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You didn't realise it before?

Australia gets fairly well hosed in regards to prices.

I bought Dark Vengeance for £50 because I wanted the thin rulebook.

I am selling the Chaos models and should get £20 for them.

I might sell the Marines and would hope to get another £15 for them, or I'll keep them.

Overall it represents good value for an SM or a Chaos player, or if you are just starting with the game, especially if two people team up and buy two sets and swap the figures to get a bigger army each.

I gotta say all of the miniatures in this set look absolutely amazing! One concern is that the point values were far from equal, chaos does get six chosen and some meaty cultists, but the box set doesn't really have a back bone for chaos.

In comparison with other Games Workshop products, it's a decent value at best. However, if you look at other games manufacturers' introduction sets, like FoW, Dark Vengeance is skimpy and lacking.

They're basically like all the other boxed sets, I don't know what I'd do with all the Dark Angels (put with the rest of the space marines maybe?). But decent value.

I think compared to other GW prices that its a good value. I just paint for now so as far as keeping me busy it's a good value. You get the rule book and a bunch of figures for like 25 bucks more then just buying the rule book.

Yes. The starter box sets are the one thing that is still a good deal from GW.

DV is great value for monies and the minis look great

I agree its a good price if you take it at its "actual" price, that is if you shop around for a 30% off vendor making it $70 or 35 a side plus rule book (a $10-15 value alone). Now if you just look at the DA side this is what your getting for $35.

1 captian
1 librarian
5 terminators
10 tacticals (with plasma cannon and the ever so popular plasma gun!)
3 raven wing bikers

averaging to about $1.75 a model...which is amazing

On to Chaos:

1 Lord
6 chosen
20 cultist
1 Helbrute

averaging to about $1.25 a model....I mean the resale thing on this alone is amazing, making it cheaper would have been nuts (in a good way I wish it was cheaper, then again I wish everything from GW was cheaper....)

The models look amazing compared to previous sets like this (ie: macragge and black reach) and you get a ton of models, what 43 or something? all for around 100 bucks, that one helluva deal, even if you don't play either, you've gotta admit it's a sweet set.

I think Black Reach was a better deal only because the models were generic.

Macragge was awful.

I think it is a decent value, however, Black Reach was a way better deal.

I chose "too expensive for what you get" - purely because I don't have either army and loathe the excessive iconography on GW models anyway.

Had I played either army, I might have chosen the 2nd option. I don't and won't so we'll never know.

As far as GW products go, I'd have to say it's quite a good deal (and I like the sculpts quite a bit, from what I've seen). It's nice that they included an HQ for each army, too. I do think it'd be better if the Starter set included 100% legal armies, and they should be balanced, but compared to previous GW offerings, this is actually pretty damn good.

In terms of how much the models would cost to buy separately vs how much the box costs, it's unquestionably a good deal.

The miniatures' quality, which seems to have jumped, the inclusion of useful wargear (all that plasma), psykers, and the cool new Chaos units add great value.

I've always found the GW starter kits to be pretty good value, but the improvement from the standard static poses of AoBR to well-detailed, interesting figures make me quite pleased.

It would have been nice if the DA iconography weren't so sculpted on, that Chaplain would have been great for my Blood Angels, but it's not that bad.

Just going to say something:

The Hail Caesar starter box by Warlord Games gives you:
30 Imperial Roman legionaries
60 Celtic Warriors
1 Scorpion Catapult with the crew
The full rulebook
For 60 pounds. 91 miniatures!

Dark Vengeance features:
A Company Master
Librarian
5-man Deathwing Squad
10 Tactical Marines
3 Ravenwing bikes
Chaos Lord
6 Chosen
1 Hellbrute
20 Chosen
For 61.50 pounds. For 48 miniatures.

Don't tell me that the Hail Caesar models aren't detailed:


Though I'll admit that the DV models are more detailed.

But think about it for a second. They're the same scale. You get far more miniatures in the HC box. You get the full HC rulebook.

For GW, then DV probably is great value, but not if you look at other company's offerings.

EDIT: Gosh, I sound like I work for Warlord Games or something!

An Apple is more expensive than a windows pc despite it being just as good.

You pay for the product and the brand, that's why GW is more expensive. GW wants to be the apple of wargaming and they are pretty damn-well close.

 Sigvatr wrote:
An Apple is more expensive than a windows pc despite it being just as good.

You pay for the product and the brand, that's why GW is more expensive. GW wants to be the apple of wargaming and they are pretty damn-well close.

Actually, MACs are often worse, as they can't do quite as much, on top of costing 3-6 times more than the equivalent PC

GW is expensive though, and really pushing too-expensive these days... the starter kit is acceptable value, as is a few things... but yeeeah...

I think it's a good deal. Good way to kick-start an army or two. I do think that Chaos got the short end of the stick with the contents, but that's sort of how it always goes.

My main beef is with the mini rulebook. Dark Vengeance is a starter set made to introduce people to the game. Shouldn't there be a hobby section in it?

 Ovion wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
An Apple is more expensive than a windows pc despite it being just as good.

You pay for the product and the brand, that's why GW is more expensive. GW wants to be the apple of wargaming and they are pretty damn-well close.

Actually, MACs are often worse, as they can't do quite as much, on top of costing 3-6 times more than the equivalent PC

GW is expensive though, and really pushing too-expensive these days... the starter kit is acceptable value, as is a few things... but yeeeah...

Macs do one thing far, far better than PCs though - they actually work

Oh god, this is turning into a FANBOI discussion.... Macs vs Windows is almost as bad as arguing about religion on a forum...

I thought times had moved on to become Apple Vs Android.

Its great value if you have one of the armies in the pack.
However, I think the armies in the pack are to rigid. With AOBR, the space marines were just basic troopers. Get some shoulder pads or bits, and you can make them into another chapter. These new space marines (dark angels), have so many wings and robes and crap on them, they're basically unusable for any other chapter of space marines.

So no, I don't think DV is a good buy.

As a set on its own, it is one helluva deal. As a starter to 40k in general, not so great because it's either DA or Chaos. But I am glad to see GW changing their Mary Sue to DA instead of Ultrasmurf and Grog Knights. I actually liked Macragge though, since it came with scenery and Lt. Varras, who is a cool mini and I still have him to this day. His face is a bit blobby, but still cool as hell! And it was quite worth it, you got 35 minis plus scenery for 50 dollars. 50 dollars now will get you only 5 terminators.

Even locally I think DV is a pretty good deal (lol @ Aussies complaining about prices, come to NZ then maybe you can talk)

Once I sell what I don't need from the kit I'm left with 700 odd points of Chaos, rulebook, templates for about NZD80. Not bad at all

It's a great value. When Black Reach was first released,. It was under-priced, and it impacted GWs overall sales. You were better off as a SM or Ork player to get 2 or 3 of those box sets then to buy other stuff. Sure the model posses would be repetitive, but does that really bother when you factor how much you spent? And THEN if you were only collecting one army, you could easily (and many people did) sell the other side piece meal for MORE then what you paid for the box, the choppers in particular when it first came out.

So I completely understand why GW would raise prices on box sets like this. I got mine for $80. That is a LOT of models for $80. Does that 9% REALLY feel like they are getting ripped off? Or are they just bitter that they don't want DA markings on their marines (Most of which can be clipped or filed off) and would rather of had DE or something versus Chaos?

The major point is that the previous product was under-priced, people abused it (at least state-side, as after about a month, it jumped up to what DV is priced at now), and so GW reacted when they realized they're profits were about to be impacted severely. They put DA in the set instead of generic Marines so people were less likely to buy 2-3 boxes again. Some of the DA players probably did, but if you were a DA player, you could have bought lots of the last one anyway. Shoot, between the two, the DA players have a fully functioning army at this point.

I will probably buy every box set like this if it stays at a similar price against inflation, keep what I want, and give the rest to friends and such (if they are already in the hobby, charge them. If this is their first taste, give them a free sample )

 bibblles wrote:
Its great value if you have one of the armies in the pack.
However, I think the armies in the pack are to rigid. With AOBR, the space marines were just basic troopers. Get some shoulder pads or bits, and you can make them into another chapter. These new space marines (dark angels), have so many wings and robes and crap on them, they're basically unusable for any other chapter of space marines.

So no, I don't think DV is a good buy.

Not necessarily, the iconography works good with blood ravens, just paint the DA crest blade BR red and the hilt and wings black, and you have a nice looking blood ravens crest, while still getting a good deal. So generaly in the P&M side of the SM, YMMV.

Value wise, for a space marine army looking for a BIG boost and not having lots of money (and to boot living with a CSM brother), this set was a God send: split the cost, and he and I get lots of models, which also balanced the armies out (comparing to me having 2 5-man tacs and 1 captain, to him having a termie-khorne lord with 12 'zerkers).

That's how I've been fiddling my Blood Ravens... Combining the DA and BA models together. No Free-handing required!

Hopelly my DA ravenwing models will look as awesome as I'm imagining.

I still haven't decided how to do my Nephilim-into-a-storm-talon paintjob. It can be either:

1) All red, with black wing detail things.
2) Bone wings, black wing details, red fuselage.
3) All bone, black wing details, horrible attempt at a free hand 'blood drop' on the fuselage.

Chaos got the short end of the stick regarding the contents, but damn the cultist are cool!

I loved the DA in that they finally gave you some decent options on the Marines instead of things that are rarely taken.

Plasma options on the Tacticals instead of Flamer/Missile was nice to see. The combi-weapon on HQ was nice to see as well. And they also did a great job with the Dark Angels livery on the models.

The Cultists were amazing sculpts and I see them played by almost everybody using CSM in my local club area. I think the only thing I wasn't impressed with was the Hellbrute, but that was mostly because of its rules.