"Milton Bradley's Battlemasters" Topic

Well since I went on a buying spree over at Ebay I decided to check out.

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Now I got three of these games back in the early 1990's when I spotted them for sale at a toy store. They were selling for $10 USD per game and if the store had more than the three I would have brought them all.

This game was a joint venture between Milton Bradley and GW.

The reason to get this game is that it comes with 100+ fantasy models.

The three games that I got nearly 20 years ago formed the basis of my Empire & Ork & Goblin army. I sold the Chaos models.

So there I was checking out what Ebay had and there was one selling for far less than what it should sell for.

It normally goes for well over a $100 USD on ebay and Amazon is selling it for $330. USD

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So when one is selling for much less that gets my attention. So I put it on my watch list and when the day came I put a bid on it.

It was a modest bid and I then headed off to work. When I got to work and log onto my computer I found out that I won though it did max out my bid of $30. USD

But to get this amount of figures for that and the $13 USD shipping is a steal.

True have to buy bases but that is not a big deal. Plus what I do not use I can sell for almost what I paid for this item.

Though the wife is going to kill me for buying more mini's again.

But I already have my story for this since next months is my 55 birthday plus she is going to get a new car in April.

Nice one, good for you! And good luck with the good lady!

Very good beer and pretzels game too. Easily modifiable if need to be. Figures are first rate.

I have the game myself— would love to have more of the figs, or the expansion sets. Indeed, great fun, and at $30 USD, a pretty good deal these days.

Yeah, very cool box set. I bought 5 or 6 of these back when they were 10 bucks a set. They make up a big part of my Empire, Chaos and Orc armies. I use the mats for Blue Max.

Thanks,

John

I gave a couple sets away a couple months ago. One was in darned good shape, the other had some figs with broken spears and such. They had been sitting unused for too long.

@Parzival, there were expansion sets? I never heard about them. I bought 2 sets for $40 USD cad back when they were still in stores and never regretted it. I still use a lot of the minis in Empire and goblin armies and have played the original game with my kids from time to time.

The figures are a bit smaller than warhammer scale these days and the plastic figures, while good and fit for purpose, are not as detailed as modern warhammer plastics plus they are 'all in one piece' figures, you don't assemble them.
having said that my Empire army is mostly battle master figures and I'm happy with them. When I add a metal figure as the captain to the units they look suitably heroic against the rest of the unit :-)

Yep, they were on sale at Toys R Us, way back then. Have a bunch of the figures somewhere. And don't fergit the castle/tower that came with it :)

Mithmee, I did the same thing. I still have a couple of shrinkwrapped boxes in the shed. Had no idea they were going for that. Wow, the kids would probably hock them in a minute if they knew about it.

Any one know where I can get the playing matt/rule book and the plastic trays and suc? I have the miniatures and the counters but missing the above items.

I have spare trays and I think the other stuff. The trays from my second set never had the stickers stuck to them and I think the sheet with them is still here too. I'd be willing to dig things out and see what I could spare for you. Send me an e-mail to vsadneek at hotmail dot com if you're interested.

Warlord,

I can send you the trays and rulebook if it comes with one.

To me those things would only end up in the recycle bin as I want the mini's.

Battlemasters was a great game! One of the first wargames I ever played. I have one complete set and some extra components I bought to try and make an expansion for the game. The plan is/was to make some dwarf units, elf units and undead units If nothing else, it will probably be the way I introduce my son to gaming.

The expansion sets were limited; I found out about them much, much later, long after the game was OOP. My guess is that BoardGameGeek probably lists them.

The rules are free as a PDF download direct from Hasbro. Just go to their site, click on Customer Service, and look for the Rules directory (can't recall the exact process off the top of my head, but it's not hard to find.)

Yup very limited and only two of them.

One for Chaos and the other for Imperial. Both provided around 25 models.

Though I think that getting the main set is better.

There are a couple of sets on ebay now for $20 USD-$40.

Always need to check the shipping cost as well.

That very first one has a opening bid of $39.99 USD but also has a shipping cost of $35.00 USD

But compared to GW's price of today for just one Finecast Resin model.

Getting 100 models for $75 USD is still good.

I looked up the expansion sets on BGG. It seems they were simply additional models from the base set, not anything new. The only difference was they each allowed for a single "hero" fig (simply one of the "big" knights for each side) that could roll 5 dice on its own, but could only take 1 hit. They moved whenever their "parent" unit's image appeared, so no knew cards were added. Not much of an expansion, really, and only available in the UK anyway. But it would be easy to replace them in the game with any hero figure you wanted and treat it the same way.

I was still painting minis with enamels when it came out. I should post some pics of that stuff.

I have never bought a complete set from eBay, but I have often found groups of figures going very cheaply.

Most of my small but growing Empire army is made up of them:

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I always keep an eye out for the figures!

Well after thinking that I was going to end up getting scamed (I had not received it yet and had to contact the seller).

It arrived last night. So this make a perfect Birthday gift from the wife (my birthday is in two weeks).

Everything appears to be there and the mini's are still on the sprues.

I also forgot just now big of box it is.

Now need to part it out and get parted out in what I will sell off and get the mini's with their respected armies.

My wife made a great buy.

Holy crap--they go for that much on eBay??? I have one in excellent condition (original purchase) that I was going to break out this summer and play with my now 8-year-old son.

Maybe dad will just keep it in the box awhile longer. There is his college education to pay for, after all… ;-}P~

Oh, play with it. It's a ton of fun with kids.

I still have parts, but at some point made a Warmaster version, which I played on a Battle Cry board. That was fun, too. But sometimes I wish I'd kept it together.

andy

My impression is that Heroscape is a descendent of this game.