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I always like browsing the GW website and drooling over the miniatures I’d love to buy (almost all of them). For a while I’ve really wanted then “Daughters of Khaine” Start Collecting box. Yesterday I was browsing as usual and wanted to look at that particular set but to my disappointment it’s gone! As have most of the Start Collecting boxes. Seems like they’re being replaced by “Vanguard” boxes, the idea of which seems to be lots of regular size troops but with no monster or big central piece. What a shame. What do you think? I can see it is a one grabbing ploy but it’s definitely a change for the worse isn’t it?

The Vanguard boxes are, generally, made to give you a 500-600 point force out the box.

The old Start Collecting boxes weren't always that. Sometimes they were 1000 points, sometimes they were only 300 points. Depending on the faction you played, that could be incredible or horrid.

The new Vanguard boxes aren't a bad policy, since they try to standardize what you get and give you a starting army you can play out of the box, but yeah, you'll be missing out on some of those big beasts.

That said, big beasts are harder to balance at the smaller point games, so maybe that's intentional.

The savings are about as good as they were with the Start Collecting boxes, with about a 25-35% savings on the contents.

Ah, I see. Problem is I’m a painter not a gamer. What you got in the Start Collecting boxes just looked a whole lot better visually.

They were a good idea but the rollout wasn't nearly fair to all the factions. Fyreslayers for example got every other unit free for their box because it was the same price as the Magmadroth, to the point where the GW webstore would not allow you to buy a Magmadroth and instead replaced it with the SC box in the cart.

drbored wrote:
The savings are about as good as they were with the Start Collecting boxes, with about a 25-35% savings on the contents.

No. Just no. Not only a lot of old SC offered massively better savings, it was often the stuff that you needed and you could build army with them plus some auxiliary purchases. Vanguard (and even worse, the CP on 40K side) offer gak all savings that are often inflated by including something really overpriced or useless unit you won't need reducing up the supposed "save" to nearly zero. Hell, the Calth/Prospero boxes used to cost nearly the same as Vanguard and Combat Patrols, and just compare what you got in them to what you're getting now...

?

I went through my current armies and their Vanguards. They seem to be similar value to old SCs, in that some offer better value than others. And they contain usable units for standard armies of their factions.

Vanguard: Sylvaneth - $170 CAD

Treelord: Flexible kit, all variants used in lists - $90
Kurnoth Hunters: Flexible kit, all variants used in popular lists - $75
Spite/Tree Revenants: Flexible kit, powerful objective taker or more niche melee threat - $65
Individual cost: $230
Savings: $60

Vanguard: Lumineth Realm-lords - $170
Scinari Cathallar: Solid wizard with good effects - $40
Vanari Wardens: Battleline, needed for just about any list - $75
Vanari Sentinels: absolute terrors, MW and character sniping - $75
Bladelords: Character protection, niche - $75
Individual cost: $265
Savings: $95

Vanguard: Skaven - 170
Grey Seer: Potent wizard with access to a strong lore - Strangely missing from the webstore ATM. Estimating 40, middle ground for other skaven foot heroes.
Clan Rats: They're clan rats. you need many of them - 55
Stormfiends: potent ranged and melee threats, still staple - 90
Warp lightning cannon - MW dumping character sniping threat - 50
Individual cost: 235
Savings: 65

Edit:
Start Collecting! Ironjawz - 140
I spotted it on the webstore, so lets compare.

Warchanta: powerful buffing character - 41.50
ardboyz: solid battleline - 70
Goregruntaz: powerful buff targets, tanky and aggressive cavalry - 100
Individual cost: 211.5
Savings: 71.5

The holy grail of SC boxes, Start Collecting! Flesh-eater Courts - 130
Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon: Very flexible kit, great value - 85
Crypt Horrors: Flexible kit, strong choice for either build - 70
Crypt Ghouls: Battleline, you probably need them - 55
Individual cost: 210
Savings: 80

SC! FEC was among the best for value SCs there was. And it's still not all that different from Vanguards.

 Thadin wrote:
?

Indeed.

BoC Vanguard is $140.

Gors : 35
Ungors: 35
Bestigors : 55
Drogors : 60
Shaman : 30 (no longer sold seperately)

Total: $215.

I mean, I'd have preferred Bullgors over Dragon Ogors, but Drogors are serviceable units. The box is a good spread of 3 different units with a very useful character.

Bought 2 boxes with a few more units on order(Mostly Gors(). Its been great to give me an army quickly with less impact on my wallet. Once I get my head around the new mechanics of BoC, I'll expand to other units to compete.

As I said, I’m a painter n or a gamer. It’s crazy to me to judge the value of these boxes in terms of points in a game. I’m judging them by what they look like and I’d much rather a box with some diversity of size and at least one monster in it

Jandgalf wrote:
As I said, I’m a painter n or a gamer. It’s crazy to me to judge the value of these boxes in terms of points in a game. I’m judging them by what they look like and I’d much rather a box with some diversity of size and at least one monster in it

Fair enough. I was mainly responding (and I believe Thadin was as well) to the notion above that the new Vanguards don't have as much value as the old SC's and were filled with units that aren't useable.

Jandgalf wrote:
As I said, I’m a painter n or a gamer. It’s crazy to me to judge the value of these boxes in terms of points in a game. I’m judging them by what they look like and I’d much rather a box with some diversity of size and at least one monster in it

A lot of people are more gamers than painters. Both are ways to judge the value of a box set.

But yee, despite falling on the gamer end more than the painter end, I sympathize with your lost savings.

I know I’m in a minority. Nothing agains the games - I used to play as a teenager and am sure I’d still love them now if I had time. And it’s not even about the savings. I just like the thought of getting a box with all those wonderful miniatures in it.

Yeah, the start collecting boxes tended to be EITHER a great value dollar wise, or really useful units, but rarely both. The Beastclaw raiders box was the big exception, as you could just buy three and basically have your army.

I'm not too sure I'm seeing the loss in savings. Vanguard vs SC, the cost is a little higher, but the actual savings are comparable?

I'd have to dig up archives and do an Individual Cost vs Savings comparison of everything, but that's a bunch of work. The examples I have so far tell the story enough I feel. A range of 10-30CAD difference... With one of the Vanguards beating out one of the best SC's in terms of savings.

However, it does seem like they're trying to change the general structure of the box. Most of them are predominantly infantry, with a handful having monstrous infantry or monsters. Some SC's lost the monsters and gained infantry in their shift from SC to Vanguard. Sylvaneth was almost unchanged in it's configuration... Perhaps we'll have to wait and see what's done with ones like FEC Vanguard or the Seraphon Vanguards? It would be strange if those two lost the monsters in particular.

 Polonius wrote:
Yeah, the start collecting boxes tended to be EITHER a great value dollar wise, or really useful units, but rarely both. The Beastclaw raiders box was the big exception, as you could just buy three and basically have your army.

Flesheaters are the same - buy 6 and you can even run an all terrorgasts/zombiedragons army.

I'm still tempted to grab one just for the zombie dragon before it gets replaced one day (either the set or the model itself). Though I suspect that one would only get replaced with a line update since basically there's only one other plastic model in the army that isn't in the set

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not too sure I'm seeing the loss in savings. Vanguard vs SC, the cost is a little higher, but the actual savings are comparable?

It's just Irbis being Irbis, best to ignore and move on.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not too sure I'm seeing the loss in savings. Vanguard vs SC, the cost is a little higher, but the actual savings are comparable?

It's just Irbis being Irbis, best to ignore and move on.

I should've quoted better. That was directed more towards JNA's comment.

 nels1031 wrote:

Jandgalf wrote:
As I said, I’m a painter n or a gamer. It’s crazy to me to judge the value of these boxes in terms of points in a game. I’m judging them by what they look like and I’d much rather a box with some diversity of size and at least one monster in it

Fair enough. I was mainly responding (and I believe Thadin was as well) to the notion above that the new Vanguards don't have as much value as the old SC's and were filled with units that aren't useable.

Well that was from Irbis who is hellbent on complaining about everything

One legit complain about new format is entry price is higher. Aka you are forced to pay more. You do get more of course but initial price is higher. But overall saving is still there. Some are better than others, others have units you don't really want but then again if somebody claims that wasn't true with SC's as well then he is flat out lying.

Less convenient for allying purpose but as allies are not that good it's not major issue. Main units you generally ally with are not ones in discount boxes.

One thing new vanguards are though is they are less commonly useful as spammable and in large part due to less multi option big monsters. Sylvaneth is big exception and KO one isn't that bad though arkanauts seems to be less than ideal in new book. But no buy 3xSC and 2k army possible any more.

they're doing something similar in 40k

the old guard start collecting box was a tank, a squad, and a commissar.
the new guard starter box is a fully playable army, and a pretty good one at that. 2 10 man squads, a 5 man command squad, a walker, and some heavy artillery.

wouldn't be surprised if they did the same in AoS

also maybe they thought boxes with big monsters and stuff would help entice new players, and maybe that just wasn't the case.

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not too sure I'm seeing the loss in savings. Vanguard vs SC, the cost is a little higher, but the actual savings are comparable?

It depends, a lot of the earlier Combat Patrol (the 40k versions) are fairly weak, and also the 40k boxes are more expensive than the Sigmar ones. Off the top of my head, the Deathwatch Combat Patrol box is basically the old Space Wolves Start Collecting box, but with a single extra character and a 40$ price hike if memory serves. The standard Space Marine, Sisters, and Deathguard ones are I believe starter kits with an added character or vehicle - so some of the kits don't have all the unit options.

That said, the Sigmar ones being 20$ cheaper than 40k ones right out the gate makes them more attractive - though its harder to swallow the savings when you realize that for example, the Ogre set - Ogre Gluttons went up 20$ per kit in the past 3 years, leadbelcher's 5, Ironblaster 5, and Mournfangs...I think were 60 before last bump for 4, so for 2 up 7.5$. Basically the savings exist but is often eaten up by the fact that the individual kits have gone up drastically over the years.

All complains aside, I do like the Vanguard and Combat Patrols in concept, but just feel that GW missed the mark with retiring the Start Collecting sets instead of running both as ways of starting an army. The new Boarding Action and Regiments of Renown sets are to me feeding more interest in me in grabbing new stuff than I've had in awhile, for the simple reason that 1x that plus 1x the Vanguard/Combat patrol gives a solid start to an army. I rail about GW prices all the time, but I am for the first time thinking of starting up a small Tau force solely because the Boarding Action + Combat Patrol would have a nice variety of units to make a core of the army with.

 Thadin wrote:
Vanguard vs SC, the cost is a little higher, but the actual savings are comparable?

I dunno if you people have short memory or rose glasses welded on, but let's examine some actual numbers, shall we?

Start Collecting box here two price hikes ago used to cost 175-185 zl depending on faction. That was well within impulse buy territory, and you often grabbed one for a single unit inside without even needing other two because it was such a good deal (HQ basically always free and solid saving on the second unit). Now, how much Combat Patrol costs these days? Why yes, 370 zl:

https://gnom-sklep.pl/pl/products/combat-patrol-astra-militarum-12351.html

On what frakking planet 2x price raise is "cost is a little higher"?

But it gets worse. The 180 zl for SC used to be available in pretty much every game store here. Now, you need to cherrypick excellent store like Gnom (which still offers 25% off and free shipping, most of the stores here stopped doing it after last stealth price hike to wholesalers). Now, if you go to random gaming store, in 90% of the cases they will ask you GW price (and you have to take it if you want to build army because last good holdouts like Gnom are often sold out or have 60 days order fulfilling period to get whatever missing unit direct from GW). How much is that?

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-PL/combat-patrol-astra-militarum-2023

Why yes, 475 zl. 2.66x more than SC used to be. In what universe nearly 3x price hike is ""little higher""?

Now I don't know, maybe your country didn't have price hikes, good stores, or whatever, but maybe you should pull your head out and realize that outside of UK and a handful of really rich countries these were the things keeping hobby afloat in 95% of countries and a new players coming. It was far easier to say to someone met in store "hey, grab this nice box and you will get a cool tank/monster/giant/whatever to start with". Now I can point to 475 zl box containing mostly bland trash with no centerpiece model to hook them on and watch them instantly balk. Gee, that sure sounds like no change at all!

On a side note, I am not surprised anymore GW keeps getting away with price hikes if people see 1+1 and keep getting 7 instead of 2. 2.66x more, just a ""little higher"", no big deal, eh?

johnpjones1775 wrote:
the old guard start collecting box was a tank, a squad, and a commissar.
the new guard starter box is a fully playable army, and a pretty good one at that. 2 10 man squads, a 5 man command squad, a walker, and some heavy artillery

"Fully playable army" that conveniently enough omits all the big, expensive kits and spams what got most massively price hiked during the last round of raises, you mean?

Let's see, for the same price as CP in your example, you used to be able to grab 2x SC and have 20 infantry, 1 commissar, 1 officer (easily converted from spare commissar with extra cadian sarge head/weapons), and 2 tanks - which, funnily enough, is far more points on table. Way more if you do one as tank officer. Which, funnily enough, sounds more like playable army to me but what do I know?

Then, a dude who bought CP in your example to get equal army has to buy 2 Russes (130$) while the dude with 2x SC has to grab sentinel and field ordnance (100$) - not only already saving a lot more, but then you realize not only way more IG armies utilize Russes than mix of units that don't synergize you find in CP, but also player getting SC could do so gradually over time instead of having to dump big wad of cash all at once.

Hell, even if we assume rare player who doesn't like tanks but wants to do light infantry with sentinels or siege army with artillery, SC player used to be able to just sell the tanks (which is easy) and buy 2x sentinel (and have 40$ left over still) or 2x artillery (20$ left over) toward next unit - now, with endless price hikes and value destruction, that's no longer possible. No big deal, eh?

 Thadin wrote:
However, it does seem like they're trying to change the general structure of the box. Most of them are predominantly infantry, with a handful having monstrous infantry or monsters. Some SC's lost the monsters and gained infantry in their shift from SC to Vanguard

And that's what makes the above price hikes issue pale in comparison. When you started most of AoS armies, fyreslayers, courts, lizards, etc, etc, you could just grab 3x cheap SC boxes, get 3 big centrepiece monsters, and lots of free infantry to keep you going. Now look at fyreslayer vanguard - it's bland all-infantry trash you will want to only buy once (maybe twice in some rare AoS factions) then get the privilege of buying the 3 monsters at massively hiked price making the army not just 2.66x more expensive, but likely 5x or more. Because you no longer get savings on kits that needed it the most, but on some useless filler that was third or even fourth grade purchase.

It's no longer people getting 1+1 = 7 like I said, but 49, and thinking it's still somehow OK - which it maybe is for you, but I wish people stopped projecting their massively outlier experience at others

What a strangely aggressive response.

Now, it may be a good time to recognize that I compared current costs of Vanguards and SC's in CAD. You're comparing them in a different money, and comparing the current price vs old prices. Yeah, obviously things are going to be more expensive. Ever heard of inflation? And, ever heard that it hits different countries differently?

Talking about outliers and not recognizing that you're bringing one as well.

It's unfortunate that it seems Poland is negatively affected far more than Canada, by the change from SC to Vanguard.

Well irbis so it was to be expected

If you compare it to what it was years ago of course it's going to artificially make it look bad.

But when he isnt interested in honest arqument no can do. Best is just ignore his worthless junk.

 Thadin wrote:
What a strangely aggressive response.

Now, it may be a good time to recognize that I compared current costs of Vanguards and SC's in CAD. You're comparing them in a different money, and comparing the current price vs old prices. Yeah, obviously things are going to be more expensive. Ever heard of inflation? And, ever heard that it hits different countries differently?

Talking about outliers and not recognizing that you're bringing one as well.

It's unfortunate that it seems Poland is negatively affected far more than Canada, by the change from SC to Vanguard.

The currancy can be different, but the rates are different. And it is a big difference between, still expensive or not at least not cheap, but you still are getting a working army with units you want AND getting boxes who maybe painters like ? And then the new boxes are sold at higher price. It is a bit like being told that the 9th ed starter box is just as good as Dark Empire, because maybe you do get fewer models, the thing you actualy need to play the game, but you get all this terrain, the thing you don't need and often don't want, even if you are further then starting the game.

Ah and it is better to not compare, GW army cost and inflation. When GW made it so that a lot more units are needed to play with each new edition.

So if I recall right the box that was meant to be an expansion/start to an army was called a battleforce right?

Then it became a start collecting around 7th edition of 40k?

Now it's combat patrol huh? Each time it's gotten more expensive and the contents have changed up a bit.

It could just be a marketing tactic. Rather than actually increasing the cost of the start collecting box they make a new box, rename it and pump the price so people are less likely to really associate the new box with a price increase. But that's just a theory, A GAME THEORY!

Shuffling around the units available is good, otherwise you end up with a situation where army builds are extremely homogenous because there is a glut of certain kits on the market.

cody.d. wrote:
So if I recall right the box that was meant to be an expansion/start to an army was called a battleforce right?

Then it became a start collecting around 7th edition of 40k?

Now it's combat patrol huh? Each time it's gotten more expensive and the contents have changed up a bit.

It could just be a marketing tactic. Rather than actually increasing the cost of the start collecting box they make a new box, rename it and pump the price so people are less likely to really associate the new box with a price increase. But that's just a theory, A GAME THEORY!

the move from the old battleforces/battalion boxes to start collectings was pretty openly shrinkflation. The move to combat patrols/vanguards was an intentional move to include a playable 500pt (ish) force for each army. Deathguard famously are technically unplayable due to too many poxwalkers, and the Guard box is well under 500 points, but on the whole, the combat patrols allow for better jumping off points to an army than the old SCs.

When the SC boxes hit there weren't army boxes in regular production anymore, as I recall.

Jandgalf wrote:
Ah, I see. Problem is I’m a painter not a gamer. What you got in the Start Collecting boxes just looked a whole lot better visually.

I can see your point. It is a major boon to the gamers to have the boxes standardized for gameplay.

When I'm looking to paint up something big and cool, I think I prefer to get it outside of a collected box set.