Get Started In Warhammer 40,000 & Age Of Sigmar With New GW Sets
January 2, 2016 by brennon
Games Workshop have put together a selection of new Starter Army packs for both Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar giving you the core of a new fighting force to use with either of these systems. While not exactly a new premise they do have an interesting twist to them...
Warhammer 40,000
I've picked out three of the new sets here but for their Sci-Fi game Games Workshop have six for you to choose from. The interesting twist is that each of these sets comes with a new Formation Rules Sheet allowing you to play games with them against other Starter Armies right away.
You're going to find yourself with a character model to lead the army in each of these sets followed by a core Troop choice and then finally something big which adds to the faction. In the case of the Adeptus Mechanicus (see our recent themed week here) it's a massive Onager Dunecrawler.
Age Of Sigmar
The same is going to be true of these new Age of Sigmar boxes that you see below. Once again there are a good selection of them with each containing a new themed Battle Scroll which allows you to get started in Age of Sigmar right away. The rules are also free of course so you should be able to pick up and play quite quickly.
As you can see they follow much the same design document of the Warhammer 40,000 sets with a character to lead your warriors, some regular troops and then something more elite to back them up. I would say that you almost get more bang for your buck with the Age of Sigmar sets simply because of the way in which the game plays now.
With this in mind I could potentially see more people being interested in Age of Sigmar and giving it a punt with one of these sets.
What do you think?
"With this in mind I could potentially see more people being interested in Age of Sigmar and giving it a punt with one of these sets..."
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I really like the idea of playable formation sheets straight from the box. I find smaller skirmish armies, played on boards with lots of dense terrain make for some really good games. Especially with AoS, really breaks up those ‘bucket of dice’ moments.
I’m also slightly worried about my plastic crack addiction as I can replicate most of these starter sets with stuff I have already bought…….. and never used!
Agreed, I also like the idea of small “out of the box” armies, especially as I play AoS at the small scale skirmish level.
AoS is not the greatest game if you just play it as a “line em up and brawl” battle game. It is 10 times better with lots of terrain and objectives that make you move around and spread out your forces.
At £50 each, these are pretty good deals.
Indeed, I worked out that in the Lizardmen Box Set you’re getting the Cold One RIders and the Saurus for free, in effect.
I’m a die hard Tau fan and that Etherial looks great but!… but
After watching Warren and AJ dive into the Carcharodon fluff and my foolish slip over to Scibor’s conversion bit and pieces, that Space Marine starter set looks awfully tempting..
… my wallet is not going to like me.
With only 6 sets for AoS, I wonder if the other armies will get a similar set eventually, or are they sets based on what is most popular right now in both ranges.
Or is GW hinting at the next battletomes? Malignants, Orruks, Slaves to Darkness and Chaos Daemons?
Definitely grabbing the Mech bundle and the codices. That Tau bundle is looking damn tempting as well.
UK buyers can get these from dark sphere for £41 which includes P&P making it further more affordable. Doubt i’ll get any myself but I think it’s a bit of a step in the right direction to be fair.
They’re surprisingly good value for money, given that it’s a Games Workshop product.
But still…
I can’t help to think about how many extra boxes, at full price, you need to round out your army to a playable level.
Sure, it makes it cheaper to get into the the game, but overall, it doesn’t lower the cost that much.
I don’t play 40k, but the aos ones are awesome. The only one that I don’t really dig is the orcs one. Black orcs would be awesome. As a painter/collector, the tau and skiitari ones gonna hurt my wallet
Good value from GWlets hope this New Years resolution carries on.
£20 savings for the Marine and Imperialguard starter sets which will just get better (as mentioned already) through discount retailers.
Not a patch on the old battleforce boxes tho
Wow at full retail the ad mech box is £85.
great savings.
Handy for adding a second detachment to an existing force though, and they are perfect for smaller skirmish games, for someone like me that doesn’t have much time to game, I rarely play games over 1500 points, so adding another force for a price like that is quite attractive.
I have wanted to get the admech dominus john blanche-like model since it was relased, but the price tag has kept me from it. And here I am, actually thinking of buying this set..
Strange how making a seemingly good offer makes one actually part with ones money, Must be the same effect as in kickstarters of not being able to say no to a good deal, even when you would not consider buying most of it seperately.
The space marine set currently has a pre-order date of September 2016 .. Hopefully a typo!
From 40k once SM one does not seem very good but Tau and Mechanicus once do seem to be rather good. I can’t really say anything about AoS once.
Just ordered the Skitarii and four cans of Mech Grey to assault my city terrain with. My bank balance is slightly anaemic after Christmas otherwise I would have grabbed the Tau as well.
Love the Skitarii but i’m yet to be sure if i really want to play 40k as it is right now. I’m gonna watch some batreps during this week and see if it works for me. Otherwise i’ll go back to warmahordes and buy some Cryx or Cephalyx :3
I love the typo in the Space Marines one though, pre-order released on 01-09-2016, everything else is 09-01-2016!
It would take a lot more than a reasonably priced starter box for GW to lure me back, but credit where its due these actually do look reasonably priced (a commander with tank/dreadnaught and troops for less than £45) and if these are actually rules legal forces in their own right then a huge improvement over past releases.
This is a very good thing for GW to be doing as it is so eye wateringly expensive to get into a game like 40K.
nice, may have to look into these.
I’m rather surprised they did a discount box set. I hope this becomes the trend and gets more people playing then.
Is there any word on how long these will last, or is it a permanent thing?
I need my money for a couple of Pledge Managers this month, but if these are only a splash I’ll have to rethink.
The Admech one is tempting
Awesome value! With a number of retailers offering 20% discount you can pick up a starter set for just £40.00. In the Slaves to Darkness you get 19 figures plus bases. That’s just over £2 a figure!
Well here’s my tuppence worth – was a regular fantasy and 40k player for years – left GW after the Age of Sigmar came along – sorry – just not for me – so switched full time to Dust Tactics which my teenage son and I both adore – have loooads of Dust as collected since the first box set came out under FF – but always regretted not having a Nurgle Army for fantasy or 40k – just never got round to! So have just scooped 2x nurgle sets from Wayland Games for £40 each – looking forward to… Read more »
I’ve been building out generic sci fi armies lately and, for the price & quality, will be picking up a Tau or Skitari set once I have finished painting my Christmas Antares present.
This is a great move by GW and, at least in my neck of the woods, puts them a a similar price point to their competition.
Is that still the case when you want to expand on the box though?
There is a forum post found here http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/news-rumors/forum/topic/new-starter-sets-from-gw/?topic_page=3
with the price break downs within.
My thoughts are this, they are great for getting people into the game, but some starters sets are far better than other and I don’t think it is all based on who saves the most, it is also about what people get.