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Because people on the internet want to dissuade people from starting 40k altogether. There are some decent posts in this thread though.

Personally never bought one because the IG one had a load of stuff I don't need, and the demon one is pantheistic. So I suppose you need to properly know what you want from an army before you start looking at battle forces.

 BryllCream wrote:
Because people on the internet want to dissuade people from starting 40k altogether. There are some decent posts in this thread though.

Personally never bought one because the IG one had a load of stuff I don't need, and the demon one is pantheistic. So I suppose you need to properly know what you want from an army before you start looking at battle forces.

Honestly, if we wanted people to not get into 40k, we'd bring up details that are a little more damning, such as their addiction to yearly price increases, habitual lying about price decreases, the off-the-wall rulesets and FAQs that come out, the PRICE POINT OF STARTING THE GAME...

I think you get my point. There are good battleforces and there are bad battleforces. The good ones are virtues of GW. The bad ones are money grabs... But if you ask anyone who actively plays a GW game "would you try to steer your friends away from this game?" I sincerely doubt you're going to have many 'yes's

Lord_Of_Morthan wrote:

Honestly, if we wanted people to not get into 40k, we'd bring up details that are a little more damning, such as their addiction to yearly price increases, habitual lying about price decreases, the off-the-wall rulesets and FAQs that come out, the PRICE POINT OF STARTING THE GAME...

Actually I'm more irritated by the lacklustre battleforces than I am to some of your points, though I'm not sure what one or two of them mean.

RegalPhantom wrote:
The SM battleforce contains 15 tactical marines (a tac squad and a combat squad), a rhino, 5 scouts with bolters/bp&ccw, and 5 assault marines. While that seems decent at first, 5 of the normal marines don't come with any weapons options (and you never want to take a squad of just 5 marines anyways, you want to take a unit of 10 and then use the combat squad rule), scouts are better with sniper rifles and cloaks (which aren't included) and assault marines are only good for Blood Angels (who get them as troops).

There's leftover special weapons from the tactical squad and possibly even the assault marine squad to make some alternate special weapons guys from the combat squad folks, so it's hardly a big downside really.

However, the Combat Squad does lower the cost effectiviness of the box, since the combat squad is more expensive per model than a full tactical squad. For me the Battleforce was one of the items in my very first WH40k order along with AoBR. And all the Battleforce units are quite usable, especially with the Scouts being Neophytes for me. Would've been nice if the Rhino had been a Razorback so that one could've used it as either or, but it's still not a bad set.

I'm rather shocked that anyone said the ork battleforce was good. You save about $5, and you get three bikes, 20 boyz and a trukk.

$5? I don't know about the US, but in Europe you save 22€. That's ~20%. Just like you save ~20% with all the other Battleforces, too.

I bought two Ork Battleforces myself. I needed the Boyz, I wanted some Bikers, and Trukks can be quite useful and ended up costing very little (7€) as a part of the Battleforce, so it only made sense.

 tvih wrote:
[quote=RegalPhantom 509307 5313918 nullThe SM battleforce contains 15 tactical marines (a tac squad and a combat squad), a rhino, 5 scouts with bolters/bp&ccw, and 5 assault marines. While that seems decent at first, 5 of the normal marines don't come with any weapons options (and you never want to take a squad of just 5 marines anyways, you want to take a unit of 10 and then use the combat squad rule), scouts are better with sniper rifles and cloaks (which aren't included) and assault marines are only good for Blood Angels (who get them as troops).

There's leftover special weapons from the tactical squad and possibly even the assault marine squad to make some alternate special weapons guys from the combat squad folks, so it's hardly a big downside really.

However, the Combat Squad does lower the cost effectiveness of the box, since the combat squad is more expensive per model than a full tactical squad. For me the Battleforce was one of the items in my very first WH40k order along with AoBR. And all the Battleforce units are quite usable, especially with the Scouts being Neophytes for me. Would've been nice if the Rhino had been a Razorback so that one could've used it as either or, but it's still not a bad set.

I'm rather shocked that anyone said the ork battleforce was good. You save about $5, and you get three bikes, 20 boyz and a trukk.

$5? I don't know about the US, but in Europe you save 22€. That's ~20%. Just like you save ~20% with all the other Battleforces, too.

I bought two Ork Battleforces myself. I needed the Boyz, I wanted some Bikers, and Trukks can be quite useful and ended up costing very little (7€) as a part of the Battleforce, so it only made sense.

The CSM one is not bad per-say.

Rhino: almost required for some of the 10man 2x special weapon tactics CSM run with.
10 marines: standard
3 bikes: bikes are amazing for CSM
Possessed: bit for conversions and for count/as raptors

I bought 2 battleforces + leftovers from the Dark Vengance (bikes) and I had a force that could hold its own.

The abbreviated version is: if you're using everything in the box, they're a good deal.

The problem is you often times won't use everything in the box.

I like the battelforces, I went and purchased three when I started my Nid army. gave me troops and spare bitzs useful for work on other things.

Tau battleforce (one of the oldest still for sale) is a decent deal, 120.00 from GW for around 160.00 seperatly, although it does have only 12 kroot instead of 16 from the box set, so a 40.00 usd saving, not the lottery but from Gw its not bad.

And yes not a optimized army , but I use it as a building block.

Battleforces I bought:

2 of the previous CSM.
2 of the previous DA. I used the bikes for a khan army and was fortunate to pick one of them up for $40; practically stole it.
1 of the previous Necron - Best way to get destroyers and plenty of troops.
1 of the new Necron - I needed the ghost ark and immortals anyway.

I've used every single model in them.

 captain collius wrote:

 tvih wrote:
[quote=RegalPhantom 509307 5313918 nullThe SM battleforce contains 15 tactical marines (a tac squad and a combat squad), a rhino, 5 scouts with bolters/bp&ccw, and 5 assault marines. While that seems decent at first, 5 of the normal marines don't come with any weapons options (and you never want to take a squad of just 5 marines anyways, you want to take a unit of 10 and then use the combat squad rule), scouts are better with sniper rifles and cloaks (which aren't included) and assault marines are only good for Blood Angels (who get them as troops).

There's leftover special weapons from the tactical squad and possibly even the assault marine squad to make some alternate special weapons guys from the combat squad folks, so it's hardly a big downside really.

However, the Combat Squad does lower the cost effectiveness of the box, since the combat squad is more expensive per model than a full tactical squad. For me the Battleforce was one of the items in my very first WH40k order along with AoBR. And all the Battleforce units are quite usable, especially with the Scouts being Neophytes for me. Would've been nice if the Rhino had been a Razorback so that one could've used it as either or, but it's still not a bad set.

I'm rather shocked that anyone said the ork battleforce was good. You save about $5, and you get three bikes, 20 boyz and a trukk.

$5? I don't know about the US, but in Europe you save 22€. That's ~20%. Just like you save ~20% with all the other Battleforces, too.

I bought two Ork Battleforces myself. I needed the Boyz, I wanted some Bikers, and Trukks can be quite useful and ended up costing very
little (7€) as a part of the Battleforce, so it only made sense.

Just looking at the armies my friends and I have:
You look at the Tyranid Battleforce and initially it looks good, but then you realise if you want an HQ you have to buy one separate or convert a Warrior into a Prime, which would give you two Warriors left that you can't field as it's a 3 model minimum brood. The Warriors, Hormagaunts, and Ripper Swarms will probably just sit around collecting dust (like mine are) once you've got some more guys and the Genestealers are only really useful as Ymgarls. Plus it doesn't even come with a Carnifex any more. Not a good buy until Warriors and Hormagaunts become useful again, otherwise you're better of buying a Tervigon and some gants.

The Imperial Guard Battleforce is only barely playable if you use the troops as veterans and Sentinels are terrible. (I believe the old one came with a Leman Russ) I guess it's a decent start for a foot army of IG but there's probably a cheaper way to get as many models and it's rubbish for Mech Guard.

While the Necron Battleforce isn't playable by itself, you can get a Command/Annihilation Barge to have both an HQ choice with the Overlord as well as it's dedicated transport or a good, cheap heavy support option, all the models in the Battleforce are great units and the Ghost Ark and Immortals could be a Doomsday Ark and Deathmarks (though you'd need to get some more Warriors to have 2 units of troops) if you'd rather have one over the other. I'd say it's a fantastic purchase.

The Space Wolves battleforce comes Grey Hunters (yay), Blood Claws (yay), Drop Pod (good), Wolf Scouts (meh) no Wolf Guard (boo) no HQ (boo) it's a decent purchase but at small points levels you'll find yourself wishing it had long fangs and a rune priest instead of the drop pod and wolf scouts.

I'm in line with the common sentiment in this thread, Battleforces vary from fantastic (Necrons) to terrible (Tyranids) with most of them being somewhere in between.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Just looking at the armies my friends and I have:
You look at the Tyranid Battleforce and initially it looks good, but then you realise if you want an HQ you have to buy one separate or convert a Warrior into a Prime, which would give you two Warriors left that you can't field as it's a 3 model minimum brood. The Warriors, Hormagaunts, and Ripper Swarms will probably just sit around collecting dust (like mine are) once you've got some more guys and the Genestealers are only really useful as Ymgarls. Plus it doesn't even come with a Carnifex any more. Not a good buy until Warriors and Hormagaunts become useful again, otherwise you're better of buying a Tervigon and some gants.

The Imperial Guard Battleforce is only barely playable if you use the troops as veterans and Sentinels are terrible. (I believe the old one came with a Leman Russ) I guess it's a decent start for a foot army of IG but there's probably a cheaper way to get as many models and it's rubbish for Mech Guard.

While the Necron Battleforce isn't playable by itself, you can get a Command/Annihilation Barge to have both an HQ choice with the Overlord as well as it's dedicated transport or a good, cheap heavy support option, all the models in the Battleforce are great units and the Ghost Ark and Immortals could be a Doomsday Ark and Deathmarks (though you'd need to get some more Warriors to have 2 units of troops) if you'd rather have one over the other. I'd say it's a fantastic purchase.

The Space Wolves battleforce comes Grey Hunters (yay), Blood Claws (yay), Drop Pod (good), Wolf Scouts (meh) no Wolf Guard (boo) no HQ (boo) it's a decent purchase but at small points levels you'll find yourself wishing it had long fangs and a rune priest instead of the drop pod and wolf scouts.

I'm in line with the common sentiment in this thread, Battleforces vary from fantastic (Necrons) to terrible (Tyranids) with most of them being somewhere in between.

Space wolves contains two whole packs iirc so you can make either 20 grey hunters, 20 blood claws, 20 wolfguard or any combination, plus have a wealth of bits left over. I think its one of the best battleforces around, along with dark eldar, blood angels, ravenwing, tau, necrons.

 Spyral wrote:
I find the tau BF is pretty good as it has troops, extra drones suit transport. The stealthsuit is the 'free' unit but as I'd be buying the rest anyway I might as well get a free unit.

The Tau battleforce is an example of one of the more ok ones out there. And it still is quite expencive for what you get. And why is there 12 kroot and not 16 like in the kroot box? The old battalion box for tau also came with the useless krootox. Blah.

The old Daemon battleforce was pretty good as it would've run you 173.75(CAN) for everything.

Bloodletters in large squads are decent if overcosted.
The Pinkies are likely the outright 'best' Troops choice in 40k since they have a rather disgusting ranged attack, plus can take a S8/ap1 shot to insta-pooch T4 critters and/or simply to go through 2+ saves.
Seekers again are pretty good if you know how to use them. They simply eat vehicles and small units like Longfangs for breakfest.
The only really lackluster unit are the Daemonettes because you pretty much need at least 15 of 'em to make them viable.


The CSM battleforce is pretty solid too.

Basic marines are a solid Troops choice that can be tailored to any role, plus you get a transport for them.
Bikers are gross this edition, so getting 3 of 'em is a decent start to a unit.
Possessed themselves may not be most people's cup of tea, but honestly, you can simply use them a 'free' bitz and effectively turn them into 5 more CSM's and/or IC's like a Chaos Lord or Dark Apostle.

Buy two CSM battleforces and you effectively have;
- convertable HQ's
- upto 30 basic Chaos Marines (or 20 CSM's + 8-9 Possessed + HQ conversion)
- 2 Rhinos
- 6 Bikers

A nice little core to any army in all honesty.

It does vary from army to army.

For example, the Necron Battleforce is pretty good imo, since you get a decent core of Warriors, some Immortals/Deathmarks (both good units) and a Ghost Ark, which is still fairly good. All you need is a lord and you'll be away. As long as you're not intending to run Flyer Spam, it's a good buy, so that will be true for most new players. Same with the Ork Battleforce, especially if you want to go speed freeks. Hell, I even bought an Ork Battleforce the other day, converting the Trukk into a Battlewagon. Granted, most new players aren't going to be doing that, but with the Ork Battleforce, you can get another Trukk and a Warboss/Mek and you've got a pretty decent army. True, AOBR is better for starting an Ork army, but that'll change at the turn of the next edition, and we're on about battleforces here.

Many other battleforces, however, are somewhat underwhelming, as they contain units you'll never use and/or require many other units to be bought to even get a legal army going, let alone a decent one. The IG one is an example of this.

triplegrim wrote:

 Spyral wrote:
I find the tau BF is pretty good as it has troops, extra drones suit transport. The stealthsuit is the 'free' unit but as I'd be buying the rest anyway I might as well get a free unit.

The Tau battleforce is an example of one of the more ok ones out there. And it still is quite expencive for what you get. And why is there 12 kroot and not 16 like in the kroot box? The old battalion box for tau also came with the useless krootox. Blah.

well the 3rd ed battleforce had 12 kroot aswell so maybe they decided to keep it that way. I remeber when I started in 3rd ed and the most common thing I saw for starting an army at that time was to just but 2 battleforces and then pick and choose, because the 3rd ed battleforces came with a lot of good things. (so for the kroot, 2 battleforces worth is 24 and then an additional box of 16 is 40 so now you have 2 full 20man squads... thats what i kind of thought when I saw it)

The way I see it, the Imperial Guard battleforce is the only halfway sensible way to start a guard army now.

Actually, 'halfway' sensible is too generous. Halfway sensible would be using Mantic Corporation...

The way I interpret it is, the Guard battleforce is giving you a troops choice and a sentinel.

A 'normal' person could get away with starting a guard army with 3 battleforces and a bucketload of cheap guardsmen.

At least then, you've only got the tanks to worry about.

The Blood Angels battleforce isn't that bad to be honest, I used 2 of them as a core of mine, plus a couple of jump pack sets. Or, you know, ebay...

NO HQ

On the other hand, if you're buying multiples of the box... Do you really want to end up with multiple HQs?

Incidently, it is entirely plausible to make up an Command HQ out of the Guard box set, it's all down to paint style and how you assemble the models.

I like the Dark Angels BF. I'll end up using everything in it.

Experiment 626 wrote:
The old Daemon battleforce was pretty good as it would've run you 173.75(CAN) for everything.

Bloodletters in large squads are decent if overcosted.
The Pinkies are likely the outright 'best' Troops choice in 40k since they have a rather disgusting ranged attack, plus can take a S8/ap1 shot to insta-pooch T4 critters and/or simply to go through 2+ saves.
Seekers again are pretty good if you know how to use them. They simply eat vehicles and small units like Longfangs for breakfest.
The only really lackluster unit are the Daemonettes because you pretty much need at least 15 of 'em to make them viable.


The CSM battleforce is pretty solid too.

Basic marines are a solid Troops choice that can be tailored to any role, plus you get a transport for them.
Bikers are gross this edition, so getting 3 of 'em is a decent start to a unit.
Possessed themselves may not be most people's cup of tea, but honestly, you can simply use them a 'free' bitz and effectively turn them into 5 more CSM's and/or IC's like a Chaos Lord or Dark Apostle.

Buy two CSM battleforces and you effectively have;
- convertable HQ's
- upto 30 basic Chaos Marines (or 20 CSM's + 8-9 Possessed + HQ conversion)
- 2 Rhinos
- 6 Bikers

A nice little core to any army in all honesty.

I like your point you can convert the possessed or the marines into troops its the best to buy 2 of

Its usually 1 of 2 things:

1) The models provided arent useful unless either enmassed (and you only get a couple) or the models dont work in the same army list very well.

2) Theres no discount or special reason to get them. With the exception of Orks is there a single battleforce thats actually cheaper?

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Just looking at the armies my friends and I have:
You look at the Tyranid Battleforce and initially it looks good, but then you realise if you want an HQ you have to buy one separate or convert a Warrior into a Prime, which would give you two Warriors left that you can't field as it's a 3 model minimum brood. The Warriors, Hormagaunts, and Ripper Swarms will probably just sit around collecting dust (like mine are) once you've got some more guys and the Genestealers are only really useful as Ymgarls. Plus it doesn't even come with a Carnifex any more. Not a good buy until Warriors and Hormagaunts become useful again, otherwise you're better of buying a Tervigon and some gants.

Hormas aren't too bad in 6e. They're a scoring unit that can glance most transports to death with AG, and are numerous enough to trap the occupants in the wreck preventing them from disembarking. It's just the current standard Nid list favours Tervigons as preferred troops instead, while Gargoyles do a cheaper job of glancing vehicles and screening your army.
Genestealers are in a similar position - 6e made it easier for them to kill vehicles but with their loss of Outflank assaults then Tervigons are the optimal choice.

Warriors and Rippers are dire as ever though. I can field a 9-strong Warrior brood with a Prime and it's only ever seen one game of Apoc, where it achieved very little for a ~500pt unit. Most of my rippers went into base decoration for various units rather than be used in a game...

 Vineheart01 wrote:

2) Theres no discount or special reason to get them. With the exception of Orks is there a single battleforce thats actually cheaper?

Not many, only every single one.


Now seriously, the batleforces are quite decent, and some are actually pretty good.

Yes, some like Nids are a total faliure, but most are a good buy
You get 4-5 components in each force, if from the entire force you will use all but 1 component-its a good deal, the unwanted component can be sold, scrapped for bits, many times good for converting into desired units, and worst case terrain pieces.

Lets go over one by one shall we? (by the order they show up in the search on the GW website)
SM-a bit all over the place, but can easily be turned into 20 tacticals, meaning you shell out 13$ more for the scouts, and some bits you can use later/sell. (or get 5 jetpacks extra to make 10 assualties)
Necrons-amazing, every single model is good, most WILL be used, some ahve multiple variations, and even if one does not fit you, another necron will want it.
SW-20 great troops and a pod you will want anyway, and free scouts! not to mention tons of conversion bits.
DA-very monotone, but every ravenwing army will like this.
Tau-firewarriors are core, crisis can be HQ or elite and always needed, kroot are medicore but have uses and the fish fist some lists, and can be easily turned into a hammerhead if you but a turret. so free stealth. (who are also sometimes useful.)
Chaos-only the possessed are a bad unit, but they are easy to convert into many, many good units.
guard-tiny bit cheaper then the troops sold separably, and a free sentinel (may not be good, but good for scrapping, so consider it as a gift rather then a discount)
DE-honstly not a clue, I know nothing of DE.
orks-seems legit, all units are useful.
blood angels-i expected more assualties, but make due with what you got. you can mix and match to make quite alot of options there, a good buy.
nids-ok, this one is a failure, I admit.
eldar-ditto.

Essentially, the problems I have with them are twofold.

1) They seem like they should be starter sets, good jumping off points for a new player to get into the game. If someone wants to start an army you should be able to point at the related battleforce and say "buy that, and we'll play a few games, and then you can decide whether you like it", but with 90% of the battleforces this isn't the case. At best, it seems to be a case of "well, if you buy that, and then just one or two other things, you'll probably be able to play", but at worst you're buying something and throwing away half of it as soon as you can to replace it with other units.

It seems to me like the battleforces should all contain a minimum of 2 troops and a hq, and probably all come to a standard points value with a standard list that people can get their head around, and then buy more specialised units as they expand.

At the moment the only real use for a good half of the battleforces is to bulk out an existing army, or buy a couple of them to jump straight in at the 1500+ point level.

2) The other issue I have with them is that they seem to be decreasing in value as time goes by. I was looking at building an IG army in the last year, and I got really annoyed that the new box has not only increased in price, but seems to have less stuff than it used to.

In my experience some are good and set you up great. And some are just flat out terrible.

I kinda view them as blister or supplement packs. The Space Marine one in particular is the one i like, it gives me lots of stuff i can add to my army, like lots of tac marines and some scouts. I can finally get a METUL BAUX thats basically free(or for only 5 bucks), and i get more assault marines. The assault marines are not very good, but i can find uses for them. I guess the best way to view them is as a care/supplement package to expand and fill some lacking voids(depending on the army set.).

Given that currently the Khorne Battleforce (x4 Bloodcrushers and x20 Bloodletters) is $153, I think you can see why they get some hate. Overpriced, poorly balanced, no HQ's mostly.

The Megaforces are the only thing that are remotely worth it.

 Harriticus wrote:
Given that currently the Khorne Battleforce (x4 Bloodcrushers and x20 Bloodletters) is $153, I think you can see why they get some hate. Overpriced, poorly balanced, no HQ's mostly.

The Megaforces are the only thing that are remotely worth it.

What you are talking about isn't a battleforce, but one of GW's new '1 Click Bundle' ripoffs, where there are NO savings on the models. I actually suspect that we might see GW phase battleforces out entirely in favour of their 1 click bundles, as players are using them if they are still putting them up.