The bad thing about "miniatures only" would be if they turn out miniatures at the same rate they have for WoW, you could be waiting a long, long time for a decent variety of ships. If they did cards they could produce a greater variety of ships to use with cards until miniatures were produced, like WoW. But they probably realize that other brands of miniatures would be used if you had cards for them, and possibly undercut their sales. After all they are it for the money, not for the convenience of the consumer.