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There is nothing extra that we have not seen yet. However the miniatures are better than I could hope for.

The dreadnought: The only 'downside' is that the engine block is part of the rear torso. Thus the exhausts are moulded into the chassis and are cut down so that they do not protrude above the top of the torso. Other than that the casting is near prefect replication of the plastic dread boxset. The multi melta and storm bolter need drilling, the front of the storm bolter especially would look too wide without.
From what I can gather you could swap the weapon arms with those on the plastic boxset, but I cannot confirm this as the dread I saw was glued.
UPDATE: Yes the arms are interchangable, however they are also single piece at the 'shoulder' that is to say the shoulder block is a hollow piece with no backing to it and so needs to be fitted closely to the torso or filled.

The Marine Captain: He looked good on BoLS, he looks even better in the plastic. Very good detailing, decent pose a few skullz but not as many as usual. Two on the sword, one on a kneepad, one on the pack and one on the banner, Moat are easily removable.

The Termies: No heavy weapons. The idea being that a heavy weapon would make initial games too unfair, also it is for easy swapout for existing two heavy weapon termie squads. You build up your five termies as is, and swap out with your two assault cannon squad to make two squads for the new codex. Each termie has a moulded on shoulder shield, similar to Grey Knights.

Marines: I didnt see them up close.

Ork Warboss: The cream of the crop. This miniture has a fantastic presence and pose, renders the £10 metal warboss blister obsolete. Very nice and consistent detail all over you would be forgiven for not believing this is an intro box clip together model. The model has two shotguns in his backpack, a cyber klaw with individual blades which is hardwired into the orks arm. Flowing hair etc.

Ork Nobz: I was not sure, but now I love them. They are significantly larger than the boyz and are also identifiable for their drum magazine sluggas. You can have these orks next to other ork units without having to coloutr code them to tell them apart. You just know. Excellent face details. While nobz are subpar you will likely want to find excuses to take the models, if only to klaw them up and have a greater varienty of nobz to lead your mobz. The chainaxes they carry put khorne berserkers to shame, loot em back chaos boyz!

Ork Boyz: You will need to do a bit of filing before assembly to prevent unsightly gaps. the orks are very plain, and have no unit nobz. The plainness of the unit is no disadvantage as it draws the eye to the unit as a whole, and beyondf that the army with its characters. Less is more. Detail is still great up close, but nothing in your face and chunky, except the ork himself of course.

Deffcoptas: They didn't look much on boLS, but these do look good. Very chunky and covered in ballsy detail. Be warned if you buy BlackReach for marines, I expect you will be statrting an ork army as soon as you see these things. they are that good. Each ork pilot has a different expression of crazy, the main body of the copta is in two pieces cunningly double sided so there is depth of detail, expect to see lots of plating piping and wires, and plenty of rokkits up front. Frankly they dont really look like they should fly very well were it not for the pose. The holes for the stands are not vetically aligned, so the coptas look like they are veering in all directions, that plus the expressions of the ork and the4 detailing gives an impossible 'speed' image even for something akin to an iron brick with rotors.

UPDATE:
Rulebook. The mini rulebook does have all the scenarios included in it, sop nothing playwise is missing from the cut down book. There is also a stat summary at the back for all current weapons and units, Inquisition units are listed on one page (Codex).

Black Reach book. Unlike Macragge this does not include a cut down rule system and scenario pack. GW expects kiddies to play the full rules properly from the outset, though perhaps ignoring rules that do not apply to the units concerned. Emphasis is given to terrain, victory conditions, basic tactics and expeanding your armies from the Black Reach boxset. The Black Rech book directly informs you that the forces included in the box are not balanced for normal play, the marine force being worth approx 100pts more.

Extras. You get a bag with 6d6 and a scatrer dice, two red range whipsticks and a green transparent template sprue. The templates are hard plastic.

Sprues. There are four or five plug in scenic pieces designed to fit on the bases, each piece has a plug so it can fit in a hole in a large base, or can be cut and placed on a small base. The scenic pieces are skulls and piles of spent bolter cases. One skull has a bullet hole right through it, which is a neat touch.

Verdict: I give this 9/10 for the marines, 10/10 for the orks no question. Remember in this that I am a hardened grognard who does not praise GW too readily.

Great write up and review. I will definitely be picking a box or two up of this set.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

It's a shame the box is overrpriced like all GW products.

I'll be picking up 2 of the ork side from warstore later.

General Hobbs wrote:
It's a shame the box is overrpriced like all GW products.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

If you're not:

2 HQs
2 Elites
2 Troops
2 Vehicle/Vehicle Squads
Rulebook
Dice/templates/etc.

for $60USD is an EXCELLENT price (esp. considering the level of detail and work that went in to producing these minis). I suppose they could make it cheaper by outsourcing the design and manufacturing jobs to some thirdworld s**thole and paying the workers a pittance, thereby making the Walmart crowd all warm and fuzzy...

General Hobbs wrote:
It's a shame the box is overrpriced like all GW products.

Compared to other GW products, this is a huge step in the right direction though surely?

ancientsociety wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:
It's a shame the box is overrpriced like all GW products.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

If you're not:

2 HQs
2 Elites
2 Troops
2 Vehicle/Vehicle Squads
Rulebook
Dice/templates/etc.

for $60USD is an EXCELLENT price (esp. considering the level of detail and work that went in to producing these minis). I suppose they could make it cheaper by outsourcing the design and manufacturing jobs to some thirdworld s**thole and paying the workers a pittance, thereby making the Walmart crowd all warm and fuzzy...

I mean, let's break it down briefly just using SM as a basis for estimating costs (only because I know SM costs better)

- 2 HQs - okay, they don't have the options that the SM Commander box set does, but that's a $15 kit - so let's call these guys $7 each - that's $14 right there
- 2 Elites - the Terminator box set is $50. Again, you're dealing with a single pose and fewer options, but you're still getting 5 Terminators - let's call this $25 each - another $50, total
- 2 Troops - So, the new one-pose CSMs are $8.00 for 3 - let's extrapolate this to 10 one-piece loyalists - that'd make them $26.66 - double that for another $53
- 2 Vehicle/Vehicle Squads - Dreadnought is another $50 model. Let's lowball this at $25. Double it for another $50.

So, even without the rulebook, dice, templates, etc., you're looking at at least $167 worth of minis for $60.

It's overpriced. 60 dollars equates to 60 euros?

NUTS!

Still, at 60 euros it's a great price, I think I'll get at least two.

And maybe do some converting on the captain and the warboss, maybe the nobz too... Plastic goodness!

General Hobbs wrote:
It's a shame the box is overrpriced like all GW products.

Unlike Privateer Press' stuff................

Being a friend of the boss of our local GW Shop I could persuade him to let me paint the Waaghboss, the Bosses and the marine captain.
It was real fun, althoght I would recommend not to glue them together before painting.

No heavy weapons on the Termies is kind of nice. I need the storm bolters.

Am I crazy for planning to buy the boxed-set just for the Mini-Rulebook, then to sell the figs separately (as I do not play orks or space marinez)?

I love the mini-rulebook design, and the boxed-set is priced attractively enough that I should be able to recoup a good portion of my coin, I would think.

But I have to agree with the OP - I saw some of the figs at the local bunker and they are very, very nice indeed. I am quite surprised at how far the GW plastics have come.

Mort, I think you'd be far better off just buying the mini-rule book from folks that have bought extra boxes instead of the other way around. Either way, you should be able to get a cheap mini-rule book.

Thanks for the review mate, I guess I will hunt down split deals and get some termies and dread.

Yea, I'm thinking two boxes should do it for me.

my piece of advice on the deffkoptas (IE-don't make the same mistake I did)

Glue the blades together, but do not glue them on to the kopta
They fit on nice and tight, so you can remove them and put them in your case afterwards.
I learned this after breaking my first one

Are these new plastic Nobz similar in size to the metal nobz you can currently get in either the metal nobz box set or blister packs?

I hope so.

I wish the "Nob" you can make from the plastic boyz set was as large as the metal nobz :(

Can you give different weapons to the Terminators? I know they're all bog-standard SB/PF Termies, but could you stick a Heavy Flamer on one?

BYE

they have the pin / hole arms on them
that being said, cut the pin off, and presto - you can put any extra standard terminator arms you have kicking around on them (like perhaps an extra 5 pairs of assault terminator arms...)

Let me explain something about the retail side of Assault on Black Reach. We all know that greatness that is the cheap price for the consumer. I work at a local hobby store [note I said hobby, not gaming]. I am an avid 40k gamer [just started Fantasy] and thoroughlly excited about this boxset. From a retailers perspective, this product is a freakin' gold mine.

Let me break it down for you:

We sell this for $60. Someone looks at this and goes, "I need more Marines/Orks now. I want their codex and some other minis to make a small force." Once a person who has bought this makes that general statement to themselves, they then proceed to buy more product. The snowball effect comes into play big time.

Here is something else to consider [most have already thought of doing this, but others yet might not have done so]:

To recoup a portion of your cost of buying this boxset, you could do the following

1. Sell the mini-rulebook [no brainer]
2. Sell the minis that you have no desire to keep.
3. If you have plenty of one type of mini, sell it to someone who might need that mini[s].
4. If you just the Orks, trade with someone who wants just Marines. You have effectively bought two boxes of the portion that you want and have spent 60 bucks on something that should have hit you for 120 bucks.
5. Sell the whole box separately on eBay and make a profit [heck, this is capitalism].

Let's also not forget, that Little Timmy that buys this set now has everything to play the game and keep his interest with a variety of unit choices and options. This is a much nicer starter than the 2nd and 3rd ed boxes, and even better than the 4th ed box.

I mean, honestly, how can you really be that excited about 10 space marines. You can't even play a real game. The black reach box can though! It's brilliant I tells ya.

How's the rulebook?!?

I was just wondering, has anybody made a calculation of the approximate points value of each army in the box set yet?

~550pts for SM (with options shown on models)
~450pts for Orks (same as above)
thats what i get) from calc.
so if you have friend who need second army from box, and you buy one starter each, and swap models.. = ~1k points. then you just need one\two specialists units, or any tank - to get average 1.5k army

Good thing I refreshed prior to posting. I come out to about the same points cost. This really is a great deal. 500 pts of 2 armies for only $60 is a steal! I honestly plan on selling off one Warboss(of my 2) to get a Big Mek and Selling 1 or both of the Marine commanders to get something else there(Maybe a Drop pod).

I already have a pile of Marines, but these models look great and should fit in nicely with whatever I plan.(Hmm Maybe I could use these in creating a new set of Deathwatch)

The possibilities are endless.

argh.. more and more people gettin their boxes.. )=
i hope soon i find a place that can ship new starter to Russia )=

How Ultra-Marinesy was it? Could the models be used for other chapters or would there have to be a lot of filing?

The molded icons are NOT UM. They are Tactical symbols only. You can place any Chapter badge you want.

Except that not all Chapters use the same tactical symbols. Dark Angels for instance don't use the vertical tactical arrow.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias wrote:Except that not all Chapters use the same tactical symbols. Dark Angels for instance don't use the vertical tactical arrow.

Well, they do if you want to use the BR marines.