There’s something iconic about the Joker. Whether it’s Mark Hammill’s voice performance, Heath Ledger’s The Dark Knight, or any of your favorite comic stories there is just so much to love about the character. In the Batman Miniature Game, the Joker commands a crew of thugs to play a few jokes on the city of Gotham. After all, doesn’t everyone need a smile on their face?
Joker, being the popular character, is pretty easy to collect. Knight Models produces a pretty large range of models that are all affiliated with the clown prince! Because there is so much choice, it almost becomes a challenge to narrow down which models you really should pick up to play. Here are two starting crew builds and what you need to buy them.
Back to Gotham Starter Box
Honestly, the two-player starter box is an amazing way to get started with this crew. It’s a full, playable crew in the box. On top of that, you have all of the cards, tokens, measurement tools, and more. This is the top way I would recommend to get started with this game.
The Back to Gotham Starter is no longer available from Knight Models. The models are still available and sold individually. This does give you the flexibility to change some of the model selections recommended below if you are more interested in different kits.
Looking at what you get, it’s a full 350 reputation/$1500 funding crew out of the box. This lets you focus on what the models can specifically do in the game, without adding equipment options.
The models are all themed relatively close together. With 9 models in the crew, it’s not too much to paint. It’s still a sizable crew with all of the models being useful to you as you grow your collection.
- Leader: Joker (Back to Gotham)
- Sidekick: Harley Quinn (Back to Gotham)
- Free Agent: Deadshot
- Henchman
- Thug 1
- Thug 2
- Thug 3
- Thug 4
- Thug 5
- Thug 6
The Dark Knight Joker Crew
The performance of Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight draws so many people to this game when they see there is a model for him. It becomes a starting point for so many players in the game. I didn’t want to just ignore that fact.
My main goal for this crew build is to keep the products that you need to purchase to a minimum. I also wanted to include all of the possible movie models that have been produced. The end result is that you need to buy just four boxes:
With these buying recommendations, you will have a couple of spare models left over. The real fun with this list is seeing all of the movie models on the table. The other models I selected added to the ability to play the list effectively, but also didn’t dig into the comic-style models too much. That way you can field a crew that might have actually appeared in the movie!
- Leader: The Joker (Heath Ledger)
- Free Agent: Two-Face (The Dark Knight)
- Henchman:
- Joker’s Biker 2
- Joker’s Biker 3
- Bud
- Lou
- Joker’s Bus Driver
- Happy
- Grumpy
- Chuckles
Finally, you have about $250 funding left over to add to the crew’s equipment. This will give you another aspect to change up a little bit of the playstyle of the crew by itself. For your first time, I would use Clown Paint on Joker’s Biker 3 and an Antidote on Joker’s Bus Driver.
Well That Was a Laugh
The Joker crew is so beginner friendly but has such depth that you can get out of playing the crew even after 50 or 100 games. If you are looking for a crew or a place to get started with the Batman Miniature Game I can’t recommend a better crew to start with. There are quite a few models released so that you can play around with different builds while not having so many models that you are just simply overwhelmed by the possibilities.
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