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Blastaar wrote:
The two-army box model should be retired. It is dull and cost prohibitive, especially if you are not interested in both forces in the box. GW should move to single-faction starters priced at around $50- that way a new or existing player can get models for an army they actually want to play along with the rules, and at a price that makes it easier (and for some, possible) to get into the game. They could do the same thing for the campaign boxes- just package each selected force with the scenario booklet.

you mean something like these ?

Not bored at all. Will add forgebane sometime soon to the collection, but they're generally good value.

As for dumping the two-army box model - that would mean two people choosing to start. My son and I started with a 2 box set and our collections have... ahem.. grown. Would we have bought a box each to start? Maybe... maybe not...

Either/Or wrote:

I don't think Gorkamorka was particularly popular, at least in my area. Necromunda and mordheim, yes. GM petered out pretty quickly after Digganob came out. I think it has achieved a bit of cult status now though.

At the time my gaming group played much necromunda, but no one really cared to play GM after a game or two.

Same here. Yes, I know, the plural of anecdote is not data but I suspect there are more people demanding Gorkamorka return than ever actually bought it when it was out. Same with Squats.

The 2 army boxed starter sets got me into Orks, Chaos Space Marines and Death Guard, all of which I might have never started if I didn't split a boxed set with our regular space marine player, so the model makes money for GW if I am a typical example...

Mark.

Getting rid of the 2 army box set wouldn't be a good idea. Hands up the people on here who have expanded both sides of a starter set at some point? I know I have.

Space Marines are GW's best seller, so every edition's core set will most likely have Space Marines in it.

As far as like Imperium vs Imperium, then yes... they did that with Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero.

Xenos vs. Xenos... I haven't been in the game long enough to see a set like this.

Xenos vs. Chaos... this is something I'd like to see but still haven't (unless maybe you want to count Stormcloud Attack).

That said, am I happy with the contents of Dark Vengeance, Dark Imperium, and Forgebane? Very much so. If I wasn't getting married soon (saving up most of my money for that), then I probably would have picked up Forgebane just for the AdMech/IK side of it as that's one of the few armies that I have no models from (except one Enginseer for my Imperial Guard and one Knight that I haven't decided where to use yet). But, I had all of the Necron models already (with the exception of the Cryptek).

Betrayal at Calth was and still is an insanely good box set for the price. Again, if I had money, I probably would have bought a second one so that I could make a pre-heresy World Eaters or Death Guard army. Burning of Prospero came with just too many different types of units that made it tough for me to want to buy. The 30 MkIII Tac Marines are something I'd love to have, but not for the cost of that box set.

Honestly, GW, has had several more boxed sets that were really good (even if they were short lived). The two Imperial Knights for like $200 if I remember correctly (like a savings of $100). Gangs of Commorragh was phenomenal for Dark Eldar/Drukhari. Silver Tower was a way to get started with Tzeentch (in 40K or AoS) on top of being a blast to play. While Deathwatch Overkill didn't come with the best selection of Deathwatch models, it did come with a ton of Genestealer Cult models. Death Masque was a great set for people wanting to start Deathwatch. Plus, it was an excellent value for people wanting to dabble in Harlequins to see if they wanted to play them or not.

If you want to jump over to AoS for a minute, then the AoS core set was spectacular when it first launched. In the three years since then, I've gotten so sick of seeing Stormcast anywhere. I understand that they are the Space Marine equivalents in the AoS setting, but that doesn't make them any less overdone (too many models with too little attention paid to other armies). The Khorne Bloodbound side of that box is a great starting point for AoS Chaos, though.

SG

BrianDavion wrote:
problem with an IG starter box is that a space marine boix gives you a reasonably solid army out of the box points wise, guard would not.

Not true.

You could do a Guard army consisting of Scions or Veterans hunting a brood of Lictors and Genestealers.

I knew that would be coming. Yes, basically SC packaged with full/core 40k rules and a price drop to put them down into the realm of "reasonable value." I have doubts that two-faction starters or even SC have great appeal to newer players.

For the first time since the dawn of my time playing GW games, they are going to release a starter box that actually has the armies that my friend and i play.

It's in age of sigmar, and will be death + stormcast. I'm actually kind of excited. Usually these boxes have a decent value if you want everything in them, and since he plays storm cast, and i play death, it seems like we're going to get some mileage out of it.

Two player starters are generally effective loss leaders, not just for GW, but generally any game. The models in them are generally a pretty ridiculous value to the point where it will cost you more to get half the set than the set itself costs. That's kind of the whole point. Something that will sell well enough to get models in people's hands and drum up enough interest to get them to buy into the rest of the line.

GW has pushed Space Marines for so long, that everyone and their mother has a SM army.

Also, they're perfect for beginners, so...

SM armies will always sell. ALWAYS. They've pigeon-holed themselves into this problem, the problem where that since they've pushed Space Marines above all else for so long; they HAVE to keep pushing Space Marines.

No marines = no money = no GW = no xenos.

This will never change, simply because it CAN'T change. GW refuses to support lower selling models, which causes them to be outdated, which causes them to sell less... ad naseum.

I think one of the reasons marines are seen in starters so often is because they are easy models for a beginner and easy to make snap fit and still look good.

As for single player starters, I think they reason they don't do that is because they don't make easy to build models for all factions. The start collecting boxes are full kits and priced well for that (based on GWs prices). They really cannot come down in price without dropping the prices for other kits as well.

If we look at start collecting space marines it runs $85

You get a terminator captain, Tactical squad, and a venerable dread.

If you dropped it to $50, and included the rules (which they don't have a mini-rulebook right now for whatever reason.)

That captain model does not exist out of the kit, but would probably run about $20 if it did. The tactical squad box is $40. The Ven dread is $46.50.

So you are looking at over $100 for $85, the rulebook is $60. SO you are asking for $160 for $50? But it comes back to why would you every buy Tac Marine boxes for Ven dreads if you could get both for the price of 1. SO they would need to make easy build kits for all these sets, which is a lot of extra models in every faction.

just a minor correction Breng77; that captain is available as a "deathwatch" blister, in strike force ultra, space marine terminator command, and I believe as his own blister too...

aside from that you make a strong point

Must have missed him when I did a quick check. The main GW strategy seems to be sell cheap mono-pose stuff in starters to make them good deals but still give people a reason to buy the actual kits. They could do this for every faction, but at some point it would cut into their bottom line.

 GamerGuy wrote:
just a minor correction Breng77; that captain is available as a "deathwatch" blister, in strike force ultra, space marine terminator command, and I believe as his own blister too...

aside from that you make a strong point

Not available as his own blister. Just as the Deathwatch blister, Terminator Command, SC: Marines, and the long discontinued Strike Force Ultra box.
Same goes for the Company Captain that's in the one box and was in the Shadow Force Solaq(read: the box that was closer to being Blood Angels than Raven Guard).

Breng77 wrote:
I think one of the reasons marines are seen in starters so often is because they are easy models for a beginner and easy to make snap fit and still look good.

As for single player starters, I think they reason they don't do that is because they don't make easy to build models for all factions. The start collecting boxes are full kits and priced well for that (based on GWs prices). They really cannot come down in price without dropping the prices for other kits as well.

If we look at start collecting space marines it runs $85

You get a terminator captain, Tactical squad, and a venerable dread.

If you dropped it to $50, and included the rules (which they don't have a mini-rulebook right now for whatever reason.)

That captain model does not exist out of the kit, but would probably run about $20 if it did. The tactical squad box is $40. The Ven dread is $46.50.

So you are looking at over $100 for $85, the rulebook is $60. SO you are asking for $160 for $50? But it comes back to why would you every buy Tac Marine boxes for Ven dreads if you could get both for the price of 1. SO they would need to make easy build kits for all these sets, which is a lot of extra models in every faction.

A single-faction starter would be "$160 for $50" only if you start with the assumption that GW prices make any sense, and that their products are good value for what you pay, a position I completely disagree with. I find most of their kits to be quite poor on that front, in terms of a combination of physical product and in-game value. I know many people are fond of these boxes. However, it should not cost $85+ for a new player to get into the game. It's too much, and for each player who isn't put off by that price, how many more walk away and find another game instead? And how many stick with it after they realize how much more they have to spend to enjoy a "real" game? (40k's lack of scalability being another weakness.)

Either/Or wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:


Gorkamorka was incredibly popular and it was Orks vs Orks. Admittedly it wasn't a traditional box set but I don't think its accurate to assume xenos automatically appeal to the smallest number of people.

As you said - Forgebane was a risk with mechanicum vs crons but its surely shown GW there's a market for none marine box sets.

Eldar vs Orks or Nids would sell I think.

I don't think Gorkamorka was particularly popular, at least in my area. Necromunda and mordheim, yes. GM petered out pretty quickly after Digganob came out. I think it has achieved a bit of cult status now though.

At the time my gaming group played much necromunda, but no one really cared to play GM after a game or two.

It sold but not amazings. Especially translated versions which nearly killed gw ofd


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

Either/Or wrote:

I don't think Gorkamorka was particularly popular, at least in my area. Necromunda and mordheim, yes. GM petered out pretty quickly after Digganob came out. I think it has achieved a bit of cult status now though.

At the time my gaming group played much necromunda, but no one really cared to play GM after a game or two.

Same here. Yes, I know, the plural of anecdote is not data but I suspect there are more people demanding Gorkamorka return than ever actually bought it when it was out. Same with Squats.

Oh it did seli. Just not bonkers well. And squats going away had nothing to do with sales. Other lines that were kept sold less than squats