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Amazingly across the whole of the interweb I have not heard one complaint about Black Reach.

It is a great value for the money, the figures are definietly better than even the ones from Battle for McCragg and they are a useful starting point for new players.

But... surely we must have some ideas what would have been better? I mean this is the interweb right?

I always think that the starter should be IG and Orks. Unlike Marines Orks can kill IG without massive numbers of dice or specialized equipment. An IG vs Ork game is a lot more tactical than games with marines. So I vote for 20 IG (Missile launchers and plasma), command squad, 5 deep striking storm troops (flamers) and 2 sentinels rather than marines.

Opps! Posted in the wrong forum! Please move to discussions.

"So I vote for 20 IG (Missile launchers and plasma), command squad, 5 deep striking storm troops (flamers) and 2 sentinels rather than marines. "

i vote:
20 IG
1 command squad
3 heavy weapons teams (the box set)
1 Russ

They should do one with something other than -censored- space marines.

Shoota boy orks, I think I also would have perfered something other than Dethcopters. Maybe bikers.

As for the imperial side of things. It has to be marines. Its GW flagship starter box. I also think bikes would have been a better option than terminators, or maybe instead of the dread.

Don't get me wrong though. The dead is what easily made this a no-brainer purchase for myself.

Actually I misspoke, I meant to say it should have been Arbites vs Genestealer cults

I think it would have been good to see both armies have equal points and be balanced against each other as well, maybe tossing a Deffdredd in there (a real one, not a card stand-up).

It would be nice if GW did a variety of starter sets featuring different armies.

However, I suppose the cost of doing the snap-fit models is prohibitive for doing a lot of factions.

Important thing to remember is that this is a starter box.

I don't see IG as a starter army. They take a much larger number of models to play, and are not nearly as forgiving as marines. It's why Dark Eldar was a poor choice for a starter box.

That said, I would like to see a second starter set come out two years after Black Reach, and another two years after that. Keep BR in print, just add an option with two more armies.

Only thing ididn't like was that the terminators heads weren't seperate. That's it....otherwise i'm positively giddy over the box...and I don't even play Orks or Marines (Yet?!). OK so I am really looking at the Ork codex hard....I admit.

LoTD vs LaTD

LotR vs. Brettonia!

I think equal point armies would have been good.

There are some tweaks that would make this possible too.

Orks:
Give three of the nobs powerklaws instead of choppas. (+75 points)
Give the boyz rokkits instead of big shootas (+20 points)

Ta Da - no extra models required, just some weapon swaps.

This also means that the orks can have more than just the koptas that would be able to take out the dread, and could put PK nobs with the boyz mobs, giving them better game against the termies and dreads in combat.

Assuming that the starter box has to be marines and.

1. Balance out the forces

2. Have a legal force org for both sides.

This means the Space Marines should have been up 5 scouts, including a heasvy bolter. This helps as you have soemthing weak for the roks to slice through, but shooty.

To balance out the orks get three kans and a nobz for the boyz mobs.

Bikers instead of Koptas so you could go Biker Nobs, Biker Warboss or Warbikers.

That actually would be pretty cool to do would be to have 2 starter sets ,

Maybe a Xenos theme and a Imperial theme.

I'm sure Tau vs. Tyranid

or

Eldar vs. Chaos


Im sure it would be pretty easy casting wise to do a two or 3 piece Tau Broadside and models, Tyranids as well.


Chaos are just marines, Eldar should not be to bad. Big Plastic Wraithlord.


I dont know what to put in against tau but Eldar and Chaos could just be Eldar Guardians Farseer, 3 Jetbikes and a Wraithlord, Chaos could just be a Lord Terminators and a tact squad.

Legal Force Org and same point cost are my only complaints. (My orcs always lose...)

Over the weekend our group came together and spent the entire two days building things.

I was mostly going over my backlog of Necrons and Tyranids, but everyone else was building their Battle for Black Lagoon sets, so I got my first real good look at them up close. We had about 4-5 sets there that weekend, so there were a lot of swaps being made between the Ork and Marine players in the group.

It really is a fantastic kit - the Warboss is just an amazing model and those Terminators are incredible - and I will certainly be getting a box in the near future.

As far as changing things go, I'd've probably bulked up the Ork side a little. A Warboss, 5 Nobz, 20 Boyz and 3 Koptaz aren't all that much when compared to a Captain, 10 Marines, 5 Termies and a Dread. I haven't looked through the Black Lagoon scenario booklet that came with the box yet, so I'm not sure how the scenarios will play out, but I do remember the Battle for Armageddon scenarios from the 2nd Ed box, and those were often quite hard for the Orks to win.

Also legal starting armies would also be nice. The Orks have it, but, as someone said, a nice little squad of 5 Scouts would have gone along way to making the box more complete.

Probably something along the lines of:

Captain
10-man Tactical Squad (Flamer/Missile Launcher)
5-man Scout Squad (Heavy Bolter, BP's & CCW's)
5-man Terminator Squad (5 Stormbolters, 1 Power Sword, 4 Power Fists)
Dread (MM + DCCW w/Storm Bolter)

vs

Warboss (Power Klaw)
5 Nobz (1 Power Klaw)
10 Kommandoz (Nob w/Klaw + Kommando w/Burner)
10 Slugga Boyz (Nob + Big Shoota)
10 Slugga Boyz (Nob + Big Shoota)
3 Deff Koptaz

Means that the Marine player then isn't the one with all the power weapons/fists, and the only Infiltrating unit.


I wouldn't change the armies and I certainly wouldn't put Guard in - not a beginner army.

One cool thing we worked out is that, if you buy 10 Black Lagoon Boxed Sets, you end up with 100 Marines, 50 Termiantors, 10 Dreads, 200 Slugga Boyz, 50 Nobz, 30 Deff Koptaz for very little money. Those are huge armies!!

BYE

Despite the set being such a great deal, I'm still on the fence because of my tremendous backlog.

The little things that would have tipped me towards accumulating more stuff that I would likely not paint would be:

1) No molded Tactical markings on the shoulders of the Marines. (I tend to not want to put such markings on my miniatures so that they can be flexible...now that Missile Launcher Marine will look out of place in my Devastator Squad...and trust me, if I don't have time to paint, I have even less time to remove those molded-on arrows).
2) Shoota Boyz instead of Slugga Boyz. Or give me a Battlewagon with the Slugga Boyz?

I agree that the Marines not having a legal Force Org straight out of the box is a problem. But truth be told, I would rather have the Terminators and Dreadnought than another Troops choice.

And we have SO many Space Marine Captains in regular Powered Armor (including the four Chapter Masters) already to choose from...it would have been nice to have one in Terminator Armor (and would have given the Dark Angel players an incentive to get a "Belial" figure).

I think I would have replaced the Dread with Assault Marines. #1 it gets rid of the vehicle issue and #2 it puts some Jump Packs out there.

Of course maybe they just wanted a vehicle. And the Dread is cool.

I think the independant characters are a good addition, get people used to it from the start.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

One cool thing we worked out is that, if you buy 10 Black Lagoon Boxed Sets, you end up with 100 Marines, 50 Termiantors, 10 Dreads, 200 Slugga Boyz, 50 Nobz, 30 Deff Koptaz for very little money. Those are huge armies!!

BYE

Yes, but why would you want an army of such horribly static models?

The Orks aren't static and they're easy to convert.

And you can't tell the difference betwen these Marines and standard kit Marines other than the shoulder pads.

BYE

1. Swap a squad of Sluggas for Shootas w/ Rokkit.
2. At least one Power Klaw for the Nobs.
3. Swap the Dread for a Rhino.
4. No Tactical markings on the Marines.
5. Swap the Captain's bolter for a bolt pistol or plasma pistol, or power sword for power fist.
6. Swap the Koptaz/Nobs for Meganobz?

1. one nob for each squad of orks and at least one Power Klaw for the Nobs.
2. No Tactical markings on the Marines.
3. Give me the option for a power sword or power fist with the captain.
4. Make the Marine Sargent with a normal set of arms, so those of us who don't want a pointing sgt in our squad can at least swap
that arm for one with a bolt pistol.

I got the set for my son's birthday and have found it to be a nice balance of quality and price. I'm also a cheapskate: a grubby, tight-fisted miser. That being said, my opinion of the box set is that it's great for what it provides and is a nice starting point for beginning players or a way to bolster a regular player's forces.

I wasn't happy that the forces weren't balanced, but I have enough marines and orks from prior purchases that it was easy to incorporate these guys with supplementary forces to balance them out and add some variety. Which is the point of the set, anyway!

It's a good set, but it should have been simplified a bit more :

- Orks have Kans instead of Kopters -- this allows for 1 Dread vs 3 Kans

- Marines have Assault Marines instead of Terminators -- Marines should be more mobile than Orks, and have some counter-punch

- Orks trade Nobs for more Boyz -- having both shooty and fighty Orks is good.

Kilkrazy wrote:It would be nice if GW did a variety of starter sets featuring different armies.

However, I suppose the cost of doing the snap-fit models is prohibitive for doing a lot of factions.

There is that. Quite a few ways to do it though, and sadly, probably more reasons it's not done.

Orks and Marines are pretty archetypal of 40k, hence why they are in the starting set. IG just aren't as cool looking to newbs as Marines and Orks!

Also, consider the dynamics of the set. What you have is one side small, elite and tough, and the other quite hordey. This introduces very practically the variation in 40k. Skull Pass is the same. Squishy Gobbos V Tough Dwarves.

Is all about how much you can teach about a game in a single boxed set, and this does it very competentally with a good mix of troops.

I wish it had a scenario book more like the one in BFM, with a series of missions progressing in complexity.

Marines more mobile than Orks? Doesn't tie up with the fluff really does it?

Anyway, the whole point of it is to get people hooked and buying more minis, so having unbalanced forces that don't exactly match each other is good as both players need to go out and buy more stuff

Anything that gets more people playing Orks and marines is a good thing, the more people playing hopefully will dilute the number of TFG's out there

I would have removed the Tac squad arrows from the Marines.. and ...

I would have added Terrain!!!!

-Porkuslime