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Seeing a bit of this, "the old box was better!" "You get a bunch of duplicates if you got the old box!"

These box sets aren't for veteran players. They're for newer-ish players that want to start a big collection or grow an existing one that maybe hasn't gotten up to 2000+ points yet.

GW doesn't market to the veteran that has everything. They market to the newer players that, to them, all of this is new content.

I'm not an expert at what's viable in 40k by any means, but if I was looking at getting into the the game that CSM box would be tempting at 170. You a decent core to an army with a ton of new sculpt minis. I believe the retail on everything in the box is 245 (thought the old terminator lord should basically be free, not 30 bucks), so it's a pretty good deal, especially if your store offers a discount over 100 USD or something like that.

Again, I don't play 40k anymore, but it seems to me a CSM box + the new start collecting (or Shadowspear box half) would you give you a decent assortment of models to put together a solid starter army for a pretty reasonable price.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Wow, those Christmas boxes suck.

Christmas battle forces used to be something I actually praised GW for. Previously they were a reasonable deal, and "most" of them were set-up to complement the Start Collecting box. The new T'au one is absolute gak compared to the last one, in my opinion...and same goes for the Space Wolves.

This old T'au Force is far better than the new one - and doesn't duplicate your Start Collecting box:

Spoiler:

People complained that these Battleforces weren't valid armies last year...so yeah. Tough. This year, 40k got a Patrol in a box for each set.

And frankly? The Tau Battleforce this year is full of more things that people are likely to use. Last year, we had people whining about the Broadside and the Pathfinders.

I know if I was starting Tau it would be a more useful box for me. Combined with the SC box its 2 Troops, 3 Elites, 2 HQ and a DT. Another box of Firewarriors and maybe 2 more Devilfish and boom, army. I like Crisis Suits and Firewarriors more than Pathfinders and Broadsides. And I could always add the Ghostkeel on later.

drbored wrote:
Seeing a bit of this, "the old box was better!" "You get a bunch of duplicates if you got the old box!"

These box sets aren't for veteran players. They're for newer-ish players that want to start a big collection or grow an existing one that maybe hasn't gotten up to 2000+ points yet.

GW doesn't market to the veteran that has everything. They market to the newer players that, to them, all of this is new content.

Yeah, no. That argument doesn't fly even with 'start collecting' boxes.

They're for anyone that wants them. They're marketed as limited Christmas boxes and that's it. There is no 'intended audience' indicated, beyond anyone who wants at least some of the stuff inside and thinks they're getting a deal.
Which is why people discuss if and in what way they can be useful.

That there is a distinct drop in value and usability compared to the old boxes is very relevant.

Tempted by the Gloomspite one. I’ve liked them since they came out, and I like all the models in it. If the Necromunda box is as expensive as rumoured I might swap it on my Xmas list for this.

Well I won’t be getting as many battleforce boxes as last year. Perhaps I’ll get a couple of the Necromunda starters assuming that pricing that is rumoured is wrong.

I've been putting off getting the Stormcast on cats, so I may get one of these to fill that void in my horde. I really like the assortment of the Skaven box, but I already have plenty of rats.

Voss wrote:

drbored wrote:
Seeing a bit of this, "the old box was better!" "You get a bunch of duplicates if you got the old box!"

These box sets aren't for veteran players. They're for newer-ish players that want to start a big collection or grow an existing one that maybe hasn't gotten up to 2000+ points yet.

GW doesn't market to the veteran that has everything. They market to the newer players that, to them, all of this is new content.

Yeah, no. That argument doesn't fly even with 'start collecting' boxes.

They're for anyone that wants them. They're marketed as limited Christmas boxes and that's it. There is no 'intended audience' indicated, beyond anyone who wants at least some of the stuff inside and thinks they're getting a deal.
Which is why people discuss if and in what way they can be useful.

That there is a distinct drop in value and usability compared to the old boxes is very relevant.

For contrast, the AoS boxes are equal to or better than what they've been (the stormcast box in particular is vastly superior to last years vanguard box) at the cost of being a bit pricey-er

Manlets in both battleforces? That's a hard pass from me.

JSG wrote:
Manlets in both battleforces? That's a hard pass from me.

I feel you, solely for the fact that I'm struggling to put the old Marines in a list. There is just a creeping dread that they'll be shuffled into Legends in the near future and that just bugs me.

Nice to see the Shadowspear exclusives getting a wider release. But I'm not going to hold my breath for stand alone kits now they are in SC sets.

GoatboyBeta wrote:
Nice to see the Shadowspear exclusives getting a wider release. But I'm not going to hold my breath for stand alone kits now they are in SC sets.

They did this with Artemis as well now that I think about it.

The Sc box for csm is just, eugh, why the monopose shadow spear CSM squad.

The bigger one is meh, aswell.

Altough i am quite astounded at the Tyranid one for savings.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Sc box for csm is just, eugh, why the monopose shadow spear CSM squad.

Basically it keeps the miniatures in print? Extends the return on investment of the molds, allows players who missed Shadowspear to get the miniatures, and get only the half they might want.

There's really no downside. You can even use the ETB CSM as a basis for conversions with regular CSM weapons to keep things fresh.

Edit: They're also on the same sprues as the other contents of the box.

I suspect we will see more of this going forward honestly.

Do we know the UK prices on the Battleforces?

 dan2026 wrote:
Do we know the UK prices on the Battleforces?

If the rumour list is correct, I think it translates to £60

The tyranid one would be tempting. Only issue being do I want to start yet another army when there's still plenty of units I could add to my necrons...

Ugh ugh. Decisions decisions. Not much tyranids locally though so that would be different.

Herbington wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
Do we know the UK prices on the Battleforces?

If the rumour list is correct, I think it translates to £60

The battleforces are the bigger boxes, not the start collectings.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Sc box for csm is just, eugh, why the monopose shadow spear CSM squad.

That's why. Because they share the sprue with the Greater Possessed.

You've been grousing all day over these guys, did you ever stop to think that the reasoning behind the Shadowspear set's loadout is that it was intended to be compatible with the full kit once it got released?

Because that's the intention, seemingly, with the Infiltrators. Hell--there's no Helix Adept parts on their sprues. At all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
I suspect we will see more of this going forward honestly.

With the Sisters of Battle coming out in their Army Pack this way? I'd think you're right.

The intention going forward might be to set up "Start Collecting" sets to have these kinds of sprues, while still offering full kits as well.

Yup, as I’ve been saying for a while, I think they’re going to start making monopose SC boxes out of boxed sets. Shadowspear made it pretty obvious that it was going to be that, and with the SoB coming, it points to a new trend.

phillv85 wrote:
Yup, as I’ve been saying for a while, I think they’re going to start making monopose SC boxes out of boxed sets. Shadowspear made it pretty obvious that it was going to be that, and with the SoB coming, it points to a new trend.

Which is immediately discredited as a concept by the existence of Blood of the Phoenix and Feast of Bones--neither of which took after Shadowspear...

I'm torn on the gloomspite one. It's got enough stuff I like and that I'd have to get separately to get near the retail price for the box but I don't know if I'd ever troll it up or use the foot loonboss. But this combined with 2 halves of looncurse is a pretty solid army that only needs some spitters to finish up.

 dan2026 wrote:
Do we know the UK prices on the Battleforces?

Around £115 as they are between 170-200USD

Another echoing of the sentiment that these festive collections strike me as particularly underwhelming. (I had high hopes for the Dark Eldar box dammit!)

That said, the Goblin and Stormcast sets look quite enticing purely from a modeling standpoint (highly subjective, I know) so GW may yet squeeze some cash out of me.

Anyway, living under a rock as I do, I know that Necromunda is set for some sort of large scale, all singing, all dancing boxed set soon, does anyone know if there will also be something in the same vein for Warcry*?

*I'm gonna go quickly skim the relevant threads as I've hopefully missed something!

 Scrub wrote:
Anyway, living under a rock as I do, I know that Necromunda is set for some sort of large scale, all singing, all dancing boxed set soon, does anyone know if there will also be something in the same vein for Warcry*?

*I'm gonna go quickly skim the relevant threads as I've hopefully missed something!

Warcry is imminently getting The Tome of Champions and the Spire Tyrants, but beyond that is unclear. We've seen the Fomoroid Crusher (WarCom), and Scions of the Flame are in the rulebook.

The 40k boxes are super lame. AoS are pretty nice and the two I collect (Gitz and Nighthaunt) have a lot of stuff I need, so yay!

Also

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I hope that the 'Nid box contains lots of the miniatures that I don't currently own.

(/altruism)

It'll have a bunch of Warriors and Gargoyles.

And 2 Carnifexes.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The 40k boxes are super lame. AoS are pretty nice and the two I collect (Gitz and Nighthaunt) have a lot of stuff I need, so yay!

Also

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I hope that the 'Nid box contains lots of the miniatures that I don't currently own.

(/altruism)

It'll have a bunch of Warriors and Gargoyles.

And 2 Carnifexes.

The Nighthaunt one is pretty good, would have been tempted myself if it was not for the Mortal Realms magazine with the Nighthaunt/Stormcast armies starting around January

 Kanluwen wrote:

phillv85 wrote:
Yup, as I’ve been saying for a while, I think they’re going to start making monopose SC boxes out of boxed sets. Shadowspear made it pretty obvious that it was going to be that, and with the SoB coming, it points to a new trend.

Which is immediately discredited as a concept by the existence of Blood of the Phoenix and Feast of Bones--neither of which took after Shadowspear...

not playing AOS I can't comment on feast of bones, but Blood of the Pheonix includes a 2 sets of new models and the rest is old stuff, this is differant from shadowspear and the SoB boxes.

I think at this time we can identify two TYPES of boxes GW is putting out now, the first is what you could call a "dsicount box" these boxes inlucde the full mini sets, and maybe include a single new thing, like a HQ (a primaris leuitenant say) etc. and mostly exist to give us a discount on old stuff, Wake the dead being a good example of this. and then you have "start collecting new stuff" boes that mostly introduce a ton of new stuff, and give us monopose variations. that might be put into SC boxes. examples include shadowspear, and Dark Imperium. I predict once GW puts out a new 40k starter set, we';ll see Dark Imperium (or know no fear) put out into a SC box. this'd be a way to keep those limited time models still for sale and would prevent stuff like the Ork deffcopters from ABR dissappering. (If anyone from GW is listening, track down the ABR sprues and put those out in a Ork box. you'd be doing Ork players a solid)

Wow. The Space Wolves have been on a diet.

1 Iron Priest
1 Deadnought
5 Terminators
5 Wolves
15 Space Wolf Marines
1 Gunship

vs

1 Iron Priest
10 Primaris
5 Wolfen
1 Gunship

I really do hope this new Battleforce is significantly cheaper than the... oh who am I kidding? It'll probably be more.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
And 2 Carnifexes.

Damn you blackfang!


And that pretty much seals the fate of Suppressors, Oblits and bigger Possessed. They ain't getting full kits anytime soon...

 Sentineil wrote:
Because pure model count is the metric we use for judging quality....

Who said anything about quality? We're talking about value.