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I think to define the outline of an article for Dakka, we should discuss what we think a Starter Box should do. Myself, I am biased towards using a starter box to demo the game.

Here is what I think a starter box should provide. Please, build upon this.

A starter box should provide:
A price point where two people who pool their money can afford the game.
Rules for the game. Even a set of 'starter' rules. A card indicating that the rules are available 'online' does not help the two people who just unwrapped the box at a store or convention.
Enough dice for two people to play the game. ESPECIALLY if they are special dice.
Enough models for two people to play the game FULLY.
Some form of measuring device. Paper rulers may suck, but they allow players to play RIGHT NOW.
At least two balanced factions.

Things that put a starter box above and beyond:
Bonus materials (background, etc.)
Terrain
Full rules
An exceptional price/value balance.

So, I'll knock out a few starters, to, uh, start. My immediate takeaway is that no game provides enough dice.

Poor - Fair - Good - Great - Excellent


X-Wing:
Price: Great. Clearly priced as a 'loss leader' to get people into the game.
Rules: Yes.
Dice: Not enough, can't even handle the units in the box.
Models: Not enough. One X-Wing and two Tie-Fighters can demo the game, but that's about it.
Ruler: Yes, a full set of maneuver templates.
Factions: Barely.
Bonus: Punch-out terrain, tokens. Full rules.
Comment: While this hits most of the notes, having only three starfighters in the box doesn't allow you to really play the game. Clearly designed for teaching/demos.

40K:
Price: Great. Model count is high.
Rules: Barely.
Dice: Barely.
Models: Exceptional
Ruler: Do not mock the whippy sticks.
Factions: Two full sides, but not points balanced.
Bonus: Learning scenarios that build up each side, teaching the basics.
Comment: Great model count, people still buy these Starter sets for that alone.

Battletech:
Price: Incredible. Model count is high for the game, and you can have four or more people play with one box.
Rules: Starter.
Dice: Barely.
Models: Great. The re-jiggering of the box set will put better quality models, and a better mix, making this Excellent.
Ruler: Paper.
Factions: Multiple. A starter set that can put four people on the table?
Bonus: Background material, sturdy cardboard hexboards.
Comment: I feel that this is the best starter box out there.

Leviathans:
Price: Fair. You get everything, but it is expensive, compared to other starter boxes.
Rules: Starter and full.
Dice: Barely.
Models: Good. Enough for two full factions, one ship of each major type, plus class cards.
Ruler: Paper
Factions: Two.
Bonus: Everything you need to play, including hex boards and all tokens. The models are pre-painted (well), the game comes with materials needed for the expansion, there's a ton of background materials, etc.
Comment: An amazing starter box. Two players can unpack and play immediately, and the rules have a starter/learning level and a full set. Only drawback is the expense.



Add your own!

--B.

I know this is mainly a sci fi sort of other games thread , however has anyone played Hail Ceaser or Pike and Shotte/black powder

as I am drawn towards trying out one of these systems, especially as its based on the warmaster system

They are all solid, having Warmaster as their foundation. The down sides:

a) require a larger table space unless you are willing to shrink your unit base sizes
b) no points system as they're more traditional historical wargames where you might build to a specific battle or follow some general guidelines and build a game as an event rather than a competition
c) high model count unless you change the figures per unit.

Other than that, they're awesome. And it's arguable that the lack of a points system can be a feature as it gets the players out of the power list mindset.

 frozenwastes wrote:
They are all solid, having Warmaster as their foundation. The down sides:

a) require a larger table space unless you are willing to shrink your unit base sizes
b) no points system as they're more traditional historical wargames where you might build to a specific battle or follow some general guidelines and build a game as an event rather than a competition
c) high model count unless you change the figures per unit.

Other than that, they're awesome. And it's arguable that the lack of a points system can be a feature as it gets the players out of the power list mindset.

im not to fussed about lack of points as it would be more for local gming in my group - also one of my favorate parts of the hobby is the terrain maing so I might rise to the challenge and make some huge boards - or alternitavly I might make some large boards and use metric measuremnts for game mechanics not imperial to shrink the distance stuff happens at.

thanks for the pointers

I'm just painting up a load of the Hail Caesar stuff, fantastic little miniatures.

Really what Frozenwastes has listed as his points A & C is the same point - have a read around on some historical forums about the game and there are many suggestions about knocking down unit sizes if necessary, the practise is common place I believe.

Also point B is not correct - there are point values for pretty much everything if you buy an army list book depending on which period you want to play. It's a little looser than some games, and a lot is left for the player to re-create particular battles, but this is commonplace for historical games.

Warmachine Two-Player Battle Box
Price: Above and beyond, at retail the models alone would be double the price of the box.
Rules: Yup.
Dice: Enough.
Models: More than enough for good beginner games, and they are well matched forces. They're beautiful too.
Ruler: Yes, but it's paper.
Factions: Two factions, well balanced and they are good starters for building up those factions.
Bonus: Full rules, and a good intro guide+quick start rules to get new players right into the action.
Comment: My favorite starter product for any game I have owned, great value, great playability, great models.

 Briancj wrote:

X-Wing:
Price: Great. Clearly priced as a 'loss leader' to get people into the game.
Rules: Yes.
Dice: Not enough, can't even handle the units in the box.
Models: Not enough. One X-Wing and two Tie-Fighters can demo the game, but that's about it.
Ruler: Yes, a full set of maneuver templates.
Factions: Barely.
Bonus: Punch-out terrain, tokens. Full rules.
Comment: While this hits most of the notes, having only three starfighters in the box doesn't allow you to really play the game. Clearly designed for teaching/demos.

I agree with all of that, the dice in the box are useable, but it's easy to get into a position where you need more than it comes with so you need to use re-rolls. It's annoying but not terminal. Well worth buying an extra set if you're getting into the game though.

Same with the ships; it'll potentially get a bit dull with only 1 X-Wing and 2 Tie-Fighters, but with the unit and upgrade cards there's still enough to get started with and at about £12 for additional ships (that come with all the cards you need) it's easy enough to gradually expand.

Maybe it didn't seem so limiting to me as my friend and I bought a box each so after our first game were using 2 X-Wings Vs 4 Tie-Fighters, with 6 of each dice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 frozenwastes wrote:
They are all solid, having Warmaster as their foundation. The down sides:

a) require a larger table space unless you are willing to shrink your unit base sizes

Which is easy enough to do, as the bases are all small/medium/large with no fixed measurements. Essentially as long as the frontages on both armies just about match it's fine.

b) no points system as they're more traditional historical wargames where you might build to a specific battle or follow some general guidelines and build a game as an event rather than a competition

I thought they did have points in the core rule book, or at least a guide on generating points? I know the army lists have points and are fairly reasonably priced (~£15).

c) high model count unless you change the figures per unit.

There's no requirements for figures per unit either, so you can use fairly sparse bases if you wanted to reduce the model count. Or drop to a smaller scale or whatever.
Other than that, they're awesome. And it's arguable that the lack of a points system can be a feature as it gets the players out of the power list mindset.

Herzlos wrote:

Maybe it didn't seem so limiting to me as my friend and I bought a box each so after our first game were using 2 X-Wings Vs 4 Tie-Fighters, with 6 of each dice.

And that's my problem. You had to buy two boxes to play the game. At the X-Wing starter price point, that's not a bad investment. But we're trying to determine the value of a single starter box, and we shouldn't qualify it by saying "It works if you buy 'X' more product'.

Game is perfectly playable with the starter set and without buying anything else, have had a tremendous amount of fun for the £30 in fact!

Herzlos wrote:

Herzlos, read my post 2 above yours, there are points values when you get the period specific books.

Briancj, why do you say "Rules: Barely." for 40k? It comes with a mini rulebook that has ALL the rules for 40k in it.

 Breotan wrote:
Briancj, why do you say "Rules: Barely." for 40k? It comes with a mini rulebook that has ALL the rules for 40k in it.

No it comes with a rule book with the base rules, you NEED to BUY at least 1 codex to get "full rule set".

No, he's correct. The Dark Vengence starter came with a mini-rulebook.

 Briancj wrote:
No, he's correct. The Dark Vengence starter came with a mini-rulebook.

What he is saying is that to play full games of 40k, you'd then have to purchase the codex's. But I'd dispute this as the starter set is an introduction to the game, as the armies aren't points balanced, but the box comes with set missions which are balanced in themselves, and let the players get to grips with the basics of the game, before complicating it with the extra specialised rules of the codex's.

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Briancj wrote:
No, he's correct. The Dark Vengence starter came with a mini-rulebook.

What he is saying is that to play full games of 40k, you'd then have to purchase the codex's. But I'd dispute this as the starter set is an introduction to the game, as the armies aren't points balanced, but the box comes with set missions which are balanced in themselves, and let the players get to grips with the basics of the game, before complicating it with the extra specialised rules of the codex's.

This, I get what your saying about the starter and missions, but until buy the codex is any option like with PP games. I'll say it not a full rule set because you still need to buy more to play the game the way it is meant to be played.

I've become somewhat of a hobby butterfly (or goldfish, take your pick) in the last month or two so i'll throw my hat in for what i've waded through so far.

Fubar: Someone said about it further back, I forget who. Nice little system (even got my none hobbyist friend to play it and he liked) however i'd really take a look on Forgeofwar for the UltraFUBAR rules. Community supported fixes and tweaks, and the closest to an "official" erata and update to the rules as you're likely going to get.

Horizon Wars: Made by Precinct Omega, it's technically 3 games that can either stand alone or work fine in support of each other. The PDF's are £1 each, though the "first" game, Mechawar has a print version available on lulu. Mechawar is the battletech style giant stompy robot game, without the hexes and encyclopedia of rulebooks, Airframe is the jet combat version. Battlegroup is the "tanks and infantry game" of more traditional 6mm sci-fi (still in open beta too, so free for a awhile). Rules are simple and follow the same mechanics through all 3 games, my only niggle with them is the writers military back ground seeps into it a little, had me scratching my head to begin with at the distinctions between say light and armoured artillery.

Heavy Gear Arena: No where near as pricey to get into as its large battle bigger brother, but $12 a mini for rather literally 6 mini's per team at most doesn't break the bank, especially if you're starting off with 2 or maybe 3 each. The books a tad cluttered (you're going to want ot hunt to extract the campaign rules from the main thing, and doesn't give you a hardline of "recommended points levels" for one off games) but a fairly fun system, especially the Stunts letting a giant stompy robot pull of stephen chow moves.

Dystopian Wars: Ok so not so much "playing with" as "went a little crazy with" with my japanese fleet. Nice fluff (alt history is always a good thing for me) that at least offers some kind of story progression and time line across the campaign books (not sure if the new one will break the trend, but each have roughly been following on fairly directly time wise from each other). Cheap to get into (a naval starter costs around £30 and will give you roughly two thirds of a "max" sized army (or rather the 2000 points 40k equivalent). Suffered a bit with "new hotness" syndrome, but Spartan seem to be getting their act together, even updating and buffing the older factions to keep them up to date and competitive with the new ones, rather than just shrugging their shoulders at the power creep. The rules will likely end up free online along with spartans other systems, but the stats for the ships are all free there anyway.

As someone branching out and experimenting with non-GW games, I found this thread informative.

I sometimes find digesting all the new rules very hard, especially things that are very similar or I would probably not bother to check (I'm so used to TLOS, it's a little strange for me to play it any other way.)