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Sunday Preview – Return to the Battle for Macragge

Warhammer 40,000 Battle for Macragge – Made to Order

Wrap yourself in a cosy blanket of nostalgia with this special Christmas Day Made to Order release, which recreates the classic Battle for Macragge from the boxed set that launched the fourth edition of Warhammer 40,000 – straight out of 2004. This set contains 35 plastic miniatures: the Imperial Pilot Lieutenant Varras, 10 Space Marines, six Genestalers, eight Spore Mines, and 10 Termagants. There are also 17 pieces of terrain – six objective markers, the wreckage of a crashed Imperial Lander, and six infestation nodes.

This set will be available to order from 10am local time on Monday the 25th of December until 8am GMT on Tuesday the 2nd of January 2024. As a Made To Order product, this may take up to 180 days to ship.

Ok, but why?

Such a shame they're not doing the scenery separately as well.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Ok, but why?

It's not about the why it's about the buy.
Merry Christmas.

I doubt it comes with the original rules as well, would've been nice, Battle for Macragge was a fun starter.

It's missing the most important part, the travel sized rulebook of the best version of the game.

Not sure I get the point when they've just released new minis for specifically those Tyranid types.. the scenery is nice but I'm sure I still have it somewhere.

That gives me hope that battle for skull pass or island of blood will get a future re-release (the latter was MTO during aos once)

Assault on Black Reach would be nice too. That was released at Toys R Us in green plastic iirc

There were rumors that IoB and BfSP would come back as MTOs with the release of TOW

As a Tyranid player I can't work out WHY GW felt the need for this one. We have new and better gaunts (with more weapon options); sporemines are down to 1 type; genestealers have a new kit; the terrain for the stealers has no purpose besides looking neat.


If they were going to tickle nostalgic itches I'd have reprinted the original metal gaunts or the original plastic warriors or such. Ergo proper old stuff that looks very different from what we have now.



This is a strange set to return as a made to order.

I feel the same way. Other than the pilot (who has a smidgen of novelty value), this is just really dated mass-production stuff that doesn't hold up.

A handful of plastic spore mines isn't the worst thing in the world, but I wouldn't pay for everything else [But I suspect that's a legacy of the long period of being stuck with metals or nothing for old spore mines].

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's missing the most important part, the travel sized rulebook of the best version of the game.

But 3rd Ed doesn't have either a travel sized rulebook nor was this for 3rd Ed.

This is the only starter I didn't buy between 2e and 6e. Didn't have enough to tempt with the "start a new army" fever, and I had enough marines and was not collecting tyranids at the time. I also thought the crashed spaceship was cool, but not very practical compared to the jungle + ruins of 3e or the whole pile of cardboard ruins of 2e. Little did I know it was gonna be the last time we got scenery in a starter for a long time!

I'm a bit tempted but like others, I'd absolutely love for this to have the 4e rulebook in it. I found the 3e one on Amazon a few years ago and I really enjoy it, but that 4e one was an even better rulebook imo, except for being missing the "get you by" army lists.

If IoB comes out again, I probably will pick a second one up. Those models are lovely. I have enough Skull Pass to last me though, I bought two sets back in the day that made the guts of two armies.

I think the reason is them hoping to sell enough sets purely on the flyer wreckage.

Part of me wants to get it just to get the flyer wreckage because I think I lost mine, or at least I can't immediately find it in my piles of stuff.

The other part of me fears to see the price tag on this...

If it were cheap, I’d do it for the terrain and because I love those stupid old marines.

It ain’t gonna be cheap though.

Man, I have two of those crashed landers but it's damned tempting to get this again for a third (and another pilot model; that dude is great!)

Meanwhile, in Nottingham:
'Ok, so they bought the incomplete 3rd ed. starter sprues. But I bet you a second wave of squats that you can't get them to buy 4th ed. again'

Depending on price I'll get it. This came out in a period of time I wasn't actively hobbying and the terrain is nice. I have some of those tactical marines I've picked up over the years, they all had terrible mold lines and / or mold slip issues. Hope they have fixed that.

I love the BoM terrain, and IIRC it was never released separately so this would be a great chance to get it, but I have less than zero interest in the rest of the set, so unless it's very, very cheap I can't see myself buying one. Still, it was a very popular set and the stepping on point for a whole lot of people so I can see it selling pretty well.

Not sure who this is for. Bad old tyranid models that have been replaced by better new versions, bad old space marine models that almost don’t even have a unit for them in the new rules, and cool terrain that doesn’t have much in game impact as it’s just short difficult terrain. And will probably cost too much.

I'm dumb and bought a sealed copy of BfM this year and have plenty of starter set marines in dedicated squads, but this could be interesting for the crashed lander terrain if the price is right (which it won't be). I feel like reissuing these as just the plastics misses the point of the nostalgia buying of old boxed sets. The box and rules and paperwork are a bit part of the draw for collectors (speaking from experience).

The Tyranid sprue from BfM had only 3 infestation nodes but also a brood nest. Did they changed the mould?

Not something I'm be picking up but I quite liked BfMc (pronounced "BifMic" in my imagination") back then. The Marines were a nice reinforcement for my BA, at least two Lt Vargas figs got new heads and weapons to become IG officers and of course the Arvus terrain is great.

It might seem like odd to reissue an older set like this, but if the tooling for a plastic set exists there's really no downside to running off as many as you can sell. Its like printing money.

I definitely kicked myself back in the day for not buying this, and ended up collecting most of the minis separately over the years. I'm a little tempted by the lander terrain, but probably not enough to make the plunge.

I'm tempted by the lander, and there's really no such thing as too many Termagants.

Does anyone know if those Marines have weapon options, or are they locked to flamer and missile launcher?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Does anyone know if those Marines have weapon options, or are they locked to flamer and missile launcher?

They're locked:



(Photo nicked from eBay)

Eh, I can make do; my current tactical squads are all meltagaun and missile launcher, so replacing a metlagun with a flamer isn't a huge deal. Was really hoping for a heavy bolter to complete my Firstborn Company Heroes.

That sergeant is going to need some work, though.

 Eilif wrote:


It might seem like odd to reissue an older set like this, but if the tooling for a plastic set exists there's really no downside to running off as many as you can sell. Its like printing money.

Apart from time to cast something else. Like loonshrine so people could start armies, more legion core infantry oi practically anything seeing they can't keep up with demand.

I'd forgotten the marines are on the same sprue as some of the terrain. It's frustrating because I'd be kinda interested in the terrain but I really don't want the rest of it.