Games Workshop Unleash New Space Marine Codex & Battleforces
June 6, 2015 by brennon
Games Workshop will be bringing some new Space Marine stuff to the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop including new Battleforces, a Codex, a Limited Edition Codex Set and a brand new Devastator Squad...
Battleforces
The first set of releases to take a look at include the new Battleforces for the Blood Angels, Ultramarines, and Dark Angels. Both the Blood Angel and Ultramarine sets come with similar squads plus a Dreadnought while the Dark Angels one includes a Ravenwing force on bikes.
I think these are quite neat sets giving you the basics of what you need to get playing in the game and bolstering an existing army. Hopefully we'll see more pop up for the other big Chapters as things progress. Black Templars for the win!
Codex Time
The big boys in Power Armour are getting a new Codex too which comes in the usual flavours. Not only do you have the Standard Codex with some nice cover art but also the Limited Edition version with additional artwork and some lovely bits and pieces to make it more of a coffee table book than anything else...
Which of these Codices are you going to pick up when it comes to grabbing the rules for the new Space Marines?
Bring It Down!
When it comes to destroying armour and monsters you can't go too far wrong with a Devastator Squad. Featuring some very, very, very cool leg armour from past editions they seem perfectly suited to firing their heavy weapons.
I think this is a great squad with all the weapons you'd expect including a Missile Launcher, Lascannon, Plasma Cannon, Grav Cannon, Heavy Bolter and a Sergeant of course.
Will you be getting these new Space Marines?
"Hopefully we'll see more pop up for the other big Chapters as things progress. Black Templars for the win!"
I will be getting some marines. But mostly to build my 30K Scourging era army.
As releases go this has been a boring, uninspired and underwhelming one so far. I hope the codex is a good one, and can stand up to the OP eldar and Necron ones.
Nice to see the suspensors make a return on the Devastator’s leg armour… I might pick up a box just for the second edition nostalgia factor…
Was it not rather recently the edition before this one came out? Looks sleek and high quality for sure, but for being a book it is rather pricey.
Nice touch with the legs. Like the old metals. Very classy.
The Battleforces are a joke with a pathetic £10 savings.
But maybe their content is so small because GW’s retail prices are so high in many of the items present.
Wow that prices includes a saving, been a while since I picked up any 40k. There was I thinking it was overpriced compared to the competition.
Still at least they are offering savings
Not one for me, 2 year book cycle and a largely uninspired release schedule plus super friends armies have killed it for me. Still got my armies to work on as modelling projects but to be honest they may be trade site bound.
Cant please some people.
A 15% saving isn’t really that bad at all. If only they would do the same on all their bundles I am sure they would sell a lot more directly rather than people going to the discount retailers.
Also, if you buy from a discount retailer at 25% off its only £45, so you’re getting a 35% saving over individual GW prices. Not bad indeed.
Isn’t everyone amazed that GW released a bundle with any kind of savings? Generally, they release their bundles for full retail of all items in the box.
Their battleforces always have a saving over buying individually. It’s their stupid web bundles that don’t (and a few have even cost more than buying individually).
Was gonna have a go at the price at £9.33 per sprue…. but f*ck me look at the stuff you get!
POINTING POWER FIST! Bionic arms! What looks like over 12 heads!! Even a Power Claw and Axe!!! Bionic arm with Chainsword! Two extra “sgt” looking torsos ontop of the standard.
I will decline the offer 😉 and the sprues even with the extra shinies
There’s an ever-growing mountain of bits and mini’s on Ebay. That’s where I’m doing my shopping these days. The fantasy stuff is really dropping in price — writing on the wall, perhaps?
Wouldn’t it be nice if they took the time to put out better releases, rather than shovel the old stuff at us in bundles with modest savings due to reduced packaging.
“modest” is putting it kindly :p
A year after the last SM codex, they re-release it yet again. And this time with a price tag of £28 for 5 marines…..
So much for GW learning how not to rip off their customers…..
Thank god I left that company’s products behind years ago
Sidenote : Is it just me or do GW crack out the Space Marines whenever there is a risk of them having a bad fiscal year? That’s 2 in a row now
I don’t care about the pricetag. Sure it is expensive, but what high quality stuff isn’t. And I would much rather pay premium price for GW stuff then less and get the crap that Mantic puts out.
Does it take me longer to get my marine army, hell yes. But I am not sure thar is a bad thing. Patience is a mans game.
As for the codex only being a year old. Annoying yes, but at the rate they are churning out codexes atm, it was bound to be out sooner then later anyways.
And I am getting sick and tired of all the ex GW players, who left for other games years ago, spewing negativity everywhere.
We don’t want or need your negativity, and your time is better spent being positive a out what you like, instead of constantly crapping over what we like.
I actually quite like some of the stuff they put out, but trying to justify more money per model than infinity, which is a FAR superior standard of miniature is ludicrous. £27 ish for a 6 model starter in infinity – 150ish points of a 300 point tournament list £28 for a 5 man plastic kit that makes up probably about 200pts of a 1500-2000 pt list is just out of this world pricing. There is a reason there are so many ex GW players spawning negativity at the moment, because we all love the lore and in a lot… Read more »
Oh and as for being positive about what we do like, I am. I support Infinity wherever I go and I had a local Games Workshop store approach my local club that isn’t sponsored or endorsed by the store complain about it.
Audacity doesn’t even begin to cover it
I think we have to appreciate that GW cost their plastics according to Sprue not a per-model basis.
Still … £5.60 per Marine seems pretty offensive to me. But it can be argued that that’s not quite how it works. Though I appreciate that the box says “5 Devastator Marines”
£27 for 6 models is bloody outrageous as well
Much easier to swallow when you only need as many as 12 to build a tournament list
And to be fair have you seen the recent releases? Shiney syndrome doesn’t even begin to cover it!
@nosebiter : Discretion is manly; raising and supporting a family is manly; serving your country is manly — saving your pennies for GW figures is not.
Who is this “we” you speak of. There aren’t many “positive comment” folks on this thread. As for the rest of us: we had no idea we were taking up the rarified air you breathe, and posting our honest observations on your exclusive GW fan club thread.
Try playing 40k in New Zealand. The new devastator box is $92, that would be about £42.50.
This!
There is nothing wrong with being a fanboy, power to them; but +2 to everything you said.
I am hugely positive about what I enjoy and GW if they do good things. I am more than a little tired of honest opinions on a general gaming site being decried as negativity by people who in the same thread @nosebiter choose to rubbish other companies.
Learn to accept they are opinions, value your own, and enjoy what you enjoy.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion here. And here is mine. You call Mantic crap because they have a different target price point- well not everybody can afford to pay £5 for a regurgitated model with goofy proportions. Especially to use it in a game which is the epitome of ‘pay to win’. Many people are huge fans of GW’s IP yet they have been pushed out of it due to their rampant milking of peoples wallets. The problem is not the quality of their miniatures, they possibly even justify the high price, the issue is their business model which… Read more »
Yeah, the constant negativity is tiresome after a while. GW fans don’t try to shit on everyone else’s preferred games / miniatures but seems like some people just can’t help but shit on GW games / miniatures and belittle the people who enjoy them. Its just the way it is. Just accept it and move on.
That being said, I can understand that for a lot of people the entry price to GW games is just too high. For example, when I played Warmahordes, a full army would cost exactly the same as a similar level 40k army (£200-250ish for a playable force for each with a few options). Where WM/H wins on price is at the entry “battlebox” level where you can get started playing the game for about £30. The main problem isn’t the price per model, or the price for a complete army, its the price to get started. This is a problem… Read more »
All of a sudden people are being belittled for liking GW .. what thread are you refering to? All im seeing is people attempting to belittle posts of less positive nature. Its really becoming standard to claim you are being belittled, and thats truly tiresome let me tell you.
Every single article about GW contains comments inferring that people who still buy GW stuff must be sheep, 8 year olds or idiots. If that’s not “belittling” I don’t know what is. Even innocent posts stating that someone “likes the new models” or is “glad there is a new codex” ends up getting so many negative ratings that people are dissuaded from giving a positive opinion. Hell, in a comment above I even went to the trouble of working out exactly how much discount the battleforce sets give you over buying individually to save others from having to work it… Read more »
We report on it because we like it 🙂 We don’t have much control over others, and yes it does get tiresome seeing silly negativity (I wonder why someone who dislikes something so much even bothers looking at it when there is so much other stuff on here) Bottom line is we’re not giving up on it and hopefully as we start to get more 40k content out others who enjoy it will chip in and perhaps those that don’t like it for whatever reason will focus their energies on what they do like (and have a better hobby for… Read more »
Although I don’t play 40k, I do collect Horus Heresy models so I do have every sympathy for your opinion @lunchbox . It’s definitely the case that you don’t win many friends round here by saying to actually like something GW have done. BoW just doesn’t feel like a friendly place for 40k players some times. If BoW ever does get its act together and do the 40k coverage they keep promising, I dread to think what the comments will be like. Expressing opinions of new releases is all very well, but when people who, by their own admission, haven’t… Read more »
@warzan Glad you’re not giving up on it but to be honest, as @erastus says, BoW isn’t a very friendly place towards GW customers at the moment. At least all the 40k content will get plenty of comments. No publicity is bad publicity and all that. I get that there’s no control to be had over others but there is control to be had over which sites we visit. I love the content BoW makes and probably should just read the articles, watch hobby lab & weekender and ignore the comments but its difficult to retain loyalty to a community… Read more »
@warren “We don’t have much control over others, and yes it does get tiresome seeing silly negativity (I wonder why someone who dislikes something so much even bothers looking at it when there is so much other stuff on here)” Most of us have invested way too much time and money in this game. A lot of us hate what Games Workshop has become over the last decade. However, just as fervently as we hate Games Workshop we want them to change their ways so that we can return to the game we loved. And so we hang around, hoping… Read more »
Yup
I know only too well (maybe even more than most) there is plenty to be annoyed about.
However does it really do any good repeating complaints over and over.
EQUALLY
Is it absolutely nessesary to rise up everytime someone posts something you don’t like and then go on to tar the entire community (and including those who read and don’t post that’s in the hundreds of thousands) with the same brush?
I gotta say I kinda find both positions pretty annoying lol 😉
@erastus – the only links on this thread were mine and they are not counterfeiters they are different models from different companies with similar dimensions (and often not actually that similar) It’s not criminal.
there was someone who mentioned criminal recasts but even he wasn’t actually recommending it, for me finding cool bitz to make my models with is part of the hobby as is the scalpel work to make them fit.
@sillymander I wasn’t referring to your links to perfectly legitimate companies. There was a poster who linked to an eBay seller selling recasts. The offending link has now been removed.
ah sorry, my bad
@sillymander The intent was to provide Robogear resources to a fellow community member. If you, or anyone else for that matter, is still interested, just PM me and I will send you the link via Hotmail. Or you can just get the link from the forums, as I did. The Robogear kits are at least a fifth of the price, and therefore a great value. The Bronekorpus is especially versatile, as it comes with three choices for main armament, and two types of missiles, and a few other extra’s, all for $6.00. It can be configured in a number of… Read more »
“Sure it is expensive, but what high quality stuff isn’t.”
Perry miniatures plastics are high quality and embarrassingly cheap.
Mantic’s Orks are just as good if not better than GW’s Orcs and yet Mantic’s are embarrassingly cheap.
I’m sick and tired of entire gaming clubs suddenly switching to Mantic, Warmachine, Bolt Action and X-Wing because GW is too damn expensive. But that’s not the gamer’s fault, is it?
Don’t leave us infinity players out of it, we’ll get upset!
@richdean not remotely convinced Infinity is cheaper model-for model than GW (of course, it’s cheaper overall as it’s a Skirmish game, but only an idiot would make such an argument).
I’m looking at what I assume are metal models – all excellent and easily as good as the metal models GW make) but I’m seeing 6 model box sets for £28-35 at retail (and I assume no option of weapons, arms etc).
I’m seeing solo Infinity metal models for £7.50-£8.50 at retail as well.
They are amazing models though, and metal – which isn’t cheap.
Of course Infinity isn’t cheaper per miniature (it’s not). The difference being, as the somewhat ironically named richdean has said above (considering the subject here 🙂 ), how many miniatures you need to play the game. 40k is now exclusive the realm of the wealthy middle and upper class, there is no way in hell I could have afforded this if I was a nipper again and that’s terribly sad. What’s worse is the ‘refresh’ time between each new release that you need to stay on top of to play. I can guarantee that this book won’t be significantly different… Read more »
@pacific at first I thought it was fantastic that GW were slamming out Codexes and Army Books like the Flash. And perfectly decent products as well. But with 40K codexes I am starting to wonder if they’re just a money grab …. I mean, the Mars Faction’s troops are split over 2 slightly cheaper codexes with a mere 5 factions ish in them each…. And, as you may have heard, Warhammer Armies Books are all being taken away it seems – whether they are being pulped or reduced to the online store, I don’t know. I’m not sure what you… Read more »
Not the gamer’s fault at all. I’ve dropped in on the local GW shop a few times in the last six months, and it’s become a ghost town. Even the diehard “GW can do no wrong” crowd are gone. I’ve got shelves full of medieval Perry models, and several hundred Mantic orcs. Great stuff, and I’m always considering buying more… because I feel like I’m getting value for money. Can’t say the same for anything GW makes anymore. To put the words “premium” and “GW” in the same sentence these days is dodgy at best, except as it relates to… Read more »
@cpauls1 Hah, I’m flirting with a Game of Thrones miniature game in the far future so am attempting to put together a few tester armies – and many Perry miniatures from Triple Helix (UK) were bought by me :p Great stuff.
But a few Bret GW battalion boxes are also being used – a box set which is actually value for money. When things are value for money we tend to spend more than we would normally do (thus your 300 Mantic Orcs…) something GW clearly don’t realise.
We may need to compare notes @poosh 🙂 . I’m currently working on two combat teams, one human and one alien, for the Traveller universe. I will hopefully be posting some articles on BoW on behalf of Mongoose Publishing in the near future, mostly concerned with sci-fi on the cheap. My latest acquisitions have been six Bronekorpus sci-fi tanks (at $6.00 a throw) and some of the Robogear T-rex walkers for $8.00 each (that need very few mods) and the Spider vehicle, which looks derpy, but has a great chassis and legs. I’ll be using Tau with those vehicles (must… Read more »
@cpauls1 weirdly enough I have some of that robogear stuff for the sci-fi game I’m literally writing as I type this (procrastinating on BoW). I was gonna use them mostly as Orc stuff though!
I do have someone to recommend http://www.scotiagrendel.com for sci-fi models. They ain’t pretty, but they are work house models. I forget if they were cheap or not though, don’t think they’re too expensive. They are options for tracked and gav tanks.
Thanks for the tip. I may post some wip’s in the forum when I “get it right.” I hope you will as well. Robogear is fun to chop up and fiddle with, and it’s so cheap it doesn’t matter if you demolish a few in the pursuit of the ultimate cool vehicle. Another source for the stuff is Hoard o’ bits . They’ve got a ton of it, and you can just buy the individual pieces you want, rather than the whole vehicle. What I’ll end up with is a human faction with armour on tracks, and an alien faction… Read more »
BTW, I wonder how the Deus Vult sergeants would look mixed in with the Bretonnian models. They are an even better value: 39 euros for 48 multi-part mini’s. I have both the Templar and Teutonic knights and they are fabulous mini’s/
Had a closer look at those Deus Vult sergeants @poosh . They’re a great fit with the Bretonnian men-at-arms, and about half the price. There are 48 in the box, so I’ll only need one. Looks like they come with kite and heater shields, rather than the larger pavisse style, but I’m not fussed about the mix. Also, the Bretonnian shields are cheap enough, if I decide to go the shield wall route.
@cpauls1 That store you’ve linked to on eBay is a Forgeworld/GW recaster. Pretty sure he won’t be around too long. I particularly love his “Sky-sage on sky-scooter one elf-attack vehicle”.
I obviously don’t care about the GW models @lunchbox .
I’m glad you’re amused by the seller’s second language English; he’s in Russia. He’s been around a year, and like all the Chinese sellers, he probably just ignores efforts to get him to stop knocking off the models. Some of my Tau bits have come from China or Russia, but their availability is spotty.
But you’re right. All heretics must be stomped out. No one deserves to pay anything but full retail. Report him!
So let me get this straight @cpauls1
You’re pissed at GW for having high prices yet advocate purchasing from people who are happy to rip off people’s IP (not just GW and FW, he seems to have recasts of Quantum Gothic stuff there too) and actively drive an increase in prices and cause small miniature manufacturers to shut down entirely?
Nice one sided morals there.
Yup. Singlehandedly destroying the miniatures industry lol.
Got the feeling I won’t like Game of Throne’s after tonight’s episode ….
@lunchbox “You’re pissed at GW for having high prices yet advocate purchasing from people who are happy to rip off people’s IP (not just GW and FW, he seems to have recasts of Quantum Gothic stuff there too) and actively drive an increase in prices and cause small miniature manufacturers to shut down entirely?” I think you got it upside down. It’s the price that drives recasting, not the recasting that drives the price. Once upon a time, back when I was a fresh faced teen who’d just discovered the glory of 2. edition 40K, recasting was practically unheard off.… Read more »
Why is that @poosh ? Does that mean I can have your Bretonnians? 🙂
@warworksdk So any artist, whether they be a company or an individual and whether they make fine art, miniatures, music etc deserves to have people in China / Russia / wherever steal their work to make money purely because they charge more than some people are willing to pay? It happens, sure, but why is it not frowned upon purely because its GW? Also, the more people buy from recasters, the less the manufacturers sell (whether that’s GW, Corvus Belli, PP, Microart, Quantum Gothic and many others I’ve seen recast). The less the manufacturers sell, the more they have to… Read more »
@lunchbox “So any artist, whether they be a company or an individual and whether they make fine art, miniatures, music etc deserves to have people in China / Russia / wherever steal their work to make money purely because they charge more than some people are willing to pay? It happens, sure, but why is it not frowned upon purely because its GW? Also, the more people buy from recasters, the less the manufacturers sell (whether that’s GW, Corvus Belli, PP, Microart, Quantum Gothic and many others I’ve seen recast). The less the manufacturers sell, the more they have to… Read more »
Expensive yes, annoying yes, codex spamming, spending is manly .. nice attempt at justifying getting into GW. It will surely overwrite any influence the negative posts might have had on new players.
These days I find myself agreeing with 90% of the criticisms of 40k. I don’t always like the way it’s expressed; specifically it winds me up when people start insulting the people who do play 40k. However, I’ve read through this thread and I can’t fault any of the so called ‘negativity’ I see here. I’m in the same camp as those who love the IP but don’t like the way the game has gone. I tried to get into 40k when I returned to wargaming about two and a half years ago now. I quickly discovered that GW’s minis… Read more »
Have to be honest even I’ve been considering getting into 30k as a few friends play, but it’s not that high on my list
If the rumours of a GW-made 30k set are true it may become a little more affordable too.
The basic KoW rules are also a free download.
Yes, but @erastus post was about how to enjoy the GW IP without either spending a fortune or having to put up with codex releases. You can find the rules for tiddlywinks for free online too.
But this article was about spending on a codex release?
So what’s that got to do with KoW? cpauls1’s post was a direct reply to erastus’s post which actually referenced peoples upset at another new codex..
@erastus mentioned free rules sets. I was simply adding to his list, for the benefit of people who may not know you can download KoW rules.
@erastus specifically mentioned free rules sets which allow people “to embrace the IP while abandoning 40k”. You were being a pedantic twat. KoW has nothing to do with 40k.
I didn’t know Necromunda and Inquisitor were 40k rules
They aren’t 40k rules. They are part of GW’s 40k IP which allow you to … and again I quote @erastus … “embrace the IP while abandoning 40k”.
Since I’m not living the 40k dream, as you obviously are, I wasn’t aware of their origin or content. Are they a complete, standalone rules set, with stats for opposing forces? In other words, if you’re newbie, can you download it and play a game?
I agree with a lot of what you’ve said there @erastus I fully understand a lot people’s criticisms about GW. I feel the same way a lot of the time but as someone who loves the IP, I still like to play their games. Some of their miniatures are a swing and a miss (Space Marine Centurions are a prime example imo) and I agree that they could do a lot more to make the miniatures reflect the fluff (something they seem to have rectified a little with Ad-Mech stuff of late). Still, for the most part, I like what… Read more »
I think GW have missed an opportunity here to make Space Marines interesting again. They put them on larger bases why not buff the stats in line with the fluff. I’d guess S,T 5 W 2 and perhaps a Feel no Pain for their physiology/power armour systems. I just hope they can settle on a style of codex and get a whole set out. This may be the silver lining of the fast updates that are going on at the moment. I’ve slowly collected the expensive soft grey codexes then it went very expensive with the hard backs. Assumed these… Read more »
Those Battleforce boxes don’t really suprise. I am spotting Devastator squad having neat addition included.
I’m not getting any. Not at that price, anyway.
I actually like the old-school sculpts and the fact that they now seem to have plenty of weapons in the box. But that price is just… Sheez…
And the battleforces are downright pathetic. Really drives home just how little plastic you get for your money these days.
I’m currently in the (daunting) position of painting a large space marine army so in no rush to get any more minis, but as far as pricing goes for GW I accept it is BS but having said that the extra bitz on those sprews and all of their others does make a model to model comparison unfair. something I did when making my army was buy legs and torsos from bitz companies like http://www.spellcrow.com/ and http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords. not really ok for proper tornies but that’s fine with me. This makes padding an army a tiny bit cheaper and makes it… Read more »
I’ve been collecting/painting/gaming since the mid 80’s, and I’ve seen how GW have grown and changed over the years. Like many others here I love their IP, and have spent a small fortune on their products. But over the past three years I’ve stopped playing their games completely. This was partly due to rising prices, partly due to changes in rules, and partly due to trying other companies games. My spending on GW product has now almost completely dried up. I still buy the occasional model that catches my eye, but I no longer buy to feed my armies. On… Read more »
Wow, just had a look at the anvil industry page. Amazing stuff!
I’ve picked some of their exo-mechs as platoon weapons platforms, and also their little autonomous gun tractors for unmanned drone-type systems. Great models!
I love the look of some of the new models, but I cannot justify spending another £30 or so on another codex and yet more mountains of plastic. Personally I would rather they put less on the sprues and charged a little less. I’m probably in the minority, I know, but I have a mountain of plastic bits that are just taking up space and are utterly wasted on me. I have bashed GW in the past for the rate of price hikes and the what I percieve to be poor rule changes, I have never knocked the quality of… Read more »
“Personally I would rather they put less on the sprues and charged a little less.”
I’m not convinced GW would do this. The pathetic mono-pose character models they sell which have almost no options, no articulation, no extras, are often £18 each and much, much smaller sprue wise.
I think GW would give you the option of either A) lots of stuff on the sprues for £28 or B) no extras for £28.
You’d obviously choose A if given those choices…
Lol – probably!
Either way, given i have now seen the immense options in the devastator set, it’s one hell of a lot of options! If you have a shed load of bog standard tactical marine legs / bodies lying around, you could make two fully kitted 5 man squads, and still have a stack of bits left over.
I think they’re built like the Stern Guard – they assume you’re gonna be using the extras for other models.
More beakys on the horizon then. With such a short lifespan for the last codex, I wonder if we will see much meaningful change compared to the current book?
Not until the next one a year from now 🙂