Over the years since the game ended, the one thing that's kept bugging me was the white film that kept developing on some of my Alliance and Empire miniatures. For those of you that don't know, WotC used a bad mix of plastic (we don't know the exact details) in the set, causing some of them to slowly deteriorate and develop a white film. Most of them were commons and of the figures that were defective, I had plenty of non-filming copies of them. However, EVERY SINGLE Storm Commando (a non-unique Rare from A&E) I have and/or have come across (including inquiring to online stores that had them in stock) had the white film. I feared for a day when Star Wars Miniatures was still played, but all Storm Commandos across the galaxy had melted into dust.
Last year, I came across a brief discussion of this phenomenon on Facebook, and someone offhand commented that the hot-and-cold water technique (which we already know and use for straightening out lightsabers, changing poses of skinny figures, etc.) can permanently cure the plastic and cause it to stop generating the white film (and stop deteriorating, I would assume). Well, I went ahead and put this idea to the test. I gathered together every single Star Wars Miniature I had which had white film on it. Aside from Alliance and Empire miniatures, quite a few figures from the Rebels & Imperials reprint mini-set also developed the film, albeit more slowly, and a few figures from much-earlier sets, including Universe Lobot!
The first thing I did was let the miniatures sit in dishsoapy water, and then scrubbed them with a new toothbrush to get all the film off. Then, I prepared a bowl of super-hot water and a bowl of icy-cold water, both of which required maintainence (re-heating and adding more ice, respectively) over the course of the process due to how many miniatures I was treating. Please note that you should NOT microwave the water with miniatures in them, nor should you put the miniatures in boiling or near-boiling water. If the water is hot enough that its painful to put your hand in, that is hot enough. I also made sure I had wooden tongs on-hand to fish the miniatures out of the cold water. A few at a time, I put the cleaned minis in the hot water, let them sit several minutes, removed them, made sure their poses were correct (they were limp as noodles), then dropped them in the icy water. After this was done with all of the defective miniatures, I let them dry over a day and a half, then put them in a gallon ziploc bag separate from the rest of my collection. I left them like that for 7 months or so, plenty of time for film to develop if the process does not in fact affect it. A few days ago I checked the bag, and lo and behold, there was no sign of film on *any* of the miniatures. I can't be 100% sure yet (only further time will tell), but this was an extremely good result and definitely worth informing the rest of the community without further delay so that any other players who are concerned about their precious Storm Commandos can save their minis too!
