess how big the base was. Obviously this is imprecise, and my measurement came out to 1 5/8", pretty close to 1.5", I think.

The fighters are a lot smaller than I thought they would be (judging by the bbg pix where the guy is measuring with a ruler and you can compare his hand to a fighter). Still neat. For some reason I thought they were going to be the same size as the die casts already out there.

It just struck me that they look similar in size to the old Micro Machines toys from the 90s.

Looks like the official scale is 1/270. So my WAG at 1/300 wasn't that far off.

I love the shot of the various scale proto-types. The OCD in me really wants to know what ALL of the test scales were.

Great article!

bsmith13 said:

Now I have started to wonder if the "official" measurement of the length of an X-Wing is 12.5 meters. (This is what it says on the encyclopedia at starwars.com.) I have no reason to believe that 12.5 meters isn't accurate, but it will be nice to see confirmation.

If 12.5 meters is accurate, a MicroMachine X-Wing is 1/265 scale. This is REALLY close to the stated scale of 1/270. I don't have any WotC X-Wings to show a size comparison, but I know the MM X-Wings are slightly bigger. You can google "micromachines x-wing" for pics if you want to…

Concerning the matter of wrong "official" measurements of the ships, the Millenium Falcon's length was considered to be about 26 meters, but that was changed recently to 34.37 meters. And the official length of the A-wing is 9.6 meters, but size analysis of the movie models suggest a length of 4.8 meters, and the size chart in recent handbooks points to about 7 meters.

As far as I know, the official measurements of the X-wing (12.5 meters) and the Y-wing (16 meters) are correct.

I like Star Destroyers as much as the next Guy, maybe even more. I mean they are awesome symbols of the Empire's might. But this is going to be a dog fighting game, Star Destroyers don't dogfight. They really aren't much more than a platform with lots and lots of guns once your get to the star fighter scale. I would love a game with a star destroyer scale, and fighters could participate in that, but they would have to be something like fighters in Axis and Allies War at Sea, where entire dogfights are decided with a couple of dice rolls.

I am excited for this game, and very excited for the expansions. But I don't ever expect to see a Star Destroyer. I expect that Slave I or the Millenium Falcon will be huge and powerful ships.

Remember that a single Star Destroyer carries 72 tie fighters of different types. Just the fighters from a single star destroyer is likely too much for this game.