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I was browsing through an old White Dwarf last night and I saw GW advertising "Army Boxes".

They looked awesome: my initial reaction was that they are Battalions/Battleforces on crack.

What happened to them?

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I was browsing through an old White Dwarf last night and I saw GW advertising "Army Boxes".

They looked awesome: my initial reaction was that they are Battalions/Battleforces on crack.

What happened to them?

they were a limited end of year release.

I remember back in 3rd edition and whatever edition fantasy was on at the time...every new codex release got an army box.

Not sure if the profit margins just werent very good or maybe they just didnt sell enough of them to continue making them

Army Boxes first showed up way back during 2nd Ed 40k (4th Ed Fantasy, IIRC). Blood Angels, Orks, Orcs & Goblins and High Elves got the first treatment - basically a lot of units and a points value (and list) inside a box. Eventually other armies got them (Eldar and Tyranids I remember - I bought the Tyranid one). Really it was a box with a bunch of other boxes inside it. I remember the Blood Angel one saying that it was "Over 2000 points!", which was true, as the included list came out to 2001 points.

During 3rd Ed 40K and some of 4th these shifted to limited release Army Boxes that came out whenever a new Codex came out. The Chaos Space Marine army box is actually what got me back into 40K after a hiatus, coming with a bunch of Marines, Rhinos, the new Oblits and Raptors that had just come out, plus the 3.5 Codex. They were a way of getting the new releases and the Codex right away, plus enough stuff to make an army, and usually a limited edition model of some sort (Possessed Marine, Imperial Guard standard bearer, Lictor, Necron Lord, etc.).

Then after a while they went away (the last one I got was the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex army box), and then we got 'Spearheads', which were essentially the same thing except that they were only the new models (not a complete army) and I don't think they had the Codex. These weren't around very long and they weren't very useful. The Marine one (5th Ed) came with all the new special characters, which was 99% Ultramarine and 1 Crimson Fist. Not very useful.

Eventually someone upstairs realised that we were getting a discount by buying these boxes, and so they vanished.

What's more likely is that their initial stock wasn't selling as fast as they wanted to, leading to inventory sitting in stores for long periods of time wasting shelf-space - my local GW, at the time, had a Dark Angel (4th Ed) army box that sat there for months, and a Tyranid (4th Ed) army box that sat there for so long (over a year) I was able to get it at a discount and even haggle the price!

Occasionally we'll see a 'Mega Force' show up around X-Mas, but that's about it.


And thus ends today's useless trivia lesson.

If memory serves the 40K ones were close to a 1500 point army and were released during second and part of 3rd edition with each new DEX. I picked up the Dark Eldar army box and it was packed to the gills with models to get up to 1500. May be why they went away from them.

There's a hole in the wall local store around here that still has a WHFB Orcs & Goblins megaforce/army box. I don't play it though....

A local comic store still has the 2nd edition Space Ork army set for sale brand new in the big grey citadel mail order box.

I was very very tempted to get one of those massive Space Marine Company box sets they were doing when Apoc came out. Sadly by the time I decided to get back into the hobby they had all gone :(

GW has done away with any sort of savings on their products.

Although the army boxes were a good deal, I was not a big fan of them, as there would always be units that you did not want. This being said, some of the apocalypse boxed sets were great.

I thought the Spearheads were pretty nice. The Ork one actually included units I use. Thought the weirdboy was finally painted 2 months ago.

 Harriticus wrote:
There's a hole in the wall local store around here that still has a WHFB Orcs & Goblins megaforce/army box. I don't play it though....

This, according to the GW rep that my old FLGS had, is the number one reason that they stopped doing them.

I know that when the shop closed due to the property management company opting not to renew the lease (stupidest thing they could have done, as the FLGS, Kroger supermarket, and bank were the only ones which really were profitable), several army boxes were still on the shelves. Space Marine, Tyranid, 2x Wood Elves, an O&G, Empire, and we gave the last Lizardmen one away as a prize at the end of the Lustria campaign.

H.B.M.C Wrote:

Then after a while they went away (the last one I got was the 4th Ed 'Chaos' Codex army box), and then we got 'Spearheads', which were essentially the same thing except that they were only the new models (not a complete army) and I don't think they had the Codex. These weren't around very long and they weren't very useful. The Marine one (5th Ed) came with all the new special characters, which was 99% Ultramarine and 1 Crimson Fist. Not very useful.

Spearheads were a bit smaller than the Army Boxes. My Eldar Army Box is dated back at 2006. Still have it unopened as I have duplicates of the models within. The army boxes were great deals to get into the Hobby.

The best deals were the Apoc boxes, like the 10 DE raiders for $175, which was phased out in 08.

Those were good days for the hobby.