Robotech Season 1

Let the building commence...

I'm going to start my "construct all the things" project with the Robotech Starter Box:

 It's a big box!

And this is what it looks like when you open it up:

 So many sprues - so badly packed

 Zentraedi Sprues

 UEDF Sprues

The sprues are colored to the different factions so if you don't feel like painting them it's probably not going to impact too majorly on your gaming experience. And where you have sprues you also have bases. These have little direction markings on them and a tab to show the rear side of the base. Which does completely ruin any chance of making them unique, but, whatever....

 Base

                                      

There is of course a full colour rule-book:

 Full colour art

 Unit Entries

Fluff

Also included in the box are the squad building cards and unit cards. The squad building cards list what particular units you can take in each squad, as well as they're possible upgrades. The unit building cards list each of the unit characteristics and any special rules they may have.

Squad Card

Unit Card

And all the other little ancillaries that come with these starter sets:

Advertising

More Advertising

Instructions

                                                                     Instructions

More instructions

And Decals

Some dice, markers...

and a very nice template

In conclusion, you're getting a lot of stuff for your $90-$100, the only issue is the quality. I've started putting some of these things together and to be honest they're not the best. Mold lines are prevalent through-out and it's very hard to get things to line up and seal correctly. And the detail isn't particularly crisp. I'm aiming to have all of the UEDF constructed in the next couple of weeks and get some games in with them to see how they go. I'll pop another article up once I do that.

A tale of 3 starters and a little something extra

So it's turning out that 2015 is the year of the Kickstarter for me...   well the year of stuff finally arriving at my house at least.

I've backed 20 Kickstarters over the last few years. Of those, I have received 10, with the 11th coming in dribs and drabs now. It's looking like I should be receiving another 3 in the next couple of months with another 2 or 3 by the end of the year...   hopefully....

So, what does this mean for the current matter, well, with all of this stuff arriving I'm finding I have TONS of stuff to stick together so I thought I would take this opportunity to do a little comparison of some of the starters, currently or recently on the market...  give people an idea of what they're getting.

Here's a couple of Kickstarters, Robotech RPG Tactics and Pulp City that arrived earlier this year.

 

Pulp city looks like it's going to be a lot of fun, but in terms of this review, it doesn't really fit the bill, I want to concentrate on 3 sets that are of a similar price and size. 

 

First of all I'm going to try and assemble all of the mini's from the Robotech set (RRP $99.95) play a few games with them and see how it feels.

 

Next will be Warmachine/Hordes, I was lucky enough to buy both the Warmchine Starter set and the Hordes starter set with a friend and split the 2 boxes up. I took Khador and Legion of Everblight while my friend took Protectorate of Menoth and Circle Orboros. This set retails for $99.99USD

From Games Workshop we have the Deathstorm set, although no longer available, is still quite similar to their current Dark Vengeance starter set, in terms of contents and price. This is slighty more expensive than the other two sets at $125USD.

And lastly, for something completely different, we have an Eisenkern Stormtrooper Rifle Squad from Dreamforge-Games. This is for a possible Cobra (G.I. Joe's mortal enemy) themed Astra Militarum force. This will give people an idea about what the smaller players are doing. This 10 man set, retails for $22USD

My goal is to have everything assembled over the next few months and to get some games in. I'll keep posting updated and some of my trials and tribulations.

Till next time... 

Games & Gears Battle Boards Kickstarter Fulfilled-ish....

My Kickstarted Games & Gears Battle Boards Kickstarter have finally arrived!!!

mostly....

notice the slight space, also I hadn't installed the clips either, I'm lucky enough to have an 8' by 4' board with a raised lip....  

There has been some debate online about whether the boards have been completely painted, well you be the judge:

 

You can obviously see how the road paint has run over onto the side of the board, but if the rest of the top surface was painted it was done a great deal better. From an angle the top side of the board does look to be a slightly different colour.


And here are some pics with some mini's on for scale...

Minotaurs and pre-heresy / pre-Forge World - Horus Heresy Range Emperor's Children

 And last one with tasteful sun setting in the background...   :)