Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery! Components Overview and Thoughts

Back at GenCon 2023, my friend and I stumbled across the Monster Fight Club booth and got a cool demo of Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery. The game had a phenomenal table presence, and as someone who LOVES Borderlands, it seemed like the kind of game I would want to play. We recently got a review copy into the office for this one, and had it unboxed! Let’s check out the components!

There is a lot of stuff in this Borderlands game, and for good reason. This is a scenario based game where you are encouraged to play each scenario in order, collecting and carrying forward loot and other things. It is Borderlands, after all, so there is going to be loot. Tons and tons and tons of loot!

This game is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of production quality, but I will say that isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you think about the cost of purchasing this game. The cardboard is phenomenal – it punches really nicely, and since all of terrain tiles are cardboard and will be used often, it’s nice to see how good this production is.

I’m generally not a huge fan of pulling cardboard chits from a bag (bag builders like Quacks for example) but it doesn’t feel to terrible here. You aren’t pulling little cardboard loot tiles out of the bag that often, so I think the use of cardboard here is more than adequate.

The card quality is perfectly fine. It’s not the best card quality I’ve ever seen, and it’s not the worst. This is a game I could see myself sleeving as I play through the 10+ scenarios included in the box, though, and you might want to as well. I don’t think it’s a requirement, but if you plan to really put this game through it’s paces, it might be something you should think about.

I love the dice included in the game – the vary in size (D6, D8, etc) and color, but are nice to hold and roll, and look great as well. Honestly, they are just dice – hard to go wrong here.

I feel like you can tell I’m building towards something that I’m not crazy about, and you would be correct. Honestly, Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery is not a miniatures game in the sense that you will paint these things and have your game board looking pristine to those passing by. This isn’t that type of game, and to that end, the miniature quality isn’t quite up to snuff for that type of game either.

I’m of two minds here – the miniatures in this game are great, and are definitely better than using cardboard tokens, which could have been an option. But don’t go in expecting them to be very detailed miniatures.

They are bendy / soft plastic miniatures with minimal details. The features on the face and torso sort of blend together, almost like looking at a standard definition pictures as opposed to an HD picture. I think a small subsection of folks will be disappointed that they don’t look better, but in my opinion they fit the price of the game and the type of game it is.

Again, this is NOT a miniatures game. This isn’t Star Wars: Shatterpoint , or even something like Descent: Legends of the Dark . This is a board game first and foremost, so you cannot expect the same miniatures quality. If you were expecting it, your price point would probably have doubled just to get this game to the table.

So are the miniature quality disappointing? Sure. Do I think it makes sense for this game and price point? Absolutely. The miniatures are cool, and definitely give the game a much better table presence, and ultimately, a better gameplay feel as well. Just temper your expectations going in so you are not disappointed!