Campaign Boxes…Uhh…Unboxing

Dear Readers, recently, those rather, shall we say, pricey campaign boxes (you know the ones, one of them for creatures and the other terrain) went on a sale that was beyond ridiculous. Like, a roughly $60 box (each!) going for $2.99 each at a store chain that I think was going out of business.

Like I said: ridiculous.

In any case, I picked up one of each from one of my pay-to-play players as a Christmas gift, and then got one of each from one of my regular Tuesday night players (as I know you read this, and you know who you are, thank you again!), and I just recently was offered one of the creature boxes (I paid $5 for it; not sure if they read The Blog, but if they do, thank you as well!).

It was then that I decided to do an unboxing for them. So here it is…

Let’s start with the Creature Case.

This box was pretty cool, actually, in what they did. The box comes with a pretty good number of plastic tokens, upon which you can put one of a huge number of reusable vinyl stickers. The tokens come in medum/small, large, and huge critter sizes.

The only thing I had an issue with was getting into the actual case itself…

Pretty box, right? Now, how to open it…

This is for the terrain box (which is blue), but how to open it wasn’t explained or very intuitive and I almost ripped the box trying to get the thing to open.

Now, I will say this, once you’ve figured out how to open it, you realize that it’s got some pretty strong magnets holding it shut, with a very nice carry handle. Here’s what you see when you open it up:

As you may see, around the edges, is actually a layer of tissue paper for keeping the stickers separated. I recommend keeping that in, as it keeps the stickers from adhering one side from the other, and from the inside of the folder pockets.

As you can probably tell, it has one of almost each monster in the D&D 5e Monster Manual, as well as multiples of things like zombies, orcs, skeletons, goblins and kobolds. It also includes extra vinyl stickers of letters, numbers, and stars for keeping track of which one is which. So instead of saying “Which bugbear do you attack?” The players can say “I attack bugbear 3” or whatever. Nice concept and execution.

Taking out the folder, and lifting the ribbon, you get to see this:

As you can see, the tokens come in black, gray, red, and blue. So in addition to being able to say “I attack bugbear 3,” you can say “I attack the red 3 bugbear” further helping to differentiate multiple of similar/the same creatures. And there’s quite a few of each one. There are two stacks each of the medium/small tokens of each color (for a total of 10), two large, and one huge of each color. And let’s be honest, we all use something bigger than what would likely fit in the box for gargantuan creatures (I mean, I’d likely use the box itself!). And these aren’t flimsy tokens either! They have some serious weight and thickness to them (1/8 in. [0.32 cm] to be exact! I even asked Mrs. Daily DM, and she compared it to the weight of most WizKids miniature bases and there’s no comparison. The token thickness and weight are FAR heavier than that of their miniature base counterparts. Of course, there’s reason for that, as the bases are not meant to be the centerpiece of the miniature, but it does mean that tokens are less likely to move if the table is bumped of that makes any sense.

Now on to the terrain box.

This one was a mystery to me on what the inside would look like. I mean, terrain for D&D? But then I thought back to the creature case, and an idea of what to expect began to take shape. And it was almost exactly what I thought it would be.

See for yourself:

A blue case instead of red…

Opening the case, you find, surprise surprise, another folder! Inside THIS folder you find more vinyl stickers, this time for such things as statues, tents, walls, bodies laying on the ground, a bridge, and much more.

Underneath the folder, you find a fold-out glossy double-sided map!

The map, when totally folded out, measures 21 squares (1″ squares) x 25 squares, with a grass side and a dungeon/city street side. And as mentioned before, it’s glossy, so the vinyl stickers work perfectly on it, as does dry-erase markers. I’m not so sure I would trust a wet-erase marker, but still. And it’s pretty thick cardboard stock, which makes it pretty sturdy.

Lifting out the top tray, we get to another great part of this box…

Connectable tiles!

Yup, connectable tiles. For all of those dungeon corridors, as well as a supplement to the larger foldable map.

There are 30 of these tiles, which are also double-sided with grass on one side and stone on the other, each measuring about 5×5 squares.

My opinion? Not worth the original price for what you get in the boxes (retailed for upwards of $60, but now you can get for under $20 usually, with some going as low as $9.99 + taxes and shipping, which is much better and worth the cost. The last I checked, Amazon had it brand new for under $17, which is quite the bargain.

As for the product itself with the new pricing? Absolutely awesome. I especially enjoy the creature box, since there are multiples of those types of creatures that usually come in larger numbers. And it’s even better when you have multiple boxes (I have 3 creature boxes and two terrain boxes!).

Well, that’s all for now, Dear Readers!

Until next time…