Hypothesising a BA Start Collecting! Set

[Jolemai]

Current flavour of the month is the Start Collecting! sets that GW are doing and these appear to have replaced the Battleforce sets of old. Basically, you get a HQ, Troops choice and usually something else that fits the force and the army. This is all rounded up with a Formation to enable to you to use it right away.

 

The SM box has a TDA Captain, Tactical Squad, Venerable Dreadnought and Formation.

The SW box has a Wolf Lord, Grey Hunters pack, three Thunderwolves and Formation.

The CSM box has a TDA Captain, CSM Squad, Hellbrute and Formation.

 

... so it's safe to assume we shall get something similar. Our old Battleforce (interestingly priced £10 more than these sets) was a PA Captain, BA Tactical Squad and Furioso. What I want to know is would we get something similar to this and what would the Formation be?

 

*** I should point out that in my opinion, a Start Collecting kit is designed to introduce you to the game, so there wont be a mass of special rules. So I feel the models would all be generic/basic and the Formation would only have one easy to use/remember rule.

 

What do you think it will be?

[Charlo]

Tac Squad

BA Dread

TDA Librarian OR maybe a Priest?

 

Unsure what they would make the Dread be for the formation, though probably a Furioso.

[SlangWhanger]

Looking at other similar boxes, I'd say ours would contain:

Karlaen (possibly Jump Chaplain)

10 Tacs

Furioso Dread

 

As for special rules, probably just get Red Thirst.. :,(

 

Something like Fleet or Shoot and Charge if with 12" of each other could be cool though.

 

What follows are a few views presented as a /rant...

 

I generally don't like the various Space Marines 'get started' boxes because I find them all so boring! The old Battleforces (like 2008-12 sorta era) were nice little armies/detachments in their own rights, but these new ones are more geared towards getting people to buy more stuff to make the box into an actual legal army, losing flavour along the way. For example the current codex space marines one: a termi Captain with tacticals? He'll probably need an escort if you want to field him. Tacs on their own? They'll most likely need a transport, unless they're going to be a shooty unit. Dreadnought? Fair enough, they're cool (but still, a footslogging dread is not ideal). It just seems like disjointed elements thrown together.

 

The old battleforces were also good additions to an existing army, being able to add an extra element with one purchase. As mentioned above, if i add to my army with this box i'll have to buy more to make it actually work.

 

One of the starter boxes i do like is the skitarii one, but even that draws from more than one codex, again forcing people to buy more in order to use all the models in a legal list.

 

Something which i think could work quite well is to keep these boxes for beginners/people wanting to try out new armies or allies, and then have extension boxes that add on to these that people can buy to round off their fledgling army. Let's take BA as an example:

 

Start Collecting! Blood Angels contents:

Karlaen, 10 Tactical Marines, Furioso (themed, but generally boring)

 

Collection add-on contents (also with a saving):

5 BA Assault terminators, 5 DC, 5 Ass marines, 1 Drop pod, Stormraven

 

Possibly have different add-ons depending on style of army? And further special formations to add extra flavour.

 

Just a few ideas, of course i don't know how viable this is for GW though.

 

One final point: why don't Imperial Knights have a 'Start Collecting' box?!... ;)

[CaptainHelion]

I'd be inclined to say it'd be a repackaging of our Battleforce. Although, I could also see them replacing the PA Captain with the PA Sanguinary Priest, as the PA Captain isn't a BA Specific kit, or the Not-Karlaen Termi-Captain.

As for a formation, I haven't the foggiest. A shoot-and-charge type thing seems reasonable, and fits the simple but useful theme they seem to be aiming for the Start Collecting boxes.

[Paikis]

I just hope there's no Death Company involved. Blood Angels are turning out to be largely black marines instead of red ones, at least in my local area.

 

Having said that, Jump Chaplain, tactical box and Death Company box would allow you to field a legal CAD/BSF. Add 2 Rhinos (sold seperately I'm sure) and you'd have the first 500pt army I played. You could also chose to paint the DC box as ASM if you wished and run it as a FTSF.

 

For the special rule, you could have jump pack units arriving from deepstrike only scatter half distance and cause Hammer of Wrath attacks on arrival.

 

 

EDIT:

Another one that'd be cool is (Librarian) Dreadnaught, tactical squad and DC squad. Could work as a start collecting box and also be quite good for existing BAs. Who doesn't need another fragioso/DC Dread, tactical squad and Death Company/ASM squad?

[Bukimimaru]

Would it be too much to hope for:

The shiny new Chaplin model

10x Assault marines

3x Bikes

 

It would be difficult for them to include a dreadnought as ours can be built into several different variants and the formation wouldn't be able to take them all into account.

[Canadian_F_H]

Personally I'm torn... I suspect a mirror of the sm and csm...

 

So the terminator captain, a ba tactical squad and Furioso kit. (Which obviously can be many different things depending how you build it...magnets!)

 

But I'd rather see jump chaplain, death company, death company dread perhaps...

[NTaW]

A Start Collecting: Death Company box would be pretty swanky. 10 DC, new Chaplain, DC dread.

 

OK so maybe I just want a reasonable DC Formation to use...

 

Truly though I don't really see a reason for them to greatly alter the contents from the Tactical squad, Furioso, and Captain model.

[Paikis]

A Start Collecting: Death Company box would be pretty swanky. 10 DC, new Chaplain, DC dread.

 

OK so maybe I just want a reasonable DC Formation to use...

 

Truly though I don't really see a reason for them to greatly alter the contents from the Tactical squad, Furioso, and Captain model.

 

Strike Force Mortalis is pretty good. The only "downside" is that it's a large detatchment even at minimum squad sizes.

[Xenith]

Looking at other similar boxes, I'd say ours would contain:

Karlaen (possibly Jump Chaplain)

10 Tacs

Furioso Dread

 

I generally don't like the various Space Marines 'get started' boxes because I find them all so boring! The old Battleforces (like 2008-12 sorta era) were nice little armies/detachments in their own rights, but these new ones are more geared towards getting people to buy more stuff to make the box into an actual legal army, losing flavour along the way. 

 

Technically, each of the Start collecting boxes is a legal army, as they have their own formation. Not always an effective army, but hey, it's Start Collecting, right? 

 

I agree on the above contents, jump chaplain, tacticals, furioso.

[Damon Nightman]

What would the jump chaplain do in this mini formation though?

[Frater Antodeniel]

One logical formation would be quite like that :

 

Requirements: 1 Captain, 1 Tactical Squad, 1 Furioso Dreadnought Restrictions: The Captain must be equipped in Terminator armour. (Since it is Karlaen model).

Special Rules: Furious Charge: The Captain, and any units from the Blood Angels Strike Force that are within 12″ of him have the Fleet special rule.

Source: Start Collecting: Blood Angels

[Xenith]

What would the jump chaplain do in this mini formation though?

 

Same as the characters that cannot fit in transports, or random TDA characters in other boxes ;)

 

The priest would make a better fit, but I wager the priest sells better than the chaplain.

 

It could be the TDA librarian.

[NTaW]

 

A Start Collecting: Death Company box would be pretty swanky. 10 DC, new Chaplain, DC dread.

 

OK so maybe I just want a reasonable DC Formation to use...

 

Truly though I don't really see a reason for them to greatly alter the contents from the Tactical squad, Furioso, and Captain model.

 

Strike Force Mortalis is pretty good. The only "downside" is that it's a large detatchment even at minimum squad sizes.

 

 

That's exactly what I meant by 'reasonable'. If the minimum requirements weren't so extravagant it would see even more play than it does (I notice a lot of people here seem to use it with their lists but that isn't what I've seen abroad). It would have been great if it was:

 

Chaplain

2-X DC squads

0-X DC Dreads

0-X Stormravens

 

where 'x' is whatever pleases your (black) rage filled heart. If there was a DC box with a Formation that was just a Chaplain, unit of DC (or two I suppose), and a Dreadnought that would be vastly more useable; specially considering we can nip up 2+ Stormravens in an Air Superiority Detachment if we really want.

[Slothysaur]

As long as Karl isn't in it Ill be okay. Already have 3 of him. Granted I've used them all for conversions, but I'm so done with him.

[Damon Nightman]

 

 

What would the jump chaplain do in this mini formation though?

Same as the characters that cannot fit in transports, or random TDA characters in other boxes ;)

 

The priest would make a better fit, but I wager the priest sells better than the chaplain.

 

It could be the TDA librarian.

Well yeah I know, but I ment a tda Capt still kinda fits a tact squad. A jump pack character in one though is especially silly. And a chaplain going around alone is silly since he should be giving something zealot.

 

Sorry I analyzed it a bit too hard lol

[Xenith]

What would the jump chaplain do in this mini formation though?

Same as the characters that cannot fit in transports, or random TDA characters in other boxes

The priest would make a better fit, but I wager the priest sells better than the chaplain.

It could be the TDA librarian.

Well yeah I know, but I ment a tda Capt still kinda fits a tact squad. A jump pack character in one though is especially silly. And a chaplain going around alone is silly since he should be giving something zealot.

Sorry I analyzed it a bit too hard lol

No worries, in retrospect, a long JP character is odd.

I'd like a neat little formation like that. Tactical, TDA libby, dread, nice bonus.

I wonder what kind of dread they would put in the formation...

It could very well be:

Librarian Dread

Tactical Squad

Death Company

for around £74-76.

That would be cool, and very unique!

[NTaW]

It would indeed be very cool if they pushed the Libbynaught in this kit through the Formation included (since it seems pretty logical to keep a Furioso kit in there).

[Damon Nightman]

What would the jump chaplain do in this mini formation though?

Same as the characters that cannot fit in transports, or random TDA characters in other boxes

The priest would make a better fit, but I wager the priest sells better than the chaplain.

It could be the TDA librarian.

Well yeah I know, but I ment a tda Capt still kinda fits a tact squad. A jump pack character in one though is especially silly. And a chaplain going around alone is silly since he should be giving something zealot.

Sorry I analyzed it a bit too hard lol

No worries, in retrospect, a long JP character is odd.

I'd like a neat little formation like that. Tactical, TDA libby, dread, nice bonus.

I wonder what kind of dread they would put in the formation...

It could very well be:

Librarian Dread

Tactical Squad

Death Company

for around £74-76.

That would be cool, and very unique!

This would be very cool! I want some formation to show off our Libby dreads. I feel like they've been left out so far... Not that we've had anything besides SOB.

[Charlo]

Could have some nice rules where he Psychically empowers the units around him.

 

+1 to Charge Distances.

[Xenith]

Screw normal Librarius conclaves, I want a librarian dread conclave.

 

BA get started kit is 3 furioso librarians. With the independent character rule.

[NTaW]

Given the lists I've been making recently it would also be pretty cool if there was a Baal Predator in the box. No idea what would make sense rolling with it though.

[appiah4]

My moneys on Sanguinary Priest, Tactical Squad and Furioso.

 

Alternatively Chaplain, Death Company, Tactical Squad.

[Jolemai]

... and straight out of left field:

 

http://www.spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ClJ1x8DWAAA9u3G.jpg

Neat! I'm getting the BA one for sure.

Anyone want to hazard a guess at the rules?

[Jolemai]

 

 

The set also comes with an exclusive formation datasheet, the Carmine Host, in which the Captain urges his battle-brothers to fight harder in Sanguinius's name.

 

Grammar aside, I have no idea how a Captain in TDA can affect both the Tactical and Baal in the same manner. Re-rolls?