I think the plastic minis for TWI are great, but I think it would be awesome if there were sets of race specific minatures for all the races. It may not be as easy in the beginning to understand the board, but I think it would be something one would get used to quite quickly.

I hope it is something FFG will consider for the future. How else could I 'geek out' more over the board game I love??

I would pay for minis. Would you?

DEFINITELY.

Also, I'd pay for a game border (there's a picture of a fan-made one on BGG) to keep all the hexes from sliding around. My friends and I don't have a table big enough to hold the entire game, so we push two nearly-identical fold out tables together, and people will lean or accidentally shift either of them which causes the game to move around.

i have been looking.. would like to set up a "fog of war" game

I would love a race specific set!  I have been using Risk 2210 figs and I have been looking for alternative miniatures for the ships. 

 I personally don't want a unique ship design for the respective races. For the simple reason that I think it's pretty much impossible to make 17 (18 with the lazax in SotE, unless they get the default set) good looking and unique sets. Also, FFG isn't like to profit much, if any, of producing such miniatures. At least with third edition. Perhaps they could be made for 4th ed, whenever that comes, and be included in the base game. Then they could be available for individual/bits purchase if/when pieces get lost during games. I would LOVE a hex-border though, it irritates me to no end when the hexes are moved as soon as someone accidentally prods the table.

Pretty much agree with Panzerkanzler. Whilst a nice idea, the cost and effort to design and make them would far outweigh any benefits. In fact you could almost call it a hindrance on two parts:

a) unless you want to make a unique faction set for each colour, an absurd notion, then they would be constrained to one particular look, which may not be aesthetically appealing to some.

b) could mask both ship type and owner. If you were to look at a typical TI game in session, you should be able to easily observe both the location and type of every ship each player currently owns. This is down to 1) the bright, distinguishable colours and 2) the unique design of each ship class, which is uniform for each player. Following on from above, I should be able to spot certain ships (say, a War Sun) in relation to someone else's quickly, which I can do as both players' War Suns are easily identifiable.

@Tregard

There are of course some visibility parameters, which needs to be considered. But I think it is mostly a habit thing. New players normally needs a couple of games to be quite sure of the different types. Sure it is a design challenge, and I think it would be a fun challenge to paint them in distinguishable colours. With the piles of cruisers and destroyers we often see mingling among the Warsuns, you sometimes need to take a closer look at a square anyhow.

It seems like a lot of game companies also outsource the license to make minis to companies specialized in minature production. Maybe that would be an option.

As I don't mind painting minis - Im not an expert though - I think it would bring a fun extra dimension to the game.

Like in Warhammer 40,000 fx - for some it is all about playing and for others it is about painting, and others again a mixture.

My players talk about this all the time.  I agree with everything already written, makes a lot of sense when you can easily identify other pieces and wouldn't be cost effective and yet I'd also would pay for unique armadas.  I guess I'll meet somewhere in the middle and say it would be awesome if every race had their own unique flagship!  This, would make all the sense in the world to me.

It probably wouldn't be too difficult for FFG to design unique armadas, but to print all the unique sets creates a whole lot of shelf space.

Then there's the problem of distribution. I don't think many game shops would have them in stock locally. There're just too many types and too little owners of the game. There're quite many players, and I'm happy to get more every other month, but essentially, one game can last for a dozen and more different players. FFG probably has better numbers to judge if such an ordeal would make sense.

I'd be interested in a few armada-boxes for the races, though of course it'd be nigh improbable to get them all in one go, financially.

That'll probably be again the cost of the whole game on top.

I highly doubt it would make sense to include race-specific armadas in a new edition of TI. The sheer of amount of plastic, the weight of the box, would be devastating.

Then, we have the issue of 3D-printers. FFG takes the effort to design the things, box them and put them on the shelves, but… then people will say "Nah, that's too expensive for me, I'll rather download some mesh and print it myself."

Looking at it from this angle, the "easiest" way for players would generally be to design armadas themselves and print them themselves.

It's hard to forbid you doing it anyway. You could play TI with Warhammer-Orcs instead of ships after all *cough*

Oh, and did you think of the ADDITIONAL SPACE the game will take up in your home? Or how even more hard it will be to transport to play at a friend's place? Remember you probably won't be using more than half of the special armadas per game anyway.

In any case: I would definitely want to paint the ships myself. - But then there're people who'd rather have pre-painted bits.

Not everyone knows or has a loving painter in their groups.

And I would really like to hear FFG's opinion on this whole topic :)