The Batman 2-Player Starter Box for the Batman Miniature Game

Knight Models recently released a new two-player starter set for their Batman Miniature Game. The starter features a rulebook, 17 miniatures based on the film, cards, and a slew of tokens to play the game with. The contents of the box are focused on the film itself. All of the miniatures are either inspired by the film or are characters from the film. 

For me, The Batman film was great. While dark, it captured perfectly the feel of a frustrated Bruce Wayne trying to make a difference in the city only to start to realize at the end that there is a different way. Seeing the miniatures come to life on the tabletop is fantastic. Let’s take a look at The Batman Two-Player Starter in this review. 

The Miniatures

Carmine Falcone Unassembled

The box features two different crews for the game. These crews are Organized Crime and of course Batman. Of course, all of our favorite characters from the movie are included as models. In addition, all of the models are made in Knight Models’ new thermoplastic material, which is great to work with as a hobbyist. The quality of the miniatures themselves is absolutely crisp and highly detailed. 

Batman Crew Miniatures

The Batman Crew Miniatures from the Starter Set

The Batman crew included in the box includes major movie characters such as Batman, Selina Kyle (Catwoman), and Jim Gordan. What’s great is there are other models included that are supporting characters such as Chief MacKenzie and Officer Martinez.

The total crew included in the box contains 8 miniatures. Added up, there are exactly 350 reputation models included, great for a full game of Batman Miniature Game!

One of the most unique models in the box is the mounted G.C.P.D Officer. This brings the second horse-mounted miniature into the game. The model is big, and dynamic, and changes up the visual look of the otherwise very blue and similar-looking G.C.P.D police miniatures that fill out the rest of the crew. 

Organized Crime Miniatures 

The Organized Crew Henchmen

The Organized Crime crew that’s included in the box is focused around Falcone and Penguin from the movie. Both of these models have beautiful sculptures and scenic bases based on scenes the characters are in from the movie.

Of course, one can’t forget the twins, those bouncers at the door of the Iceberg Lounge. These two miniatures are included in the set and have just enough difference in sculpting that you can tell them apart for purposes of the game rules.

Finally, the cop turned part-time bouncer at the Iceberg Lounge, Detective Kenzie has a great miniature in street clothes and sculpted so that he looks appropriately sleazy!

The Twins

There are three additional bouncers that are included in the box. These bouncers are armed with various weapons in unique poses. I am not sure if they actually appeared in the film, or are just for this box, but the models all look great.

This makes the Organized Crime crew a total of 9  miniatures! For the Batman Miniature Game, this is a relatively large crew. 

Cards

Objective Cards

The Batman 2-Player Starter Box comes with all of the crew-specific objective cards for both Batman and Organized Crime crews. In addition, Batman, Catwoman, Falcone, and Penguin all have unique character cards.

These cards make the 20-card objective decks that are needed to play the game. Card quality is fairly good, though we do recommend that you sleeve the cards as they are handled and shuffled quite frequently in the game.

One thing that is not included in the box is the generic objective cards. This means that players will need to purchase one of the Objective Sets to obtain a set of generic cards. Those cards give you 20 additional card options to add to your crew deck. Without them, a big part of the deck-building aspect is lost on players with just the components in this set.

Of course, list and deck building really does take players deep into the next level of this game!

The Starter Box Crews and the Birds of Prey Bat Box Crew

Deployment and Event Cards

The Batman 2-Player Starter Box includes 8 deployment cards and 8 event cards. These cards are key to setting up the game. While we recommend for your first few games skip adding in the event cards. Event Cards add a lot of character to the game, but also additional rules to keep track of.

These cards are made from the same card stock as the objective cards, which is a good material. While you only really handle these cards and shuffle them at the start of a game it is recommended that you sleeve these cards as well.

Character Cards

The Batman 2-Player Starter Box does not include the actual character cards for the miniatures included in the game. The set directs you to use the Knight Models official Batman Miniature Game App.

For the most part, the App does a great job conveying the rules and abilities of each model and is by far easier for information lookups during a game than using traditional cards. However, where you might want cards is for tracking a small pile of tokens such as damage and effect tokens that accumulate during the game. 

Knight Models does provide printable cards that you can find at their BMG Website in the Downloads => Community Resources section. While inconvenient, it does provide players a way to have access to these cards today. We are hopeful for some of that token and damage tracking to get moved to the app and make all of our lives a bit less complex.

Tokens, Tokens, and MORE Tokens

Falcone is trying to get one over on the Birds of Prey

The Batman 2-Player Starter Box includes a plethora of tokens. The tokens are printed on good, thick card stock material that is not super glossy. The artistic choices for the tokens are, for the most part, really good.

In addition, the included rulebook provides guidance as to what each token represents. The most used tokens will be suspect markers, audacity markers, damage tokens, and ammo tokens. Of those tokens, suspect markers are the only tokens not easily replaced since the size of the tokens is key to gameplay. 

Going Beyond the Starter Set

League of Assassins has thier hands full with the Riddler

The starter set is a great start to the Batman Miniature Game from Knight Models. It is absolutely the best value to get started with the game. The next key buy is likely one of the Objective Sets, like Objective Set 2, which is currently available.

If you are looking to expand the Organized Crime set, either Deadshot or the Pain & Money bat box are great additions to the crew.

The Batman crew can really benefit from Nightwing or the Back to Gotham Police sets to give you some options. 

For more information about getting started or details about various crews, make sure you check out these articles from WiscoDice!