The days of my gaming group going in together on a case of HeroClix are long gone, but if anything were to pique our interest in collectible miniatures again, I think it would WizKids new Star Trek-based miniatures game. Details are sparse, but according to this press release the game will use the Clix mechanic (in which the game stats are on the miniature's dial, and change as the figure takes damage) and will be released in Christmas 2010.

This could be very cool. If you think about how starship battles unfold in Star Trek, they're often slugfests between capital ships, with the capabilities of the ships changing as the ships take damage (shields fall, phasers fail, a jury-rigged particle weapon funneled through the deflector array comes on line , etc.) That matches nicely with the HeroClix mechanic, and can imagine a fleet of Star Trek-inspired ships would look amazing spread out across the dining room table. The Star Trek universe already has built in factions as well (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Borg) with a wide array of ship designs.

That said, I really want this to be a Clix game, and not a constructible game like Pirates of the Spanish Main; that form factor worked great for Pirates but not so great for Star Wars. Plastic minis, plus the clickable base, could be a winner (and perhaps the WizKids brands first successful game since, what, Mechwarrior?).

Also interesting is that this agreement covers "digital" miniatures as well, which I'm guessing means there could be a console or computer game iteration. This is something I'd love to see for HeroClix as well; one of the things that killed our HeroClix game play (aside from the ever changing rules) was lack of time. Playing online, perhaps through Xbox Live, gives us a way of getting a game fix without requiring us to meet face to face.

It worked for Magic: The Gathering: my gaming group only rarely played Magic during one of our mid-week or Friday game sessions, but most of us played it in the past. When Magic: The Gathering - Duel of the Planewalkers came out, it caused a major resurgence of the game among the group. A Clix-based computer game could have a similar effect.

Hat tip to Damon for finding this press release.