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When I got my Tomb Kings army box, it had the actual regiment unit boxes inside the big box. Personally, I love the things, because it makes putting together the core of a 2000 point army so easy. To me, this is the kind of special offer that is absolutely MADE for e-commerce. Advertise a deal on your website for a bulk army at x% off, slap the retail items into a large brown box and ship it off. You'll still make your money on the special / rare units that people will invariably pick up to round out the army.

But for a retailer, I can imagine that having a huge box sitting on the top shelf with an oppressively large price tag is a bit of an albatross. I remember seeing a lot of oversized WHFB army boxes getting sunbleached at Gamer's Realm... and you know how much sun the average gaming store actually gets.

BrookM wrote:I wish they still had the Bassie battery deal (3 models) and the Russ company deal (10 models).

+1 for that; I have been looking at getting more Bassies for Apocalypse/Spearhead games, but at $50 a pop I'm not going to get them new, i can tell you!

I bought the Necron Phalanx, Monolith, 6 Destroyers, 48 Warriors, 12 Scarabs and a Lord.

Also nearly got the SM one.

If bigger packs mean bigger discounts, then they definitely need them.

I was considering starting a beastmen army. However, even though the battalion contains units that I want, the cost of building the army was just too high. WOTR is even more expensive, as it does not even have battalions.

The problems with these are many-fold:

1. It is hard to get two players to agree to what is a good army for any given codex. Look at dakka to see the arguing and theorymachine that rages concerning most codexes.

So if we can't agree on what should be in an army, then why does GW want to take on that nightmare? No matter what they put in it people would bitch and moan about the contents or that certain "ugly" models or junk units got included...

2. Even if GW could put together a good bundle, what happens when a revised codex or new rules edition comes out and invalidates the contents as a viable/legal/competative force? Again the nerdrage would be unbearable...

I think GW knows that us gamers are a fickle lot prone to our own indivdual views of what is right and proper, and that army boxes only cause them PR nightmares and wasted production costs (as they don't sell).

CT GAMER wrote:The problems with these are many-fold:

1. It is hard to get two players to agree to what is a good army for any given codex. Look at dakka to see the arguing and theorymachine that rages concerning most codexes.

So if we can't agree on what should be in an army, then why does GW want to take on that nightmare? No matter what they put in it people would bitch and moan about the contents or that certain "ugly" models or junk units got included...

2. Even if GW could put together a good bundle, what happens when a revised codex or new rules edition comes out and invalidates the contents as a viable/legal/competative force? Again the nerdrage would be unbearable...

I think GW knows that us gamers are a fickle lot prone to our own indivdual views of what is right and proper, and that army boxes only cause them PR nightmares and wasted production costs (as they don't sell).

This is why i think that a "build-your-own megaset" box would be outstanding. This way, each player can fill out, or start a force that is specifically tailored to their gaming needs.

Exactly. It doesn't have to be a giant boxed set. Instead just sell bundles of existing boxed sets at a slight discount. They already do this on ebay, I just got 4x cadian box sets (40 inf) for $75 on ebay (amounts to about 25% off retail). Independent stores could easily do this too.

I agree that having a giant boxed set is not practical, but you don't have to package it together to get a volume discount.

Kolath wrote:Exactly. It doesn't have to be a giant boxed set. Instead just sell bundles of existing boxed sets at a slight discount. They already do this on ebay, I just got 4x cadian box sets (40 inf) for $75 on ebay (amounts to about 25% off retail). Independent stores could easily do this too.

I agree that having a giant boxed set is not practical, but you don't have to package it together to get a volume discount.

Honestly, that would be a better way for them to get new people to play, because then they get their basic units to actually play the game, because some armies lack that necessary HQ choice in the current boxes available for sale.

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:I mean packs bigger than a battleforce, where many more things are packed. I remember Chaos had the Renegade Strike force which had a Defiler, Land Raider, Vindicator, 2 Rhinos, 20 Marines, Terminators, and Lord. I know most other races had similar deals, though I don't remeber what they were called, and now they are unavailiable. Should they bring them back?

I thought the spearhead(not the halfarse expansion) boxes were awesome, personally. They were the boxed sets that came with some of the new models releases, as well as the codex so you could get certain items before they were released individually. I never really saw them collect dust on the shelf. I may lack perspective though, because I only shopped at 1 store for 90% of my hobby career.

Also, the boxed sets(usually a "complete" army) that included a limited edition model were pretty nice too. I wish I had bought the WHFB Chaos Warriors boxed army that had that awesome (IMO) standard bearer. Nowadays it just Games Day miniature and WD subscriptions "free" mini that are limited edition. I miss that stuff.

If any boxed sets could come back, I'd like these two examples personally.

I think at the very least they could have a sort of megaforce bundle as a direct only thing, where you just get the contents of a megaforce for some sort of discount - they wouldn't even need to create a new box for it, just ship it as a package deal.

I've just recently gotten into the hobby, and I didn't know they (at one point in time) offered a box larger than the battle force, until I read through Lbursley's WIP thread. I would love to get my hands on one of those boxes 240 for a '1500 point army' seems like a good deal, but sadly they just taunt me with old pages on their website.

Mannahnin wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:They made sense as splash releases for Apocalypse and around the holidays. I do really miss the old army boxes though - the ones that were akin to a megaforce, but came with a codex and an exclusive model. I know a few came out for the Storm of Chaos campaign, and I got the Dark Angels one. You saved a bit of money with them too. Then they renamed them "Spearheads" and they didn't come at a discount anymore, and didn't have exclusive models. Makes me sad.

Yeah, the old Army Boxes were a lot of fun. At the old Dakka Dakka store, the tradition was that when someone bought one, the big front cover image (of all the models) would be cut off & signed by the player, and hung on the wall in the lounge area. We were papering whole walls with those bad boys.

Wait, DAKKA had a STORE?

Mind <= Blown.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:i just had an idea.. this probably could get its own thread, but since the idea is similar in vein to this one, what the hey...

What if, instead of shelving/stocking certain, larger "megaforces" where GW claims to give you a discount and savings on those models compared to buying them yourself, how cool would it be, if you could go on there, click your favorite army, and load up a personalized, custom "megaforce"??

They used to have "collector cards" at the GW outlets. You'd buy items from the force org, paint 'em, bring 'em in and get a stamp. Free product for reaching thresholds on the card. Saddly, those days are gone. Waste of a good incentive to fill out your army AND paint.

Yes i need boxes with like three or six battlesuits.

I'm really not a huge fan of the big boxes including some battle forces. The thing for me is they come with alot of basic stuff I probably wouldn't use in my army. Like the SM battle force is not to great of a starting point for any hopefuls starting a BA army. And please don't get me started on the current IG battle force. A sentinel and a command squad for a Leman Russ? No thanks

The primary purchase for my Tyranids was an Assault Brood. Covered almost half my army in one purchase.

And HELL YES I'd buy a Grey Knight one, too.

They should make new ones, if selling them is an issue do direct only similar to cato's assault army. Folks who want can still order it thru the good people like mikhaila.

Still, probably too much work for the ROI.

Anyone else remember when White dwarf had a battle report the armies used would be put on offer via mail order if you bought the army as was in the report... I got my first elder army that way, it was a great deal back in like 92 / 93.

I was never interested in the army boxes because I tended to plan out my purchases in advance and just buy to that and, despite the slight savings, the army boxes never quite had what I needed, frequently having a unit I wouldn't use (It's the same reason I've not bough the Tau battle force, I don't need Stealth suits)

That said, If they brought back the Apocalypse splash boxes, even as direct only, I'd be all about that. I'd buy the 9 crisis suit one in a heartbeat.

Ruckdog wrote:

BrookM wrote:I wish they still had the Bassie battery deal (3 models) and the Russ company deal (10 models).

+1 for that; I have been looking at getting more Bassies for Apocalypse/Spearhead games, but at $50 a pop I'm not going to get them new, i can tell you!

I still have 6 (!) unassembled Basilisks from the Emperor's Wrath Arty company I bought...

Man I need a bigger hobby room

Jack

The obvious thing to do would be to make the 'megaforces' direct only, and screw special packaging, just put the existing packages into a shipping container and go.

chaos0xomega wrote:The obvious thing to do would be to make the 'megaforces' direct only, and screw special packaging, just put the existing packages into a shipping container and go.

You're right, but as many of us have learned over the years, GW rarely does the obvious thing.

I miss the old "army in a box" deals.
Several of my buddies started their armies with those purchases,one friend purchased two of the old Tyranids boxes in one go and had a huge army.
The nice thing was that you had a completely table "legal" army in one purchase and could build up from it if you chose to...and it seemed everyone I knew chose to.

Thats really what I dislike about the battleforces now, as you still need to buy at least 1 more kit to make an army for at least casual play.

btemple0 wrote:That's really what I dislike about the battle forces now, as you still need to buy at least 1 more kit to make an army for at least casual play.

True,it was a lot nicer when you could purchase an army in one go and actually have "an army" and I don't believe it bit to deeply into GWs profits as everyone I know who purchased an army deal back then went on to purchase more kits and blisters to "build up" their existing force.
The Ork army deal of that era is a good example,it came with Warboss,Nobs,2 trucks,40 boys (I believe),burna boys + a lot of other things (I believe there was a Dread and a scorcha wagon in there as well),more than enough to have a decent game with but leaving plenty of room to build on.

Yes, that is also valid, but then again, it is the reason I sold 3500 pts in Tau and started SW, because the FLGS in the area did not have Tau for sale other than the army box, and I was lacking HQ units, that and the owner was selling the models from her store at a lesser price than buying from GW.

I saw a new player getting a Battleforce box, of Tau nonetheless from her shop before I deployed and about a year after selling my Tau, and the rules books and whatnot, but, before he left, I bought him Crisis Suit Commander so he could actually play, without all of the WAAC guys bieng mean to him.

Didn't they once sell a chimera with a squad of guardsmen pack? If GW bring it back it would really be helpful for mech guard players.


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btemple0 wrote:, I bought him Crisis Suit Commander so he could actually play, without all of the WAAC guys bieng mean to him.

I wish random strangers would give me free models.

Cadichan Support wrote:Didn't they once sell a chimera with a squad of guardsmen pack? If GW bring it back it would really be helpful for mech guard players.

Yeah, IIRC they did a devilfish and 8 guys too

FM Ninja 048 wrote:

Cadichan Support wrote:Didn't they once sell a chimera with a squad of guardsmen pack? If GW bring it back it would really be helpful for mech guard players.

Yeah, IIRC they did a devilfish and 8 guys too

There were a few "squad + vehicle" releases,Orks + a Trukk,CSM + a Rhino...I thought it was a pretty good idea,guess GW didn't agree.

Even if they did I wouldn't be able to afford it for at least another 3 years.