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Shadowvaults: strange choice for an 'expansion' release?

From the photos, it looks just like Into the Dark, with two different teams and a few extra bits like sentry gun, and a hatch-cutting device (presumably this can actually penetrate walls this time, unlike the Imperial Navy hatch-cutter, which can't! Bonkers).

Anyone else feel like they missed a trick with this? A space hulk as big as a moon, and the terrain is the same as it was last time you ventured in. Yes, I can build a map twice as big as before, but that looks like the only real benefit here. Why not just release the new teams and those extra pieces of equipment separately? We've bought the terrain already, I don't need it all over again. You can't use it like a standalone release either, because this one doesn't come with the Core Rules.

Bit baffled by it, because I was excited to see what else I might find in the warped conglomeration of thousands of different ships on the space hulk. Looks to be pretty much the same as last time I was there...

Muzzlehatch wrote:
Shadowvaults: strange choice for an 'expansion' release?

From the photos, it looks just like Into the Dark, with two different teams and a few extra bits like sentry gun, and a hatch-cutting device (presumably this can actually penetrate walls this time, unlike the Imperial Navy hatch-cutter, which can't! Bonkers).

Anyone else feel like they missed a trick with this? A space hulk as big as a moon, and the terrain is the same as it was last time you ventured in. Yes, I can build a map twice as big as before, but that looks like the only real benefit here. Why not just release the new teams and those extra pieces of equipment separately? We've bought the terrain already, I don't need it all over again. You can't use it like a standalone release either, because this one doesn't come with the Core Rules.

Bit baffled by it, because I was excited to see what else I might find in the warped conglomeration of thousands of different ships on the space hulk. Looks to be pretty much the same as last time I was there...

the terrain is almost certainly a decision based on their recently announced plan to do a 40k boarding action sub-game, and i believe thier intent form the beginning was that the three boxes of this release set would be cross-compatiable....which naturally means they all look very similar thematically, so that owning all three results in one triple sized set, not three separate sets that just happen to slot together in a mismash of styles.

xerxeskingofking wrote:


the terrain is almost certainly a decision based on their recently announced plan to do a 40k boarding action sub-game, and i believe thier intent form the beginning was that the three boxes of this release set would be cross-compatiable....which naturally means they all look very similar thematically, so that owning all three results in one triple sized set, not three separate sets that just happen to slot together in a mismash of styles.

...yeah makes sense if you're going to do 40k battles, and a huge ship would look great. I thought it might be fun to have another style of ship - you could set the terrain up so that one ship had crashed through a different one, justifying the mix of styles, but obviously there would be limitations to set-up.

If like you say there is a 3rd set coming out, hopefully they change it up a bit. It's a lot of money to spend on the same 4 walls, and nothing new to paint

xerxeskingofking wrote:

Muzzlehatch wrote:
Shadowvaults: strange choice for an 'expansion' release?

From the photos, it looks just like Into the Dark, with two different teams and a few extra bits like sentry gun, and a hatch-cutting device (presumably this can actually penetrate walls this time, unlike the Imperial Navy hatch-cutter, which can't! Bonkers).

Anyone else feel like they missed a trick with this? A space hulk as big as a moon, and the terrain is the same as it was last time you ventured in. Yes, I can build a map twice as big as before, but that looks like the only real benefit here. Why not just release the new teams and those extra pieces of equipment separately? We've bought the terrain already, I don't need it all over again. You can't use it like a standalone release either, because this one doesn't come with the Core Rules.

Bit baffled by it, because I was excited to see what else I might find in the warped conglomeration of thousands of different ships on the space hulk. Looks to be pretty much the same as last time I was there...

the terrain is almost certainly a decision based on their recently announced plan to do a 40k boarding action sub-game, and i believe thier intent form the beginning was that the three boxes of this release set would be cross-compatiable....which naturally means they all look very similar thematically, so that owning all three results in one triple sized set, not three separate sets that just happen to slot together in a mismash of styles.

It’s four boxes.
But yeah it’ll make one big ol’ table of stuff to play on at the end.
Just an excuse for more terrain and new Teams and a deal price.
Not that you can get Shadowvaults now.

Very strange choice.

Danny76 wrote:


It’s four boxes.
But yeah it’ll make one big ol’ table of stuff to play on at the end.
Just an excuse for more terrain and new Teams and a deal price.
Not that you can get Shadowvaults now.

Wow you're right...
even more baffling. 4 boxes, presumably all around the £100 mark, with the same terrain across all 4 boxes I guess? To me, that feels like GW is really taking us for a ride. It's even a bit insulting! For those 40k fans that want to play on a huge ship-board, I'm sure they can figure it out...buy extra walls from ebay, whatever. Don't release all this stuff under the Kill Team banner if most of it's going to be redundant in games of Kill Team...

Forget 'seasons'...this is how GW justifies selling a lot of similar looking stuff to you in a year. "This season, in Kill Team, we're going to sell you the Gallowdark 4 times and you're going to love it". Please.

KT has a smaller battlefield, and deserves more attention given to how varied the terrain could be. Small changes make a bigger impact here. I really hope at least one of the next two releases is meaningfully different from the others. Living quarters, Engine deck, medical bays...whatever, just make it new. It's too expensive otherwise.

Ya they lost me at shadow valt. I have every kill team set octarius - into the dark. But I'm not rebuying the same set at these frankly outrageous prices.

I have a suspicion that the next couple of boxes might be a more 'corrupted' version of the same scenery, to represent getting deeper into the hulk. We know from the background in the Into the Dark book that it's been in the war a long time and is infested with chaos cultists.

They were pretty explicit when they announced the roadmap that the idea was release 4 sets which could be put together into one big battlefield - presumably in order to tie in to the Arks of Omen 40k campaign. Yjat means they must be similar enough to work together, but I could definitely see them doing a more warped, techno-organic version for the later sets.

Call me a pessimist, but I think we will be getting 4 sets of Into The Dark terrain. There will be no new walls, just one or two "extra" gubbins sprues for every box. In addition to this, the same ship terrain will be sold separately to 40K fans as an Arks Of Omen SKU, this has already been shown, along with the new Space Hulk themed bases.

For whatever reason, GW seems hell bent on recuperating this space hulk terrain's mold costs sooner rather than later. Flood the market with it, then go OOP and forget it ever existed.