Fantasy Flight blew the doors off of Gen Con last year when they announced their acquisition of the Star Wars hobby gaming license, revealing plans for both a living card game and a space combat miniatures game. It's been a patient wait for fans, though, as the games went back behind the curtain and news on their development became scarce. That's all about to change now as the X-Wing Miniatures Game is ready for prime time.

X-Wing will launch this Summer (which is about as specific as most board game release date gets) at a retail price of $39.95. Included in the base set will be one X-Wing model and two TIE Fighter models, as well as all of the cards, counters, and custom 8-sided dice required to play the game.

Following up on the base game release, there will be a number of single-ship expansion packs available at launch. For a larger battle, use these to add additional X-wing and TIE fighters, or bring Y-wing and TIE Advanced fighters into the conflict. These packs will retail for $14.95 and include the ship model, several new pilot cards, as well as a selection of ship upgrades cards, counters, and dice. While some of the new pilot cards dip into Star Wars character obscurity, others are recognizable fan favorites such as Darth Vader in the TIE Advanced pack and Wedge Antilles in the X-wing pack.

When MTV Geek stopped by the Fantasy Flight Games booth during the most recent New York Toy Fair, Sales Manager Bryan Bornmueller shared a story about Fantasy Flight's commitment to quality in X-wing. Known for their detailed miniature sculpts, the company went back to the original Lucasfilm source material to get the starfighter dimensions just right. Apparently, this uncovered some common errors seen in many X-wing sculpts, making the new Fantasy Flight miniatures some of the most accurate ever made at this scale.

Bornmueller was unavailable for comment during the writing of this post, but during a recent preview of the game on Fantasy Flight's official website, the company gave a hint of a future explanation: "All of the X-Wing miniatures have been recreated to scale with painstaking accuracy, and the results are stunning. Look for a future in-depth article that provides more detail on the process of making these masterfully detailed models."

UPDATE: The Fantasy Flight Games marketing department has provided the following statement regarding the sculpting and accuracy of X-wing miniatures:

Accuracy was paramount to us, both in the fine details of the miniatures and in the spirit of the gameplay. Naturally, we went straight to the source for both. Lucasfilm Ltd. has been extremely generous, allowing us access to production stills and other behind-the-scenes material from the original trilogy, and working tirelessly with us to ensure that our finished product best matched the established Star Wars canon.

Based on these assets from the classic films, we created our own 3D models of each of the ships. By working from scratch, we were able to control scale, proportions, and precise details to make the plastic sculpts look identical to the iconic starfighters as seen in the films. The end result is truly the most accurate, detailed, and faithful set of miniatures ever made for the Star Wars universe.