StarCraft TMG – Two Player Starter Set Founders Edition

We got our hands on Archon Studio's StarCraft: Tabletop Miniatures Game, specifically the Two Player Starter Set and the Protoss Starter Set, both in their Founders Edition. This is going to be a two-part unboxing, so before we get into sprues and box contents, let's set the stage: what the Gamefound campaign actually was, what StarCraft brings to the table as an IP, how the three factions differ, and what separates the Founders Edition from the sets that'll eventually sit on store shelves.

The Two Player Starter Set pits Terran against Zerg, while the standalone Protoss Starter Set lets us bring the third faction into the mix, which is exactly why we picked up both for these unboxing reviews (thanks to Celebration Parallax for providing them). Buying both bundled together via Gamefound came out to roughly 255 EUR, cheaper than picking them up separately at 175 EUR for the Two Player Set and 95 EUR for the Protoss Set. The RRP now after release is 199 EUR and 109 EUR for these boxes respectively. We'll cover the contents of both sets, this one below, and the Protoss set in the second part of this unboxing.

The Gamefound Campaign

Unlike some other product ranges, StarCraft: TMG didn't launch through a traditional crowdfunding campaign with stretch goals and years of waiting. Archon Studio, the Polish plastic specialists behind Dungeons & Lasers and the manufacturing partner behind Squidmar's Strakh dragon model, had already partnered with Blizzard Entertainment in March 2025 and were manufacturing the game straight for retail. What ran on Gamefound was a time-limited, direct-to-consumer preorder phase: from launch through mid-April 2026, fans could lock in the Two Player Starter Set and the Protoss Starter Set at a steep discount before the game moved into normal hobby retail and distributor channels. Archon has been upfront that this Founders phase was a one-time thing meant to build an early community around the game, not a recurring model, once that preorder window closed, these specific bundles were gone for good. Nevertheless, that promise was a bit oversold, as the regular range covers boxed sets with similar savings and without the waiting time of the Gamefound campaign.

What Is StarCraft, Anyway?

For anyone who spent the late 90s and 2000s more focused on painting than PC gaming: StarCraft is Blizzard's genre-defining real-time strategy series, built around three wildly asymmetric factions that somehow still stay balanced against each other, a big part of why the game became (and still is) an esports institution. Archon Studio's tabletop adaptation translates that into 32mm-scale skirmish combat, roughly 1,000 to 2,000 point games played in 60 to 120 minutes, aiming to capture StarCraft's tactical identity without needing the reflexes of a professional RTS player.

The Three Factions

• Terran: Humanity's expeditionary forces, built around flexible infantry and vehicles. Marines, Medics, and Marauders form the backbone, adaptable rather than flashy, closest to a "generalist" faction.
• Protoss: A small number of elite, technologically and psionically advanced warriors. Individually powerful units like Zealots and Sentries, at the cost of fielding far fewer bodies than the other two factions.
• Zerg: An overwhelming biological swarm led by heroes like Kerrigan. Cheap, expendable units in huge numbers, Zerglings and Roaches, designed to win through weight of attacks rather than individual unit quality.

Founders Edition vs. What Comes Next

Here it's worth being precise, because "Founders Edition" is easy to misread as an upgraded or content-different version of a "real" retail box, and that doesn't quite match what Archon has actually said. By their own account, the Founders Edition was a one-time, direct-to-consumer preorder phase, not a separate product line. The Two Player Starter Set launched at roughly 175 EUR and the Protoss Starter Set at roughly 95 EUR during that window; the same box codes have since shown up at retailers at a higher MSRP (around 199 EUR and 109 EUR respectively), same contents, same heroes, and depending on the store, with a discount of up to 20%. So as far as we can tell, Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis aren't exclusive to these two Founders boxes specifically, they're the standard contents of these starter sets, discounted or not, and can be picked up as boxed sets of their own.

What Archon has separately announced is a broader lineup of "evergreen" retail SKUs as part of a planned ten-year, 40-SKUs-per-faction pipeline, smaller, ongoing releases meant to keep the line available in stores long after this launch window closes. So far, only the specific combination of items in the Founders Set is exclusive, since none of the individual contents are exclusive to the Gamefound campaign and can be picked up separately. The one genuinely exclusive miniature we found is the Zeratul promo model, an alternate sculpt sold as a standalone, limited convention and online release rather than as part of either starter set.

What's in the Box?

The Two Player Starter Set is filled to the brim with sprues. It's genuinely heavy, and the haptic feedback alone sends out serious Christmas-morning vibes. If you're new to wargaming or just getting into this rule set, holding the box alone will get you hyped.

The sprues are color coded and we will give them a closer look further below. The injection-molded plastic is kept separate from the rest of the contents by the cloth playmat, protecting one from the other. You'll recognize this approach from many recent Warhammer boxes, which use a cardboard sheet between the plastic sprues and the printed materials.

In detail this is included in this box:

1x Cloth Playmat (54″ × 36″ / 137 × 91 cm)
12x Marine miniatures
2x Marauder miniatures
3x Medic miniatures
1x Jim Raynor miniature
1x Point Defense Drone Miniature
24x Zergling miniatures
1x Kerrigan Miniature
3x Roach miniatures
1x Queen miniature
1x Omega Worm miniature
15x Terrain Pieces
43x 32mm Bases
5x 50mm Bases
2x 80mm Bases
48x Cards
1x Rules Reference
1x Assembly Manual
1x Ruler
20x D6 Dice
60x Tokens

You'll notice there's no rulebook in here, just a rules reference sheet; the other printed booklet is the assembly instructions. You can download the rules for StarCraft TMG for free from their website.

The assembly instructions are easy to follow, with a clear, detailed overview of the parts before you start building. The layout and design are very similar to recent Games Workshop instructions. If you had no trouble assembling something like the Warhammer 40,000 Leviathan boxed set, you won't have any issues here either.

The multipart kits repurpose the same body for multiple poses, so the instructions include an overview of which options each pose comes with. The same goes for both the Terrans and the Zerg.

While you don't get a physical rulebook, you get everything else you need to get started, right down to a cloth playmat, multiple card decks (unit, tactical, faction, mission, and deployment cards), and a full set of dice.

StarCraft TMG uses round bases in different sizes for the different units. They're similar to the beveled round bases you know from other games, but have one interesting added feature: they come with a magnet mount right from the start. That said, I'd have liked larger or multiple magnets on the 80mm and bigger bases, just to make sure those bigger models stay put when they shouldn't be moving.

Each faction comes with a printed cardboard sheet of tokens and markers. It includes Mission Markers (numbered and color coded from 1 to 5), Activation Markers, Faction Indicators, First Player Markers, Buff/Debuff Markers, as well as the L-shaped Zone of Influence Markers.

Terrain Set

A major part of the Two-Player Set is the included terrain, and that doesn't stop at the cloth mat, you also get hard plastic terrain pieces. In this case it's the Lost Temple terrain set, with an RRP of 45 EUR. It consists of walls and scatter terrain, six sprues in total: two copies each of sprues 913 and 916, plus one copy each of 914 and 915.

Sprue 913 x2

Sprue 914

Sprue 915

Sprue 916 x2

Terrans

The 1,000 Mineral Force of the Terrans covers 19 miniatures across six different blue sprues, along with four clear sprues in green and red for effects and special parts on the miniatures.

Jim Raynor and Point Defense Drone (RRP 35 EUR)

3 Terran Medics (RRP 25 EUR)

12 Terran Marines (1.3x boxes of RRP 45 EUR = 60 EUR), 2 sets of the blue sprues shown below, one set of the clear red one.

2 Marauder miniatures (half a box, RRP 45 EUR)

Zerg

The Zerg cover a 1,000 Mineral Force as well, but come with a lot more miniatures, 30 in total. Those are spread across nine different purple sprues, along with three clear sprues in green and pink for effects and detailed parts across the models.

Kerrigan and Omega Worm (RRP 45 EUR)

24 Zergling miniatures (1.5x boxes of RRP 45 EUR = 67.50 EUR), 4 sets of the purple sprues, and one of the clear pink one.

3x Roach miniatures (RRP 45 EUR)

1x Queen miniature (RRP 29 EUR)

Conclusion

Before wrapping up, it's worth addressing the elephant in the room: this launch hasn't been entirely smooth. Preorder shipments were originally promised for late May, and by the time this two-part review went up, plenty of backers were still waiting well beyond that window. That delay alone might have blown over as a normal growing pain for a new manufacturer, but things got messier at AdeptiCon 2026, where Archon sold out of 500 Founders Edition copies, worth close to 100,000 USD, in a matter of days, straight to convention attendees. On paper that's a nice success story, but for backers who'd paid months earlier and were still waiting on tracking numbers, watching walk-up buyers leave the con with a copy in hand didn't sit well. Paying first apparently didn't guarantee getting your box first, a complaint that echoes exactly the kind of fulfillment fairness issues crowdfunding veterans have seen before.

None of this erases what's actually inside these boxes, which we've shown you above, but it's context worth keeping in mind if you're deciding whether to jump in during a future wave. The miniatures and rules are there, but the launch logistics still have some rough edges to smooth out, especially with a second wave already announced before everyone's received their first wave orders.

At an RRP of 199 EUR for the Two Player Starter Set, the savings are solid. The armies themselves already add up to more than 300 EUR (142.50 EUR RRP for the Terrans and 186.50 EUR RRP for the Zerg), not counting the terrain set at 45 EUR. And since you can pick up this set with further discounts online, the potential savings only increase from there. That said, these "steep" savings aren't really exclusive to the Founders Edition either, the regular starter boxes offer a discount in a similar range, and since no item from either of these two reviewed boxes is exclusive or limited, we don't see much reason for FOMO.

That pricing lines up closely with Games Workshop's. The Two Player Starter Set stacks up well against the 200 EUR Armageddon starter set: two solid armies and a good amount of terrain. The main difference is that Games Workshop adds a printed rulebook and snap-fit miniatures, whereas Archon uses regular multipart models and goes for a digital-first approach to the rules. I don't mind that when it comes to the rules, but the lore and worldbuilding are something that comes up a bit short. You need to look up third-party sources to get a feel for the world of StarCraft, and I think showing some painted miniatures, with alt-color schemes and such, would help boost the immersion and creativity.

Casting quality is solid. There's no flash on the sprues, only a small amount of mold lines, and the details are crisp. They've used the space on the sprues efficiently, nothing's wasted here, and the majority of units offer some kind of variation or options, like alternate poses or different armaments. Overall, production quality is excellent, this is a proper contender against other product ranges on the market. The only issue I see, with only three factions (yes, I'm aware there are subfactions) and a relatively limited amount of lore, is whether the StarCraft IP has enough material to sustain a proper product life cycle of three to five years, enough for the game to build up a community and keep pushing out new content for players to stick around for. Archon's plan of 120 SKUs over ten years breaks down to roughly 12 releases a year across the whole line, about one a month, or 4 SKUs per faction annually. With generic gaming items like terrain also counted in that total, staying visible on shelves will likely be a challenge.

While I really like the clear sprues in this set, which give the potential for some really cool effects, this is something worth flagging for newer hobbyists. They need more delicate handling when it comes into contact with glue, to avoid smudges or fogging (super glue can leave a white residue while drying), and they need some kind of masking when you prime them with a rattle can.

I haven't had the chance to play the game itself, but there are gameplay videos online from Archon Studio themselves. One unique part of the game is that it tries to recreate the real-time strategy feel of StarCraft, not just through what they call reaction-based gameplay, but through the strong rock-paper-scissors dynamics baked into the video game. For example, units are brought into play from reserves, almost as if they were being recruited at the barracks. This reads to me like the game is focused on building a competitive community, which would not only target an important part of community building but also translate a key brand element from PC to tabletop.

StarCraft TMG is a game by Blizzard Entertainment and Archon Studio.

The reviewed product item was bought from Radaddel.