Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Warhammer community just revealed the battleforces for this year and it’s a bit disappointing. There are 8 in total and six of them are from the imperium. If those six two of them are space marines as well. The remaining two are thousand sons and death guard. It’s very very disappointing to see no Xenos options as well. You’d figure you could cut one loyalist and one traitor marine option to make room for some variety.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Warhammer community just predicted the battleforces for this year and it’s a bit disappointing. There are 8 in total and six of them are from the imperium. If those six two of them are space marines as well. The remaining two are thousand sons and death guard. It’s very very disappointing to see no Xenos options as well. You’d figure you could cut one loyalist and one traitor marine option to make room for some variety.

Whilst you are correct I feel that: "Hey 2 out of 8 are chaos, cut one of them to make room for variety!" is just as bad. It's also not too hard to repurpose the knights into chaos knights so that's a fair choice.

Dudeface wrote:


Whilst you are correct I feel that: "Hey 2 out of 8 are chaos, cut one of them to make room for variety!" is just as bad. It's also not too hard to repurpose the knights into chaos knights so that's a fair choice.

It’s less about the chaos support and more about the complete lack of xeno options. For that matter if we include chaos in it, maybe it could be a non power army variety. The knights kit can dual hat but that still leaves the xeno players completely forgotten. I’d rather see more armies get featured then sit through more rounds of Imperium and spikey imperium.

Well most of those are very disappointing. The Chaos ones are worthless as expansions if you don't want to have primarchs have anything to do with 40k (like me) or already have the models.

I will concede that SOB one might be good value depending on the price.

The Imperial Knights could be done up as Chaos. Can't get enough Wardogs these days.

But I would prefer to see less Imperium.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Well most of those are very disappointing. The Chaos ones are worthless as expansions if you don't want to have primarchs have anything to do with 40k (like me) or already have the models.

I will concede that SOB one might be good value depending on the price.

If you play or are interested in the armies, this is the probably the best year for them (depending on price). The IK box and the Custode box are almost complete armies. The Sisters box would be better if it only had one unit of the suits and then like...seraphim or repentia but it's still pretty amazing for new players.

Can't comment on the efficacy of the Admech box, but it's certainly COOL.

Deathguard box is awesome, Tsons box is awesome. The number of people who have your specific issue is incredibly small. I also imagine that the type of players who get the most out of these boxes will be THRILLED to have a discounted primarch.

Both marine boxes suck. They should have cut one or the other for a Xenos box.

So how much are these gonna cost? These boxes are all in the 320-340 dollars range, retail (after the annual 'feth you' bump.), if they keep their normal christmas discount, that's about 220 per box. Still a good deal, obviously, but wow are even the christmas bundle boxes getting really, really pricey.

8 box sets with 6 of them being IoM and no xenos. I get that Space Marines sell but this amount of focus on the IoM is a joke.

 Vankraken wrote:
8 box sets with 6 of them being IoM and no xenos. I get that Space Marines sell but this amount of focus on the IoM is a joke.

You've completely missed that IoM is not space marines. There have been 2+ marine boxes as long as I can recall, albeit my memory sucks. Chaos rarely get 2, this is unusual also. The only thing that is different is they've handed over 2-3 xeno slots to IoM which is weird, but there aren't more loyalist Marines than usual and at best slightly more chaos marines.

So, Mortarion's Council doesn't have Deathshroud? Or any of the HQ guys that feature heavily in the DG? You know, the guys that actually are his... Council? (I know it's just a marketing name that has no actual meaning, still stupid, though.)


Also: Damn, I just bought two Mangler squigs and normal squigs for my Snakebites and thought about using Squig Hoppers as Stormboyz and now they're releasing that Squig-set for AoS

I'd be up for that Knight set and maybe the Fists box to start a Primaris Heavy new army.

Wonder if GW will add more sets over the coming weeks?

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I'd be up for that Knight set and maybe the Fists box to start a Primaris Heavy new army.

Wonder if GW will add more sets over the coming weeks?

I think it's about the same amount we had the last years, so I don't think there'll be more. There's also no reason to hold some back, right?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I'd be up for that Knight set and maybe the Fists box to start a Primaris Heavy new army.

Wonder if GW will add more sets over the coming weeks?

I think it's about the same amount we had the last years, so I don't think there'll be more. There's also no reason to hold some back, right?

Just wishing. GW have burnt me for 30 years or so..I should know better.

They all look like great ways for a new player to get a key character and a very solid start to their army.

GW caters to new players with these boxes, not people that already have everything. They will likely never be ideal to whatever the rules are because the rules change every 3 years.

You get a battleforce, you fill in the holes in the army with other things that you want, and boom you're at 2000 points in no time and have likely saved some money.

You get the Death Guard Battleforce and the Death Guard Combat patrol and just like that you've got Mortarion, Typhus, 21 plague marines, 5 terminators, a Biologis Putrifier, and 30 poxwalkers.

You get the Thousand Sons Battleforce and the Thousand Sons Combat Patrol and boom, Magnus, 3 exalted sorcerers, 1 Infernal Master, 5 terminators, 20 rubric marines, 20 tzaangors.

Both of those are awesome collections of minis that just need a tank or two to fill out.

Aside from the Custodes, there's very little overlap in the Battleforce and Combat Patrols, which I'm sure was a consideration they had. The weakest combo of those would probably be the Sisters of Battle one, but that's because their Combat Patrol is a weird mix of their army launch box + a rhino.

Does it suck that we get no Xenos? Yeah. Better luck next year.

The weakest battleforce IMO is the Raven Guard one. Phobos stuff is just real underwhelming in general, but here's hoping it gets a facelift in the new edition.

First, please remember friends that the Knights Box is also for chaos as they are specifically supposed to use those kits too.

Second, while it seems strange to have no Xenos boxes I also think demanding a certain ratio of box types every year isn’t healthy either.

Third, I anticipate these will be $210 to $250 because of constant issues with shipping, tariffs and tax hikes as well as constant inflation.

My main issue with these kits, sans the Knight one really, is that they spam so much of the same units. For a comparison, last year’s Death Guard Box had a Plague Marine Champion, Icon Bearer, 3 Deathshroud Terminators (1box), a Plagueburst Crawler, 3 Myphitic Blight Haulers and 7 Plague Marines.

While models like Primarchs eat up a lot of the box yes, instead of Mortarion, Blightlord Terminators 2 units of Plague Marines, they could have had 1 unit plus some support models like the Tallyman or Plague Surgeon.

Spamming certain units and killing variety isn’t so hot. Especially since many of last year’s boxes included some vehicles which you normally don’t see in discount sets.

The Imperial Fist is especially bad for variety because Heavy Intercessors in money terms are way overpriced.

While they are more elite and would be logical to cost more to a degree, they’ve taken it tok far with them. They’re currently $65 USD for 5 models @ 28 points per model, 140 points total raw.

Intercessors are $60 USD for 10 models @ 20 points per model, 200 points total raw.

While points change, that currently means the HI box is 70% of the points total for $5 more.

This eats up the cost budget of the box, thus you don’t get as much army strength as you would with most boxes.

Though of course it’s still a discount, well pain is pain.

Sorry for the long post, but while I can’t blame them (to a good point anyway) for increasing prices because the cost of everything is skyrocketing.

What I can grill GW is having certain kits be too expensive for what they are, relative to other kits and for how many you’ll need.

Crisis Suits, Banshees, Flayed Ones, etc. Also fit this bill.

Dudeface wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
8 box sets with 6 of them being IoM and no xenos. I get that Space Marines sell but this amount of focus on the IoM is a joke.

You've completely missed that IoM is not space marines. There have been 2+ marine boxes as long as I can recall, albeit my memory sucks. Chaos rarely get 2, this is unusual also. The only thing that is different is they've handed over 2-3 xeno slots to IoM which is weird, but there aren't more loyalist Marines than usual and at best slightly more chaos marines.

I didn't miss that, 4 out of the 8 have some form of Space Marine with 2 others being Custodes and Sisters which are more power armor. Then we have Mechanics and Knights finishing them out.

It's a lot of Space Marines, a lot of IoM, no xenos.

Hmm, not even an Ork or Eldar box to bundle all the new goodies together, that's disappointing.

Well, it's all out of my price range anyways. Only ones that caught my eye were the Ravenstrike (all models I don't have) and the knight set (I could use a 3rd Knight).

Doesn't GW fill these Christmas boxes with slow sellers to get rid of excess stock? Or is that just a theory/rumor?

 Stormonu wrote:
Hmm, not even an Ork or Eldar box to bundle all the new goodies together, that's disappointing.

Well, it's all out of my price range anyways. Only ones that caught my eye were the Ravenstrike (all models I don't have) and the knight set (I could use a 3rd Knight).

Doesn't GW fill these Christmas boxes with slow sellers to get rid of excess stock? Or is that just a theory/rumor?

Latter, general consensus is they cast the models for them especially.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vankraken wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
8 box sets with 6 of them being IoM and no xenos. I get that Space Marines sell but this amount of focus on the IoM is a joke.

You've completely missed that IoM is not space marines. There have been 2+ marine boxes as long as I can recall, albeit my memory sucks. Chaos rarely get 2, this is unusual also. The only thing that is different is they've handed over 2-3 xeno slots to IoM which is weird, but there aren't more loyalist Marines than usual and at best slightly more chaos marines.

I didn't miss that, 4 out of the 8 have some form of Space Marine with 2 others being Custodes and Sisters which are more power armor. Then we have Mechanics and Knights finishing them out.

It's a lot of Space Marines, a lot of IoM, no xenos.

OK, drop DG for mixed daemons, 2 marine boxes because that's normal for every year, keep one of the imperium ones (but which one?) and have 2 xeno slots. What would you go for? Has to be a legal force seemingly built around a named character.

 Stormonu wrote:

Doesn't GW fill these Christmas boxes with slow sellers to get rid of excess stock? Or is that just a theory/rumor?

Its pure BS. They don't keep excess stock around, they just skip a production run if stuff truly isn't selling. Sometimes even if it is, given how long things linger in 'currently unavailable' status these days.

You try not to keep excess stock because there are tax implications for doing so.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You try not to keep excess stock because there are tax implications for doing so.

Also, does anyone really believe that Rubric Marines, Plague Marines, Squigs, The Sigmar Dragons, or Armigers are 'slow sellers'?

The custodes big box, combined with a custodes patrol box would make a nice new player custodes army. Armigers are huge for knights, so a box with 4 is great to start building an army. For chaos you need two of them, and abadon and you can start playing at the store.

 Stormonu wrote:

Doesn't GW fill these Christmas boxes with slow sellers to get rid of excess stock? Or is that just a theory/rumor?

To add to the points above, consider that GW products don't devalue over time. Many companies will bundle up unsold stock because its "old" and is going to be replaced with new products. So they bundle up the unsold and sell it for cheap because the product is devaluing all the time and they'd rather lose some money bundling it than lose all of it when its unsaleable. Keeping in mind that storage costs so even if the product hasn't devalued to 0 its got a constant cost on the company. Heck there are even firms that buy up unsold stock to sell on so that companies don't have to sit on it in warehouses. The Works is a UK firm that often buys up end of line and overstock of books - its the kind of place (at least pre-pandemic - I gather their prices have gone up) where you could get those £30 coffee table art books for £5-10


So GW has no real need to want to bundle up unsold stock into different boxes. If they have unsold they can just sit on it. Yes storage costs, but those products are not devaluing whilst they are sitting there and GW can even scatter them to their own internal stores to further reduce pressure on their warehouse. Of course GW would be expected to monitor sales so that they don't end up sitting on big piles of unsold stuff.



Also these last 2 years of pandemic GW has had trouble keeping many things in stock so they are very much unlikely to be sitting on any pile of unsold and are at the other end of the scale entirely - likely running as hard as they can to keep up. Heck it wouldn't surprise me if they'd started christmas box production earlier than normal so that the time spent producing extra stock for it could be eased in over a longer period of time so that it had less impact on regular production.

devaluing

That is not true. Rules have a very real impact on what ever things sell or not. There are items which go out in seconds and there are things, which no one buys. A silent king can be no longer sold for sometime, because GW is out of them, but the flayed ones will not.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Warhammer community just revealed the battleforces for this year and it’s a bit disappointing. There are 8 in total and six of them are from the imperium. If those six two of them are space marines as well. The remaining two are thousand sons and death guard. It’s very very disappointing to see no Xenos options as well. You’d figure you could cut one loyalist and one traitor marine option to make room for some variety.

This just proves how GW only wants to make money, devilish of them to give SM such a huge buff in the dataslate just before the release of all these /sarcasm.

 Stormonu wrote:
Hmm, not even an Ork or Eldar box to bundle all the new goodies together, that's disappointing.

Well, it's all out of my price range anyways. Only ones that caught my eye were the Ravenstrike (all models I don't have) and the knight set (I could use a 3rd Knight).

Doesn't GW fill these Christmas boxes with slow sellers to get rid of excess stock? Or is that just a theory/rumor?

It's rather persistent myth.

Whatever they decide they cast them specifically for the boxes.

One thing we know though is they don't put new releases. Those they want to sell at full price before putting in discount box. The myth likely comes from contents generally being old kits rather than brand new..

One 'xenos' box wouldn't help much with variety. As somebody who has a collection of eldar, necrons and GSC well if I wanted more of those models then I'd be equally disappointed with an ork or tau set. Xenos doesn't really mean anything to people playing specific armies.

The sets this year seem ok if you're staying a new force. I imagine that the inclusion of the special characters mean that there's limited value in doubling up.

I don't think I'm interested in any of these sets. The only one that looks tempting is the death guard one but I don't think I can start a brand new army right now.

Karol wrote:

devaluing

That is not true. Rules have a very real impact on what ever things sell or not. There are items which go out in seconds and there are things, which no one buys. A silent king can be no longer sold for sometime, because GW is out of them, but the flayed ones will not.

GW prices don't devalue. You're talking about value in terms of the general meta and popularity of sales, but that has no impact on the price GW charges. If a kit isn't selling GW doesn't discount the set to make it sell faster, the set remains at its price. It sticks to that price all through one wave of meta and into the next where who knows it might jump up in popularity again; or GW removes the kit from sale or replaces it with an upgraded one (which might come with a meta shift and often comes with a price adjustment - rise).

So yeah GW just has to balance their production, their supply. The actual kits themselves do not lose value.

It's not like a DVD, music, phone or such were every so often the price goes down and down and eventually either reaches a market low point or is removed from sale entirely to make way for a new product.