Setting the standard, a study in starter sets

One of the things that I love in wargaming is the boardgame experience.

That's when the starter box for a wargame comes with not just everything you need to play the game, but everything you need to enjoy the game. There's some subtle distinctions there, and of course each person's personal tastes run differently, but what I'm looking for is that the box sets a minimum level for the game that acts as an anchor to the experience.

Halo Flashpoint is a great example of this. While I've not played it, the Spartan edition comes with miniatures (as expected from a starter box), rules and tokens (as expected), a gaming mat (getting rarer) and a full set of pre-colored cardboard terrain to play on (almost unheard of). While you could, and likely would, enjoy making sturdier custom terrain to fit a theme or scenario of your choosing, straight out of the box this game provides a quite luxurious experience of playing on a fully colored gaming arena with plenty of terrain to go around.

And while it's likely that players will go ahead and paint their miniatures, and craft terrain, and swap out the paper mats for neoprene mats, and expand and enhance their experience over time, the starter set creates the starting point, a minimum level, no game of Halo Flashpoint will ever be less immersive, less complete, less polished than this, a table full of colorful terrain on an attractive looking gaming surface.

TTCombat are masters of the starter set. Cheap and cheerful, their sets often don't quite fill out the complete game but make a great introduction. Their recently released Carnevale - World's Faire Afterparty is the third starter set they have released, and just like Halo Flashpoint it includes a paper mat, precolored cardboard buildings, cardboard scatter terrain tokens, everything to play the game with visual interest, color and delight. It is at a smaller size, the full size Carnevale game plays on 3' x 3' while the starter set is 2' x 2', and comes with few buildings even for that size mat, but it's a slice of the game, a snippet, a tiny sampling to whet the appetite.

Operation Sandtrap for Infinity is another contender. While Corvus Belli don't place this as a starter set per se, arguing it's more a product for experienced Infinity players wanting to make the jump to the N5 ruleset, it does make for a very visually delightful gaming experience. Thick cardboard buildings and conduits cover the mat, providing a simple but durable gaming arena for the players to navigate. Additionally, Corvus Belli sell many different packs of cardboard terrain in a variety of styles and themes for cheap cheap prices, making it simple, affordable, and accessible to wargame at a minimum standard.

None of this is to say that games that do not provide these kinds of complete experience are in any way bad games. It's just something I appreciate, when a company goes out of their way to create an ecosystem making it easy for their players to skip forward to the parts that are fun for them. While many people enjoy the terrain building and hobby aspect of the hobby, front-loading the game experience and ensuring your players will never play on a bare coffee table with random jars as terrain goes a long way to setting the standard you want for your gaming experience.

But what do you think? Is this attention to detail important to you? Are there starter sets you feel would be wildly improved by simple cardboard terrain? Sign up today and join the conversation below!

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