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I'm going on a journey through time, ranking every 40k starter and launch set! With pre-orders for Armageddon just around the corner, I thought it was the perfect moment to pause and look back at everything that came before. I'll tell you where we think Armageddon stands compared to all the previous 40k starter and launch sets, share our favourite starter sets from nearly 40 years of Warhammer, and show you our collections of lovingly painted starter set miniatures: https://taleofpainters.com/2026/06/ranking-every-40k-starter-set-plus-our-thoughts-on-armageddon/

What's your ranking? Do you also have the 2nd Edition starter set on the second-to-last place or is it just my trauma of saving for ages for this box as a teenager, couple of months before it got replaced with 3rd Editon?

I think your ranking is a fair assessment.

I think most of the love for 2nd is the rules, and the wild chaotic fun of the time. Not the starter’s content. I had the pushfit “I love my bolter” marines filling tac squads in my battle company for years until they were quietly replaced with more modern sculpts.

I might have given 3rd a little more love. For being a fairly low model count, it did have full build models, not just push fits. But that might be my own rose colored glasses showing. I played a LOT of 3rd, it was probably my golden age of hobbying.

4th was underwhelming. Going back to push fits after full multipose was hard. Lander was nice though.

I’ll agree that AoBR was a massive step up from the 2nd-4th starters. I had what we would think of now as a pair of combat patrols, as opposed to just a couple squads and a rulebook. And it should get credit for that. I’m not sure all the way to 2nd place credit though...

I don’t play DA or Chaos, and 6/7th edition rules taint those boxes, but those minis were lovely.

8th’s pushfit primaris marines needed a lot of cleanup. Some were built like jigsaw puzzles, and the soft transitions due to the limitation of HIP molding were very obvious in a lot of places, like shoulderpads. Needed a lot of cleanup. I traded away the DG, so can’t speak if they were better then the loyalists.

Indominus was just an awesome box. The marine side just oozed character. And having just recently finished painting the necron side, they were no slouches. Defiantly earned its spot. The push fit nature of the kits was significantly better then 8th’s IIRC

Leviathan’s marine side was not quite as good as 9ths, but still quite good. The Nids were a major glow up, and as someone who plays both sides, the stronger models in the box. Some of the push fit flaws were on the rise again, getting back to 8th’s level. I get that compromises sometimes need to be made, but I’d rather have a few more parts to deal with then needing to carve the trim ridge out of my shoulderpads.

Armageddon looks fine, but it does lack the “wow” factor of previous boxes. There are a number of units I’d like to add to my army, or thought “that’s a nice sculpt, will be fun to paint” but none of the visceral “I need that model” that I’ve felt from other boxes. Mid, as the kids would say. Or not, I can remember all these boxes releasing, I’m a little out of touch with what the cool kids are calling things these days.

--

I will say that looking at all these boxes lined up, it’s the OpFor that really shine in a lot of them. Marines always need to be the safe side. They may be well done, there might be some fun sculpts in there, but the bulk of them a “yup, that’s a marine.” But the xenos side? It’s wild over there. These boxes are used to reboot their ranges, breathe fresh life into stagnant ignored armies. And the love that gets poured into them shows. For the crap that the 6/7 box gets, it has that love on both sides.

A great topic! Here's my thoughts:
2e: I started the game with this and so I cannot be objective really. The model count is great but the models themselves are only passable, and the Orks especially haven't aged well. Also 40 completely monopose Gretchin was perhaps not the best thing in the world.
But you got the complete rulebook, the wargear book the absolutely awesome Codex Imperialis background book, the Army Lists for all the armies and the awesome scenario book, as well as dice, templates and cards galore. And not to mention, a table's worth of cardboard ruins so you could get playing immediately. Just for the 3 books alone this one can't be bottom of the pile.

3e: Slightly better miniatures in this one, being multi-part. You got cool plastic ruins and a jungle in this one, which while not a table's worth of terrain is a good start. The real business here is the Rulebook, which was a total game reset and came with the army lists in it. This is fantastic and makes it a proper starter. I also loved the transparent plastic templates when they came out as they were much easier to use than the old card templates.

4e: The only one I didn't buy. Very small number of models and none of them that interesting. Cool looking terrain, but not very practical for a game. The small version of the rulebook is way less cool than 4e's awesome hardback, which must be the peak of 40K rulebooks in terms of hobby content and game modes, not to mention the incredible faction art. I think this one is probably the worst starter.

5e: Awesome miniatures, loads of them. No terrain this time at all, and only a bit sized rulebook (but you weren't missing much with the 5e main book as it was dull). This should score lower, it's sort of the inverse 2e, but the miniatures were so great and the price so good I bought like 3 of these and was delighted.

6e/7e: The same downsides as the previous one, but even better miniatures. Finally, plastic Chaos Cultists! I really enjoyed putting these together and painting them. I just painted the marines as Crimson Fists and didn't worry about the Dark Angels iconography. I didn't buy multiple mainly because the core rules were pretty bad and I wasn't feeling enthusiastic about 40K at the time.

By the time 8e rolled around I had stopped playing 40K and was mostly painting stuff. I was annoyed by the new background and I didn't like the new Marine models at all. And I also hate scale creep with the fury of a million exploding suns. So I didn't buy it. That said, the Death Guard are brilliant models and even with the scale creep I did eventually buy a box of the new designs for my Chaos army, because they are great.

9e and 10e are the same for me - totally disinterested in the Marine side but cool adversaries. Being only interested in one half meant I never picked them up.

My very subjective starter ranking:
3e
5e
2e
6e
4e

For balance on 2nd Ed? Remember the game at the time was far smaller in scope. And whilst the metals offered various poses? They were still limited by the technology.

For either side? You got a solid foundation it wouldn’t take many additional purchases to turn into valid armies. And in an era of Special and Heavy Weapons being most commonly available in separate Blister Packs, the basic Orks saw regular use in, well, Orky Armies.

The only core element of the game not explored in that set was the Psychic Phase. Which honestly wasn’t as much fun at the outset as Dark Milennium would later make it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The surplus of Gretchin? Ideal for learning the painting basics. Nice mix of materials and detail sculpted on, and with some being really tiny, helped encourage better brush loading and control.

Despite it literally being my personal hobby starter, I would put AoBR in 4th place. I also started my death guard with Dark Imperium, and I just felt like I got way more for my money than I did get with AoBR.

Mad Doc: I love the 2e starter but I was the most excited about the Orks from reading a friends Codex Imperialis and the models didn't really live up to my imagination - I thought it was weird that they all had these horned helmets instead of bare heads and so on.

Even a second pose each for the Orks and Gretchin would have done a lot, and if you look at the starter for 5e Fantasy around the same time they did a much better job with the monopose saurus and brets in there.

When I rate starters though I'm not just about the minis, I also rate how good it is at getting you actually up and running in the game, and I think the later middlehammer starters were actually quite poor at that, with no scenery and little in the way of intro scenarios or background material.

AoBR got so much mileage for my hobbying, it was pretty nuts.

Obviously, the initial start into Space Marines and Orks, of course, was the first push.

But as I started new armies, the models got new life as well. The Dreadnought became my first Helbrute (pre-buying Dark Vengeance), and many of the Tacticals were converted into (very rough) Plague Marines for my CSM army in 6th, while the Terminators were suitably Chaos'd up as well.

The Black Reach Captain even became my model for Saul Tarvitz in Horus Heresy when our group first started that.
The Black Reach Tactical Sergeant survives to this day as a Heavy Weapons Marine for my Iron Warriors.

 Da Boss wrote:
Even a second pose each for the Orks and Gretchin would have done a lot, and if you look at the starter for 5e Fantasy around the same time they did a much better job with the monopose saurus and brets in there.

If you're going to compare 40k & WHFB starters, you're better off comparing 40k 2nd to WHFB 4th than to WHFB 5th. 5th was quite a while after 2nd ed 40k.

4th Ed WHFB had…erm….

Single sculpt Extra Ded Ultra Spiky Spear Gobbos*
Single sculpt Night Gobbo Archers
Single sculpt High Elf Spearmen
Single sculpt High Elf Archers.

Plus cardboard standees of Eltharion the Grim on Stormwing, Grom the Paunch on Chariot and a Rok Lobba.

Now. The High Elf spears did have a selection of sculpted detail shields which helped. But neither side had unit command models.

*I honestly don’t know if it had the CE marking? But if it did, I’d love to know how they swung that one! Those little guys were deadly.

I have so much nostalgia for Macragge and AoBR I almost feel like I can't judge this fairly.

Indomitus and Leviathan are probably the best if I try to set aside my biases. My disagreement with 10e's rules ethos did nothing to tarnish the incredible models in Leviathan.

3rd Ed I’d vote for the worst.

The Dark Eldar models were hideous. And the two sides woefully mismatched in terms of potential.

In terms of a Good Starter Set? I argue they should include a little of something. So light infantry, heavy infantry, possibly elite infantry, vehicle(s), and maybe stuff like Cavalry.

Enough units to expose entirely new players to how different units fight, and so get a nice range of game flavours, just using what the box came with.

I find I can't rank objectively... much depends on how much I was enjoying 40k at the time.

1st & 2nd edition: was playing other wargames when these were a thing. Some nostalgia for the monopose orks as I started collecting bigger armies and started coming across them on ebay.

3rd edition: probably my favourite for three reasons:
a) it was the version my son & I started with
b) £40 in those days wasn't CHEAP but it was good value
c) the armies were unbalanced so it stretched me to think how I was playing to gain a win with my dark eldar

4th edition:another favourite: I'd discovered nids, my son was still growing his ultramarine army, the scenery is still in use, not too stupid a price....

5th edition: Black Reach - rks - good FUN - and my son had expanded into orks too by this time.... good value for us both.

6th& 7th edition: Dark Vengeance. Bought for the figures, some still unpainted.... the 7ths indexes is where I drew my rules line

8th 9th 10th edition: Dark Imperium, Indomitus, Leviathan - bought for the figures at discount - see above for pile of shame - never played

11th edition: Armageddon. Fantastic figures! Want! £180???? Don't want THAT much. Might wait 5 years for a future Hachette Partworks....

For cost it might be worth noting the difference the modern launch boxes and the smaller ones that came after, but were available for the length of the edition. In terms of % discount for the product you get vs. full cost of individual kits, they are great. But as an entry point into the hobby, it’s a massive sticker shock.

While I’m sure they would still fair poorly in an apples to apples comparison, it would be a more accurate review.

I really rate having rules to make functional armies in the box - like the 3e book lists, the Army Lists from 2e and so on. 6e WFB would be a perfect edition if Ravening Hordes had been in the actual rulebook (and it's so small I don't understand why it wasn't!).

Did 8e have the index lists in the box? If so I'd rate it very highly even though I wasn't interested personally.

A proper starter set should really get you started in the game, which includes being able to look at unit selections and build army lists! If it doesn't do that it's not a very good starter imo, more like a new edition cheap models bundle.

 Da Boss wrote:
Did 8e have the index lists in the box? If so I'd rate it very highly even though I wasn't interested personally.

No, the Indexes were available as softbacks alongside the Dark Imperium boxes, but not inside the box.

That's a missed opportunity - though I understand they were large, but perhaps a cut down version with a representation of the major factions could have been included.

Considering the Indexes were already cut-down versions of rules, I'm not sure how much more cut-down they could have been.

And putting rules for models not in the box would've just been weird.

I disagree - for me as a kid, getting rules for all the factions in 2e and 3e was a huge thing. I was able to read about all these factions and imagine what it would be like to play them, and it is probably why I'm a fan of pretty much every faction in the game from that era. I used to pour over that stuff! Codex Imperialis and the Army Lists were my favourite things from the 2e box, and when we got the 3e box having the rules there meant we could get stuck in with our existing armies and it even encouraged me to start an Ork army finally because I felt the rules finally fit the background.

As to cutting them down, I'd say you just give a smaller selection of units rather than the full range - just the classic units and not the entire list. It is harder to do though, now that the game has ballooned out so much.