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I've been heavy into boardgames for years now but never played warhammer. So I bought the kill team starter box a while ago. Found out after buying that you needed more miniatures to have a full team and that the rules were incomplete (and after buying the octarius book found out again that those rules were outdated). It soured me a bit on the whole experience.

But we ended up liking playing the game and are looking to buy the ultimate starter box for warhammer 40k. I wanted to ask here first to make sure if I get the full combat patrol experience for both teams or do I have to buy more miniatures/rule books to have everything? Or any other things I should know?

Combat Patrol is designed so that what you have in a given box is all you need.

For example, the Chaos Space Marine Combat Patrol is a Dark Apostle, a unit of CSM, a unit of Havocs, and a Helbrute. All you need is your general gaming tools (dice etc.) and the Combat Patrol rules which IIRC are free on Warhammer Community.

continuing what gert said, the ultimate starter box comes with two full combat patrols, plus things like dice, terrain, a board, and rulers. assuming you already have things like clippers and glue to assemble the models, the box has everything needed to play games of combat patrol

Grashnek wrote:
I've been heavy into boardgames for years now but never played warhammer. So I bought the kill team starter box a while ago. Found out after buying that you needed more miniatures to have a full team and that the rules were incomplete (and after buying the octarius book found out again that those rules were outdated). It soured me a bit on the whole experience.

But we ended up liking playing the game and are looking to buy the ultimate starter box for warhammer 40k. I wanted to ask here first to make sure if I get the full combat patrol experience for both teams or do I have to buy more miniatures/rule books to have everything? Or any other things I should know?

Generally speaking when you buy a GW boxed set you get everything to play that boxed set. There will be more optional models and books/rules etc.

In the case of the Ultimate Starter:

You get them for free from here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/20/free-combat-patrol-rule-downloads-let-you-fight-fast-balanced-skirmishes-in-the-new40k/ and other places like here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/warhammer-40000-downloads/ - Combat Patrol is down near the bottom under the Legends datasheets. That should tell you what is in each Combat Patrol (including what they're armed with which is specific to the Combat Patrol i.e the Blood Angels Impulsor is armed different than the on the Black Templar's force. Additionally the units themselves have a specific Combat Patrol Datasheet with slightly different rules i.e. the main 40K Game Space Marine Captain may not have the same abilities and rules as the Combat Patrol Captain Octavius.

This is the standalone Combat Patrol "Octavius" which is for all the "codex" chapters. Ultramarines, and such, but theoretically not DA/BA/SW/BT - and it appears to be a match to the Ultimate Edition. You can follow the links to match up the Nids half. Here's a direct link to the current Nids Combat Patrol if you need it: https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/combat-patrol-tyranids-2023?queryID=eae22d99fc151ec15e0675b573d9e65d

That said if you want to choose a non-Codex Chapter like Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, or Black Templar - you can probably use that Combat Patrol - or you can use their specific Combat Patrol too. Most people aren't going to complain because it doesn't make too much rules difference.

Also just make this clear Combat Patrol and "full" 40K aren't the same thing. Combat Patrol is a smaller scaled down version of the big/full game. Most "normal" armies are going to be about 4 times the size of a Combat Patrol Game. Neither is better or worse than the other, I'm just making sure this isn't another disappointment for you.

Yep. Starter set gives all you need to play combat patrol.

Might get boring eventually though if you have other cp players less of issue. Alternatively you can either get different cp's to spice things up or slowly expand your factions toward 40k reqular. 1000 pts from cp shouldn't require too much adding for eithei side.

This time gw at least gave starter box that roughly works as stana alone one can say many things about cp balance but at least starter box one seen games go either way so it's not worst out there.

Good way to try out is game for you. Start slowly and work out from there