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We have seen many changes in recent Battleforces and Batallions. The prices have also gone up, but only by 5 euros, and that's not in every of them.
But to the real question, what is your favourite (GW) Battleforce or Batallion? Or at least what would be your favourite?
And what is your least favourite Battleforce/Batallion? Or what would be your least favourite?

For my favourite, I gotta say the new Lizardmen Batallion.
Haven't got it yet, but it has some pretty nice models which actually do something.
For the least favourite of mine would be the new incoming Tyranid Battleforce or the High Elf Batallion.

My Personal favorate is the tau battleforce, for it gives a very large selection. 1 HQ, 2 troops, a transport and a elite unit. Nothing says complete like the tau battlebox

My least favorate would have to be new IG one.. it's rather lacking now that they removed the tank from it ):

Favorite: Empire Reinforcements Battalion had new helblaster, 20 flagellents, plastic wizards, and 20(?) state troops.

Least Favorite: Dark Eldar Battleforce. WTF, 20 warriors but only a transport for half of them?

The best battleforces/battallions IMO are ones which give the foundations of a new army or make up a complete unit.

Vampire Counts is pretty good in this respect, as are Imperial Guard ones (tanks should come after core troops) and the new Tyranid battle force. The Ravenwing battle force is particularly solid as it provides all the components of the Ravenwing entry in the Codex.

Bad battleforces/battallions are any Warhammer ones which still have 16 infantry or 8 cavalry in them (highly irritating!) or 40K ones with incomplete units. A measley 5 Dire Avengers in the Eldar battle force?!

My only real experience is with 40k, so I'll limit it just to battleforces.

Best: Tau or Necrons. The Tau box is a really good deal and is full of units you'll actually use. If memory serves, the 'cron Battleforce is something like 800 points, and you'll really never need to buy any troops after buying it.

Worst: Probably Orks. A horde army with 23 models and a transport for 90 bucks? Really?

The Dark Eldar Battleforce is a joke, too. It comes with crappy plastic trees instead of more models. 'Nuff said.

I'd agree with Necron force being good value like. Just worked it out there, (iirc destroyers are 50pts a pop) then you get 738 in the box. Add yourself a Lord and you're pretty much set for a 1000 point battle.

Assuming you don't kill yourself after painting the warriors

Worst, probably dark eldar or orks. Why'd you put trees in a battleforce? Swap the trees for a raider... or something!

I am currently very much liking the Ork megaforce for £100, you get 40 boys, 5 lootas/burnas (or 35 boys and 5 lootas AND 5 burnas), 9 warbikes and a trukk!

Just add a warboss/black reach set and you've got yourself a damn good army! Even with only spending ~£5 for a black reach boss on ebay thats still a sizeable army.

Not that I'll be able to afford one/convince anyone I know to buy it for me... (damn university lack-of-fundedness)

skrulnik wrote:Least Favorite: Dark Eldar Battleforce. WTF, 20 warriors but only a transport for half of them?

Unlike all the other battleforces, that come with enough transports for all the infantry?

Leigen_Zero wrote:I am currently very much liking the Ork megaforce for £100, you get 40 boys, 5 lootas/burnas (or 35 boys and 5 lootas AND 5 burnas), 9 warbikes and a trukk!

Just add a warboss/black reach set and you've got yourself a damn good army! Even with only spending ~£5 for a black reach boss on ebay thats still a sizeable army.

Not that I'll be able to afford one/convince anyone I know to buy it for me... (damn university lack-of-fundedness)

I actually strongly disagree with you. While it is nice box, it has only one Trukk, 9 Warbikes (9 warbikes too much, rather have a Battlewagon and second Loota/Burna box and maybe Nobz/more Boyz here) and only one box of Loota/Burna! And while it can be made into 4 Lootas and 4 Burnas it is just too small amount to use. If you have a existing box already, well that's a different story...


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And also honourable mention to the Flashmans said Eldar Battleforce. 5 Dire Avengers so you have to buy another box, Guardians which suck (thank god that they at least got a support weapon with them). Otherwise the Battleforce is nice (ie. Wave Serpent and War Walker)

Your conversation ties in nicely with the Battle Brothers tournament being held at Warhammer World next February.

Each player's force consists of whatever you can build from one battleforce/battalion box. No points limit, conversions allowed (though the bits have to come from the box) and only one character.

Do I sense lots of Necrons in this tournament?

endtransmission wrote:Your conversation ties in nicely with the Battle Brothers tournament being held at Warhammer World next February.

Each player's force consists of whatever you can build from one battleforce/battalion box. No points limit, conversions allowed (though the bits have to come from the box) and only one character.

Do I sense lots of Necrons in this tournament?

I dunno, Orks can probably get two pie-plates in there with some creative modeling.

On the good side - SM, Necrons, IG, VC, Ogres, Empire

endtransmission wrote:Your conversation ties in nicely with the Battle Brothers tournament being held at Warhammer World next February.

Each player's force consists of whatever you can build from one battleforce/battalion box. No points limit, conversions allowed (though the bits have to come from the box) and only one character.

Do I sense lots of Necrons in this tournament?

I just feel bad for Eldar. You can't convert anything and still have enough models for a legal army.


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And I'm sure GW won't be courteous enough to spare a base to anyone that wants to maybe convert a pilot into a guardian.

I've only bought two battleforces. As its been mentioned, the IG force gives you enough to satisfy your FOC obligations if you field the two squads as vets or penal squads, and the command squad as a CCS. The sentinel and Heavy weapons are nice, but I think most players would gladly swap both for a Leman Russ, Bassilisk or at least a hellhound.

I've got the Space Marine Battleforce as well. I was disapointed that it didn't come with an HQ choice, although its not a huge deal, since SM players can always pick up the $17 plastic commander. I didn't realze that earlier however, so I kitbashed together a Chapter Master, and was still left with a substantial bitz box. The rhino isn't my favorite, but that's just my playstyle. I would have preferred a drop pod, or the commander kit and a second full Tactical Squad instead of the five man combat squad.

I like the way the Tau Kit looks, for reasons described above. Although I'm not a kroot fan, so I'm sort of turned off to it. I plan on doing Tau as my next army though, so maybey...

One I haven't seen mentioned so far is the Space Wolves Battle force. It looks really nice. Two troops Choices, an Elites Choice and the only SM Dedicated Transport I really like. Pick up the plastic commander or one of the SW characters and you're good to go. If I could do it all again, I probably would have gone with this over the vanilla SM battleforce.

Favorite: SM Battleforce, because I actually bought one.

Least favorite? dunno.

lord_blackfang wrote:

skrulnik wrote:Least Favorite: Dark Eldar Battleforce. WTF, 20 warriors but only a transport for half of them?

Unlike all the other battleforces, that come with enough transports for all the infantry?

Considering how useful a unit of Foot DE are when the rest is in a transport or bikes, it is a bad choice.
Better to have just put in 10 infantry and more bikes.

The Ork box is pretty hopeless. The bikes seem to be in there to pad it out a bit, little plastic taking up most of the value in the box. What you really need is lot more orks. Get rid of the bikes and bung a few more sprues of boyz in.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The Ork box is pretty hopeless. The bikes seem to be in there to pad it out a bit, little plastic taking up most of the value in the box. What you really need is lot more orks. Get rid of the bikes and bung a few more sprues of boyz in.

This I completely agree with. another 10 boyz at least. a 10 boy mob doesn't live without a trukk.

That would give you 2 Trukkboy units plus a couple 20 shootaboyz units.

Would be even better to get an extra 20 boyz.

I just wish the bikes were cheaper outside of the battleforce. Weren't they $30 when they were released?

I like the new Space Wolves battleforce

I was ok, but not overly thrilled with the SW battleforce all by itself, but when combined with 1 or 2 SM battleforces, it all works out - you get plenty of troops, some transports, all the extra bitz to convert all the SM stuff across, as well as a variety of troops. But thats more the Wolf Pack sprue, rather than anything actually good about it.

The Eldar force leaves me distinctly unimpressed as well. 10 Dire Avengers would have been worth it.

As for that which I do like? The Ravenwing boxed set is really nice! Plus, get rid of the iconography, and you have a damned nice kit for any SM army.

The IG battleforce is a nice supplement for inf squads, but that's about it IMO. The lack of a transport (even if it is just for 10 guys) is rather discerning. But what can I say, I've bought two and plan on two more.

The CSM battleforce seems alrite enough, altough I don't understand eight zerkers...eight.... And possessed, really? I'd like to see em drop the extra five marines and the possessed, and throw in two more zerkers and a Lord.

Oh, and the Tau battleforce is pretty B.A.

Favorite = Tau Battle Force

least favorite = Space Marine Battle Force
Not that there is anything wrong with it , but it just pales in comparison to AOBR

Other than that , i dislike the new IG battle force for GW to have the audacity to raise the price.

CrashUSAR wrote:
The CSM battleforce seems alrite enough, altough I don't understand eight zerkers...eight.... And possessed, really? I'd like to see em drop the extra five marines and the possessed, and throw in two more zerkers and a Lord.

A cursory glance through the CSM codex will tell you that 8 is the number of Khorne, and that gameplay wise, running 8 model units does net a benefit gameplay wise. Don't ask me for the specifics as I'm not a CSM player (not yet, anyway ) and don't remember exactly what the bonus you get is. But there is a rules reason for it.

Commander Endova wrote:

CrashUSAR wrote:
The CSM battleforce seems alrite enough, altough I don't understand eight zerkers...eight.... And possessed, really? I'd like to see em drop the extra five marines and the possessed, and throw in two more zerkers and a Lord.

A cursory glance through the CSM codex will tell you that 8 is the number of Khorne, and that gameplay wise, running 8 model units does net a benefit gameplay wise. Don't ask me for the specifics as I'm not a CSM player (not yet, anyway ) and don't remember exactly what the bonus you get is. But there is a rules reason for it.

This used to be the case with the previous codex IIRC but not sure whether it still applies following on from the homogenisation of CSM in the current codex (I'm a Death Guard player anyway). My guess is the battleforce was put together some time ago and hasnt been updated since.

Suprisingly, the Tyranid battleforce is my least favourite. Something about all Troops just doesn't really make me want to by something.

I'm just mad that the IG one doesn't have a Russ anymore, and now the 'Nid box doesn't have a Carnifex.

Bretonnian Battleforce comes with one Pegasus Knight.

And the Army Book clearly says Pegasus Knight units have a minimum of three models...

I like the current Guard battle forces, they give you either a legal starter army or a platoon with enough heavy and support weapons to do some real damage.

The reason for 8 zerker models in a CSM army? The sprue comes in lots of 4. 2 sprues = 8 zerkers.

lords2001 wrote:The reason for 8 zerker models in a CSM army? The sprue comes in lots of 4. 2 sprues = 8 zerkers.

Not to mention 8 is the holy number of Khorne...