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Hello all,

I was wondering out of the large boxed sets that contain space marines, which offers the best value either point wise or money wise?

I am trying to choose between dark imperium for the marines then trade the nurgle, or the betrayal at calth box and use all the marines as ultramarines,
Worth noting I am returning after a 8year break and don't have any primaris etc. I do own guilliman (reason I came back lol) and got around 5k points of 3rd ed marines,
Are there any other boxed sets worth getting? Perhaps the talons of the emperor?

If you had to pick one box to expand your marines what would it be?

Thank you for any tips advice etc

Marneus

Welcome to Dakka!

I'd choose Betrayal at Calth if you want to play Horus Heresy (30k), as those marines have period-appropriate power armour. They can be played in 40k as well if you like, but that's not their main purpose. You mostly get vanilla stuff there anyway.

Rather pick Dark Imperium if you want to play 40k (trade away or sell the Death Guard), you get a greater variety of models and I think Primaris marines will be the ones GW focusses on in future. You can still play oldmarines of course, but I don't think they'll get any new kits. This box will also offer all new units for your army as opposed of more oldmarines, which you already seem to have a few of.

Thanks, I think you make a great point about them focusing on primaris in the future, looks like I'll have a few primaris additions to the army now thanks!

I would wait to see if there are any Christmas bundles coming out soon.

 Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:
I would wait to see if there are any Christmas bundles coming out soon.

That's an idea as well.

Are GW known for doing Xmas bundles? I've also been out of the game since the late 90's.

I'd reccomend betrayal at Calath, gives you a bit more bang for your buck. you can later on buy dark Imperium (or simply the cheaper 100 dollar one) if you want Primaris Marines. Betrayal at Calath though gives you a great start to an army. giving you a solid set up, Dark Imperium's not bad but unless you want Primaris Marines, BoC is the better option.

Just my opinion

If you want to play 40k, then get Dark Imperium for sure.
The Primaris marines are most likely what GW will focus on for marines going forward. If you have both Primaris and old-Marines next to each other the old models look really out of place and disproportionate.

The good thing about the Dark Imperium box is that you get everything you need, and if you can trade the Death Guard for another set of Primaris marines, you have a nice working army right there. That makes it very cheap and you already have Guilliman so all the more reason to do this.

The Primaris marines already have several decent/good additional kits out, but before you have build, painted and played some lower points games with your Primaris army, GW have probably put out some more stuff for them, so you can pick and choose once you get to that point.

You say you have 5k in 3rd ed stuff, how many more power armor bodies do you need? I’m normally a huge supporter of the Calth box as an entry point, as it’s a great deal. But with any box deal, it’s only good if you need the contents. And if your collection is anything like mine was from that era, it’s not bringing anything new to the table (except a lot of very cool looking minis)

The DI box has stuff you won’t have, plus the rules and such. I’d go with that, or see if there are any new deal in the next few weeks. Or if there are any older bundles collecting dust at your FLGS. Some of the old strikeforces were quite good.

I think Dark Imperium has most to offer you. It's worth the money without the Death Guard almost, if you can flog them for anything the box is dynamite value and you get some fancy marines for your existing collection.

Know No Fear is also a good purchase after Dark Imperium (since you only need one copy of the humongo rulebook). At least in canada it's almost half of Dark Imperium's cost but only lacks one squad and some characters (which you don't really need duplicates of anyways) so value wise I think it's actually better than DI.

Ideally, get a friend interested in DG and each of you get a Dark Imperium set and Know No Fear set, and then just swap around the models. That gives you roughly half a company of Primaris Marines (and him a sizable DG force, you can never have too much poxwalkers)

Thanks everybody for the input, I decided to get dark imperium and I also ordered a repulsor and a 5 man primaris troop squad,

The betrayal box nearly got me because of how gorgeous some of the power armour is, And also I don't own any of the newer dreadnoughts all mine are the older metal "normal dreads". The contemptor looks cool indeed!

Feels like dark imperium is a nice way to update my old marines, and also the rule book is great to have as I have only played about 4 games of 8th so far,

Il post some wip pics when I get them and try my hand at airbrushing for the first time!

Thanks

phillv85 wrote:
Are GW known for doing Xmas bundles? I've also been out of the game since the late 90's.

Indeed they are. We're starting to see them show up now with the scenery bundles that are in News & Rumors.

They tend to do one for each faction, with some rather offbeat choices.
The Christmas bundles will likely be shown/start to show up via leaks around mid-November.
Expect them to be around the price of a Dark Imperium set though. These are big boxes usually with a $40-$50 savings at minimum.

Burning of Prospero is quite nice too, I have a soft spot for MkII/III armour. It depends whether you want all Marines or if you are happy to get a squad of Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

 Karhedron wrote:
Burning of Prospero is quite nice too, I have a soft spot for MkII/III armour. It depends whether you want all Marines or if you are happy to get a squad of Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

It's pretty easy to pick out just the sprues you want on ebay. That's what I did for my Iron Warriors.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
Burning of Prospero is quite nice too, I have a soft spot for MkII/III armour. It depends whether you want all Marines or if you are happy to get a squad of Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

It's pretty easy to pick out just the sprues you want on ebay. That's what I did for my Iron Warriors.

Price is going to be pretty expensive though. If you don't mind custodians(which could form nice ally force) could be just cheaper to get whole box.

Looking at ebay now seems I would pay 84e + postage for 3 squads of tacticals and the terminators. Alternatively I could pay 95e and get whole box...

tneva82 wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
Burning of Prospero is quite nice too, I have a soft spot for MkII/III armour. It depends whether you want all Marines or if you are happy to get a squad of Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

It's pretty easy to pick out just the sprues you want on ebay. That's what I did for my Iron Warriors.

Price is going to be pretty expensive though. If you don't mind custodians(which could form nice ally force) could be just cheaper to get whole box.

Looking at ebay now seems I would pay 84e + postage for 3 squads of tacticals and the terminators. Alternatively I could pay 95e and get whole box...

yeah, with those boxs, buy the box at a discount and sell what you don't want. Even with Ebay fees is much cheaper.

You have the risk of, once having them in hand, chosing to not sell anything, because they are so cool, tought!