Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XXXVII: Highlighting the Contrasts

[Cheesegear]

why 12 months? What do you gain out of allowing someone who wilfully suckered stuff out of you...

Well, I'm pretty sure that permanently banning someone from your premises becomes a legal issue, which might even involve the police or the Courts. It's simply not possible to say "...and don't come back!" ...'Cause the person just rocks up the next day and loiters or talks ****. Unless you can enforce the lifetime ban, it doesn't mean anything. It's not enough to refuse to sell things to them. Tabletop games, painting and hobby are social experiences. It is perfectly reasonable to come into the store and talk to people. Is there a restriction on talking to people now, too?

For such a disruptive person, the answer is 'yes'. They are a problem. They can be disruptive just by existing. They have to be removed.

Which basically leads to...

It's a shadow perma-ban. Many corporations require proof of serious transgression in order to permanently ban you from a store, sometimes requiring a restraining order or similar court-backed injunction which costs time and money to arrange. Getting it up through to head office, and getting them to approve it, and then getting it back down to the store... there's a lot of steps where someone can step in and go, "just run your store better, if we need to get involved then what are we paying you for?"

...Yeah. That.

The other thing is, banning people for an arbitrary time gives them the idea that they can come back. That is, if you ban someone for a month, six months, a year, etc. In their heads, that's not a problem. They wont force the issue. They'll just leave. After all, I've been banned from the store because I convinced someone not to spend $700 on Space Wolves. I effectively stole a sale from the store.* I was banned from the store for a month. Cool. I'll stay home for a few weeks, actually get some painting done. Hang out with my non-nerd friends. After all, what's four weeks? I'll just come back in a month, no harm done.
However, in that four weeks...There would have been nothing to stop me from going to store. After all, the ban isn't legal. What's he gonna do? Tell me I'm not welcome? The store owner couldn't physically remove me. One way or the other, to enforce a ban, legal authorities or some kind of security would have to get involved.

*I've since learned that I can't just tell people not to spend money. If you're not going to buy Space Wolves, then I should tell them what to spend $700 on, instead. e.g; Don't buy Space Wolves, buy Blood Angels, instead. Same playstyle, mostly the same models (don't forget, you can paint your Blood Angels light grey, if you want). The only way that that falls apart is if the guy's heart is set on Space Wolves and nothing will change his mind. That way, regardless, the store still gets the same amount of money through the till...Y'know...Instead of 0.

Then, ideally, in the amount of time that the person has been banned, they will have learned their lesson, or grown up, or simply will have forgotten to do the thing that they've been banned for. If they don't come back after the amount of time...What difference does it make whether they've been legally banned or not?

[LansXero]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...he-apocalypse/

Cant wait for tomorrow and hope we get prices on those. The IG and Eldar ones look very interesting. Lets hope they dont kill their new toy with absurd prices for something that will be at best a niche interest at worse deadweight like KT: Arena

[Turalisj]

The only two of those battalion boxes that looks interesting are the Admech and ig ones. Glad to see more on the skorpius.

[LeSwordfish]

The primaris and CSM ones will make for useful (if boring) army starters. I might buy the guard one if it's cheap enough: I doubt I'll ever take a full platoon of Leman Russes but I can know I have them and dream.

Also baneblades being in stores will make me dangerously likely to buy one. Every time I've gone to Forge World I've picked one up, sighed wistfully, and made myself put it down, and I don't know how long I can keep doing that.

[Renegade Paladin]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...he-apocalypse/

Cant wait for tomorrow and hope we get prices on those. The IG and Eldar ones look very interesting. Lets hope they dont kill their new toy with absurd prices for something that will be at best a niche interest at worse deadweight like KT: Arena

Prices are exactly what they won't give us until the June 29th preorder date.

[Wraith]

There would have been nothing to stop me from going to store. After all, the ban isn't legal. What's he gonna do? Tell me I'm not welcome? The store owner couldn't physically remove me. One way or the other, to enforce a ban, legal authorities or some kind of security would have to get involved.

In the UK it would be trespass - a store is private property owned by the lease holder, and while usually open to the public you can be "uninvited" from entering. Without licensed security they would need to call the police to actually enforce it, which is all sorts of bad publicity that will inevitably catch the eye of the franchise holder.

If you thought GW were hardass pay-masters for your FLGS, just see what they would do when the FLGS Guy starts having GW customers arrested for walking in the door....

Cant wait for tomorrow and hope we get prices on those. The IG and Eldar ones look very interesting. Lets hope they dont kill their new toy with absurd prices for something that will be at best a niche interest at worse deadweight like KT: Arena

If you buy two of the Craftworld Start Collecting! boxes for £110 you get 2 Farseers, 10 Wraithguard, 2 Wraithlord and 2 War Walkers; to buy those separately would cost you ~£160, so with Start Collecting! you're saving £50.
That's 2 War Walkers and a Farseer more than what is in the Apocalypse box, which means that Craftworld Apocalypse ideally needs to cost at least £50 less (approximately the price of two War Walkers and a Farseer), otherwise it's not as good a deal as the existing boxes.

Does the Craftworld Apocalypse box look like a £60 box? I think we'll be VERY lucky to see it that low, especially compared to the other sets. Comparing the Apocalypse boxes to buying straight from the store/Start Collecting! boxes, the equivalent in Chaos Space Marines is about £160, Tyranids is about £160, Adeptus Astartes is about £140.... If they're less that £90 each, I will be very, very surprised - and if the box sets are all the same price, Craftworld players are getting screwed in terms of comparing value.

[Renegade Paladin]

That depends on what else is in the box. If they're doing it like Kill Team, they're locking the faction rules away in the box sets.

[Forum Explorer]

It's a shadow perma-ban. Many corporations require proof of serious transgression in order to permanently ban you from a store, sometimes requiring a restraining order or similar court-backed injunction which costs time and money to arrange. Getting it up through to head office, and getting them to approve it, and then getting it back down to the store... there's a lot of steps where someone can step in and go, "just run your store better, if we need to get involved then what are we paying you for?"

Banning someone "for a year" is basically the same thing but it can be done at store level. It sounds arbitrary, but it cuts out a lot of red-tape and it's very rare for anyone to, having been banned for a year, to then come back afterwards. They just fall out of the habit and get used to going elsewhere, in most cases.

Not that I'm trying to tell you how retail works, of course, but as I understand it you are the final authority in your store so you can do what you want. Where I used to work, "Store Manager" was more promotions away from actual, tangable authority than I was from Store Manager.

That's weird to me. Back when I worked at a liquor store every employee had the power to kick someone out of the store. We had the right to refuse service, and with that came the ability to ask someone to leave. Now we couldn't physically kick them out, but if they refused to leave at that point then they would be trespassing, legally speaking.

[Renegade Paladin]

I took my whole army out for a photoshoot today. Since the demise of Photobucket as a viable hosting platform, I don't really have a way to share the pictures on forums anymore, but I also took the opportunity to take inventory, if anyone's curious. I do have it in a public album on the local shop's Facebook page.

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Catachan Battalion

Company Commander
-Boltgun

Sergeant Harker

Guardsman Marbo

Command Squad
-vox-caster

Infantry Squad
-Grenade launcher, autocannon

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad
-Grenade launcher

Infantry Squad
-Grenade launcher, autocannon

Veteran Squad
-2 flamers, meltagun
-Short a sergeant due to Harker being an IC now

Cadian Infantry

Infantry Squad
-Grenade launcher, vox-caster

Infantry Squad
-Grenade launcher

Veteran Squad
-3 grenade launchers, vox-caster, shotgun

Company Commander
-Power fist

Command Squad
-Standard, vox-caster, medi-pack, plasma gun

Master of Ordnance

Officer of the Fleet

Veteran Squad
-Three meltas, heavy flamer, vox-caster, power shovel

Veteran Squad
-3 meltas, vox-caster, power fist

Veteran Squad
-3 meltas, vox-caster, heavy flamer, power axe

Creed

Kell

Command Squad
-Master vox, plasma gun

Infantry Squad
-Power sword, vox-caster, flamer

Infantry Squad
-Vox-caster, flamer

Infantry Squad
-Vox-caster, grenade launcher

Veteran Squad
-3 flamers

Special Weapons Squad
-3 meltas

Heavy Weapons Squad
-3 lascannons

Heavy Weapons Squad
-3 lascannons

Heavy Weapons Squad
-3 autocannons

Heavy Weapons Squad
-3 missile launchers

Heavy Weapons Squad
-3 mortars

Company/platoon Commander

Company/Platoon Commander

Company/Platoon Commander
-Power sword

5 extra sergeants
-3 power axes

15 extra Guardsmen
-2 plasma guns, 2 flamers, 10 sniper rifles

Specialist Infantry

Primaris Psyker

Commissar
-Power fist

Commissar
-Power sword

6 Wyrdvane Psykers

Astropath

Ministorum Priest

Tech-priest

Tech-priest

2 crew/servitors

10 Ratlings

Kasrkin/Storm Troopers/Tempestus

Tempestor Prime
-Bolt pistol

Tempestus Command Squad
-Medi-pack, vox-caster, 2 hot-shot volley guns

Tempestus Squad
-Power sword, 2 meltas

Tempestus Squad
-Power sword, 4 meltas

Tempestus Squad
-Power sword, 3 plasma guns, melta

Tempestus Squad
-Power sword, 2 plasma guns

Tempestus Squad
-Power sword, 2 flamers, 2 grenade launchers (2 men short of 10)

Flyers

4 Valkyries
-Fully magnetized

Vulture Gunship
-Fully magnetized

Transports

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy bolter, dozer blade

Chimera
-Heavy bolter, heavy flamer, hunter-killer missile, dozer blade

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy bolter, dozer blade

Chimera
-2 heavy bolters

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy bolter, hunter-killer missile

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy flamer

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy bolter

Chimera
-Multilaser, heavy flamer

Chimera
-2 heavy flamers

Chimera
-Multilaser, magnetized heavy bolter/flamer

Tanks

Hellhound
-Heavy flamer

Hellhound
-Heavy flamer

Devil Dog
-Multi-melta

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon, 2 heavy bolters

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, all hull and sponsons push-fit

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, magnetized sponsons, all hull and sponsons push-fit

Leman Russ
-Magnetized Executioner/Demolisher, all hull and sponsons push-fit

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon (multilaser?!?), 2 heavy bolters

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon, 2 heavy bolters

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon, 2 heavy bolters

Leman Russ
-Battle cannon, lascannon, 2 heavy bolters

Self-propelled Artillery

Wyvern
-Heavy bolter

Basilisk
-Heavy bolter, storm bolter

Basilisk
-Heavy bolter

Basilisk
-Heavy bolter

Basilisk
-Heavy bolter

Basilisk
-Heavy bolter

Manticore
-Heavy bolter

Scout vehicle

Tauros Assault Vehicle
-Tauros grenade launcher

Super-heavy Vehicles

Baneblade
-Sponsons

Baneblade
-Sponsons

Baneblade
-Sponsons

Baneblade
-Sponsons

Shadowsword
-Sponsons

Stormblade
-Sponsons

I have about ten unbuilt Catachans, between twenty and thirty unbuilt Cadians, a full Tempestus Start Collecting plus an extra squad that I haven't even touched yet (and won't until I can get some Cadian hostile environment heads to make them into Kasrkin and some wheels for the Taurox), and an old Cadian special weapons (1 melta, 1 plasma) blister to round out squads and so forth. I don't intend to buy more anytime soon. Also unbuilt are 2 Hydra/Wyvern kits, one Russ Demolisher kit, and a weaponless salvaged Chimera that I need to get together and stick some guns on. In practical terms this project is only relevant if the upcoming Apocalypse expansion lives up to the hype and shortens the game mode enough that it's practical to field everything, but I like to have my army be theoretically legal in its complete form.

[JNAProductions]

You have SIX BANEBLADES?

Good lord, man!

[Renegade Paladin]

You have SIX BANEBLADES?

Good lord, man!

Hammer of the Emperor, son.

[Voidhawk]

That depends on what else is in the box. If they're doing it like Kill Team, they're locking the faction rules away in the box sets.

From the Warhammer Community article: "We are making all of the datasheets for Apocalypse available as FREE downloads at launch, so you’ll be able to start playing straight away. Some of the more popular units will also have cards of their datasheets available to buy if you want a handy physical reference."

So luckily no, no paywall for rules for models you already own.

[Avaris]

There’s a few interesting tidbits about how Apocalypse will work in the design video. I remain thoroughly intrigued by the system, and wonder if it might fix some of the problems of main 40k, particularly with its turn system limiting effectiveness of alpha strikes.

Points I’d highlight:

• All units have individual rules. This really surprised me, I was expecting there to be some homogenisation, e.g. all Marine infantry counting the same. Will be interesting to see how much the normal options for heavy weapons etc remain available: will a tactical squad with a missile launcher be different to heavy bolter?
• Alternating activation of Detachments. Seems sensible, and actually mitigates one of the common problems of alternating activation systems where number of units each player has matters (it’s much harder to MSU when you’re thinking on a detachment scale).
• Damage dealt through blast markers. The interesting thing here is that it sounds like a blast marker =/= a wound. Possibly the better equivalent is that a blast marker = a wound but before saves? So you don’t know if the amount of blast markers caused is enough to kill the target. That sounds like a really interesting tactical consideration if that is how it works: you have to ask yourself how sure you want to be that the target is dead!

Depending on how it works, I could see myself favouring Apocalypse rules over 40k even for smaller games. Activating Detachment by Detachment adds an interesting list building consideration, as it matters which units fit together in a detachment, as do blast markers, and if all else is similar it could be a superior game system.

No word on how forces will be ‘balanced’ unfortunately, but I imagine the advice for organising games will be for each player to bring a certain number of detachments, with no consideration of points values etc. There might be something akin to power level? Though if there is nothing in Apocalypse itself I could see the power levels from 40k useable as a proxy: tell everyone to bring up to 3 detachments with a combined power level of no more than 100.

[Cheesegear]

So luckily no, no paywall for rules for models you already own.

But Vigilus Detachments are pay-walled...

My guess is that GW doesn't think that they can actually sell the Apocalypse rulebook to more than one player per meta (why bother?). So if you're not gonna make money off it anyway, you might as well make it free.

[Mystic Muse]

No word on how forces will be ‘balanced’ unfortunately, but I imagine the advice for organising games will be for each player to bring a certain number of detachments, with no consideration of points values etc. There might be something akin to power level? Though if there is nothing in Apocalypse itself I could see the power levels from 40k useable as a proxy: tell everyone to bring up to 3 detachments with a combined power level of no more than 100.

...But that's the equivalent of a regular 2,000 point game? Or am I misunderstanding because it's almost 3 AM.

[Avaris]

...But that's the equivalent of a regular 2,000 point game? Or am I misunderstanding because it's almost 3 AM.

No, that’s exactly the point I’m getting at! Depending on how Apocalypse works, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself enjoying playing to it’s rules even at standard 40k size games. Having detachments mean something beyond just getting the Command Points could be cool, and lead to very cinematic moments such as having an Outrider detachment charge in at the perfect moment to cause maximum devastation.

Without points it would be difficult to justify using Apocalypse for tournaments, but if it’s not too swingy power levels could be a good approxiation.

[PraetorDragoon]

I am pretty interested in seeing the rules for Apocalypse. Finally having alternate activations will be a plus.

[9mm]

You have SIX BANEBLADES?

Good lord, man!

My club has a guy with 12. a full armored company.

[LeSwordfish]

The prices have leaked: each of the battleforce boxes will be £100. Guess i'm getting a full tank company, then!

[LansXero]

The prices have leaked: each of the battleforce boxes will be £100. Guess i'm getting a full tank company, then!

Thats horrendous for the Craftworld one. Is it good value for the spearhead? Not familiar with IG prices, people here just spam SC! for them. CSM also seems a poor deal

[Avaris]

Thats horrendous for the Craftworld one. Is it good value for the spearhead? Not familiar with IG prices, people here just spam SC! for them. CSM also seems a poor deal

For CSM you basically get the Lord and the bikes free, though can’t say I’d be that enthused by 30 CSMs! I make the Guard spearhead to be about £180 of product. They certainly vary in value, though some are definitely better than others.

More rules previews have dropped. Still liking what I see: having seperate stats for Strength against Personnel and Strength against Tanks seems sensible, and explains the D12s, as it gives more spread of effectiveness between different weapons. Having detachment commanders be important also seems cool, and needing to keep Detachments together also seems like an interesting tactical decision making thing: each detachment can’t be everywhere at once!

[Renegade Paladin]

From the Warhammer Community article: "We are making all of the datasheets for Apocalypse available as FREE downloads at launch, so you’ll be able to start playing straight away. Some of the more popular units will also have cards of their datasheets available to buy if you want a handy physical reference."

So luckily no, no paywall for rules for models you already own.

Yeah, sure, the datasheets are both in the main book and free, but what I meant was command assets and such like; Kill Team locks Tactics away in the box sets. So I can run Tempestus, but if I didn't buy the Tempestus Kill Team box (which I didn't), I don't have all their stuff.

[9mm]

Well that knight box alone is probably going to get me into Apocalypse.

[Avaris]

Yeah, sure, the datasheets are both in the main book and free, but what I meant was command assets and such like; Kill Team locks Tactics away in the box sets. So I can run Tempestus, but if I didn't buy the Tempestus Kill Team box (which I didn't), I don't have all their stuff.

So far announced are the main box, containing tactical cards in addition to the main rules, and a seperate box of additional optional cards. So still somewhat paywalled, but you’re not having to buy additional models you don’t want, which is a problem in Kill Team.

On which note, what do we think a reasonable price point for Apocalypse will be? It looks like the main box is actually quite light on contents: rules manual, a few sheets of counters, a couple of dozen dice, and a few hundred cards. Depending on size of the rules manual and number of cards I’d estimate between £30 and £50? Any higher than that would be unreasonable. Then the additional cards I’d guess at £20-£30. So all in I think the Apocalypse investment for a playgroup would be between £50 and £80, plus whatever individuals spend on movement trays (which have utility elsewhere).

[Wraith]

Super-quick price comparisons for the new sets, assuming that their leaked price of £100 each is accurate:

Orks

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Big Mek (23), 2 Deff Dreads (60), Killa Kans (60), Weirdboy(?) (16)
Total Price: ~£160. Getting the Deff Dreads "free" is pretty good.

Imperial Knights

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1x Knight (100), 2x Armigers (45)
Total Price: £145. Free Armigers.

Astra Militarum

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4x Leman Russ variant (124), 5x Command Squad (16), 3x HW Team (24)
Total Price: ~£165. Paying for 3 and a half tanks and getting the rest "free" is a pretty decent discount.

Tau

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Riptide (50), 6x Crisis Suits (90), Commander (~30), 11 Drones (whatever)
Total Price: ~170. Kind of fudged this one since I don't know my specific Crisis Suits apart and just picked up a couple of Crisis Suit Team boxes with one random one on the end. Still another good deal, though

Ad Mech

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5x Kastelans (~103), 2x Priests (~25)
Total Price: £130-ish. Kastelans come in boxes of 2 robots and 1 priest, the box has 5 robots and 4 priests while one of them is probably intended to be an Engineseer/HQ. Round it up.

Chaos Marines

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6x Bikes (42), 30x Marines (105), Chaos Lord (15), 5x Havocs (33)
Total Price: £195. That a lot of box, but like Avaris said; do you actually want any of the stuff in this box, really?

Primaris Space Marines

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1x Dreadnought (40), 5x Prim-vastators (30), 20x Primaris Marines (70), Company Command (32)
Total Price: £172. Not a terrible army and you get quite a bit of stuff "free".

Tyranids

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1x Hive Tyrant (33), 2x Carnifex (55), 1x Tyrannofex (55) 1x Trygon (36)
Total Price: £~180. Another big saving, questionable as to whether or not it's great in normal 40k as it's a lot of Heavy choices to fit into a list.

Necrons

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Ghost Arc (31), 6x Canoptik Wraiths (58), 6x Tomb Blades (48), Cryptek/Lord(?) (17)
Total Price: ~£155. Again I don't know my Necrons too well, but I feel it's not a great army no matter how much of it is discounted.

Craftworld Eldar

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Farseer (15) 10x Wraithguard (60), 2x Wraithlord (56)
Total Price: ~£132. Literally worse value than buying two Getting Started! boxes, which gives you +£60 worth of more stuff for just another £10.

TL;DR - Tau And Tyranids win; Primaris Marines and Ast.Mil. are decent; Chaos is a big saving on a lot of bad units; Craftworld Eldar actually punishes you compared to buying other pre-existing boxed sets.

[Avaris]

TL;DR - Tau And Tyranids win; Primaris Marines and Ast.Mil. are decent; Chaos is a big saving on a lot of bad units; Craftworld Eldar actually punishes you compared to buying other pre-existing boxed sets.

To spoil your maths a bit, I don’t think CSM has any havocs (there are only 30 foot CSM on the box), and the Primaris is 3*10 intercessors, not 20 plus Hellblasters and Company Command. (Unless you have a better source: I’m going off the box images on the Community site)

[Meatgrinder]

Ad Mech

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5x Kastelans (~103), 2x Priests (~25)
Total Price: £130-ish. Kastelans come in boxes of 2 robots and 1 priest, the box has 5 robots and 4 priests while one of them is probably intended to be an Engineseer/HQ. Round it up.

There's actually 6 robots and one priest in the Apocalypse set.

So the math would look like this:

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6x Kastelans (~126), 1 Dominus tech-priest (~22)
Total Price: £148-ish, with UK prices. So you get a free Dominus and half of a Kastelan.

[LeSwordfish]

Similarly the craftworlds one is three units of wraithguard, not two, and the AM is three russes and a chimera not four. The value of the CSM and marine ones as I see them is that they'd make for starters to a large collection, getting the boring stuff out of the way - buy all three of the troops you'll need at once and spend the rest of your money on fun stuff - as opposed to the usual boxes where you get a better mix, but your next few purchases will probably have to be the same things again so you have enough troops.

[Avaris]

Turns out prices are out for the main Apocalypse products as well: £60 ($100) for main box (higher than I’d like) and £15 for the extra command asset cards (cheaper than anticipated). So £75 all in. Higher than I’d like, but I’m likely to pick it up.

Also movement trays at £25 for a box, not sure how many you get for that, but probably enough to cover a detachment. And 50 dice (inc 25 d12s) for £27. Lolwut.

[Wraith]

(Unless you have a better source: I’m going off the box images on the Community site)

Nope, I used the same image and just miscounted. The guys at the very back, on top of the 'bridge', looked like a 5-man squad at a quick glance, and I'm not entirely familiar with the different types of Primaris. Same with the Chaos Marines - I saw the two heavy weapons guys next to each other and called them Havocs without counting

It doesn't really change much, overall. If anything it makes the Chaos box even worse - Havocs are really good but now they're not there? Lame.

Similarly, I stand by my comments on the Craftworld box. The difference between a unit of 5 Wraithguard and the 2 War-Walkers and a Farseer from Getting Started! boxes is pretty big, and I'd definitely prefer the latter.

The value of the CSM and marine ones as I see them is that they'd make for starters to a large collection, getting the boring stuff out of the way - buy all three of the troops you'll need at once and spend the rest of your money on fun stuff - as opposed to the usual boxes where you get a better mix, but your next few purchases will probably have to be the same things again so you have enough troops.

I get what you're saying, but the problem is that in the same book as Chaos Space Marines, you also get Khorne Berzerkers, or Plague Marines, and they already come in boxed units which are cheaper than a box of Chaos Space Marines. Buying a basic force is fine, but there are already better and/or more fun options to take AND they're cheaper to buy (10 Berzerkers are £23, 10 basic Marines are £35) so why not start by taking the fun/silly/thematic stuff?

Maybe GW will fix that down the line and introduce even more of the boxes for different Chapters/Legions/Craftworlds and the likes. A Thousand Sons one would be nice, for example, purely from the perspective of them not having any kind of discounted box at the moment.