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What does everyone think of the new years "getting started" range from the GW, would love to hear everyone's opinion on their value (price-wise) and their viability as a starter army.

To clarify, I'm talking about the new Space Marine, Skitarii, Tyranid, Imperial Guard and Tau etc Starting kits, which ones would you recommend to a friend who wants to start playing war-hammer?

I'm aiming for skitarii first, then I'm getting a Necron one and my third will be either a second skitarii or a tyranid. The marine one is rubbish to me but I already own nine dreas, if it had come with a drop pod or a razorback or something I'd be feeling a little different but I really hate how almost all characters have helmet-less heads and usually just want to convert them to helmets anyways so meh. I really hope they put out one of these for every army, I'd be eyeing up the orks and Dark Angels as well

Reavas wrote:
What does everyone think of the new years "getting started" range from the GW, would love to hear everyone's opinion on their value (price-wise) and their viability as a starter army.

Their viability as a starter army is that you can play them, quite literally, as soon as you finish building them.

To clarify, I'm talking about the new Space Marine, Skitarii, Tyranid, Imperial Guard and Tau etc Starting kits, which ones would you recommend to a friend who wants to start playing war-hammer?

Any of them. They have all the rules for the models that you would normally buy a codex for inside of the box.

Technically you cant start right away though, none of them fill a standard CAD.
For a friendly game or "unbound" list theyre fine.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Reavas wrote:
What does everyone think of the new years "getting started" range from the GW, would love to hear everyone's opinion on their value (price-wise) and their viability as a starter army.

Their viability as a starter army is that you can play them, quite literally, as soon as you finish building them.

To clarify, I'm talking about the new Space Marine, Skitarii, Tyranid, Imperial Guard and Tau etc Starting kits, which ones would you recommend to a friend who wants to start playing war-hammer?

Any of them. They have all the rules for the models that you would normally buy a codex for inside of the box.

Is that confirmed? This may influence my ability to resist getting the Tau bundle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratius wrote:
Technically you cant start right away though, none of them fill a standard CAD.
For a friendly game or "unbound" list theyre fine.

They come with a formation to play what is in the box. No CAD required.

They come with a formation to play what is in the box. No CAD required.

Ah righto, cheers.

 Ratius wrote:
Technically you cant start right away though, none of them fill a standard CAD.
For a friendly game or "unbound" list theyre fine.

Formations are their own form of Detachment, so you're still fine.

WOW, I didn't know that, might have to but a set for the Wifey, if only the sisters of battle had a starting set......

Sadly no sisters... I wonder if GW has plastic sisters as a sort of "break glass in case of low sales figures" along with plastic 30k.

Well, I don't like the 40k starter sets. Each one presents a new formation. Formations provide mixed feelings. The CAD is still the best one. Some tournaments don't allow more than two formations. I'll stay away from them.

I'm not getting any because their orks one is no good.

The formation isnt mandatory. You can still use the box contents as.....box contents in your other builds.

Should also point out that you can run a CAD with the Skitarii, Space Marine and Tau boxes (their troops can all be taken in 5-man squads.)

The Space marine looks to be a nice box for a modeler, but only so-so for use on the table.

Captain (or CM) with a relic blade, SB, and TDA. He’s a jack-of-all trades build. But lacks the focus needed for more competitive lists. By using TDA, rather then artificer armor, his deployment options are restricted if you want to put him with a squad. This is a HQ that is going to be built, see a few games, and then be shelved unless you are running themed lists.

Dreads are not in a terrible place these days. 4 attacks, chapter tactics, reasonable points. The fact that they are an optional part of the battle company makes them easy to fit into lists utilizing formations. If you don’t have points for another aux pick, you can just slap a dread on the table to even out the points. The options in the ven kit aren’t bad, but lack the MM. Dreads are an iconic part of the lore, and every marine player should have one or more. As a modeler, this is on of my favorite kits to assemble. There are tons of options in it.

Tac marines are just that. If you aren’t working with a bike/scout list, you need 10-30 of the guys. Possibly more. With spare bits, they can also be turned into assault/dev/sternguard/command/etc marines. If you are playing a SM army, you could probably use another box. Even as someone with over a full battle company on the shelf, I still need more basic PA bodies to work on for assorted projects. You can never have too many.

The formation from the box looks to be OK from reported leaks. Double fire if you don’t move. One problem is that the captain probably doesn’t want to be babysitting backfield campers, and if you are moving forward, you are not standing still for the double-tap. On the plus side, you can field it to make a basic 500 point list.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
I'm not getting any because their orks one is no good.

If only there was an Ork starter. That being said the "Greenskinz" box for Fantasy would actually make a decent start for a Snakebites/Feral Ork army. Boar Riders = Bikers, Chariot = Trukk or Buggy, Feral Orks = Slugga Boyz, Boss on Boar = Warbike Warboss.

Just, for the love of Gork, don't get the ones with the codex. Not only do they not have any discounts to them, they also don't come with formations (I think). In those cases it's literally better to just buy what you want.

The boxed ones though are all pretty good (except for, again, the marine). If you know anyone serious about 40k, recommend them getting two of those boxes as that fills out a CAD nicely.

I'm going to get three tau sets.then farsight,1 riptide, and 1 ghostkeel. I should be good after that.

Oops. I meant to add and a few units of stealth suits.

Only 3 I can speak on with any pretence of authority are the IG (or Astra Militawhatever the hell they call it these days) the space marines, and the skitarii

IG: You could buy 4 of these things and still be able to use everything in it (even the commissar) However, you're going to really hurt for special weapons. In my opinion, they should've included the CCS box. That box can easily be used to make vets and would've let you buy as many boxes as you wanted and still had a use for all the minis. That's probably why they picked the commissar. Only other complaint is that the Cadian troopers are abysmal troops and for the money you can do way better for plastic "guardsmen" these days, especially if you're an aussie. That said, not a bad start if you want to be straight GW. I would get it if I still used plastic cadians in my guard, but since I don't the only real value is the heavy weapons, the tank, and the commissar.

Space Marines: A lot of people are ragging on it, but it has two of the staple units Space Marines, Tacs and a Dread. The terminator captain is a rough choice, you'll never want more than one of those guys, but perhaps you could convert extras if you bought multiple boxes, or just trade with friends. At the very least, it's a great start and the new Tacs are a pretty nice kit. I bought one just because I love dreads, tacs, and thought the termi captain would look awesome as a black templar.

Skitarii: Probably the best of the three, and one of the best overall. The savings are really good (to give you an idea, I'm ordering 3) The skitarii are a really cool kit, but my god is assembly brutal. These guys have so many fiddly bits, details, and mold lines in REALLY hard to reach spots or over things like cooling vents on the guns. That said, they will look good and their rules are good. The Onager I've never built but you get it for a good price and it has a couple of really good builds to help support your guys. The odd bit is the Techpriest Dominus, as he's not technically from the same codex, so in order to use him with your other minis, you're either going unbound or pretty much forced to use the formation over and over per box. It definitely hints that there's probably a combined admech codex on the horizon though. The Admech are probably the one thing GW has resoundingly nailed in the past 5 years (I'd even argue they blow the plastic 30k minis out of the water) and the only thing they botched was splitting the army into two books. They fix that, and Admech will be a truly awesome army to build, paint, and play.

You could realistically buy 3-4 of these boxes, trade off a couple spare dominuses, and have an excellent core to a skitarii force, and from there just need some infiltrators/rustalkers and a couple extra skitarii boxes.

I agree with the Skitarii one but I must point out something about the space marine one.

Most people are sore on it for a select few reasons:

- The biggest is that it doesn't offer anywhere near as generous of a discount as the other boxes, especially with the Tau and the Mechanicus.
- The units packaged in it are ones that most veterans already have several of. While yes, these are aimed at new people, this means that the models have much less re-buy value when compared to the other ones, and regardless of target audience, they're losing a significant portion of the fanbase that would have purchased it (imagine if it had a Devastator Squad and an Assault squad in it instead. Most people still want Grav Cannons and Eviscerators).
- Closely tied to the above, the Marine one is literally a rehash of the "Space Marine Battleforce" released not long ago. it feels like that one didn't sell well, so this became a "do over" for them.
- The last one is the captain, which was originally promised as a limited edition sculpt. The re-release of him kinda rubbed collectors the wrong way, as something they thought would be rare and exclusive is...suddenly much less so. This also means that a lot of the other "limited" models might also get reprinted, so that whole "limited edition" thing felt like a ruse.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Their viability as a starter army is that you can play them, quite literally, as soon as you finish building them.

They are not viable starter armies at all. They're technically legal armies, but very few people are even going to consider playing a 2-300 point game against one. They're potentially useful as an allied force if you already have an army and want to try out something new before making a major commitment to it, but if you're starting as a new player you're going to have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on top of one of these "getting started" boxes before you can reasonably expect to play the game.


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 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
- The last one is the captain, which was originally promised as a limited edition sculpt. The re-release of him kinda rubbed collectors the wrong way, as something they thought would be rare and exclusive is...suddenly much less so. This also means that a lot of the other "limited" models might also get reprinted, so that whole "limited edition" thing felt like a ruse.

I have very little sympathy for those people. Limited-edition models are not in the best interest of the game as a whole, and I see no reason for GW to appease a handful of obsessive collectors at the expense of everyone else.

Almost regret buying my daemon battalion, the skitarii one looks so nommy

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Their viability as a starter army is that you can play them, quite literally, as soon as you finish building them.

They are not viable starter armies at all. They're technically legal armies, but very few people are even going to consider playing a 2-300 point game against one. They're potentially useful as an allied force if you already have an army and want to try out something new before making a major commitment to it, but if you're starting as a new player you're going to have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on top of one of these "getting started" boxes before you can reasonably expect to play the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
- The last one is the captain, which was originally promised as a limited edition sculpt. The re-release of him kinda rubbed collectors the wrong way, as something they thought would be rare and exclusive is...suddenly much less so. This also means that a lot of the other "limited" models might also get reprinted, so that whole "limited edition" thing felt like a ruse.

I have very little sympathy for those people. Limited-edition models are not in the best interest of the game as a whole, and I see no reason for GW to appease a handful of obsessive collectors at the expense of everyone else.

While I dislike the practice of Limited Edition things as a whole, that's a discussion for another time. It's mainly that GW broke yet another promise, although to be fair most people should have seen this one coming (they've done it numerous times before). It's why I scoff at most people asking 50-60 bucks for Krom. He's probably going to be reprinted the moment the new SW codex comes out.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Their viability as a starter army is that you can play them, quite literally, as soon as you finish building them.

They are not viable starter armies at all. They're technically legal armies, but very few people are even going to consider playing a 2-300 point game against one. They're potentially useful as an allied force if you already have an army and want to try out something new before making a major commitment to it, but if you're starting as a new player you're going to have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on top of one of these "getting started" boxes before you can reasonably expect to play the game.

You are just plain wrong.
First, they work rather well against each other when a group of guys decide to jump into the hobby together, each gets a starter and they'll have their fun without going too deep into complicated rules, army builds, etc.

Then, when looking at joining clubs, most veterans are glad to tune down form time to time to help new guys experience the game. Playing 300? Sure, not like it takes too long.
Most of these formations are rather close to a CAD or a bigger formation too, so it's easy to slowly expand.
And I don't know about your local, but here we recommend to ease into the hobby, start at no more than a commander, handful of troops (one or two kits, one is enough for two minimal teams usually) and one "cool factor" unit.
For example, a friend recently started as KDK and his start units are a prince, two CSM squads and a skull cannon (with "free" Herald). Now, I've got about 3000 point when I go all out, but I'll gladly "dumb down" to what he has to play against him.

The Necron box comes out to a nice even 500 points with a bit of wargear - not a bad starting point. Buying a 2nd box and a Ghost Ark will get you to 1000 points if you push the number of scarabs up with extra bases, all while staying within that single formation. Seems like a solid starting point and is still a modestly strong start for under $250.

Space Marine could do similar if it comes with a Grav-Cannon and Grav Gun, but I'm never sure if you can actually get those or if you have to special order them or something,

But overall, its a good step into the game, especially if you can get them on discount.

The Firespear Strike Force for the Codex: Space Marines bundle has led to an Aquilla Strongpoint being added to my "to-buy" list. Double Tapping the Macro Cannon is just downright mean. Could run two of these for 2000ish points. Wreck everything.

P.S. To add insult to injury, the way the formation is worded, putting an independent character in with the Tactical Squad allows said Independent Character to benefit from the double tap ability. So if you stick a high BS model with the Tactical Squad, you can get even better accuracy with that Macro Cannon.

Which raises the question, can Lelith Heraspex join a Tactical Squad. BS9 Macro Cannon equals much sadness for the other side. Especially when it is firing FOUR Macro Shells. Rain the Strength D!Doesn't work. I guess Issodon would be the best bet for a High BS IC to add to this. Taking the Hunter's Eye for a White Scars force would make this extra mean too. Basically, this is just a mean combo, period.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The Firespear Strike Force for the Codex: Space Marines bundle has led to an Aquilla Strongpoint being added to my "to-buy" list. Double Tapping the Macro Cannon is just downright mean. Could run two of these for 2000ish points. Wreck everything.

Oh FFS GW, why are your rules so broken...

 Peregrine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The Firespear Strike Force for the Codex: Space Marines bundle has led to an Aquilla Strongpoint being added to my "to-buy" list. Double Tapping the Macro Cannon is just downright mean. Could run two of these for 2000ish points. Wreck everything.

Oh FFS GW, why are your rules so broken...

Shh...Don't take this away from me. My biggest complaint about SM was their inability to get Strength D. Now I have a way to get ALL the Strength D. Four Macro Cannon shells a turn off a Void Shielded AV15 monstrosity. Or two Macro Shells and two Quake Shells. Because diversity is the spice of life.

Ok, just opened up my start collecting astra militarum set. Annoyingly you only get the rules for the leman russ, so I will probably pick up the codex this week.

But my set did come with 2 commisars! And the extra base needed.

Oh and the formation is 1 infantry squad, 1 commissar and 1 leman russ so the heavy weapon team is just to upgrade the squad.

Didn't take long for people to start abusing these formations lol. Space marine went from one of the more meh ones to very powerful

edit: nevermind