Best jump pack veteran box

[Black Knight]

I wanted to grab a box of Vanguard veterans and noticed there are two sets to choose from:

 

Assault Squad

 

Vanguard Veteran Squad

 

Is one of the sets better than the other when it comes to the plastic or loadout? I have only ever gotten single models for my jump packs before and have never had these kits. I ask because there are two Terminator kits and I found one of them to be so old that it wasn't too much fun building them.

[Brother Lame]

Hey, so the Assault Marine box set will build standard Assault Marines with bolt pistols and chainswords, with options for a flamer, plasma pistol and an eviscerator I believe. There'll also be a couple of weapons in there for the Sergeant as well like a power fist. The Vanguard Vet box builds the actual SM Vanguard Vets and in addition to fancier armour and bodies you get a whole host of weapon and loadout options so you can mix and match them as you like.

 

You absolutely want that Vanguard Veteran box, I'm yet to pick one up myself but you can actually have a look at the sprues themselves for kits like the Vanguard Vets by scrolling through the images on the website. Looking at it you'll get a bunch of pairs of claws, four thunder hammers, four storm shields, a load of chainswords and other bits and pieces.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Brother Lame

[Boyadventurer]

I'm not sure about the relative age, but the VV box is way better. The Assault squad only comes with pistol and chainsword, a few flamers, and srg upgrades, but the VV set has enough bits to kit out your squad as needed (lightning claws for everyone, fancier chainswords, thunder hammers, etc). You'll outfit your five guys, and then still have a bunch of bits left over to kit out more veterans.

[Syrakul]

The vanguard is for a host of special weapons like thunderhammers/shields and lightning claws with some dope-looking swords too, while the assault marines are mostly bog standard ccw SM, with one of each cc option and 2 flamers.

One is elite one is FA. If you want cheap objective hoppers go assault. If you want a cc beatstick unit or some sturdy shielded guys go vanguard. You can probably notice modelwise the vanguard are chock full of the fancier SM details, good to deck out sargents and the like. Kit still has grav pistol so recent enough. Cant say anything on 9th ed. effectiveness.

[ServoBadger]

IMO, you really want the Vanguard Veterans box. I don't know the relative ages of the two kits, but they're both much more modern than either of the vanilla Terminator squads.

 

The reason I'd lean toward the Vanguard Veterans are, well, they're Vanguard Veterans, and Deathwatch can't take the basic Assault squad. There's nothing stopping you from using the standard Assault squad AS Vanguard Veterans of course, but as others have said the armour of the Assault squad is quite plain in comparison.

 

Also, unless I'm reading the datasheets wrong, Vanguard Veterans can't use the Eviscerator, the Combat Shield or the Flamers in the Assault squad box.

 

Finally, I haven't actually built the current Assault squad, but the legs look very short to me, even for Firstborn. It might just be the pictures on the GW website, but to me the Vanguard Veterans look better proportioned.

[Debauchery101]

Buy DeathCo, Sanguinary guard and Vanguards. Tons of varied bits and lots of weapons. Desth co has a 2h thunder hammer as well. Plus inferno pistol, chain swords, tons of skull helmets and scrolls Edited January 18, 2021 by Debauchery101

[MadEdric]

The Vanguard Veteran is great, even more so for Deathwatch. In that box you get 4 Storm shields that can go to other squads, Thunder hammers, powerfists. It gives you a huge number of assault weapons, including many Chainswords.

[Mobius0288]

+1 for the vanguard veteran kit! I've gotten two, and the leftover bits can be used in kill teams or a converted jump Captain easily. Lightning claws for blackshields or Sgts, same with power axes. 4 storm shields to use for the squad or to spread around in other kill team conversions.

 

As Debauchery101 mentioned, goes great with other boxes when you're trying to kit bash specific chapters as well. I used the space wolf and blood angels box for specific storm shields, armor accessories and chainswords with my VV's.

[Black Knight]

Thanks all for the info, thinking about it I might be dumping the bodies for some assault intercessors but keeping everything else.  I won't be using too many shields on them, I really do prefer the DW shields but I definitely am running low on them right now thanks to the Blade Guard.

[ServoBadger]

GW do still sell five plastic jump packs on their own if that's what you're mostly after. You could even combine them with a box of Deathwatch Veterans if you want more of the big shields.

[Debauchery101]

Thanks all for the info, thinking about it I might be dumping the bodies for some assault intercessors but keeping everything else. I won't be using too many shields on them, I really do prefer the DW shields but I definitely am running low on them right now thanks to the Blade Guard.

if you still have blade guard vet shields it would be really easy to make a press mold from a DW shield. Either with greenstuff, blue stuff or miliput. Then smooth out the BGV shields and lay the piece you make on top.

I did it with similar stuff like using the door from the Corvus blackstar to make a large I badge for a redemptor and I used the technique to make 6 pack, nipple armor chest pieces from sanguinary guard to put on all my Blood angels Blade Guard vets.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Debauchery101