If you’re thinking about jumping into Warlord’s new skirmish game Strontium Dog, you’ve probably seen the starter set entitled The Good, The Bad & The Mutie. By far the best way to get into the game, the box gives you everything you need to start playing. At £50/$60 the contents of the box are great value, but what exactly do you get? Here’s a rundown of what’s in the Strontium Dog Starter Set and how it gets you into the game quickly.

Miniatures

There are eight 28mm metal miniatures in The Good, The Bad & the Mutie, representing two classic Strontium Dog bands. The S/D Agency is represented by the central heroes of Strontium Dog, Johnny Alpha, his parter Wulf Sternhammer and their medic associate The Gronk. These are the (mostly) good guys, bringing outlaws and other ne’er-do-wells to justice.

The outlaws in question here are the notorious Max Bubba and four of his gang – Impetigo Jones, Brute Mosely, Skull and Low-Down O’Phee.

These miniatures are ideal for a starter set because as well as being iconic Strontium Dog characters, they take almost no time to put together so you can start playing. Six are single-piece casts while the other two have a separate gun/arms piece which are quickly and easily stuck to the models. They just need stuck to their 25mm plastic bases and you’re ready to try the game out.

Rulebook

The rulebook you get in the box is exactly the same as the one available separately for £20/$32. It’s softcover, A4-sized and 112 pages, so there’s plenty of Strontium Dog action inside.

We’ll no-doubt discuss the rulebook’s contents in more detail in future articles. Suffice to say that as well as the game rules, it also includes a catalogue of weaponry and explosives; a Rogue’s Gallery of agents and outlaws; guidelines for creating your own characters; jobs and scenarios for your bands to undertake and campaign rules for progression through a series of games.

Scenario Booklet

The scenario booklet provides some great examples of turning a Strontium Dog comic strip into a skirmish game on your table. Three scenarios – appropriately titled Good, Bad and Mutie – take you through the grudge between Max Bubba’s gang and Johnny Alpha & the Search/Destroy Agents. Using only the models in the starter box, these scenarios let you play out key conflicts between these teams, to which there can only be one eventual winner.

An additional bonus scenario, Hellworld, introduces some other characters to the game. This scenario pits Johnny’s team against the Weerd Brothers (available now) and Fly’s-eyes Wagner (coming soon), in a literal escape from Hell!

Character Cards

The Strontium Dog Starter Set contains 6 double-sided Character cards. There are 3 for the S/D Agents and 3 for Max Bubba’s gang (Max’s gang members are two per card). These detail all the fighters’ stats, skills and weaponry to save on book-checking during the game.

Each band has 40 Notoriety worth of characters – the points used in Strontium Dog to measure your team’s value. That’s plenty to get started with, and not far below the ‘standard’ game size of 50 Notoriety per side. Adding one or two more characters – either from one of the expansion boxes or of your own creation – will round them out nicely to full strength for ongoing play.

Chicanery & Armoury Card Decks

These two 18-card decks add an element of chance into the game. Chicanery reflects special schemes and good fortune your band enjoys; Armoury cards represent special equipment you might have available for that fight. These decks are only available in the Strontium Dog Starter Set and mean you can dish out schemes and equipment quickly and easily before the game.

Solar Farm Scenery

Every shootout needs a location, and the Good, the Bad and the Mutie is no exception. The box includes a 7-piece Solar Farm scenery set made from MDF by Sarissa Precision. This includes a building, a generator/wind-turbine, a tall watchtower and four large free-standing solar panels. This scenery plays a part in all four scenarios in the booklet, so you’ll get plenty of use from these models. The building is a perfect place for outlaws or agents to hold out against their enemies. The tower makes an ideal sniper nest for whichever team controls it. The ‘scatter terrain’ ensures that there’s plenty of cover in the vicinity to protect the combatants.

The Solar Farm comes flat packed and ready to assemble, and fits together very well, with clear instructions on where everything goes. It ensures that your gangs will always have an interesting battleground to fight over. Let’s be honest though – as a sci-fi western setting with time travel and dimension jumping, we doubt that you have much scenery which wouldn’t work for Strontium Dog.

Plastic Tokens

Two sprues of plastic tokens, a different colour for each side, give you all the markers you’ll need to play. These include plastic Action Chips – used to determine initiative order by drawing them from a bag. This mechanic is similar to other Warlord games in principle; however some special Action Chips, called Star Chips, can go back in the bag after use to be drawn again. This is what makes the numerically uneven fights you often see in Strontium Dog work so well.

Dice

The game uses six-sided Combat Dice with 3 Hit, 2 Armour and 1 Special side – not unlike the Doctor Who: Exterminate game. You get 8 of these white dice, with 2000 AD imagery in red on each face. Two standard six-sided dice complete the complement. You will use these to determine random scenario elements during setup.

Strontium Dog Starter Set Summary

The Good, the Bad & the Mutie has everything you need to get started with the Strontium Dog Miniatures Game. There’s plenty to keep your games fresh and exciting too, and inspire you to create your own scenarios and campaigns. Whether you’re looking for a fun pick-up-and-play skirmish game or the narrative depth of an intricate campaign, the Strontium Dog Starter Set is the place to begin.

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