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OK, before you say that we have Start Collecting boxes as well as plenty of "armies" for certain factions up on the website, I mean more along the lines of Magic: The Gathering's event decks. So, these Event Decks come with a full 60 cards (minimum size for an MTG deck) and a 15 card Sideboard (maximum size for a sideboard). Unfortunately, Wizards has stopped making them, but they were such a great idea.

While I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap, it'd be nice for people who are hobbyists trying to get into the game or those who are complete beginners to have a box they could go buy from GW or their FLGS that will hold its own in the current meta. Now, does this make it a Take-All-Comers or Win-at-all-costs army? No. It's just a simple army of say 1000 points that allows someone to get started on collecting what is worthwhile in the current meta.

Wizards of the Coast used to release these Event Decks with every set released (if I remember correctly), and while it definitely wasn't top tier, it would definitely win a few games here and there and help a player to not only get started learning how to play the game. But, it would give them one or a few really good, somewhat valuable cards.

Starter boxes don't even get the army to 1000 points. Start Colleting boxes don't either. And, I'm not saying that GW should change the point values to make those boxes reach 1000 points. But, why not release 1000 point boxes. Granted, they'd probably be $200USD to 300USD (or possibly more), but it give newbies a great place to start the hobby as well as playing. And, if the current meta is that this army benefits from having all the troops outfitted with a weapon that is usually only one or two per sprue, include enough to equip all the troops with that wepaon in the 1000 point box.

Anyway, just my $0.02

SG

Any other wargame usually has this. GW is the exception mostly because their customers have proven that GW can get away with not doing it.

I'm not sure I agree. Most new people I know don't want to buy a full 1000 point army all in one go. They want to buy a smaller investment to try it out and see if they like it, which is why the start collecting boxes are good.

Also "worthwhile" in the current meta is a pretty subjective thing? Which meta? The LVO tournament meta? My garagehammer meta? Pre Chapter approved meta? Pre Faq meta?
They would need to be constantly revising these boxes, and making new sprews.

1000 point starter box's containing 1 battalion and one unit from each of the other slots are definitely something they could do, but without it coinciding with a new codex or new model release's wont happen.


I think they were trying to do this with the new space marines box's they put out for imperial fists and such.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:
I'm not sure I agree. Most new people I know don't want to buy a full 1000 point army all in one go. They want to buy a smaller investment to try it out and see if they like it, which is why the start collecting boxes are good.

Also "worthwhile" in the current meta is a pretty subjective thing? Which meta? The LVO tournament meta? My garagehammer meta? Pre Chapter approved meta? Pre Faq meta?
They would need to be constantly revising these boxes, and making new sprews.

How can they try anything out, if they aren't planing the real game. Lets say they play a starter set vs a starter set, they would get a very skewed image of how the game is right now. Worse if they really do buy in to 2000pts and face a real army, they are going to feel really bad.


Plus they don't have to do them for all armies. They could make 2-3 armies. An eldar starter, an imperial starter and maybe a chaos starter.

For imperials it could be something like the loyal 32, and 2-3 support units. Like a jump pack HQ and 2 unit of scouts.

The start collecting boxes are meant to be a gateway-starter army. Most of them either give you a patrol or one of the lesser Detachments.

On that note, that's generally how you start interacting with the community. You ask if someone wouldn't mind showing you how to play with one of their multiple (in all likelihood for most players) armies.

Or

You ask them to match how many points you do have, and if they aren't pickle-holes, they'll oblige and be able to teach through play.

I don't think meta-tailored starter boxes are a good idea.

I do think that the Start Collecting boxes should have a "list" in them, rather than an assortment of stuff. Each seems to be built along the principle of 1 HQ, 1 Troop, and 1 Iconic Unit. This isn't particularly great, though, since it doesn't tell the player how to use the models they just bought, and some start collecting boxes are way better than others [IE: Guard, which I'm still not sure how to make 500 points with. Fortunately, there's the CDF box, which I generally recommend to prospective Guard players].

Printing out a "list" in the box, even if it's in PL, and standardizing the value across the faction boxes would be a good start. Right now, the SC boxes seem overall better for existing players adding to their army than for new players trying to get into the game.



Also, for someone who advertises not playing competitively, you certainly make a lot of post about trying to ensure competitiveness and get a path to having a meta-competitive army.

Wayniac wrote:
Any other wargame usually has this. GW is the exception mostly because their customers have proven that GW can get away with not doing it.

Other wargames that do this tend to have a $40 bare-bones starter and a $100-150 "this is an army you can put down at normal points values" starter. If GW wanted to give you a "here's a 1,500pt army" box they'd probably be charging upwards of $500 for it, and presenting it as a "starter box" means you're telling people "here's a $500 hurdle before you can start playing our game", which is very likely to turn people off on the idea of playing.

The problem with this is the sheer amount of models and data sheets that GW sells it's hard to condense that down into an effective starting army. Not to mention that GW seems reluctant to do bundles with metal or fine cast models, which hobbles a lot of ranges.

I thought dark Imperium was handled really well. It came with missions and the core rules. Now on how balanced the box is is a entirely different topic

This may be slightly off topic but in the current craft world starter box you have all of these constructs with a farseer rather than a spiritseer. Whose bright idea was that?

I wish that I could still find the starter with all the bikes. Although it may not have been a detachment at least it was very thematic.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
This may be slightly off topic but in the current craft world starter box you have all of these constructs with a farseer rather than a spiritseer. Whose bright idea was that?

I wish that I could still find the starter with all the bikes. Although it may not have been a detachment at least it was very thematic.

Answer to this simple, the start collecting kits have had a consistent rule, plastic only. No resin, no metal. To my knowledge there is no plastic spiritseer model so that means that model won't be included.

I tried an experiment. With Space Marines, Aeldari, Necrons, Orks and Guard. I made 1000 pt / 55 PL armies using 2 HQ, 3 TR, an FA, EL, HQ, a Transport, and more if needed.

All 5 could fit that. I tried to use at least one or two of the newer models, and each troop choice.

I think each list could probably do that, short of maybe Custodes... I don’t know much about them... and definitely not Knights.

I think if GW did something like this, they'd consider it a loss of profit. They do the Christmas bundles which are basically the "next step" to the Start Collecting boxes. They're always a pretty damn good deal (yes, for a GW product) and they frequently don't duplicate the Start Collecting models.

Sadly they're only limited to 4-5 factions each year and are limited time only offers. I think GW would sell a ton - even if they were through GW's retail store only.

This isn't a new concept for GW. Back in the mid-90's, they used to sell a 2000 point box of Eldar for a little shy of £100.

Admittedly, it wasn't very good playability wise as they put a lot of high point models in to pad it out (2 Phoenix Lords, Eldrad, 2 Dreadnaughts, 3 to 5 of every aspect etc) but it worked for this exact purpose.

As Sumilidon points out, GW has done something similar in the past (I think they were called battleforces?)

I have a Tau and Eldar battle box I bought back in the day to start both of those armies (about double a SC box - they had an even larger set that I think is the one Sumilidon mentions); it would be nice to see GW have the Start Collecting boxes and additional, evergreen "Battle Builders" that add more units to get you to the 1,000 pt. mark or more.

That literally is the point of things like Kill Team, Space Hulk, Overkill, etc.. Shadespire for AoS, etc...


It get's people a more manageable amount of miniatures and into the gaming. 40k just isn't necessarily where people start of fresh of the "never held a miniature in my life"-train, and GW isn't expecting them too.

Sumilidon wrote:
This isn't a new concept for GW. Back in the mid-90's, they used to sell a 2000 point box of Eldar for a little shy of £100.

Admittedly, it wasn't very good playability wise as they put a lot of high point models in to pad it out (2 Phoenix Lords, Eldrad, 2 Dreadnaughts, 3 to 5 of every aspect etc) but it worked for this exact purpose.

They also used to have 2000 point Empire and Orc and Goblin packages for what by todays standards was an incredibly cheap price. They were always collecting dust in any GW. Seems, at least then, that was not how people liked to collect armies.

In 40k I think this is even more unneccesary since every man and his dog seems to play Space Marines and you always get a decent chunk of them in the starter box and people tend to just add what they like on top of that....outside of the religiously follow the "meta" crowd. Sucks for Xenos players I guess since they started making every main starter box Marines V Marines.

I just imagined a Meta tailored CSM army:

A bunch of DP's, Cultists, and oblits.

Aswell as the colour pink, blue, green and bone aswell as some metal.

Sunny Side Up 771932 10357303 wrote:That literally is the point of things like Kill Team, Space Hulk, Overkill, etc.. Shadespire for AoS, etc...


It get's people a more manageable amount of miniatures and into the gaming. 40k just isn't necessarily where people start of fresh of the "never held a miniature in my life"-train, and GW isn't expecting them too.

Shade spire isn't that much cheaper then w40k. you have to get almost all the boxs to get two or three good decks. Never seen anyone play overkill or space hulk, those are board games, so most people that buy them just sell the parts at higher price. Kill team is interesting, specially if GW does support your faction with HQs etc, but you still have to get the 2 books and ton of terrain or it gets as bad w40k with shoting dominating everything. It is cheaper though. I do not envy those kill team GK players who may think their army is as playable in w40k as it is in KT.

Answer to this simple, the start collecting kits have had a consistent rule, plastic only. No resin, no metal. To my knowledge there is no plastic spiritseer model so that means that model won't be included.

A plastic Spiritseer actually exists now. Was included in the Wake the Dead box.

However, it did not exist when the original Start Collecting was released.

Regarding the original post I think it would be great if GW offered several boxes akin to Dark Imperium. They are kinda doing it with all this splash release boxes, but they should be offering them for longer so people actually have a valid option of choosing between two-player starter boxes instead of the limited release window they have now.

Karol wrote:

Sunny Side Up 771932 10357303 wrote:That literally is the point of things like Kill Team, Space Hulk, Overkill, etc.. Shadespire for AoS, etc...


It get's people a more manageable amount of miniatures and into the gaming. 40k just isn't necessarily where people start of fresh of the "never held a miniature in my life"-train, and GW isn't expecting them too.

Shade spire isn't that much cheaper then w40k. you have to get almost all the boxs to get two or three good decks. Never seen anyone play overkill or space hulk, those are board games, so most people that buy them just sell the parts at higher price. Kill team is interesting, specially if GW does support your faction with HQs etc, but you still have to get the 2 books and ton of terrain or it gets as bad w40k with shoting dominating everything. It is cheaper though. I do not envy those kill team GK players who may think their army is as playable in w40k as it is in KT.

Shadespire is much cheaper if we‘re talking about starting the hobby for 2 12-year-olds. If you‘re worried about building a competitive deck, you‘re already into the game.

Same for the 40k „starter“. You can throw the Dark Imperium or Tooth & Claw miniatures on the table and be just fine. At the moment, where you‘re actually worried about things like points, much less even points on both sides, you‘re already far past the stage of consumer they worry about with „starter sets“

I have never seen anyone play the game at less then 1000pts, and even those 1000pts game were rare. 2000pts matched play is the norm. In fact telling someone that they can play shade spire, w40k or any other GW game with a starter is plain lieing to them, the same way play what you like not what is good etc are.

Proper start sets would A show people how much the game could cost and B make the entry much easier, as GW could save up on boxs. Unless of course GW wants to cut up the stuff needed to play the game and make it cost more then it should. Then yes, it does make sense to do so. Then we can put everything in to 3-4 model clamshells.

Meta tailored isn't a good idea, IMO. Metas change, and it encourages people to only focus on that aspect of the hobby.
I also don't see how "points" can be managed with these boxes. Most units have multiple weapon options, which can change the potential cost of a unit. In fact, using Power Level would actually be very good here, and you could organise starter games (and with 40k, PL makes for a good start into the game) with these starter boxes, and have roughly equal Power Levels.

The main issue is in pricing. These boxes would be nowhere near the same cost as eachother, because some armies have cheap units, but the models are expensive (Scions compared to Marines, for example - a 5 man unit of Scions is worth 3 PL, and costs £21, but 10 Space Marines cost £25, for 9 PL). In order for the boxes to have the same PL, they'd have drastically different costs, with Guardsmen and Orks costing far more than Grey Knights or suchlike.

Right now, GW seem to have prioritised them costing roughly the same, rather than having the same strength in game.

Having starter boxes that have a variety of units, all for standardised prices, that can be used in a variety of GW games (Kill Team to full 40k) is better than chasing the meta, IMO.

This is the whole reason why GW has moved to have a few more price points for Start Collecting sets: so that the boxes can be expanded in terms of contents without being "too good" of a deal.

Karol wrote:
I have never seen anyone play the game at less then 1000pts, and even those 1000pts game were rare. 2000pts matched play is the norm.

I spent years never playing more than 1,000 points (3rd-5th ed). We had monthly 500 point tournaments, it was wonderful for those of us with limited funds, or who were just starting out.

I'd actually never played 2,000 or higher until this past year.

Karol wrote:
I have never seen anyone play the game at less then 1000pts, and even those 1000pts game were rare. 2000pts matched play is the norm. In fact telling someone that they can play shade spire, w40k or any other GW game with a starter is plain lieing to them, the same way play what you like not what is good etc are.

Proper start sets would A show people how much the game could cost and B make the entry much easier, as GW could save up on boxs. Unless of course GW wants to cut up the stuff needed to play the game and make it cost more then it should. Then yes, it does make sense to do so. Then we can put everything in to 3-4 model clamshells.

Again not everyone does so but generally speaking atleast here the ammount of points if fairly diverse, sometimes people play 2000, sometimes 500. Everything inbetween also.
It's nice for variation but also for having faster or longer matches.I can only reccomend you to play a few smaller ones.

I don't see how such boxes would make sense in 40k.
Magic (or any TCG for thatr matter) is a really bad example.
a) Cards in TCGs are usually bought in boosters randomly, so aquiring an exact 60 cards deck is pretty hard starting from zero. Meanwhile in 40k you can just buy all the pieces of an army freely.
b) The investment of picking up a TCG starter pack for the player is pretty neglectable. Read through all the cards once maybe and you are ready to go play. And then you can go right into modifying that deck too. In 40k you better be sure you actually want to use any unit you buy, because not only are they pretty expensive in comparison, but the time needed to assemble and possibly paint them would otherwise all go to waste.

If you bought a start army and stuck with it, but only ended up using part of it in your default army down the line, then that was a huge waste of money and time.
On the other hand those 1000 points of units will go pretty far to lock you into a certain playstyle if you keep them all in. So you may end up with a lot of similar armies and players who started out with starter kits will probably feel limited in their choices.

On top of that, TCG starter packs are rarely optimal, or even competetive without at least some modifications.
I fear this would be much worse in 40k with the way release cycles are timed.

The only possible upside to such a box may be a lower price for the bundle. But that's lost the moment you end up not using all of it.
And with all the downsides that come on top of that, it's a really bad idea.
Just go and buy the pieces you want instead...?

My issue with sets like Forgebane, Tooth & Claw, etc. is that the miniatures are split between two armies. I'd like to see slightly larger sets that are single faction expansions on the SC sets.

The problem tends to be what GW packages, and what people find acceptable to field is often quite at odds. It's likely if GW did larger army boxes they'd just throw together some cheap options that folks aren't interested in putting on the field.

Just another view, and I hope they do not do this, but here is my simplest solution; (I'm part of the "people buy up from a small amount, rather than I want a complete army" theory. If you have the money and want a complete army, go to ebay)
now;
If GW wanted to hand out starter boxes at 1k that match current meta, some forces would be easy. Just throw in a super heavy like a knight, baneblade etc, since that seems to be a big part of the meta (how much is a castellan and loyal 32? Doesn't that make up like 20% of armies at tournaments? It certainly does at my FLGS). The problem? The cost goes way up.
If your faction lacks a game controlling, dominating super heavy, replace it with flyers, or 3 herohammer characters people are taking anyway. If your faction lacks these as well, welcome to the unbalanced nature of having this massive variety of options (which i approve of (the options that is)).

Now, if the real debate or question I want a 1k detachment that has variety, matches maybe fluff/narrative AND is competitive but oh by the way costs half of what it does currently? Good luck. This is still GW.