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So people just wondering of all the wealth of different game systems which starter set that people have picked up do they like the most.
Doesn't have to be releases from the last few years.

For me it's going to have to be the Bolt Action armoured fury set, I mean hey it has 2 panthers and 3 Sherman's. Yep it's a fairly new one if I can think of an old one it would have to be the warhammer bretonians v skinks.

I'm a spaceship guy, so I'd say either Dropfleet Commander or Battlefleet Gothic, for similar reasons: excellent plastic models, great fluff, lavish rule books, and rules that people seem to like (I haven't played DFC, and played only the beginner rules for BFG).

For other games, the IoB and Calth starters for GW's games seem pretty amazing. MEdge had a lot of cool robots and aliens in their starter. If Mars Attacks counts, then that's up there, too.

Yeah there's probably too many to choose from now, really being spoilt for choice these days. Il tag calth and xwing on the list too me thinks.

If I had to pick one, GW's Spire of Dawn for AoS. For those who don't know, Spire is just a repack of Island of Blood on round bases and with AoS rules, and at £50, it's about 2/3 of what it was when it was the WFB starter set. Before you even get into the fact the contents go much further in AoS than they did for WFB, it's simply the best deal on the market for a bunch of top quality figures, all the minis are really nice, some of the best 'starter set' plastics around and at the new price it's an absolute steal.

Betrayal At Calth and Dark Vengeance would be close seconds, but the brilliance of Spire is that it's literally everything you need, you can treat it as a simple boxed game and still have plenty of fun. BaV and DV require you to purchase codexes and significantly more models to really get the most out of them.

The old Necromunda set was really nice but I think I would go with the Battlefleet Gothic starter box.

Necromunda was a good set, although the models were terrible even by the standards of the day.

I quite like the Dropzone Commander set. Lots of terrain (there is even a paper play mat, and the models are good. The models are an excellent base for an army as well, everything in the set will see a lot of us.

Wait, Spire of Dawn is a cheaper yet complete IoB? That one goes to the top of my 28mm starters list, then.

Yeah, it's all the same stuff (bar the WFB 8th rulebook, obviously), but it's £50 RRP whereas IoB was £75 (I think). An absolute bargain.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
Necromunda was a good set, although the models were terrible even by the standards of the day.

Yeah the figures we4ren't all that great but you got a ton of content in the box including decent terrain. In the end though the figures being so 'meh' is what pushed Battlefleet Gothic to the top as it had some great ship minis. Haven't used the Dropfleet starter so don't have an opinion on it.

Got to say Bloodbowl.

As well as a starter set, it'd also a complete game in its own right, and you don't need to expand it. The game has enough variables to keep things fun for the casual gamer - something which many games fall down on.

Yeah, I think my vote has to be for the Dropzone Commander Starter Set.



I've got a sort of checklist for a good 'starter set' and Dropzone ticks pretty much all the boxes.

1) Full rulebook.
2) Awareness of complexity of the models
3) A 'complete' experience. - It needs to feel 'satisfying' to play.
4) No assumed knowledge
5) Therefore, complete instructions for new people
6) What you're getting 'feels' worth it (this is subjective)
7) As a result of 3, the game is replayable and still enjoyable. If I'm introducing this game to 20 people, I don't want to be bored after the third game.


While Dropfleet Commander is the new shiny, 3 cruisers and 4 frigates per side doesn't feel as impressive as Dropzones, especially with all the Dropzone scenery. I'd definitely mark the Dropfleet starter above BFG's though, due to the inclusion of frigates, instead of 2 sprues just duplicated a bunch of times. Also, BFG wasn't particularly new person friendly either, if memory serves.



The Deadzone V2starter set is pretty neat too, perhaps not as complete as the Deadzone V1 starter set (Whose models had *more* points than necessary to play the game. However plastic VS restic is a big factor.


An honourable mention has to go to...



It's a great set, I love it but it ends up juuust falling short due to some silly mistakes. But, lets talk about the good.

You have 2 complete teams in this set, the Joker and the Suicide Squad. You could quite happily turn up to a tournament with one of these teams and be able to fully take part in it. That's really kinda a big deal, and not something you really see much of.

The softback "Suicide Squad" rulebook is pretty much the complete rulebook, heck I use it in my games now mostly instead of any others.

The models are gorgeous, really, gorgeous.



And, most of them, come in only 2 parts, several are single piece. There's even assembly instructions in the back of the rulebook. Where there's also a 'how to play' scenario, just before the campaign. But, more on that later.

You've got scenery, not all the full scenery you'd need but it's enough to get you started really quite comfortably in the game.

There's a man in a panda suit with a sniper rifle. I repeat.
THERE IS A PANDA WITH A SNIPER RIFLE!



But, the bad. Just silly little mistakes and bad calls that just plain hurt and hold the boxed set back from the greatness it could be.

First off, and the worst offender. You know how I said most of the models are 2 piece, or single cast? The keyword is most.



Katana here, is singularly one of the worst frigging models I've ever had the displeasure to asemble. Those ribbons? Separate, her swordsheathe? separate. Each flipping arm? Seperate, one at the wrist. Heck, even the hand on the other broke off.


There's a really interesting, exciting narrative campaign staring the Suicide Squad in the rulebook. It's great, I look forward to playing it one day.

Slight hitch. It stars the Suicide Squad. But the opponents? The Joker gang, nah. It's a Police and Batman gang, In other words gangs that aren't in the starter set. Why? Just why?

Remember I said, "pretty much" the complete rulebook? That's because of this guy.


His gun there, has the special rule called, "Assault 3."
The "Assault 3" special rule... is not in the rulebook. They missed it out. You need to go buy a second book, the expansion, "The Flash and the Arrow" to find out what it means. Unless you google, of course. In either case, a big black mark for that oversight. It'd just stop a new player game cold stone dead.

The game, the production quality, the art, the models it's all gorgeous. Except for the 4 street lamp tokens. They're the cheapest, nastiest, tackiest things possible. A tall thin strip of cardboard, inserted perpendicularly into a horizontal thin circle of cardboard. Yuck, just yuck.

And, the last thing, tokens. There's 4 street lamps, 4 sewer tokens and, if memory serves 2 riddle objective tokens. For a full game, you potentially need 2 more of all of them. Why? Just why cheap out on them?

All these things would just be nitpicks, or whines, if this wasn't supposed to be the main starter set and entry point for the game, a game I enjoy a great deal. And yet, all these little, easily fixed errors, could very well stop the game getting its popularity and reach it deserves.

On the other hand... Man in a PANDA costume with a sniper rifle!

Mordheim was a pretty good set back in the day too, the more set I remember the harder I gets to pick.

Ah Compel that suicide box looks pretty fine too. Although I really can't pick up another lol.

In terms of sheer value for money I have to nominate the Perry Miniatures ACW Battle in a Box set



All of that for £95 direct from Perry or about £86 from various webstores is pretty damn insane. Sure there are no dice and the rules are extraordinarily basic as best but look at all that plastic. I'm sure I'll get round to painting the contents of that set one day.

I also have to give special mention to the Warhammer 40k 3rd edition set that got me into wargaming back in the day. Ok 10 Space Marines, a Landspeeder, 20 Dark Eldar and some scenery isn't that much when compared to a lot of modern starter sets but it started my obsession with wargaming and tabletop gaming in general so I can't not be fond of it.

The last Open Fire starter for Flames of War was pretty great. It gave you an allied force of around 700 points or so of armored company and about that much of panzergrenadier infantry company.

Each side got some extra stuff like US airborne platoon or PaK gun teams. It included a full rulebook, a basic rulebook and even had cardstock 2D terrain, tokens and dice. If you wanted to play it as a self-contained FoW game, you very easily could and have proper games from the start.

for value, the old warzone 2nd edition starter, there was the complete rules, complete army lists for all the factions and 80 models that made it a no kidding even match right out of the box. my favorites so far for playing are confrontation and wrath of kings.

Comps, any chance of spoiler tags? Suicide Squad pick is massive, making text teeny

Oh my!
For 40k, the 2nd and 3rd edition starter sets I thought were great.

For overall and recent, I'd say All Quiet on the Marian Front as a starter set.

Infinity's Red Veil is pretty fantastic. You get all the minis you need to play the game at around 150 points, a full set of terrain, dice, rules, etc. The models are actually legit, not specific to the starter, and useful in their respective factions.

I was thinking one of the following:

Perry ACW Set
Suicide Squad
Infinity: Operation Ice Storm or Red Veil

The perry acw box does look very good. I'd be painting that for the next ten years though lol.

The new 'Band of Brothers' set for Bolt Action is pretty good:



Full rules, starter rules/scenarios, good starter forces, a bit of terrain, dice and stuff...

Classic Battletech's box is pretty amazing. Sure, it's 24 monopose figures plus one or two multipart plastics. But at the same time... that's all you'd reasonably need for most any 2 hour game. It supports almost every faction in the game except clans. Smooth introduction to the complexities of the game, and 2d terrain in the form of mapsheets.

Even better, from a scalable perspective, is that most of the Introductory mechs have variants that allow them to hold their own against the most advanced and newest options out there.

The Hail Caesar: Conquest of Gaul starter set is a good one. Real good bang for the buck! Lots of minis + the full rulebook for a good price:

X-wing starter set has been the best cost/fun ratio so far.

BFG is a close second.

Necromunda for the feels though. The terrain is still great after all these years (a bit worn, though)

Out of nostalgia, I have to mention the Mines of Moria set for LOTR SBG, which was the set that got me into wargaming in the first place. I'm sure there are better sets, but that one holds a special significance for me.

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
Out of nostalgia, I have to mention the Mines of Moria set for LOTR SBG, which was the set that got me into wargaming in the first place. I'm sure there are better sets, but that one holds a special significance for me.

I am a big fan of that one as well, bought 3 of em

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
Out of nostalgia, I have to mention the Mines of Moria set for LOTR SBG, which was the set that got me into wargaming in the first place. I'm sure there are better sets, but that one holds a special significance for me.

Good choice. One thing I liked about it was the self-contained game you could play without the full rules.
It contained a mini-campaign and you cold replay the thing several times with just those heroes versus the goblins and the troll.

Titan Legions was pretty cool as well.

It had a lot in the set (including some card tokens to use as infantry) but one of the best things about it was its narrative escalation campaign.

I seem to remember that the 1st edition expansion to Adeptus Titanicus had a metric tonne of sprues packed into it. The one with two opposing Space Marine armies I mean.

 CptJake wrote:
The new 'Band of Brothers' set for Bolt Action is pretty good:



Full rules, starter rules/scenarios, good starter forces, a bit of terrain, dice and stuff...

I've yet to pick up the new rules to use along side battlegroup. Also want the new airborne plus a half track for my germans so might just grab the new set. Only down side are the ruins, built one set a while ago and were utter crap to build.