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Hey, everyone, I am planning to start a vanilla SM army, since I recently got into 40k, and would like to start with SMs for quite a few reasons. I was wondering if Betrayal at Calth was worth buying into to start my army. I know they're 30k minis, but they can all be run as tacts, Captain, Chaplain, and the termies and dread are both in 40k. I don't really see myself ever needing 3 tact squads, but I would have a solid 2 ten man tacts, a couple temp HQs, and the termies and dreads. I originally bought the DV box, mostly for the templates, dice and rulebooks, since I'm not super interested in either army(mostly because DA have so many details to paint, and I'm not very good yet, otherwise they seem great)

It's a very good value for the models inside. What you have to decide is what you actually want to use, and whether or not the price is worth those models. Any of it can be bought on e-bay by itself at this point, so it might (might) be cheaper to do that if you just want, say, the Contemptor and won't use anything else. If you're going to use everything, or everything less a few tacs, then yes, it's worth it.

It's a perfectly good way of starting a SM army. Like you said, you get 2 HQ's, plenty of troops, a termi squad and the contemptor.

The only issue might be mixing the sprues with 40k SM bits - you could turn the third tactical squad into a devastator squad by adding more heavy weapons, or sternguard by adding more bling, for example. I've not done it, so don't know if it's easy or difficult.

 Quanar wrote:
It's a perfectly good way of starting a SM army. Like you said, you get 2 HQ's, plenty of troops, a termi squad and the contemptor.

The only issue might be mixing the sprues with 40k SM bits - you could turn the third tactical squad into a devastator squad by adding more heavy weapons, or sternguard by adding more bling, for example. I've not done it, so don't know if it's easy or difficult.

I made 20 regular guys with bolters, 5 guys with meltaguns and 5 guys with rocket launchers and heavy bolters, all with the bits that come in the BaC box.

The box is a shockingly good value for what amounts to a hugely respectable starting force (maybe not tournament list-wonderful).

If you're not going to use tactical marines frequently buy some jump packs and assault marine arms off ebay and convert some fellas over. Money-wise it's a no brainer.

Word of warning: the dreadnought is crap. The weakest part of the box. It can be saved with mods, but it's a crap model to start.

As with most bundle deals, it’s good if you want what’s in it.

What you get is a ton of basic PA bodies, some nice looking HQs, a dread, and some terminators.

You can build a solid Battle Demi-co out of the box. The assault marines might be on foot, and the Devs are going to be stuck with MLs or HB, but you can do it. Need to add a bunch of transports, but that needs to happen for any non-bike marine army anyway. An actual dev box just for more heavy weapon options would also be on the top of my to-buy list.

The main reason is it is a respectable start, and I am having a very hard time starting an army, so I think leaping into a force would be a good push for me. I've heavily considered the aforementioned bike army, but feel like they might be a hard choice for a new player. Plus, HH marines are my favorite in terms of looks.

The models are awesome and if you want to play 30k later, your models can probably do double duty. I say get it and a few Rhinos or Drop Pods for the Marines to ride in and you're off to a good start.