Category: Article

Aurbits.com gave us a coupon code valid for December. Just use 
ARTIFICERYBESTDEST at checkout for free domestic shipping!

This article was originally going to be a lengthy Holiday Buyer’s Guide for Destiny, reviewing a bunch of items sent to us from various manufacturers and creators. Well, turns out all that stuff was crap, all of it except for a token set from Aurbits: an established creator new to the Destiny token scene. Instead of bashing all the other items we got to review, I have decided to stay positive for the Holidays and focus on the fantastic product made by Aurbits. Full disclosure: I didn’t pay for any of the review items I received including the Aurbits.

Before I dive into Aurbits, I want to give a shout-out to two items I have reviewed in the past that would make for a great holiday gift for the avid Destiny player: the Destiny Dice Vault ($15.99) and the Pirate Labs Backpack $(119.99). 

The Dice Vault is the best answer to dice storage and organization we have found. The sturdy cardboard boxes hold two custom foam trays that perfectly hold an entire set (or more) of Destiny vice. Once your collection is in the Dice Vaults it is incredibly easy to put together decks and see what dice are checked out. If you are the kind of person who puts all their cards in binders instead of throwing them into a shoe box, then you’ll really appreciate the same level of organization for your dice collection.

The Pirate Labs Backpack’s modular storage means you’ll never accidentally forget a piece of your load-out after a busy day at a tournament or convention. Most of the Crew have had these backpacks for a year now and we’ve hauled them to cons and tournaments all over the country and they still look brand new. The backpack is even roomy enough for me to haul the bulk of our streaming rig in and still have room for deck boxes and play mats. 

The review starts here…

I rant and rave a lot about FFG prize support, and occasionally I ponder what premium prizing would look like. Well the new token set made by Aurbits definitely fits the bill. This is a premium product that checks all the boxes for me. At $40 this is on the high side for Destiny tokens, but the quality and utility is well worth the price tag. Let’s dive in.

Look and Feel 10/10

These tokens look stunning and they feel cool. And by cool I mean literally cool, as the real gold and copper these are made out of tend to be cold to the touch when you pick them up just like you’d expect real metal to be. If J.J. Abrams played Destiny he would use these tokens because he’d get some amazing lens flares off all the light the gold and copper reflects and refracts as you handle the tokens.

The red, black and white portions of the token look enameled and really help the metallic areas pop. After using and handling Aurbits for a couple weeks, other tokens just feel like cheap toys now, and if it was only about looks I’d already be hooked by the Aurbits but…

Playability 9/10

So what, they look bad-ass. Doesn’t matter if they suck at their job of being a token. I have seen a lot of metallic tokens have the metal bits look black when viewed from an opponent’s angle, making the tokens difficult to read. I think this might be due to those metallic tokens being a semi-transparent metallic plastic, with a black backing. Since Aurbits are made from real metal and are completely opaque they don’t suffer the same issue. From many different viewing angles and different lighting conditions the numbers and symbols on the tokens were as easy or easier to read than the cardboard tokens or the other guys’ custom tokens. A real nice touch is the different shading on the reversible damage tokens. It’s enough to have them visually stand out, but not so much to detract from the crisp design they were going for.

My only gripe is the decision to stick with the black and red theme on the shield tokens. The shield shape is enough to easily distinguish them from the damage tokens but I’ve come to expect shields to be blue and it has taken a bit to train my eye to see a different color.

Beyond readability my other big concern was the damage token’s double sided nature. When it comes to local play I used to use the other guys’ double sided token set, and when I traveled or played in larger tournaments I packed along single sided tokens. Why? Because most double sided tokens flip far too easily from a stray dice strike. Not a big deal at a casual game, but at something I’d like a shot at winning the last thing I want to worry about is a dice strike accidentally flipping two extra damage onto a character or,equally as bad, win by cheating an opponent by accidentally flipping away two damage. It stinks because, except for the flipping possibility, using double sided tokens is a lot easier than having to fuss with tokens of different values. Fortunately, the Aurbits don’t flip at all under normal playing circumstances, and are actually quite hard to flip even when you try.

Quality 9/10

A close examination of the tokens shows some slight variations, mostly on the metallic parts of the tokens. It is subtle, and you can only tell it if you’re comparing two tokens side by side close up. It does not detract from the beauty of the tokens, and I sort of expected this from a handmade item that incorporated metal inlays. The edges or cut of the tokens are all nice and sharp and don’t show the variations I’ve come to expect from items like this.

Durability 10/10

The creator says these tokens were made to last, but they probably don’t know how hard nerds throw dice. I dug out a few ol’ BB-8 dice, stood up on a chair, and started throwing them at a few hapless Aurbit tokens I had set on the floor. I managed quite a few good strikes on the damage tokens and thought I had managed to scuff the gold, but a quick wipe of my thumb took out the marks I had made. After some “what the hell” looks from my wife I decided to stop throwing dice at the floor and instead clamped BB-8 into a vice-grip wrench, making the world’s first dice hammer.

Many solid strikes of the dice hammer made some similar scuffs on the tokens, but they were all smoothed away by a simple thumb wipe. Conclusion: nerd proof.

Overall Rating – Just Buy Them Already

If the title of the article didn’t give it away up front, I really like these tokens. I did have one last complaint – the set doesn’t come with a token for overwrite or power action. A workaround I’ve been using is to use the rebel side of the shield token for shielding and the empire side for power actions and overwrites. It works well for now but I hope to see Aurbits put out a set of non-standard tokens in the future.