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How do!

So coming kind of cap in hand looking to thieve ideas. Because, at long last, we’re getting some flexible Melee toys for our Marines. But I’m not sure what purpose I want to put them to.

With the plethora of odds and ends currently in my collection, I could go for a Veteran Squad, kitbash some low level Characters, sort out alternative unit commanders etc.

But what else can we do with this set? Or a couple thereof?

Pic for ease of reference.]

Couple of Centurion/Praetors would he a good start. The alternate unit commanders is also a good call if thats something you think you'l avail yourself of reguarly. Not something I'd be likely to do but that's just because I've got my favoured loadouts and I tend to stick too them.

Veterans, also a good call. That 10 man dual lightning claw squad is a very achievable dream now! Vets with power mauls, also good fun.

Unit Leaders is just for variety rather than game winning master plan. Though having a cheapo basic loadout can help shave points, and flashier hitty sticks and shooters can help round out a spend.

For instance, right now I have three Veteran Sargents. All have Plasma Pistol, and one each Power Sword, Power fist and Lightning Claw. Because that’s the options the squad box presented.

Nowt wrong with that load out, and a lone Plasma Pistol up the rear armour has swung more than one game for me in the past. But they are still quite a pricey loadout, which isn’t always desirable.

The reason why you need ideas for use of the box is the sad fact that the box frankly sucks.

Beyond that realistically this box should be the key to create melee vets, you know , for the legions that lack melee specialists? And even there to create those melee specialists...

With Stormwing for Dark Angels, you get to add basic Centurions to your Tacticals outwith the normal HQ limit.

I'd make a bunch of those to mix and match in if you're looking into Stormwing as a way to go.

I might pick one up just to have spare parts if I want build something spur of the moment without going through the effort of printing it and waiting for it to print, cleaning and curing it and dealing with a more fragile part. Its not a great kit.The two handed thunder hammer and lance and that only 2 of each are in the box are mind boggling. A real box should have had minimum of 5 each of fists, hammers and lances(I guess?) and had them one handed. A few more lightning claws would have been nice so I could equip a command squad. I am kind of not sure what this kit was designed for except maybe for individual squad leader types or a cool model here and there.

Feels focused on sergeants and assault/despoiler squads with the 1 per 5 model options than fully equipping specialist squads.

I’ve speculated their may be a companion set at some point, covering the “exotic” stuff, like Archaeotech Pistols, Charnabal variants etc.

it's a box manifesting GW's greed.

God forbid you maybe convert things, right?
Like that would just be unbearable to look at the hundreds of other plastic kits GW makes, or the massive 3rd party market and like convert stuff?
Y'know something that the community and GW massively encourages for HH.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve speculated their may be a companion set at some point, covering the “exotic” stuff, like Archaeotech Pistols, Charnabal variants etc.

Florida?

Another special weapon set with 6 copies of the 5 main combiweapons would be nice- one for each arm pose and a one handed one for sergeants.

That’s a good point. Heresy has always been a bit stingy with the Combi-Weapons.

Not Online!!! wrote:
it's a box manifesting GW's greed.

Sorry, but I think that is a nonsensical comment. Providing a set of weapons like this so that people can customise models is not a sign of greed; it's giving people what they want. Just because you personally don't like their choice of contents does not make it inherently badly thought out or some kind of cash-grab.

 Snord wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
it's a box manifesting GW's greed.

Sorry, but I think that is a nonsensical comment. Providing a set of weapons like this so that people can customise models is not a sign of greed; it's giving people what they want. Just because you personally don't like their choice of contents does not make it inherently badly thought out or some kind of cash-grab.

Yeah. I'm incredibly outspoken on my loathing for GW, but I gotta admit this box is fine. It's late as feth and useless to me, but it's very much fine. It lets you equip despoilers with their specials, make a bunch of sergeants, and also has plenty of tools for HQ's too. It may not have literally everything you need, or every weapon you'll ever need in one single purchase, but it's a solid offering especially with the addition of all the arms.

If you really need 10 power fists / some truly exotic stuff, there are plenty of bits elsewhere and a flourishing secondary market. This box is satisfactory and quite frankly better than it was reasonable to expect given GW's history of offerings.

Snord wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
it's a box manifesting GW's greed.

Sorry, but I think that is a nonsensical comment. Providing a set of weapons like this so that people can customise models is not a sign of greed; it's giving people what they want. Just because you personally don't like their choice of contents does not make it inherently badly thought out or some kind of cash-grab.

morganfreeman wrote:

 Snord wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
it's a box manifesting GW's greed.

Sorry, but I think that is a nonsensical comment. Providing a set of weapons like this so that people can customise models is not a sign of greed; it's giving people what they want. Just because you personally don't like their choice of contents does not make it inherently badly thought out or some kind of cash-grab.

Yeah. I'm incredibly outspoken on my loathing for GW, but I gotta admit this box is fine. It's late as feth and useless to me, but it's very much fine. It lets you equip despoilers with their specials, make a bunch of sergeants, and also has plenty of tools for HQ's too. It may not have literally everything you need, or every weapon you'll ever need in one single purchase, but it's a solid offering especially with the addition of all the arms.

If you really need 10 power fists / some truly exotic stuff, there are plenty of bits elsewhere and a flourishing secondary market. This box is satisfactory and quite frankly better than it was reasonable to expect given GW's history of offerings.

I am sorry, but let's see which units in HH is 2, 4, 8, 12 intervalls? Wait none beyond command squads which are 4-9? Whilest the rest are all 5 - 20 /5 - 10 and boxes only come in either 5 or 10 or 20 man boxes? Which btw was not an issue for GW to do with special and heavy weapons? NVM split up ? NVM capacity to put on terminators? And let's not forget how long "melee weapons" were announced.

So you're mad because you can't make a 10-strong Veteran squad with Power Mauls from just two boxes and the upgrades for Power Armour models aren't suitable for Terminators.

2 and 4?

Assault Squad. Up to 1 in 5 can have a fancy hitting stick, and up to 1 in 5 can have a fancy pistol.

Do I win £5?

 Gert wrote:
So you're mad because you can't make a 10-strong Veteran squad with Power Mauls from just two boxes and the upgrades for Power Armour models aren't suitable for Terminators.

Well partially, i am more mad because there'd have been many an option to make it a sensible kit, like splitting the chainweapons into one box and the other beeing "heavy energy weapons" and one for "normal energy weapons". As was done with heavy and special weaponry.

Chainweapons being chainswords and heavy chainswords (Chainaxes are Legion-specific weapons for World Eaters and Sons of Horus Reavers exclusively).
So a whole box just for two weapons.

This kit is designed to give you options for characters and unit leaders which it does very well.
Throw in the various Chapter and Legion upgrades, as well as every other Space Marine kit that comes with CCW and there is plenty to choose from.

You're acting like this is the original Despoiler upgrade because that was a joke.
Have you seen the original CCW packs FW made? You barely got one of each weapon let alone two.

Not Online!!! wrote:


I am sorry, but let's see which units in HH is 2, 4, 8, 12 intervalls? Wait none beyond command squads which are 4-9? Whilest the rest are all 5 - 20 /5 - 10 and boxes only come in either 5 or 10 or 20 man boxes? Which btw was not an issue for GW to do with special and heavy weapons? NVM split up ? NVM capacity to put on terminators? And let's not forget how long "melee weapons" were announced.

Literally the baseline melee squads (assault & despoilers) pick their power weapons in 4 packs. Vet squads start at 5 dudes, which means you can easily do 4 power weapons + a fist on the sergeant. IIRC all of the Legion power armored elites also start in squad sizes of five, again making this box perfect for taking 5 palantines / reavers / templar brethren / deathsworn / whatever-the-feth-you-want to make 4 guys with power weapons and then a sergeant with a fist / hammer.

It's like you've never even cracked the libers open before, let alone actually sat down to build a list or gotten as far as playing the game.

Yes, one box won't get you 20 reavers with optimal equipment. You can't give your terminators power mauls from it. Boo-fething-hoo; this box is a rock solid offering, with the only real complaint against it being how long it took to arrive.

And this is coming from the guy who takes every opportunity to tell people to go third party and not give GW money.

Way to miss the point morgan.

 Gert wrote:
God forbid you maybe convert things, right?
Like that would just be unbearable to look at the hundreds of other plastic kits GW makes, or the massive 3rd party market and like convert stuff?
Y'know something that the community and GW massively encourages for HH.

Well said Gert. We don't need this set to arm our armies. Look to 3rd parties. Look to conversions. Diy is the way of the HH.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Way to miss the point morgan.

So, your point is they should have made two melee upgrade packs instead of one with everything? I'm not sure people would have been happier about that (knowing GW they'd find a way to do the worst combinations between the boxes so you'd have to buy both ).
As people stated, these weapons are a decent supplement to existing CC weapons and indeed allow full squads, just not full squads with exactly one weapon. Though I find even that debatable, if you throw those charnabal sabres and power swords on one squad and tell your opponent these are all swords- will people really blame the sabres as "proxying"?

I can see what NotOnline!! is getting at - im going to need five boxes of these minimum because i have 9 Thallax with heavy chain blade conversions id like to make 'proper'.
Thats ~£150 minimum and im not going to need the majority of the weapons id end up with. (feth trying to sell bits on ebay, thats a mugs game)

There is very little wrong with the set we got of course, but two sets, one for chain weapons and a second for power weapons would have been absolutely ultimate prime excellence.

What i want (what i really, really want) now is a set of jump packs of different MKs with appropriate MK arms and a brace of pistols in L+R pairs in a single box.

Wait wait wait.

Thallaxi Heavy Chainblades are bayonets on their rifle, yeah?

Which have always come with Thallaxi?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But if you’re desperate, I prefer my fancy weapons Power, rather than Chain, and I’m likely to pick up two or three of these.

I’ll do you a fair price. Like, 50p each?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wait wait wait.

Thallaxi Heavy Chainblades are bayonets on their rifle, yeah?

Nope. I offered up a heavy chainblade i aquired to the bayonet mount and it was not happy - its entire length is protruded off the base and was so weak you know by looking at it that it wouldn't survive transportation intact.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Which have always come with Thallaxi?

The chain bayonets which came with the kit are probably to explain how a model with one hand permanently attached to its ranged weapon could have 2A base.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
But if you’re desperate, I prefer my fancy weapons Power, rather than Chain, and I’m likely to pick up two or three of these.

I’ll do you a fair price. Like, 50p each?

I have basicly no need at all for most of the power weapons so do you fancy swapping heavy chain blades for power weapons of your choosing?

Once the kit is out, my Heavy Chainblades are yours, because I’m not gonna dump on the next nerd’s aesthetic preference,

But, the Thallaxi Chain Bayonets *are* their Heavy Chainblades, as they’re an upgrade to existing equipment, and they can’t have “mere” Chain Bayonets.

Take a peek at page 270 of your copy of Book 1: Betrayal, specifically the 'wargear' section where you will find the lightning gun and the close combat weapon are both standard Thallax wargear.

The close combat weapon being upgrayedded to a heavy chain blade was only nessecary because if you didn't then youd get asked a bunch of FAQ about whether Thallax can even use HCB's with only one hand free and if they did, do they get an extra attack for two CC weapons etc.

There was probably a better way of handling the Thallax options, but to be fair at the time they were supposed to be a special and fun limited addition for loyalist forces on Isstvan3 not the basis for a full-on Mechanicum army.

I'll be getting two boxes.

Behold! Ferrox augmented Thallax!

[Edit: apologies for the threadomancy - I got a pop-up warning when I posted this…]
My melee weapons arrived today. Despite the shortcomings some have identified, it’s still a really nice set. Highlights are the heavy chain sword, the power mauls (even though I don’t have any plan to use them) and the sheathed chainswords. The basic chainswords are actually pretty good too - they’re more detailed and more elegant than the ones that come in the Assault Squad set. One issue though is the arms, which (as with the Command Squad) don’t match the Mk3 or Mk6 arms. It’s obvious that they didn’t think ahead about how they would add upgrade sets to the different armour marks. Anyway, it’s going to be fun to put these new bits to use.

The main MkIII kit comes with extra vambraces for Special, Heavy and Close Combat weapons