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hello everyone thanks for reading, ive been struggling to get back into the hobby again, I restarted a necron army when they were redone, but the price has driven me away from building this army any further the solution to this was trying to bring in a standard of lower point games into my game store, the problem im having with that is no one really wants to play low point games 500 - 750pts sadly, my friends are interested in playing but disagree the price, im wondering are the battleforces generally equal? its easier to convince them to purchase 1 set rather than building an army from scratch, ive considered battleforces as a army booster rather than a starter set. I would like to know are there any overpowered/underpowered battleforces and are there any good battleforce match ups against eachother?

TeejK wrote:
hello everyone thanks for reading, ive been struggling to get back into the hobby again, I restarted a necron army when they were redone, but the price has driven me away from building this army any further the solution to this was trying to bring in a standard of lower point games into my game store, the problem im having with that is no one really wants to play low point games 500 - 750pts sadly, my friends are interested in playing but disagree the price, im wondering are the battleforces generally equal? its easier to convince them to purchase 1 set rather than building an army from scratch, ive considered battleforces as a army booster rather than a starter set. I would like to know are there any overpowered/underpowered battleforces and are there any good battleforce match ups against eachother?

As far as I can tell, the only Battleforce which gives you a legal army is the Necron one. I may well be wrong in this. EDIT: Just occured to me that the Tau one does as well, though not exactly a good one.

I confess ive never bought one. Most are only really useful to boost existing armies as far as I can tell. For example, the Tyranid one is now all Troops, and the Ravenwing battleforce can actually be taken as a single troop choice of only around 350 points depending on wargear.

Also the guard one, unless you play them as vets, doesn't even make two troops choices if I remember correctly

The vanilla SM battleforce lacks a HQ, but you could probability just make a captain out of the spare bits. Might cost you the 5 man combat squad if there aren't enough spare bodies, I'd have to look at the sprues. Even so, it's still going to be a legal ~500 point army. I think most of the battleforces are at least close to legal, so if you add one thing (a troop or HQ) you could play it. How effective they are is another story...

One of the problems with the battle forces is that you often get sub-par stuff bundled with things you actually want. Does it matter that you are getting a "free" unit if it just sits on your shelf? The wheat/chaff ratio depends a lot on the army, and the opinion of the buyer.

You can make a HQ out of the suit in the Tau Battleforce, but honestly the reason I didn't buy it was because of the Kroot. You're saving about $40 if you buy the battleforce, but if you consider the Kroot are $36.25 and I won't be using them - then I get the models I won't use for free.

As has been stated ad nauseum, they seem to package one unit in the battleforce that you probably wouldn't take otherwise.

All the space marine battleforces, make a balanced army (If you add a hq) because their points are relatively similar.

The xenos battleforces, tend to be weaker, because you need more models to make 750 ish points for them.

If you decided to do something like, one buy's vanilla marines, one buy's space wolves, one buy's blood angels, then that would work ok for some small points games.

But, I'd say the best way, is to convince 2 friends to go halves on dark vengeance. One take chaos, one take dark angels.

You can make an army out of the Tyranid battleforce but you'll only have 1-2 Synapse creatures and... well lets just say that's a bad idea at any points level.

 Evileyes wrote:
All the space marine battleforces, make a balanced army (If you add a hq) because their points are relatively similar.

The xenos battleforces, tend to be weaker, because you need more models to make 750 ish points for them.

If you decided to do something like, one buy's vanilla marines, one buy's space wolves, one buy's blood angels, then that would work ok for some small points games.

But, I'd say the best way, is to convince 2 friends to go halves on dark vengeance. One take chaos, one take dark angels.

Except for the fact that the Dark Angels army from Dark Vengeance is not legal. 2 HQ, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, 1 Troop.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Evileyes wrote:
All the space marine battleforces, make a balanced army (If you add a hq) because their points are relatively similar.

The xenos battleforces, tend to be weaker, because you need more models to make 750 ish points for them.

If you decided to do something like, one buy's vanilla marines, one buy's space wolves, one buy's blood angels, then that would work ok for some small points games.

But, I'd say the best way, is to convince 2 friends to go halves on dark vengeance. One take chaos, one take dark angels.

Except for the fact that the Dark Angels army from Dark Vengeance is not legal. 2 HQ, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, 1 Troop.

Easilly rectified by picking up a spare termie unit from ebay for about 9 quid.

 Happyjew wrote:
Except for the fact that the Dark Angels army from Dark Vengeance is not legal. 2 HQ, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, 1 Troop.

They give you 10 Tacs, so you could run x2 5 man squads for 2 troops.

fenshysa wrote:
You can make a HQ out of the suit in the Tau Battleforce, but honestly the reason I didn't buy it was because of the Kroot. You're saving about $40 if you buy the battleforce, but if you consider the Kroot are $36.25 and I won't be using them - then I get the models I won't use for free.

As has been stated ad nauseum, they seem to package one unit in the battleforce that you probably wouldn't take otherwise.

new battleforce comming soon without kroots!

Have your friends split the DV set!

The battleforces are definitely to boost your current army instead of being a starter. The SM Battleforce is the only one Ive bought and I personally liked the stuff that came with it, though you will need to pick up an HQ of some kind.

If you have friends who want to get into the game the Dark Vengeance box is the best way to go. Each of them spends $50, and gets about the same number of models a battleforce would net you for CONSIDERABLY cheaper. The models that come with it are pretty freaking sweet,to boot.

None of the people who I have introduced to the game via Dark Vengeance has regretted the purchase.

I think it would be a good idea if GW came up with starter sets for each race, I know DV 2 player set is technically a starter set but maybe they should do something similar to privateer press, i know their warmachine/hordes starter sets are not the best but they were more or less equal with eachother and gives new players a decent understanding of how the game works.

the Ork one (adding an HQ, leading towards a bikerboss) builds towards a speed freak army since it gives you boyz, trukks, and bikes. Its also the only one far as i know that actually has a discount for the models bought.
I doubt they'd release a starter kit for the races, people would just buy those 1000x times if it was even 5 bucks cheaper lol

No, all battleforces are NOT created equal.

If you can't find people to play low-point games with you (which is a shame, as they're plenty fun), then your best option is probably to get other friends interested in playing. Yeah, the up-front cost CAN be staggering, but if you get a copy of Dark Vengeance (or two), then you really can have a few people get into 40k relatively cheaply. Four armies, two copies of the rulebook, and all of the extraneous goods you need is actually a rather good start to it all.

Another way I've seen it done is to be enough into the game that you have multiple armies, and you have someone else play with one of your spares, but that doesn't seem that applicable for you.

sLeEpYrOcK wrote:
Also the guard one, unless you play them as vets, doesn't even make two troops choices if I remember correctly

This is true however it must be stressed that while the box can technically be made into a legal army, said army is a terrible guard force

 Nevelon wrote:


One of the problems with the battle forces is that you often get sub-par stuff bundled with things you actually want. Does it matter that you are getting a "free" unit if it just sits on your shelf? The wheat/chaff ratio depends a lot on the army, and the opinion of the buyer.

Im not excited for the piranha in the new Tau Box as i may never use it because i dont really like vehicles of ANY kind. walkers and bodies FTW.

On another note doesnt the Tryanid have 3 warriors? which would be 3 synapse? which in a tiny point game is probably all youll need.

Getting a few SM battle forces(SW,BA,DA,etc) is a good idea. then snag a special character for each and either play them or use them as a proxy for whatever you want leading your troops. thats what my cousin and i did for a while

Wolfnid420 wrote:
On another note doesnt the Tryanid have 3 warriors? which would be 3 synapse? which in a tiny point game is probably all youll need.

If you take them as a unit of warriors you have no HQ.
If you make one of them into a Tyranid Prime you have an HQ but not enough Warriors to field a Warrior unit.

So the max the battleforce could build would be two Synapse Tyranid Primes.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Evileyes wrote:
All the space marine battleforces, make a balanced army (If you add a hq) because their points are relatively similar.

The xenos battleforces, tend to be weaker, because you need more models to make 750 ish points for them.

If you decided to do something like, one buy's vanilla marines, one buy's space wolves, one buy's blood angels, then that would work ok for some small points games.

But, I'd say the best way, is to convince 2 friends to go halves on dark vengeance. One take chaos, one take dark angels.

Except for the fact that the Dark Angels army from Dark Vengeance is not legal. 2 HQ, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, 1 Troop.

Not exactly Say that The captain is Azrael (he has thenright load out he just needs a watcher) then the bikes and termies score.

 Ailaros wrote:
No, all battleforces are NOT created equal.

If you can't find people to play low-point games with you (which is a shame, as they're plenty fun), then your best option is probably to get other friends interested in playing. Yeah, the up-front cost CAN be staggering, but if you get a copy of Dark Vengeance (or two), then you really can have a few people get into 40k relatively cheaply. Four armies, two copies of the rulebook, and all of the extraneous goods you need is actually a rather good start to it all.

Another way I've seen it done is to be enough into the game that you have multiple armies, and you have someone else play with one of your spares, but that doesn't seem that applicable for you.

it really is a shame no one wants to play smaller point games, I get more out of them than i do with larger scale games, plus I prefer a series of smaller games rather than 1 - 2 large games but I think its because people are a little scared to step out of their comfort zone, and they dont get to use too many stronger models, i like the punishment it brings to the game when my opponent or I lose a valuable unit or vehicle (this is why i got into warmachine/hordes). I actually own dark vengeance 2 player set, thats how my friends got interested in playing, but they want to play an army that suits there taste such as dark eldar, nids, guard and space wolves.