Bring Out Your Dead

Collectible Card and Miniatures Games are called 'living' games because frequent new releases add cards (or miniatures) to the pool to keep the game fresh, expanding, and exciting.  When such a game ceases to be produced, the game is called 'dead.'  It's not that nobody plays it anymore- some dead games continue to have thriving communities- it just means that you can count on no more (official) releases.  Several hundred collectible games have been released (most in the mid-late '90s; see my post here for a brief history), and most are now dead.  So today's post honors my two favorite dead games: Star Wars CCG and Star Wars Miniatures.

The original Star Wars collectible game, Star Wars CCG was produced from 1995-2001 by Decipher (who also held licenses to Star Trek CCG and Lord of the Rings CCG at one time).  Each expansion was thematic to a location (examples: Hoth or Cloud City) found in the original trilogy (episodes IV-VI), and the cards themselves were, too.  It was a great game.

Check out the wikipedia page if you like, or see an image of the old official Decipher page. The game has been kept alive by the Star Wars CCG Player's Committee, and their site has a wealth of resources on it.  They've released a number of virtual expansions to keep things going.
The rules can be found here or here.
Card databases can be found here or here.
A searchable card database is here.
Deck lists are hard to come by; the mirror site mentioned above has some here, and they claim to have some here (but I can't get that site to work).
You can play online here.
Want to buy?  Your best bets are Noble Knight Games or Troll and Toad.

Star Wars Miniatures was produced from 2004-2010 by Wizards of the Coast- the company that won the star wars gaming license from Decipher in 2002.  Wizards initially produced another collectible card game- Star Wars TCG- but this trading card game never reached the popularity of Decipher's version and went out of production in 2005.  In 2004, Wizards release the Miniatures game, and got it right.  Sixteen expansions explored the depths of all six movies and the expanded universe.

Check out the wikipedia page if you like.  The game goes on, kept alive at SWMGamers.  They've released a number of virtual expansions to keep things going.
The rules can be found here on the official site, or here.
A miniatures list can be found here or here, the latter being searchable.  The best resource, though, is hard to find.  A gentlemen named Chuck Monarch made an excellent "SWMiniManager" program.  This allowed you to search for characters, inventory your collection, and create squads easily.  It was available on many sites in its time, but is hard to find now.
Squad lists can be found here (the site isn't always working).
You can play online here.
Want to buy?  Your best bets are Miniature Market or CoolStuffInc.

Conclusion
These games, and many others, may no longer be available, but don't put a fork in 'em yet; there are vibrant player communities keeping these great games going strong, and plenty of online resources to assist you.