If anyone was worrying that the Devastators would be a rehash of the metal parts in plastic with four mismatched metal heavy weapons troopers; dont worry. The new Devastator boxset has a lot to offer, even if the price is not exactly right.

You get a sergeant with parts to show him directing fire and wearing communications gear (such as helmet antenna).

You get four ordinary 'tactical' trooper bbodies and eight heavy weapons. I call them tacticals because the heavy weapons have their own arms packs etc and are enough that you can add all eight to any tactical marines you want. Thus you get a lot more than is offered on the box.

Heavy weapons breakdown is reasonable:

two lascannon

two heavy bolters

two plasma cannon (why! - Dark Angels like them I suppose).

one missile launcher

and one multi-melta.

A couple of boxes should be enough to outfit any marine army, minimaxers might be unhappy that you dont get all lascannon, but this is not at least a terminator-box-with-one-assault-cannon ommission.

$45?????????

What moron is steering this ship?

And let me guess, as soon as these hit the shelves, all of the metal weapons in blisters disappear, right?

Posted By Orlanth on 02/06/2007 2:25 PM

 

one missile launcher

Posted By Mahu on 02/07/2007 7:34 AM
O.K., lets see how much we really are getting the shaft.

I will use my friends former Ultramarines shooty army as an example, he had a core of 4 6-man Las/Plas Squads and 2 6-man Devestator Squads (3 Missle Launchers and 3 Heavy Bolters)

Now, I won't count the Missle Launchers as they come in Tactical Boxes. In order for him to equip his army, he needs to buy 4 Lascannons and 3 Heavy Bolter Bilsters, at 10.00 a pop he is spending 70.00 dollars minimum. In the plastics, he would have to buy two devestator sets netting him 90.00 dollars. So for him to build the list he wants, the cost of his army went up 20.00 dollars, however, he would still have one heavy bolters, two plasma cannons ,and one multi-melta.

So even though he is spending more, he is getting more, though it can be argued that spending money on uneccesary items is unfair, but what do you expect from a sprue of heavy weapons, somebody isn't getting the absolute efficient money to heavy weapons ratio.

Let's look at some numbers, these are the prices for the current metal heavy weapons (if you where to bits order the part):

Lascannon = 7.00 Dollars (10.00 in a Blister)

Heavy Bolter = 7.00 Dollars (10.00 in a Blister)

Plasma Cannon = 7.00 Dollars (10.00 in a Blister)

Multi-Melta = 7.00 Dollars (10.00 in a Blister)

So to get the contents in metal (excluding the missle launcher) you are spending 49.00 Dollars, 70.00 if you buy them all in blisters. And you still need to find a Missle Launcher!

You can safely say that this is the first time that Plastic from Games Workshop has actually net you a savings.

Though I do bemoan the loss of Blisters. I believe that that is most definately a stupid idea.

Yeah the dev squad box is actually an ok deal (well in the current OOT pricing scheme that GW has). The problem isn't the box itself but the eventual removal of the heavy weapon blisters. That dev box is only a decent deal if you're just creating a marine army and need a shed load of heavies. But what if your Joe shmo veteran player that just needs one heavy weapon? He's probably SOL unless he's got friends with extra bits (or he's willing to brave the interent bits trade).

It's similair to how they handled terminators.  before the new plastics, one had no problem buying individual terminators with a setup of choice.  Then came the plastic terminators and you no longer had that option.  You had to either buy a whole fricken box or an overpriced sprue with stuff you didn't need.

I for one am happy with the Devastators. Sadly I didnt get to see the sprues, just the assembled devs, I got the weapons breakdown from the blueshirt - but as it was the blueshirt that assembled the box it should be accurate.

All the Devs get a good chunky ammo backpack ammo feeds etc. The packs are slightly bigger, but as they are plastic they wont have the top heavy problems. The plasma cannon was in two pieces, so it had a hollow barrel.

Even allowing for the hamfisted modelling and painting skills of our stores local blueshirts (chimps could do better) I am fairly impressed with the miniatures. Yes I will be buying a box.

The way I look at it:

Two tactical boxset plus one Devastator boxset yields:

One Dev squad with Devastator sgt, three missile launchers and two tacticals.
Two Tactical squads with lascannon, plasma gun and four tacticals
Two Tactical squads with Tactical sergeant, heavy bolter, flamer, and three tacticals

Add a second Devastator boxset:

One Dev squad with Devastator sgt, three missile launchers and two tacticals.
One Dev squad with Devastator sgt, three heavy bolters and two tacticals.
Two Tactical squads with lascannon, plasma gun and four tacticals
Two Tactical squads with Tactical sergeant, lascannon, and four tacticals

What is short here is the plasma, not the heavy weapons.

Posted By Mahu on 02/07/2007 10:25 AM
Current versus new devestators is a price drop no matter how you look at it.

Posted By mauleed on 02/07/2007 4:47 AM
And let me guess, as soon as these hit the shelves, all of the metal weapons in blisters disappear, right?

Mahu, you're so bad at math, you don't even see it.

First hint: your calculations include a reasonable person buying a multimelta devestator. Obviously all of your calculations go out the window after that.