Space Marine Upgrade Packs & Assault Squads Drop In For Warhammer 40k
May 31, 2015 by brennon
Games Workshop have put together not only a new pack Assault Space Marines for the Adeptus Astartes but also four new Upgrade Kits that allow you to add some pomp and ceremony to those Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Ultramarine and Space Wolves characters you want...
Angels Of Death
Fittingly the title of Angels of Death for the Space Marines applies most when you look at the Assault Squad. While I'm not a big fan of the Veteran Sergeant with his strange take on the chainsword I do think overall it was a much needed upgrade.
While it might not seem it I think the new kit has given the Assault Marines a new weightiness on the battlefield and they look chunkier and ready to do a lot of damage.
As I say I think the head for the Veteran Sergeant is awful (would just wear a helmet) and I can't get behind the strange guard he has for the sword BUT it's a nice kit on the larger bases.
"Hmm; Upgrades..."
The Assault Marines are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the treats for Space Marines and they also got their character upgrade packs with specific shoulder pads, weapon options, heads and more.
I think my favourite has to be the Space Wolves one, although they had a mountain of options to choose from already. Second has to be the Ultramarines with their very Roman looking weapons and helmets. I miss these on the old metal models they used to do!
We don't mention price a whole lot but the actual cost of these kits isn't actually that bad for what you get I don't think (relatively anyway). For a die hard fan of one of these Chapters you'd most certainly want to pick one of these up.
Will you be upgrading?
"Fittingly the title of Angels of Death for the Space Marines applies most when you look at the Assault Squad..."
Like the red Ultra helmet, keep the rest.
I quite like the Ultra pads actually, they are not overly-adorned for once. Much to my surprise I also don’t think the price is that bad. The Wolf one is also nice, but I’d have to check the last series of Wolf specific kits as they were loaded with Space Wolf gear and I’m hoping these aren’t mostly just repeats.
I think if you have a box of death company, sanguinary guard and a new blood angel tactical squad you probably don’t need the BA sprue. Space wolves prob a similar situation. I do think the Ultras sprue looks good/useful and perhaps the Dark Angels.
The cost isn’t “that bad” but only if you compare it to the general cost of GW minis.
If you buy these for your tactical marines you are now looking at £3 per marine or £30 per squad.
I like Space Marines but this is getting ludicrous.
The new Assault squad is £50 for 10. Seriously….
How about Aus$140 for 10 then? 🙁
That’s almost reasonable compared to the Aus$42 for the decal sheet.
Isn’t the minimum national wage 16.87$ per hour? That is £8.45? Stop complaining Australia
Its not about minimum wage its about disposable income
You would be lucky to find a house rental for under $1500 to $1600 a month within 25km of any of the cities
My point was that when you calculate the Australian price it makes £70 an it looks like GW is making money on poor Australian people while in fact it simply adapts to the market. My one bedroom flat is equivalent of $1100 pcm and it’s 40 minutes by train from London. Renting a house? I can forget about it for now. Disposable income? Don’t make me laugh
Agreed, I bought Island of Blood for the cost of this new Assault Squad!!!
I just bought the elves from that kit on EBay when it first came out. All the bits places had them for dirt cheap. Ended up paying $1.00 a figure, and $6.00 each for six of the griffon riders. You can still get cheap GW stuff… just not from GW.
Yeah, gw costs are only going up. I can’t blame them, the more they can get per kit, the fewer they have to sell. And really, I guess they are only losing older players like me who aren’t spending as much anyway.
Their kits are beautiful, is that a heavy chainsword? I’m not a fan of scenery on the bases.
The website says it’s a “Heavy Chainsword (Eviscerator)”, so your guess is as good as anyone’s.
I’m fine with the new Assault, I mean the sense of motion is toned down which is good (no loopyness…) but £25 🙁 – Bit of a price hike I must say but you ARE getting mode plastic bits, but note the SW Skyclaws are £22.50? LOL GW idiots – £50 for the pleasure of not clicking “quantity 2″… I would say these guys are idiots, but clearly other idiots are buying these bundles etc. So really GW aren’t at fault… The extras upgrades are very nice it must be said. / Also – is that a Matrix reference in… Read more »
The Dark Angel loose a very good set of upgrades for this…which has naice parts , but the old sprues had all the icons and bodies etc
very disappointing
That Assault Sergeant with the eviscerator seems to be compensating for something – why else would he need a chainsword so much bigger than everyone else’s…? All jokes aside, this is a nice (if pricy) kit which conveys the heft and impact of the Assualt Marines well. Like several others, I am also not entirely sure about the guard on the eviscerator – it just looks a little odd, but that might in part be down to the colour scheme. The upgrade kits have some nice bits on them as well, and each very effectively conveys the imagery and iconography… Read more »
That Space Wolf set is pretty-much a must-buy so as to FINALLY be able to build a certain Mr. Blackmane….
Its not gonna top the old blackmane though, or so im guessing from looking at the bits. 2nd edition blackmane was stiffly posed but the head was far superior.
Which head did you have in mind to use? not sure if the grey hunter top knot head is quite there, seems a bit old. Also any ideas on base model and pose? Sorry @dawfydd love discussing conversion ideas. Second time it was mentioned and now thinking about it.
I was thinking of finding a Krom Dragongaze on Evilbay as a base as he has most of the core details down, and I have Ragnars boltpistol hand/gauntelt spare from another conversion I dismantled….
The head, not too sure. The old Grey Hunter topknot is a tad too static in terms of expression, might have to find a head with a decent “howl” and then sculpt the hair on separate. Personally the challenge for me would seem to be making his iconic 3d wolf-head shoulder pad….
Sounds good, I was thinking if I was to do one I would probably sever legs and arms into sections and do a complete repose – going for something quiet dynamic – hmm may have a go.
Some of those are rather good while rest are not so much.
like the upgrade packs at a reasonable price.
think i’ll have to grab the BA one as I was wanting to do an apothecary and can use a fair few of the bits in that kit for him!
I may actually get the Ultra upgrade kit, although am still not sure, for the rest, too expensive for my taste, I am happy my armies are already perfectly matched, no need to spend ridiculous amounts of money anymore…
Does Wacoshop make the people who sell these wear a striped jumper and a mask?
…a “-1”, must be a worshipper!
Upgrade bits are pretty sweet. Yeah, some of em are a little redundant but more options is better than less. As for the assault marines, they’re a bit dearer than anyone would really like, but isn’t everything? What I don’t get is why they bother with those silly web bundles. £50 deal for 2 x £25 boxes isn’t much of a deal. Surely offer a few quid off and sell a lot more boxes? If they gave even 5%-10% off on the web bundles, I bet they would sell a ton of them. They give retailers a huge discount so… Read more »
@lunchbox what sort of discount do they offer retailers? I am amazed they don’t try to jig their online bundles to compete somewhat with alternate retailer discounts
Well, given that places like Triple Helix and Wayland can offer up to 25% off, I would guess it’s at least 40% off, maybe even 50% off for trade customers.
The Blood Angel head looks like a blond Sam
Who doesn’t have drawers full of GW bits? Redundant in many ways, and overpriced in every way.
“Who doesn’t have drawers full of GW bits?”
New players.
Not many new players these days.
I am sure there are not as many new players getting into 40k as there used to be a decade ago but how many is “not many”?
And I use those bits constantly for projects and other models ….
There is no excuse to make a sprue that isn’t filled with extra bits, in this day an age.
As I said elsewhere; I’m not sure as to the reason for some of these upgrade sprues. You get a tonne left over from the SW Grey Wolf / Blood Claws kit; same again for the Blood angels tactical box and even the Death Company (and Sanguinary Guard) boxes. I’m not sure as to the reason these sprues have come along. You can certainly make a case for the Ultramarines and perhaps Dark Angels, what with the latter not having a tactical squad box like the other two, but it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to not release… Read more »
@fleetey hopefully these are floating the idea with the safer chapters. Even with cheaper lower use mould there has to be a fair number of units you need to sell to start making money less used chapters always going to suffer from that.
My thoughts are much the same as towards the Dev squad box. I will get a box here, a box there, as I do love to get a squad or two of varying size into my army lists somewhere and the extra power weapons are always nice to have.
Think of it from the point of view of somebody investing in that army from the first time, if you were a Blood Angels player grabbing the tactical set, the generic assault marines and then devastator boxes with the upgrade sprue and suddenly it all looks a lot more blood angels like.
Still options for lots more bits but for those just beginning an army they are a nice way to do it i’d have thought.
Makes a lot of sense from that point of view.