I was under the impression, according to my SWM group, that the V-Set is a free SWM set to the SWM community and could be used freely. But then I am told if I want to play in any official SWM tournaments I have to pay for “official” cards to use in an “official tournament”.

Ummm ok I don’t get it. What are we (as a collective community) paying 10-20 dollars to use “official” cards that are offered up for “free”? What is this money being used for? Cause it doesn’t sound very free, if I have to spend $10-20 to play at an official tournament because somehow or other my self-printed cards aren’t good enough. I’m sort of confused here.

Don’t get me wrong as I am excited to see new material come out…but don’t tell me something is “free” but if I want to use “free” material “officially” I have to pay for it (and calling it a donation doesn’t make it any less of a payment). It’s sort of like rubbing [Censored] all over me and telling me it’s mud, but the stink gives it away.

BTW if this has been discussed elsewhere or to death already I apologize, as I don’t spend a lot of time on SWM boards. But this is something that caught my interest.

Thanks for any responses.

That is my understanding. An official set of cards would only be required at major tournaments like Gencon, Regionals, and the like.

Over on Gamers, they are compiling a list of "point men" who will help distribute card sets to other players in their playgroup/region. If you have an account there you can check to see if someone nearby to you is handling distribution and request a set.

If you are in an isolated area, you can still request a set - but you might need to pay postage.

If you don't plan to ever play at any major events, you will be able to download the full set of card images and print them yourself for use in your local games. (this will be available once the set is released)

That is my hastily typed out understanding of how this is working. I'm sure a more official answer will be posted here by someone before long.

You have been the unfortunate victim of a campaign of misinformation, lies, and blatant defamation of character as part of an overall larger effort to utterly destroy what is left of the Star Wars Miniatures community by someone who, in all probability, never got the specific toy he was looking for in his Cracker Jack box.

You do not have to have the printed cards, which are in fact, free to as many as people want them for as long as supplies last. Otherwise, you can download them yourself. Your opponent will have the right to ask a judge to inspect the card for accuracy, and if it is an altered version of the "official" card, the judge may - at his or her discretion - replace the card with a corrected version, give a match loss, and/or disqualify the player under the rules regarding cheating.

That said, the cards being printed - which were funded through the Kickstarter "underwriting" effort - are going to be very high-quality, so why anyone wouldn't want a free set is something that I don't understand.

did not get enough on Wizards now you need to come here? Well that is cool. Go ahead say what you want to say. Please attempt to continue to kill the community. If this is what makes you happy have at it.

As for your example if LFL and WOTC had allowed the behavior to go on for the entire existence of the product of which you speak then it would be perfectly legal. Which in the case of minis both LFL and Wotc have allowed customs to be made for years. So giving away cards to customs is perfectly legal because they have allowed it for 6 years. So thanks for pointing out the obvious. Did you want to let us also know that the sky is blue and the grass is green?

Really if you dont like what is being done and want the community to die why not start by you just walking away?

Because some men aren't looking for anything logical. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

:(

This analogy falls flat right from the start because no one ever sold these cards before we are printing them and giving them out, so there is no loss of money anywhere. You cannot go to a legitimate location and buy DOTF as you could do with Empire Strikes Back.

I'm going to say a few things, since I can't access my mod tools on my phone. If you use a squad builder (whether Bloomilk or another), if you use Vassal, or even if you buy fan group SW shirts, you are committing copyright iinfringement. To call out the V sets for it on this site is hypocrasy.
If you don't like the Vsets, fine. If you don't like what or how they are doing it fine. But to call it out as copyright infringement STOPS NOW. State your criticisms, but don't try to act like you are an agent of LFL. Only LFL or WOTC can stop the Vsets, and no one here is an employee of their legal teams.

I love how any criticism of your virtual set is an attempt to kill the community. I remember when we went to war in the Middle East. Any criticism of the war was labeled unpatriotic or against the troops. You're making a straw man argument.

Now you start. True or false; did you or did you not approach me about making a squad builder for gamers? Were you authorized to approach me for that? Want to tell us what the motivation for building yet another squad builder was? What's wrong with the Bloo Milk one?

Note that this kind of thing has survived legal scrutiny in the past. There was a company that sold "used" videotapes at a profit (not just to recover costs) which just happened to have full seasons of your favorites shows previously recorded on them.

I'm not saying it's right, or moral, but it persisted for years online through legitmate marketplaces so perhaps a gray area in the law, or one not worth pursuing by the copyright holder.

That said, your example is irrelevent because, as Lobo mentioned, DotF is custom stuff, not an illegal reproduction of anything. It's true that it uses copyrighted terms and imagery, but so do Bloo Milk, MiniManager, VASSAL, Gamers, and HOLOCRON and many of them accept donations as well for covering associated costs. (Ironically, MiniManager is the only one of those to recieve any sort of copyright action.) And, as Boris noted the current policy appears to be that anyone who wants it free can download and print it on their own. (This point has been vague in the past, or explicitly stated differently at times, but Boris's understanding is my current understanding as well from private discussions.) That's in addition to the option of getting a pre-printed, high-quality version for little or often no cost. For example, assuming Gamers goes with me for California, I'll be picking up the shipping cost for my whole group, and distributing sets to everyone who plays in the release tourney for free.

It's also been said that the set won't be in MiniManager or the Bloo squadbuilder and neither of those things is necessarily true. Chuck designed MiniManager to support custom figures/sets and there's no reason DotF won't be available in that form. And you just can't know one way or the other about Bloo. Shinja has expressed interest in including it, while Dean has expressed reservations. It's really unclear how that will shake out, but to explicitly deny it will happen is just not objectively forseeable (and thus untrue) at this time.