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I don't really mind the price of the expansions. Just feel they are a bit too small in scope (especially the last one) to really get excited about them. I would have much prefered to pay a 100$ and to have a few more minis thrown in

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Right now, we're still at the stage of people discovering the game for the first time. So any expansions may well benefit from being smol. I know international prices don't match, but for me, £35 is about nice. Yes I'd have preferred cheaper, don't be silly. But £35 I don't feel is too much.

The price is a major issue for me. The Ambots are "only" £25 and that box feels like it's much better value for money.

The international pricing makes the box even worse value for money. I have access to UK discounters through my family back in the UK, so I could potentially get the Ambull for £27. My local GW sells the Ambull for £44.22 after BC sales tax is added on top. The cheapest Canadian discounted price comes out to £35.50 but I'd need to spend twice that to avoid paying for shipping (which is not cheap over here).

Honestly, I want to buy from my local shop but I simply can't justify it. This one should have been cheaper. If it were the price of the Ambots I'd get it locally.

angryboy2k wrote:
SNIP

The price is a major issue for me. The Ambots are "only" £25 and that box feels like it's much better value for money.

SNIP
/quote]

The Ambots are a couple sprues in a box. The Ambull is a single sprue. I assume after awhile the Ambull may get a clampack release, but it will be cheaper, like the Shadespire warbands.

But the addition of 31 cards, 3 oversize character cards, a cardboard counter sheet, the 16pg mission packet, and the special envelope w card all make it cost much more to produce.

The diminishing demand effect of game expansions, where not every buyer of BSF will purchase the expansion, is considered when pricing as well, I am sure.

Anyone buying it just for the miniature is not the target customer, so of course the price is higher.

I really think they should expand on the BSF Drone side of things, like the deeper you go, the more dangerous, aggressive and larger the drones get. Like the current ones are just the 'first line' so to speak, and delving deeper into the Fortress sees it really wake up and start to throw scary unknown gak at you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But £35 I don't feel is too much.

I'd happily pay £35 for BSF expansions. Sadly I have to pay £52, so it's a pass for me.

Also the drones are currently only £1 each on eBay. I've bought one extra set and keep needing to come up with reasons not to buy more!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I really think they should expand on the BSF Drone side of things, like the deeper you go, the more dangerous, aggressive and larger the drones get. Like the current ones are just the 'first line' so to speak, and delving deeper into the Fortress sees it really wake up and start to throw scary unknown gak at you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But £35 I don't feel is too much.

I'd happily pay £35 for BSF expansions. Sadly I have to pay £52, so it's a pass for me.

On some of the cards in the game, there seems to be sillouhette of what looks to be a larger drone. Maybe something similar showcase to the ambull?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I really think they should expand on the BSF Drone side of things, like the deeper you go, the more dangerous, aggressive and larger the drones get. Like the current ones are just the 'first line' so to speak, and delving deeper into the Fortress sees it really wake up and start to throw scary unknown gak at you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But £35 I don't feel is too much.

I'd happily pay £35 for BSF expansions. Sadly I have to pay £52, so it's a pass for me.

Maybe the drones could be an otherwise extinct race in themselves either enslaved to the fortress or hiding there from an enemy that perished long ago. Could be cool to have a race with some actual technology and advncement that are not the Tau.

Have we gotten a price for the chaos expansion yet?

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Have we gotten a price for the chaos expansion yet?

I don't believe so. It also might be awhile before we see it, since it was shown off at a trade show rather than a convention/tournament.

in regards to the dreaded ambull expansion, do i get the trail counter from the spore discovery card? i don't see in the rules how to get one

I'm going to be biting the bullet and will buying a copy of the base game this week and I've been debating getting the Ambull expansion with it. Has anyone played with that expansion yet and is it worth the money?

I'd also like to know if there has ever been a need for surplus models outside of the base game in certain encounters? eBay seems to be full of extras which I could pick up if need be.

No. You may have a situation where one or more Hostile groups is a couple of models short (for example, Hostile group 1 is 3 Ur-Guls. Hostile group 2 is also 3 Ur-Ghuls, but you only deploy 1 because there's only four in the box), but this is deliberate, I think - to avoid getting too swamped by hostiles. Reinforcements can potentially arrive for an understrength (or even zero-strength!) group.

You could buy extras and have additional Hostiles on the map, but that'd make the game harder.

Yeah, it would just be making the game harder. It makes the game kinda swingy, because sometimes you get like 4 dudes from 3 enemy spawn points and you wipe them out without batting an eye; those 3 points could also, on a bad day, swamp you with nearly 20 guys and, due to it being a drawn-out fight, you get two 4x respawns so you have 25+ baddies in the same scenario.

In short, like most GW, it's swingy, and you may end up house ruling.

FWIW, we've had some rough games but IIRC about 1/10 fights have ended up with any of us getting KOd. Not a hard game, but far more challenging than Silver Tower.

Definitely buy the base game and try it first....before buying expansions. It was pretty underwhelming for our gaming group and now I'm just painting the minis for use in our 40K campaign instead of using them for the game.

If you're looking for a serious, involved, or expansive RPG or strategy game, yeah, it's not impressive. Our group's full of busy and/or tired people, so a co-op romp that you can't sleep through but isn't horribly punishing definitely fills a niche.

And yeah, the expansions are too damned expensive to buy in to them without having played the core IMHO.

A question for those who have played BSF; given that it has expansions where the previous games did not( Well, none that I can recall ), should the core game have been slightly smaller?

By smaller I mean along the lines of 5 heroes and 25 hostiles.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I'm going to be biting the bullet and will buying a copy of the base game this week and I've been debating getting the Ambull expansion with it. Has anyone played with that expansion yet and is it worth the money?

I bought the Ambull set for £28 but not BSF itself. If you also plan to use the Ambull for 40K and can get similar discount then I'd recommend it. Otherwise watch some youtube playthroughs before purchasing.

Considering the Ambull is the size of an Ork Megaboss( £24 ) and the borewyrms, manuals, tokens, cards and packaging are worth about £10...the price seems logical, but feels like a £30 product at best. The models are a joy to work with and the materials actually make one want to buy the full game itself. Its quite interesting that there is an advert for First Strike in the box, as I've been thinking of pitting the Ambull against the primaris from that very box set...

I think BSF wouldn't have been hurt much by having one fewer non-human sniping classes, and I think that they probably could have swapped in another type of baddie, but I think the game could have been a little larger, if anything: add another boss or another alien type of goon.

I mostly think that the expansions should have been larger or cheaper. I've been tempted by both, but expect I won't get the Ambull unless either I finish the core painting or it looks like they'll be discontinued, and the chaos expansion is pretty uninspired so I probably won't buy it unless it's dramatically cheaper than the ambull one.

I think the 2 best parts of the new WHQ are much more elaborate character designs/trading (though the "inspired" mechanic is not the most exciting) and that fights are actually threatening, unlike ST at least.

Re: previous expansions, no, IIRC there weren't any unless you count rules for existing models as one side or the other.

That's why I think the expansions should be proper expansions like the ones from Old Quest - a named character (or characters) to fight, with a few scattered bodyguard/important troops miniatures to go with them, lots of new objectives, rooms, new tiles as well, plus all the other associated things. Plus it'd add new between-mission stuff, or expand upon what's already there.

Give the game lots of depth.

I'll admit, once I saw the direction of the expansions my enthusiasm for BSF dwindled (and it was already "meh" from my game play experiences). High dollar baddies do not an expansion make.

I'm starting to feel like BSF player characters were just an excuse for GW to sell a bunch of models of stuff that only a few people were really screaming for.

If that were the case it'd be cheaper not to make them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I really think they should expand on the BSF Drone side of things, like the deeper you go, the more dangerous, aggressive and larger the drones get. Like the current ones are just the 'first line' so to speak, and delving deeper into the Fortress sees it really wake up and start to throw scary unknown gak at you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But £35 I don't feel is too much.

I'd happily pay £35 for BSF expansions. Sadly I have to pay £52, so it's a pass for me.

THIS, and a reproduction and rerelease of those older previously released Dark Eldar creatures in an expansion pack. I'm tracking them down myself, but it would be great to get them rereleased and given the 8th edition treatment of those fine-cast ones from before. Yeah, it's great to add in a team of Gladiators, but the creatures are what would really be great to see in the dark...

Does anyone know the rules for the traitor command units? Or atleast if they are hqs or elites?

Currently no one has them yet, and there's been almost no info. If we're lucky, the commissar will be HQ since that would allow a very serviceable, cheap battalion from the Servants list, which would also fill a half-decent traitor force. One would expect the ogryn is elite: while that slot is pretty busy, it's not actually crowded, since the psykers are a free slot with Obsidius, and the Negavolts are such trash that I can't imagine anyone would take them.

FWIW, unfortunately there's no way to field the collection with a transport, so it's just a small footslogging force. I haven't experiemented yet, but I expect really what you're buying is a pair of cheap smite characters and the rest is filler for command points and bodies, if you're fielding the force as anything halfway competitive.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Currently no one has them yet, and there's been almost no info. If we're lucky, the commissar will be HQ since that would allow a very serviceable, cheap battalion from the Servants list, which would also fill a half-decent traitor force. One would expect the ogryn is elite: while that slot is pretty busy, it's not actually crowded, since the psykers are a free slot with Obsidius, and the Negavolts are such trash that I can't imagine anyone would take them.

FWIW, unfortunately there's no way to field the collection with a transport, so it's just a small footslogging force. I haven't experiemented yet, but I expect really what you're buying is a pair of cheap smite characters and the rest is filler for command points and bodies, if you're fielding the force as anything halfway competitive.

I’m hoping they are both hqs because if you take mallex The max number of troops is 2x traitor guard and not enough for a battalion unless they drop the restrictions

The Spindle Drones get around that, and are vaguely thematic (though it's a bit of a stretch).

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
The Spindle Drones get around that, and are vaguely thematic (though it's a bit of a stretch).

Oh yeah forgot they are a troop lol
You could paint and model them as tzeennch discs or as plague drones (like I’m going too

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If that were the case it'd be cheaper not to make them.

I'm just venting. I find it kind of disappointing that BSF fails at one of the things that made Silver Tower more 'personal'- the fact that you probably had a model in your collection that could be played in the game, or could at least go out and buy one of those playable individuals (or make one from your own kits in some cases).

I can't bring myself to get really excited about any of the BSF main characters, though I do appreciate their unique appearance and aesthetics, none are something I would particularly enjoy playing as in a dungeon crawler/adventure game.

We're currently working on testing something, and very likely are going to play through the game as a collection of heretics/heretic astartes.

Urgh, you get the chance to play as some really character individuals in BSF, up against the odds and some scary CSM, playing as LSM loses a lot of that flavour, but to each their own

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
Urgh, you get the chance to play as some really character individuals in BSF, up against the odds and some scary CSM, playing as LSM loses a lot of that flavour, but to each their own

The conversion we're working on comes with a dramatic increase in what you're up against. We're working in Terminators and even a Hellbrute.

"Playing as set character individuals" has less appeal to our group than "playing as our own characters, using our own models".