Christmas Battleforce Predictions/Hopes

[Flaherty]

Last year's Battleforces were announced before Halloween, and there's no 40K news on the horizon for the foreseeable, so why not a little rank speculation?

 

Any thoughts on what armies we're likely to see represented this year? Do you think the Battleforce splash boxes released with the codices will change the type/number of boxes released this year? Will we get a little wave of marine chapter boxes to compensate for the dearth of releases?

 

The only ones that strike me as overwhelmingly overdue are Craftworlds and Drukhari, who haven't had a notable splash release since Blood of the Phoenix or the Piety and Pain boxes, which are 4+ years old. Tau also feels plausible.

 

Personally, I'm hoping for a Chaos Knights box on the model of the imperial version from a few years ago.

 

Prior Battleforces:

 

4:
- Tau: 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020
- Adeptus Mechanicus: 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022
- Marines: 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023

 

3:
- Necrons: 2018, 2020, 2021
- Death Guard: 2018, 2021, 2022
- Tyranids: 2019, 2020, 2023
- Astra Militarum: 2017, 2020, 2023
- Orks: 2017, 2021, 2023

 

2:
- Space Wolves: 2016, 2019
- Imperial Fists: 2018, 2022
- CSM: 2019, 2020
- Adepta Sororitas: 2021, 2022

1:
- DeathWatch: 2016
- GSC: 2017
- Craftworlds: 2018
- Drukhari: 2019
- Blood Angels: 2019
- Imperial Knights: 2022
- Adeptus Custodes: 2022
- Ravenguard: 2022
- Iron Hands: 2022
- White Scars: 2022
- Salamanders: 2022
- Ultramarines: 2022

- Thousand Sons: 2022
- World Eaters: 2023
- Leagues of Votann: 2023

As for when we can expect them announced, here's the historical trend:

2016 – November 15th

2017 – November 19th

2018 – November 5th (Two were teased on Warcom on Oct 28)

2019 – November 15th

2020 – November 16th

2021 – November 18th

2022 – November 7th (Four additional boxes announced on Dec 26)

2023 – October 23rd

[ZeroWolf]

I think it's safe to say the marines will be represented again in some fashion. Not sure if it'll be generic or chapter based (they could do a Ultramarines and Dark Angels one and include their respective primarch for example).

 

In that vein I could see an Aeldari box with the Avatar of Khaine in the centre of it, and maybe a new Necron one with the silent king heading it up.

 

A chaos Knight box is also a good call.

 

Really, only certainty is there will be marines 

[sarabando]

Blood angels, chaos, Custodes, Tau, i think

[Karhedron]

 

Blood angels, chaos, Custodes, Tau, i think

 

I would be very surprised if it is Blood Angels. They just got the Death Company army box and the new Combat Patrol.

[INKS]

Anything would be wild random guesses. Several Marines. DA maybe, Didn't we have a bunch last year that were like ravenguard, iron hands and so on?

Knights? Maybe, 

Custodes was popular

Eldar I could see, or maybe DA

I could see Nids or Tau

Necrons and Orks also seem to get them a lot

[Karhedron]

Eldar seem plausible. They have not had a Christmas box for a while, they have quite a lot of older models that I am sure GW would like to shift and there are rumours of a new wave next year. A Christmas box would clear out older stock and also get a few people starting new armies, ready for next year's new releases.

[ZeroWolf]

Remember, they don't actually reuse old stock for Xmas boxes, but print completely new stuff, as they'll be in the process of doing them right now...if not finished.

[Emperor Ming]

 

Remember, they don't actually reuse old stock for Xmas boxes, but print completely new stuff

Is that actually true

[Petitioner's City]

I guess AoS is easier to predict - recentish releases like Slaves, Cities, etc - that we've seen in the last 2 years.

 

What has been 2 years newish for 40k? Nids? Votann? Guard? Chaos marines? Eldar?

 

But they featured last year, right?

 

Of course they could branch out and have these boxes for the Specialist Games....

Edited September 12 by Petitioner's City

[INKS]

 

Remember, they don't actually reuse old stock for Xmas boxes, but print completely new stuff, as they'll be in the process of doing them right now...if not finished.

Do you mean that they wouldn't add in unit that are getting updated? what do you mean by old stock? Because Custodes is all old stock? (I mean not that old)

[Tyriks]

 

Do you mean that they wouldn't add in unit that are getting updated? what do you mean by old stock? Because Custodes is all old stock? (I mean not that old)

I think he meant they aren't pulling boxes off the shelf to throw in these battleforces.

[DemonGSides]

 

 

I would be very surprised if it is Blood Angels. They just got the Death Company army box and the new Combat Patrol.

 

I would normally agree, but last year we had Jump Assault Ints be introduced and then show up as a 3x of in that same Christmas box revealed not even a month later.

 

So I also doubt we will, but it very well could happen. 

 

Is that actually true

 

Yep, we've known that for a long time.

 

It's way more time consuming to retract sold material, disassemble it from the box and then put it into another box, as it would have to be done all by hand.  New boxes can be run by a machine, way cheaper. 

[Hfran Morkai]

I could see a T'au one with Crisis Suits, Stealth Teams, maybe a Riptide/Hammerhead.

 

I appreciate T'au have had a fair amount of attention with the Christmas Battleforces previously as well as the Kroot Hunting pack recently but it'd be interesting to see something to complement the new Combat Patrol.

 

 

[ZeroWolf]

Not to mention the logistics of having to sort out extra stock if there's not enough of the old ones. Just all around easy to produce new kits for the boxes.

[sitnam]

 

Is that actually true

 

Last year the Battle forces included a ton of sculpts that had come out that year. The Astra Militarum update and World Eaters both came out last year, Votann and Beast Snagga Orka were relatively new, and a decent portion of the Tyranid and Space Marine boxes were new stuff. 

 

I would bet we see Kroot make.up a good portion of a T'au box

[jaxom]

It seemed to me that there’s usually a theme all the boxes follow.

[Indy Techwisp]

Ideally the boxes aren't just a complete rehash of all this years (extremely limited number of) releases, but they are usually a faction who've had their codex release in the edition.

 

That said, for what factions I think will get a box:

Almost certainly NOT Guard or Aeldari, since they're getting their releases in the new year with a big box of their own.

 

Some flavour of Loyalist Marines will get a box for certain maybe Dark Angels.

 

Ideally Chaos would get a box, but so far only CSM have gotten their release so it would really have to be them.

 

There's usually a couple Xenos boxes, but with Orks and Tyranids getting a box last year and Aeldari of both stripes unaccounted for it's gonna be between T'au, GSC and Necrons, isn't it?

 

Last year had 3 Xenos boxes, 1 LSM, 1 Imperium and one Chaos, so the above suggestions plus a random Imperium faction would be enough.

 

Alternatively however, they could saturate the boxes with Imperium factions, which is also an option.

 

What it comes down to is that the boxes with probably be picked from the following Factions:

 

Dark Angels

Blood Angels

Chaos Space Marines

Adeptus Custodes

Adepta Sororitas

Adeptus Mechanicus

Inquisitorial Agents

Necrons

T'au Empire

Genestealer Cults

 

I have ruled out Generic LSM, Orks and Tyranids as they had a Box last year and as far as I can see they do not typically have the same faction multiple times in a row (unless it's a specific chapter contained within the base LSM codex).

[Tyriks]

 

Ideally the boxes aren't just a complete rehash of all this years (extremely limited number of) releases, but they are usually a faction who've had their codex release in the edition.

 

That said, for what factions I think will get a box:

Almost certainly NOT Guard or Aeldari, since they're getting their releases in the new year with a big box of their own.

 

Some flavour of Loyalist Marines will get a box for certain maybe Dark Angels.

 

Ideally Chaos would get a box, but so far only CSM have gotten their release so it would really have to be them.

 

There's usually a couple Xenos boxes, but with Orks and Tyranids getting a box last year and Aeldari of both stripes unaccounted for it's gonna be between T'au, GSC and Necrons, isn't it?

 

Last year had 3 Xenos boxes, 1 LSM, 1 Imperium and one Chaos, so the above suggestions plus a random Imperium faction would be enough.

 

Alternatively however, they could saturate the boxes with Imperium factions, which is also an option.

 

What it comes down to is that the boxes with probably be picked from the following Factions:

 

Dark Angels

Blood Angels

Chaos Space Marines

Adeptus Custodes

Adepta Sororitas

Adeptus Mechanicus

Inquisitorial Agents

Necrons

T'au Empire

Genestealer Cults

 

I have ruled out Generic LSM, Orks and Tyranids as they had a Box last year and as far as I can see they do not typically have the same faction multiple times in a row (unless it's a specific chapter contained within the base LSM codex).

There have definitely been factions that got two in a row before.

[DemonGSides]

Unless they go back to what they did in 2022, I would still expect a generic branded Space Marines box. That's the only year that didn't get just a plain box, and instead got TWO boxes that were chapter branded, but both were codex compliant (and I really wish I had picked up the IF one, that was a hell of a deal on Heavy Ints), and then came out with even more versions later on (also all technically branded with a chapter but mostly viable for any SM force looking to purchase).

 

They don't have a problem releasing back to back years. 

 

I'd guess 1 SM box or two SM boxes branded as DA and BA but mostly generic (no sang guard or ICC, maybe upgrade sprues tho?), 1 CSM box, 1 Mechanicum box, 3 Xenos boxes (my guess is Necrons, Tau (Kroot), Drukharii.

[ZeroWolf]

 

Ideally the boxes aren't just a complete rehash of all this years (extremely limited number of) releases, but they are usually a faction who've had their codex release in the edition.

 

That said, for what factions I think will get a box:

Almost certainly NOT Guard or Aeldari, since they're getting their releases in the new year with a big box of their own.

 

Some flavour of Loyalist Marines will get a box for certain maybe Dark Angels.

 

Ideally Chaos would get a box, but so far only CSM have gotten their release so it would really have to be them.

 

There's usually a couple Xenos boxes, but with Orks and Tyranids getting a box last year and Aeldari of both stripes unaccounted for it's gonna be between T'au, GSC and Necrons, isn't it?

 

Last year had 3 Xenos boxes, 1 LSM, 1 Imperium and one Chaos, so the above suggestions plus a random Imperium faction would be enough.

 

Alternatively however, they could saturate the boxes with Imperium factions, which is also an option.

 

What it comes down to is that the boxes with probably be picked from the following Factions:

 

Dark Angels

Blood Angels

Chaos Space Marines

Adeptus Custodes

Adepta Sororitas

Adeptus Mechanicus

Inquisitorial Agents

Necrons

T'au Empire

Genestealer Cults

 

I have ruled out Generic LSM, Orks and Tyranids as they had a Box last year and as far as I can see they do not typically have the same faction multiple times in a row (unless it's a specific chapter contained within the base LSM codex).

Problem with your theory about eldar not getting a Xmas box is the fact that orks got a 1 last year and then an army box this year when their codex released. So i could still see an eldar box centered around the avatar. Just as the nid one last year was around the norn emissary.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I wouldn't be surprised to see T'au, GSC, Adeptus Soritas all ger boxes.

 

Personally I want all Imperial Fists boxes. Just Imperial Fists. Nothing else. Just Imperial Fists everywhere and all the time. Box after box after box of Imperial Fists. 

[Sky Potato]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Craftworld Eldar.
 

I know GW produce fresh kits for the Battleforce boxes - but the molds for stuff like the Falcons are from the late 90s. I reckon GW will try and wring every last batch of kits possible out of the existing molds before they get replaced with the refreshed range early next year.

[INKS]

The only thing I know for sure is we can rule out Daemons. 90% of the kits are old and I don't think there has been an army bundle in a long time.

 

Personally:

Custodes

Knights - Imp or Chaos

Death Guard

Nids

Votann

--These are the current armies I can't decide on and watch about 10 painting guides a day on. lol

If Crisis suits were ever redone I would consider Tau as well. Just don't like the current designs. Which is funny because I like all their other suits except those. Kind of how I don't like the Nid warrior kit. I am odd I guess. lol

[Magos Takatus]

Maybe this year's theme will be everyone's favourite units in one box? Tzaangors, Reivers... Monopose Ork boyz? Throw in some Marine ATV's and you've got a nice rounded force. Maybe add in a couple more Tzaangor sprues on top of that though, just in case...  

 

Edit: Oh, They need heavy firepower! How about those marines with missiles everybody loves? 

Edited September 12 by Magos Takatus

[DemonGSides]

My local LGS clearance section is just ripped open boxes of the Kroot release box, Reivers, and Desolators, so you're not far off Magos!