Star Wars Miniatures: Alliance and Empire

Overall score:

It’s been quite a while since my last look at Star Wars Miniatures and even longer since Wizards has released a starter for the game so with the release of Alliance and Empire, Star Wars RPG: Saga Edition and a new Starter I thought this would be a good time to see how things have changed in the past two years. The rules haven’t changed, which shows how solid the games core rules are, since the first set came out and as I dislike re-reviewing stuff that hasn’t changed I’m not going to cover that in this article, if you’re not familiar with the rules then feel free to read the review of the original set in which I cover that ground.

Alliance and Empire (not to be confused with Rebel and Imperial which is a mini-set of 24 figures from previous releases that also came out this month), the first new set in a year for the game (I don’t count the starship battle game) since Bounty Hunters, and my first reaction to this set upon opening is “What happened to these figures?” the paint jobs are horrible as the quality has really gone down hill from two years ago, especially on the humans, I got one of the many Han Solos in the set (there are three if you can believe it) and his face and head are a mess even the sculpt is bad--his head looks squished vertically. Obi-Wan from the new starter has some of the same problems, his hands also are only half painted. Not all the figures suffer from this, a lot of the aliens look quite good, better then in previous sets even. I think Wizards change factories or changed painting methods and for some figures it worked out well on while others it didn’t, though hands are missing a decent amount of paint on a lot of my figures. They also tend to be using a darker shade of color on many figures (Ewoks, Ithorians) and that’s hit or miss too, it doesn’t look good on the Ewoks at all. You can look for yourself at the figure gallery for this set, check out the Solos, Leia and several of the Ewoks, it’s pretty accurate on what you’ll get in your books with the exception of the Tusken Raider which doesn’t look anything (paint job wise) like the one I have.

One of my big complaints about later sets in Star Wars Minis is that they tried to cover 6-8 different factions in a 60 figure set so everyone would only get a few figures and then the Republic and Separatist factions getting the majority of the set. In these sets the Rebel and Imperial factions tended to get a smaller number of figures and most of those where just new versions of the main characters and a stormtrooper or two so it’s nice to see another set that focuses on the original trilogy again with only a few figures out of the set going to other factions aside from Fringe. The problem is, yet again, most of those figures are just more Storm Troopers and Main characters. The Rebels have 21 figures and 10 of those are the big names with there being 3 Lukes and Hans, one Chewbacca, Leia, Obi-Wan (which I think will be a popular chase figure from this set due to his Force Sprit power—discussed later) and a duo C-3P0 and R2-D2, on top of that your getting several other repeats in your standard Rebel Trooper range. Now I understand that there should be signature characters in sets, and that there are going to be repeats at the grunt level—especially for a set that is hoping on capitalizing new players from the new RPG and may not have older sets available—but do we really need as many versions of Han and Luke?

The Imperials only real repeats outside of Vader—again he’s going to be in every set—is a lot of repeats in storm troopers but they get new figures in terms of Death Star troopers and a new Tarkin (which hasn’t had a figure since Rebel Storm). But the faction that always tends to get the best stuff is the Fringe, with a new Jabba that looks playable as well as the umpteenth Lando but the good news is a lot of Ewoks including Wicket! The Ewoks from the first set were my favorite due to the absurdity of making a 100 point team out of them (you could have more then would fit in your starting area) and these new Ewoks are quite playable with ranged weapons and a glider.

There are some interesting new powers in the set (or at least since Universe) like Jedi Mind trick that lets you activate a unit (ie make it skip a round) and Light Spirit (which the new Obi-Wan has) that is a figure that has no life, can’t be attacked or attack but instead can follow a character around and give them force powers if they have a force rating for a cheap price, an opponent can get rid of this by spending a force point themselves which causes the spirit to have to save or be removed from the game. For a figure with force points but no powers this could be useful since it grants Mettle which allows you to add (at no extra cost) +4 to any result you spend a force point to re-roll plus Force Renewal (which gives you a new Force Point each round).

And while a lot of the powers in the set are useful, I’m not going to cover them here, Alliance and Empire has the problem that’s always existed in the game (and in D&D miniatures) where factions tend to only get similar powers and there’s not a lot of variety of those powers. The Fringe has always been the exception to this rule. I know this is a common feature in the more expensive miniature games like Warhammer but it’s too “Magic like” for me, I like any faction being useful and not being easily countered by one build or another and also haven't a real varity in build options which you don't have in games like this.

For a new player Alliance and Empire is a ok set if you’re just getting into the game or just bought the RPG and want a lot of stock characters if you’re playing in this Era (though I think Rebel Storm is better for RPG players who want Rebellion era—it’s old but you can still find it because of several reprints, or Revenge of the Sith for Clone Wars era), long time players will enjoy it not matter what but for those of you that got tired of the game the set offers very little in incentive for re-investing in the game.

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Written by Spriggan on August 08th, 2007