Archon Studio has revealed the full first wave of releases for the Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game at Spiel Essen, Europe’s largest tabletop gaming festival. Not only is there a full army of miniatures already on show for the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg factions, but when I interviewed Archon’s CEO Jarek Ewertowski about the game, he had some very exciting news – “the roadmap is for about nine years, minimum”. Archon is in it for the long haul.
To call Ewertowski and the team at Archon ‘Starcraft fans’ is an understatement. Ewertowski says StarCraft “is how I met my business partner, we started playing StarCraft in ’98”. The company’s name is a nod to a Protoss unit, and he says that “It was always the dream for this company to make StarCraft – on the first page of the incorporation documents for the company it says ‘road to StarCraft'”.
The dream of one day making the official StarCraft Tabletop Miniatures Game has informed many business decisions Archon Studio has made since it started. That’s most evident in the clear polystyrene sprues that the studio introduced for its Dungeons and Lasers line, where they’re used to represent everything from lightning to ghosts.
“I was imagining a Protoss Archon miniature made almost entirely from clear plastic, with only those pieces of armor on top of it – I was thinking, oh God, we don’t have a technology for that, we have to create a new technology to make those models and be sure that actually you can use plastic glue to assemble the model instead of superglue like other companies”.
It took took six years repeatedly knocking on Blizzard’s door to get the StarCraft license, as the time was never quite right for the firm. “The initial draft of the contract was on our table two years ago, but the Microsoft takeover happened, and everything was postponed until this year”.
Now the deal has been signed, Blizzard has proven to be “actually the easiest company to work with”, Ewertowski reflects. “We’ve just had a flawless approval process, so that’s one of the reasons why we are able to go from milestone to milestone”.
Archon has moved incredibly quickly since it secured the license. With just “six months of working on the models, three months of tooling and making physical plastic injection molds… almost the entire starter box is made in plastic now, and we’re working now on wave one, three heroes and three additional units”.
In my video interview with Ewertowski he enthusiastically showed me an incredible range of figures. For the Terrans, plastic sprues were already ready for Marines, Medics, and Marauders. Two variant 3D prints of Jim Rainer showed how the design has developed.
A sneak peak at a developer’s CAD programme showed the massive Goliath walker being broken up into components for molding. Ewertowski tells me “it will be that big”, holding out his arms like an angler boasting of an impressive catch – roughly the size of an Imperial Knight from Warhammer 40k.
Of the Protoss, three plastic kits were ready to show, while the Adepts were still at the 3D printed prototype stage – though as you can see above, it was the Zealots that actually made it to Essen-Spiel. I saw the Sentry kit making great use of translucent plastic to create an inner energy core surrounded by another waveform of energy, with regular plastic for armor plates.
The mulit-legged Stalker large walker also has optional translucent components for missile launches and forcefields shimmering into life, which I predict will be a regular source of conversion material for T’au Empire players. Then there’s the special edition Zeratul model, which is on sale from the Archon website and booth at Essen Spiel for the duration of the show.
Archon was kind enough to send me a Zeratul kit straight after the interview. It has enough parts to build Zeratul either completely opaque or completely transparent (though you’ll need to secure a second base if you want to build another), or mix and match. Putting together a completely transparent mini is harder than usual because the bits are almost invisible, but otherwise it’s an exemplary kit. I’m now midway through painting it to look as though it’s decloaking from stealth.
While the Protoss range makes the most use of translucent plastic, it’s present everywhere: optional muzzle flare, energy forcefields, translucent bug wings, helmet visors, mineral crystals for basing, and more.
The Zerg look appropriately gribbly. The Queen is a suitably huge monster; there are several variants of the Roach, including the basic bug, the Veil Roach, the Corpser Roach, and diddy little Roachlings. Photos of Hydralisks have already slithered out onto the internet, accompanied by Zerglings and the Zergling Raptor variant.
Zerg hero Kerrigan is still in prototyping – as is the massive Nydus Worm, which she can be mounted on top of, and which can act as a spawn point for units. “Every single hero will have some extra elements – we’re planning a large pylon for Jim Rainer, like, a point defense drone”.
The licensing deal with Blizzard covers a core range based on the videogames which should provide “a solid nine years of releases”, Ewertowski promises. That’s going to include a fourth faction, the rare and powerful Zerg / Protoss hybrids. But he doesn’t plan to stop there – when he says nine years, “that’s nine years minimum”.
“The StarCraft license includes the comic books, the books, all those elements which you haven’t seen in the video game”. He picks up the official art book for Wings of Liberty and opens it. “You will find loads of different art of the units which never actually got into the game… [we’ve asked Blizzard], ‘What about if, in the future, we completely run out of things, will we be okay to use [stuff from concept art]?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, why not?'”
You won’t have to wait long before you can get involved with the game. “We’re still designing packaging, basically, and the game is being designed still”, Ewertowski says, but “We plan to open pre-orders probably in January or February next year, with shipping around about March”. He grins: “We have loads of StarCraft things in production at the moment – Zerglings being mass produced, Marines being mass produced, Marauders…”
Ewertowski’s passion is palpable and his enthusiasm is infectious. Before the interview ends he takes me on a wobbly phone-camera tour of the Archon Studio facility, which has recently expanded to add new warehousing space alongside its design and production facilities. Mostly, he just seems to be excited that he’s finally getting to realise his dream.
For my part, I’ll say this – I have no nostalgia for StarCraft. I played the original game once at a friend’s house when I was 12, and I know the game primarily as something that could have been set in the Warhammer 40k universe if Games Workshop hadn’t already signed an agreement with Mindscape to make Warhammer videogames earlier in the ’90s when Blizzard approached them with the idea that became WarCraft. But somehow, partway into building the Zeratul kit, something in my brain went ‘click’. And now I want to build a whole damn army of the things.
To discover the rules for the upcoming Starcraft Tabletop Miniatures Game, check out the first half of my interview with Ewertowski. And if you’re stoked for this, come and say hi in the official Wargamer Discord community!