Star Wars – Rogue (Trader) One

As it has been a week since the release of Rogue One in the cinema, it seems like a fair point of time to talk about the movie without spoiling anybody or wasting their experience.

Image: © Lucasfilm Ltd

I had the chance to watch the movie in original sound, but with 3D (not a fan of that to be honest), and what can I say? I was amazed. Yes, the movie could have been a bit shorter, not to reach the length of the additional excessive duration fee. But other than that, it had stunning visuals and had a great feel to it. It fits very well into the setting of the original trilogy. With the 70s hair cuts, the customes that are old, but new, still vintage. It was a good action movie, without a forced love story, it was gritty, had a bit of wit, but no slapstick jokes.

The only thing, that irritated me, was the overdrawn character set up. A bit like a casted boygroup, where you have the bad boy, the blond one, the introvert and so on. The rebels in Rogue One seemed a bit like the Planeteers or the Power Rangers, where you have to cast one of each ethnicity for diversities sake. I don't want to read to much into it, seemed just a bit forced. Never the less, the movie did take care of the fans a lot, we got James Earl Jones with a come back, C3Po and a lot of other easter eggs. Even the cgi version of Great Moff Tarkin was quite good, not 100% convincing, but still amazingly good for a cgi generated character.

Some of the new character designs really grew on me. I digged the new order storm roopers, especially the helmets, and the new Deathtroopers design along with K2SO are superbly cool. To be honest, it is a shame that due to licensing issues there are no proper 28mm trooper helmets available to convert Dreamforge Eisenkern soldiers or some of the Gates of Antares Concord.

Image: © Lucasfilm Ltd

But with the Space Opera / Western theme of Star Wars, especially the darker, more gritty designs, they carry a lot of inspiration for the wargamer in me. I'd like to have my own K2SO for my Inquimunda retinue, and of course some bad ass black armoured troopers as the villians bodyguard. As you would probably be able to build a proper K2SO stand in with Necron and Mechanicus bits, there are actually a few sources for Star Wars miniatures / supplies in 28mm.

I was able to buy a pair of the old metal miniatures from Wizard of the Coast, from the time before they went all pre-painted plastic on them. But don't get me wrong, especially if you take a look at Agis Neugebaurs take on those, you see the potential. The WizKids / Heroclicks stuff is quite easily to acquire via eBay and similar pages, the old metal casts are more rare, but to be honest only a few of that range are worth the work, as you can see in this overview. If you're really tough, you can even try to get your hands on the old West End Games miniatures. And I really hope, that Fantasy Flight might get some of the designs from Episode VII into Imperial Assault. But that may be to much wishfull thinking.

Some of the usual suspects, like Hasslefree or Reaper may be able to fill in. Otherwise, there are still some of the character packs for Imperial Assault worth taking a look at, as you can see above.

But all those miniatures and ideas are only as good as the rules you're going to use them with. Beside the already mentioned Inquisimunda / Inq28 rule sets, Osprey recently released Rogue Stars, that sounds a lot like the missing piece in this puzzle.

How did you feel about the latest Star Wars movie? Are you looking forward to Episode 8? Do you spend the holidays rewatching some of the classics? Do you know some Star Wars themed wargaming projects, that are worth sharing?