ArcWorlde - Battle For Troll Bridge Kickstarter Unboxing

Shortly after finishing my ArcWorlde Halfling Spearmen last week, a nice courier brought a big box full of goodies from the ArcWorlde: Battle For Troll Bridge Kickstarter. Battle For Troll Bridge is a starter box with four factions, perfect for getting people started in the game. 

The box itself isn't overly large - about the size of a piece of A4 paper and a couple of inches deep but boy is there a lot of content. 

Going through the initial papers at the top of the box, there is a plug for the Troubles in the North expansion (coming to Kickstarter in September ;) ), along with a thick paper bridge and a note to say that the box isn't just a box, but has a layer of foam in it to turn into a miniatures tray to hold all the minis when they're ready.

After taking the papers off the box and the top layer of foam, this is what you find.

Removing all of that, you hit the foam. It's a really tight fit - at first I thought it was glued in to the sides, but grabbing a corner revealed it to be about an inch deep, or half the depth of the box.

There are 10 lovely ArcWorlde dice and Arcanite crystals, which are objectives in the game or can be used as base scenery.

On to the fun bits - several different sized bases and lots of resin! The standard game comes with everything bar Old Grogg the Troll in white metal, but as Warploque resin (cast in house by Rob Huntley) is so nice, I just had to take up the offer of the upgrade.

Moving outside the box for a second, I also picked up a messenger bag with the logo on it. It's a nice grey fabric finish, with little magnets on the front holding the front flap in place (the buckles are just for show) and a larger back pocket. 

Inside the front flap are two front pockets, which are both just the right size for holding the ArcWorlde rulebook!

Best of all, the main pocket is just larger than the game box so should you want to take it places, combined with the foam interior to the box, it's probably the perfect way to get everything you need to play the box from A to B.

Speaking of rulebooks, there are two in the box. The first is called a rules booklet, as it was initially fancied that this would contain the rules needed to play (could be wrong on that), but late in the day the full lovely hardback ArcWorlde rules were added to each box, meaning that the Rules Booklet just contains information about the scenario and rules for all the characters and units in the box.

Now, onto the miniatures!

First up is Old Grogg, a rather grumpy and partially beaten up River Troll. 

Troll toenails. Ew.

The spear/harpoon sticking out of his shoulder appears to have been the only problem piece of resin in the whole box, as it is quite thing and flexible, it had detached from the point it hits the skin. Thankfully it's still hooked on by a resin rope, so it was just a case of getting some glue on it and it was all good again.

While Old Grogg contributes as one faction by himself, the other three are made up of several miniatures. I'll start off with the ones with the next biggest pieces - the Bayourks. 

First we have Mad Eye Muldoon, leader of the warband, armed with a really big stick and a fancy pipe.

Following Muldoon is the first of the new units introduced in BFTB - a Brewboy. It's his job to make sure the Bayourk party is the wrong side of sober, so is armed with an assortment of kegs and bottles along with his spear.

Just as there are grots in Warhammer 40k, ArcWorlde has Boglins. These crafty critters are full of character, something that I find to be one of the big pulls of the game.

Now that we've had Grogg and the Bayourks, who in the main scenario in the booklet are on his team, here is the first opposing faction - the Halflings of Hobbleshire.

This little warband is led by grizzled militia veteran Captain Bullhoof.

Next up are new sculpts of familiar faces - Militia Swordsman and Spearman

As with the Bayourks and the Albionnicans later, the Halflings receive a new unit, the rangers. Able in both ranged and close combat, the rangers are most at home in forests and long grass, where, like Pokemon, they can lie in wait and attack when you least expect it.

Leading the final force on show, the Albionnicans, is the marvelously mustachioed Captain Flynt.

Joining him are a couple of Crossbowmen and a Halberdier, all new sculpts. The crossobows have little beak details on the front, which is another nice little touch of character.

The Halberdier comes with separate Halberd - look how straight it is! No need for any hot water-cold water flexing here. He's designed to be holding his halberd over his shoulder, perhaps at rest, perhaps on the march. 

Lastly we have the new Albionnican unit, the Lowlander, who gives Grogg a run for his money in the grumpy department. Armed with a twin finger salute and a huge ass sword, this fellow is not to be messed with.

Outside of the bag, which was an addition, and a tarot deck, which was moved between production facilities and delayed, this is what you can expect to find in a Battle For Troll Bridge box. 

But I'm not going to stop there!

I picked up pretty much everything in the kickstarter, baring an alternate arm for Old Grogg and a t-shirt, so lets crack on with the extras.

First up is a resin bridge, to represent Grogg's bridge itself. It comes in two parts, which are identical to each other, so I've only photo'd up the details on one of the pieces. For ease of storage, I'm thinking that instead of gluing the pieces together, a liberal dosage of magnetism will be employed. It stands up by itself fairly well when both pieces are together, but you wouldn't want to risk your painted minis on it.

The lowlander for scale - it's a great center piece for a board.

You also get 4 little troll statues to sit on the bridge corners. Aren't they adorable?

We make our way back to Hobbleshire, with Billy Boozeup, armed with nothing more than a tankard of ale (it might even be a pint!) and a started on drumstick. He serves no use in game, but was a piece to celebrate the project getting funded.

This next guy is a Troll Hunter, and along with the Jarl that was available for a while last year with orders from the Warploque store, he is a taster of what is coming up in Troubles in the North.

Finishing up the Halfling contingent is the first of the wizards from the Wizard/Tarot pack - Bibbington Bells. with his wand, top hat and magnificent beard, he sure looks the part, mid conjuration. 

Raising the beard stakes is Professor Chalk, doing his best Gandalf impression.

Completing the wizardly trio is Gramma Gator. She suffers quite heavily from pitting, on a level with a lot of Knight Models pieces, but I'm half sure its actually intentional to give texture to her aged skin.

Finally, there were some hounds and sheep unlocked - the hounds are alongside Grifflings in the Monsters section at the back of the rulebook, but the sheep are yet to receive a profile. 

Along with the three hounds, you get a cute little pug.

I'm not entirely sure why I bought the sheep, but I think it was more a case of "why not?"

So to recap, this has been an unboxing of the Kickstarted Battle For Troll Bridge starter box for ArcWorlde, from Warploque Miniatures. I believe it ticks all the boxes for a starter box - multiple small factions, packed with character that sets the tone for people getting into the rest of the range and the ability to keep it all self contained if you wish, with the full rulebook and the tarot deck when it arrives.

It's hard for me to pick a favourite piece from the box, but if I had to, I'd probably go for Captain Bullhoof thanks to my recent Halfling painting experiences. 

I haven't seen any news as to when the box will be on general release, but if you spot the Warploque stand at a show, chances are they'll have one or two.