Battleforces and their usefulness

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**Portaljacker**

I'm mostly just curious, I doubt I'll start another army for any reason besides painting for a bit, but it would be nice to get a good deal and have a useful bunch of units for the money.

So the question is how useful are the contents of each battleforce as well as the cost savings. Another factor I guess would be painting coolness factor/difficulty, but that's entirely subjective so you don't have to put that in.

I'm mostly looking to get something to paint that won't be useless if I decide to play with it.

On an important note, I already got the SW battleforce. It's nice, but it is annoying to have my wolves that wolfy, so many small flimsy parts I'll have to paint. >_< Also the pokey bits snag on my foam a bit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also another point would be how much money it'll take to make it enough points. IG will lose horribly on this part I know.

**Azure**

The Necron Battleforce is an insane deal. Those Destroyers in the back? 60 bucks here. That only leaves 30 dollars left to make up which ends up being well made over in the remaining Warriors and Scarabs.

**Ailaros**

Without regard to specific battleforces, it's likely that if you're using a competitive list, you're only going to use about 2/3ds of the battleforce, with the other 1/3 comprising units which are shiny, but relatively useless.

The end result is that you pay about the same for your competitive units when you buy a battleforce, compared to buying the units separately, except you will get shiny units that you will never use, with a small premium, moneywise.

**Jackal**

Ill agree with Azure.

1 to start an army, then a second one to save money.

3 destroyers - £33
24 warriors - £40

You also get 4 extra crons.

Ive got another one simply to get me to 40 crons.
The 3 destroyers give me a nice unit of 5 and the start of another unit.
For the price of buying the other stuff i get what i need plus alot of extra crons i can convert as needed.

**Blacksails**

The IG battleforce isn't a bad deal, you essentially get the sentinel for free, and though they may not be the most competitive unit, they're a sweet model.

**Portaljacker**

Blacksails wrote:The IG battleforce isn't a bad deal, you essentially get the sentinel for free, and though they may not be the most competitive unit, they're a sweet model.

I didn't say bad deal. Doesn't it take 2 battleforces of IG to have enough models to start?

**Ailaros**

Portaljacker wrote: Doesn't it take 2 battleforces of IG to have enough models to start?

It takes more than that, actually, unless you're willing to play an incredibly uncompetitive guard army.

**Jackal**

To be honest, Ailaros nailed it with his 1st post with pretty much a single exception.
You simply pay a small fee for an extra unit you wont really use in anything other than friendly games.

I think crons are about the only exception, and thats only due to having to be 100% plastic.
With thier limited kits there isnt much else you can throw in there.

**Portaljacker**

Ailaros wrote:
Portaljacker wrote: Doesn't it take 2 battleforces of IG to have enough models to start?

It takes more than that, actually, unless you're willing to play an incredibly uncompetitive guard army.

Ah, wonderful, well I wasn't considering them anyway. Back to the main topic now.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
No one?

**matterofpride**

As a few others have said. Most of the battleforces 2/3 of it you will use while the other 1/3 is random toys. However that 2/3rd if bought on there own almost always adds up to slightly more then the cost of the battleforce. So you are more or less getting that last 1/3 for free. Even if you may at the time not use them.. Youll at least be getting them for free and they may very likely come in handy later.(new codex, New rulebook, Meta game change, ect, ect. Something maybe bad now doesnt mean it wont be forever imo)

I am not sure I have ever found a time when getting a battlefrorce wasn't worth it when starting a new army.

**MechaEmperor7000**

From a gaming standpoint Battle Forces are only good if your starting out. However if you're into converting, then you can always find some use for all of the bits. Personally I want to get my hands on one of those sentinels to convert into a pentient engine or an Iron Warriors Daemon Prince.

The CSM and BA battle forces also has potential for being good value, since you can mix and match parts to get more berserkers (by using CCWs on all of the models and giving at least one Berserker-themed part to each marine) or more Death Company (same philosophy as the Berserkers) from a single box, which can be great if you focus your list around them.

**martin74**

at the FLGS i was torn between two battleforce boxes. the space wolves or the blood angles. i prefer the models in the blood angles, but, i does come with a rhino. i took the space wolves for the drop pod and made a sternguard squad out of the wolves sprue, just to give them a different look from the rest of the army.

i think the blood angles is a completely 100 percent playable battleforce, maybe the only one.

i have the purchased the IG, and only use the sentinel to fill in some points if i need to. i think the necron one is the best deal, and are becomeing more scarce around here, due to the future release of the new crons.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I plan on buying the BA battleforce and kitbashing all of the contents into Death Company.

**Retrias**

BA Battleforce give you tactical marines

if for some reason they just gave me another assault squad or another death company , i would definitely buy them in a heart beat( not that Tactical marines are useless)

**Hido**

The CSM battleforce is pretty awesome, even though I just used the possessed for conversions.

**Cerebrium**

Yeah, I would be all over the BA battleforce for my inevitable Flesh Tearers army if it just had more assault marines instead of tacreens.

**Skinnereal**

The Eldar BF is nice, as I'll be using 3 of the 4 bits in the box, and it's just a bit more expensive than the biggest 2.
I'd get the BF for less than the 3 I want, with the Guardians thrown in free.

**Sephyr**

Yes, CSM is a very decent value. The only bad thing is there being no PF for the zerkers.

But since everyone just strips the Possessed for bits, it's quite easy to put a large daemon-claw on a Skull Champion and make it a power fist.

Also, if you're extra-competitive, it's quite easy to convert the vanilla CSM into plague marines with bits, painting and some green stuff. They're actually better than the actual plague marine kit, though, which is metal and has NO choice of weapons/heads/bits.

**Khisanth Magus**

The tyranid battleforce is pretty much garbage unless you have the bits and willingness to convert a lot of the models. The warriors are basically garbage unless you want to convert them into hive guard or Tyranid Primes(for small point games). The gaunts are of very limited use unless you have the bits to make them all into one kind or the other(extra arms to make the termagants into hormas if you have an assault army, or guns to turn the hormas into termas if you run a tervigon army).

**arkapello**

I think they are all pretty good value models wise, but as stated the chances of you using 100 percent of the models for play is probably quite slim.

i don't think they make the best of battle forces - they should be a start up thing and include your FOC troops and perhaps an exclusive HQ like some old mega forces did. That way you would be alot closer to actually being able to play after buying it, which i always thought was supposed to be the idea...

but really GW should just think more about offers full stop. do temporary deals (like a mini sale) on certain stuff to encourage you to give an army a bit of direction. for example: get 3 boxes of war bikers £50 for a month, then everyone can get a deal now and then and someone starting an army could be thinking "right i got this battle force and bikes are on offer too so i could make it into a speed freaks army" right off the bat. Generate a bit of interest in certain units for a period of time then move on to the next - thus encouraging more variety on the battle field as well and not just kan wall kan wall kan wall......

a pointless wish but im always at a loss at to what to buy next and so i end up just leaving it and fiddling with stuff i already have where as if something was in a bundle that wasnt just the genera-battleforce i might feel a bit more drive to add to my army.

**Ugly Green Trog**

I think the Ork one is pretty useable

20 boyz 3 warbikers and a trukk, all of that stuff is pretty usefull in ork lists think the saving is pretty good too

battle force costs £51.50

you get a trukk: £20.50

2 boyz squads £15.50 each

a warbiker box at £23.50

the trukk and the boyz work out at £51.50 on their own so essentially you get the warbikers free

**Necroshea**

I miss the old IG Battleforce. Instead of a Leman Russ we now get a crappy sentinel.

**ZeroSamurai**

The Tau battleforce is a pretty good deal, the 12 firewarriors can be split into 2 6 man squads and you get some kroot, a devilfish to transport one of the fire warrior squads and a crisis battlesuit you can use as a commander. The only pretty useless part is the stealthsuits however they're a nice little unit to play around with until you get some more battlesuits.

**Brother SRM**

Necroshea wrote:I miss the old IG Battleforce. Instead of a Leman Russ we now get a crappy sentinel.

Yeah, but we also get the kickass IG command squad. I miss that tank too, but the command squad is nice enough for you to make a cool platoon/company command and trick out your other squads with more varied weapons and conversions.

The Tau battleforce is a pretty decent one, at least by the army's standards. The Chaos Marines battleforce is decent if you use the Possessed as a way to convert up standard Marines, give them powerfists, and so on. You can easily make two full squads using the combat squad, regular squad, and possessed squad. I don't like that every Chaos Marine battleforce/megaforce always comes with Khorne Berserkers, but they're a decent enough unit anyway. Really you'd just need two rhinos and you'd turn that battleforce into a good core for a CSM army. Most battleforces are just a little unfocused on what they want to provide is all.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I still stand by the BA battleforce. Going over the items I think it's feasable that you can produce 10 Assault Marines with Jump pack and 10 assault marines in a rhino, or make them all Death Company. Conversions are necessary though, as there isnt that many bolt pistol arms (although the other weapons could easily be used as CCWs).

**PraetorDave**

Khisanth Magus wrote:The tyranid battleforce is pretty much garbage unless you have the bits and willingness to convert a lot of the models. The warriors are basically garbage unless you want to convert them into hive guard or Tyranid Primes(for small point games). The gaunts are of very limited use unless you have the bits to make them all into one kind or the other(extra arms to make the termagants into hormas if you have an assault army, or guns to turn the hormas into termas if you run a tervigon army).

I would beg to differ. Both the hormies and the Gants are good horde starting points, and the warriors are a solid unit in any army (T4, W3, SV4+, synapse). You can convert a warrior into a prime with the parts in the box. My bro literally put a horn on one warrior and badda-bing badda-boom prime. The only thing that isn't really useful are the ripper swarms, but they are such a small part of that box.

GW nerfed the tau battleforce from 3rd to 4th (I have a thread about it floating around). The 3rd edition box had 3 (count em 3) crisis suits. It also had some terrain, which I don't think any battleforce offers. Granted it did come with 10+ gun drones but even so. The 4th ed box brought it down to 1 XV8, added a devilfish, and 3 stealth suits. Now I know the stealth suits were to show off the new models, but they increased the suckage of that box greatly. Still, that battleforce is great, and straight out of the box can be a 500 point army (which is very usable I might add)

**thebaroness**

I like the Necron, Tyranid and Eldar battleforces. They all have a lot of stuff you'll use.

**Hargus56**

CSM is pretty dang good. Convert the 15 "regular" marines to plague marines. Possessed marines are for conversions, pretty cool way to add powerfist/klaw to your champions and have bitz left over for some oblit conversions from a couple terminator boxes, add 2 daemon princes and a rhino or 2 (for bezerkers if you want) and for about $250 you get about an 1850+ list.

**MechaEmperor7000**

Rippers are on alot of sprues and are just "there", so I never factor them into the actual cost of the BF, nor count them as part of the actual content. The Nid battleforce is also one of the four battle forces that has a ready-to-play army straight out of the box (the other three being the Tau, Imp Guard and Ravenwing Battle forces. Ravenwing can make it's Landspeeder into Sammael with the parts provided on the Ravenwing sprue, thus making it a legal army).

**puma713**

The Tau battleforces are a great deal. You're basically getting a Devilfish and a Crisis Suit for free when you buy one.

And I have three for sale right here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/353218.page