Occasionally I check a little website called Google Search Console. It tells us what people are searching for before they land on CCGwinkel. To my surprise, our BLKOUT article started attracting quite a few visitors. That can only mean one thing: people want to know more before they decide whether to buy the game.
Now that we know from this article what is in the starter set, we should now take a look at what it actually costs to get into the game. Some real information here for you.
We will walk down the highest to the lowest product pricing to have you see what you can get for what costs. The Conquest 2-player starter set came out, so that will be talked about as well. If you want to know what is in that box, replace the factions from the original starter with the new ones.
2 Player Starter Sets
As we said above, there are two 2-player starter sets. Both now have acrylic tokens to up the value a bit while staying the same in cost. Here’s what’s in it.
2 full armies. Depending on which set you take, you have a complete Boone and Un Box or the Chimera Krestonosets and Harlow SAD box set. Both are complete armies and excactly the same as the separate army boxes. These boxes being complete, this also means you have the great plastic card unit cards and a thick paper sheet that is unique for every faction.
They aren’t your average faction, because Boone started the BLKout on Abol and the UN tried to stop it. Another special thing about these two boxes is that these are the only faction boxes that contain bots. Not talking about the Dusters.
Next to the most important stuff is a physical rulebook, a starter set token sheet, and 3 dice. The starter set token sheet is different from the regular token sheet. It had to replace the original cardstock sheet.
These 2-player starter boxes clock in at 120 euros. They are not only the perfect entry point but also enough to keep you playing for a long time. The game is not forcing you to “grow”.
Blkout Faction Boxes
Next to the starters, you have faction starters. These contain the whole army apart from the strike force units. You explicitly choose the latter since you can indefinitely play with one faction box. There are 10 starter boxes now, which you can see here.
Some starter factions are from the same faction, but since these are self-contained armies, they can’t be mixed (yet) with other starter boxes. What you can do, however, is if you play large games, you can play both boxes of, for instance, the UN (3rd Bat. and Raid Force Alpha), but they serve different purposes on the battlefield.
The starter forces come in at 60 euros and could possibly be expanded with strike forces, which we will tell you more about.
The only exemption to this rule is the BLKlist box, which comes in at 50 euros but is a full army as well.
The Dusters of Blkout
The literal workhorses. Before the war on Abol, and even on Earth still, dusters were the bulldozers of this universe. You needed handlers that could pilot the Duster. The factions took them to abol to work but eventually equipped them with weaponry, which was so terrible to go up against that the game prohibits one player from fielding them if the other chooses not to do so.
There are now two active Dusters, being the Topor and Caber versions, which are the heavy and medium mechs.
Because of the size of these models (they are WAY bigger than the normal unit models), they clock in at 60 euros per model, but they are worth every cent. Who would not field one if they could? Even if it’s just part of the scenery if the other player decides not to field one.
Blkout Strikeforces
At the time of writing, not all forces have their strike force box. This is an add-on box that gives you more units and more options to equip your army with. Although force boxes cannot be combined, these boxes are built to add to the existing armies and function as one big army instead of different armies under the same flag.
The strikeforce boxes clock in at 50 euros per box and are a perfect second buy if you want to expand your starter sets (Krestonosets can be expanded by the Mantic Strikeforce). More strikeforce boxes will come as they strive to get one for all the starter boxes.
Handlers, Hired Killers, Nomads, and Miners
Basically the pilots for the Dusters, but a powerful team of mercs on their own and a great addition to the team. Not as “expensive” as the rest, but for 25 euros per set of 3 models, you have more than enough value to at least want one of the 3 available teams, Alpha, Bravo, or Charlie.
The same is true for the Hired Killers, Nomads, and Miners price-wise, but they have their set of rules in PDF form on the main site of BLKout. If you take these, be sure to take the rules as well.
The rest
There are more models like the buggy (45 euros) and the remote drones (30 euros), but the core of the game is explained above. Not that these are not nice to have, as sending a piece of metal into the fight is always better than losing a valuable operator when you have just a few.
The buggy is good for troop transport and has two options to build, either with a turret or without. With a turret, you can’t transport troops but can lay down firepower when needed.
The cost of starting Blkout
The best-case scenario is a starter, period
For the price of 2 full armies, you also get the rulebook, some tokens, and dice.
If you would build a starter yourself with the needed accessories, you would need 30 euros extra, making the starter set rebuild 150, and you need to fix yourself at least 3 D10’s. If you like Harlow vs. Chimera or Boone vs. UN, just focus on the starters and go from there.
If you are by yourself, going to clubs where it’s being played, then a single faction box would be good, and a rulebook for reference is good enough. This totals it to 75 euros, and you are done.
Stepping up the game (literally) sees you buying one of the two starters with their strike forces. This gets you to 220 euros, but you are done after that. No more are available, and you have to look at other factions or the second starter boxes.
Then the last alternative, is making you for instance, a Harlow player. If you take both starters and the strike force (which you can use for expanding both armies), then it sets you back to 170 euros.
Conclusion
If you look at other games from bigger companies, you will notice you are rarely as done as this game can set you up to. 170 for everything a faction has to offer is not all that much compared to 2 half starter armies from another company that are around 190 euros.
So… what would I buy?
If I had a friend willing to split a Starter Set with me, I wouldn’t even think twice. It’s simply the best deal in the entire range. You get two complete armies, the rulebook, the tokens, the dice, and enough miniatures to keep you busy for quite some time.
Playing on your own? Grab a Force Box and a rulebook. You’ll be on the table for €75 and can expand whenever you feel like it.
BLKOUT is one of the few games where I genuinely feel you don’t have to spend hundreds of euros before it starts becoming fun. And that’s something I wish more tabletop games managed to do.
I hope this helped a bit with deciding if this game is something for you, and if it is, be sure to check out the whole collection here.