The price of the new Eldar Combat Patrol is ...

[Helias_Tancred]

$170.

 

The current combat patrols are $168. Is this a stealth price increase?

 

 

[Xenith]

Not really stealth if it's out in the open like that - new SKU, new price, no increase [technically]. I don't think combat patrols have a fixed price anymore, not since 9th? I remember the start of 8th when they were a flat £40. Glory days.

Edited February 28 by Xenith

[Halandaar]

41 minutes ago, Xenith said:

I don't think combat patrols have a fixed price anymore, not since 9th? 

 

For the most part, Combat Patrols have had a single price point since they were first introduced in 2020 - in the UK at first they were all £90, then all went up together to £95, and now are all £100. In USD that unified price was $168 up until the start of this year, with both Astra Militarum and now Aeldari coming in at $170.

 

I think our US brethren can consider that a preview of what will happen in March (i.e. the other Combat Patrols will all go up to $170 to match it and restore the unified price point.

 

Worth noting that in GBP, EUR, CAD, DKK, PLN  the new Patrols (Guard & Eldar) are the same price as the old ones, so the increase seems to be specific to select countries/currencies (USD, JPY, NZD, NOK, SEK as far as I can see)

 

Australia is an outlier because the price of the Combat Patrols seems to vary pretty wildly: there are sets at 280, 278, 262, 260, 238, 235 AUD.

 

41 minutes ago, Xenith said:

I remember the start of 8th when they were a flat £40. Glory days.

 

£40 is probably a FLGS price - when Start Collecting boxes launched during 40K 7th Edition (2019) they had an RRP of £50 across the board. It was a couple of years later when they started to price them more according to the contents (AoS ones with big monsters in all went up to £60, for example)

 

Edited February 28 by Halandaar

[Xenith]

31 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

It was a couple of years later when they started to price them more according to the contents

 

That's the one I'm thinking of then...were they called vanguard boxes? There was Start Collecting!, then something, then Combat Patrol? Or did it go straight to combat patrol, each at varying prices, which then became uniform?

[Lord Marshal]

2 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

That's the one I'm thinking of then...were they called vanguard boxes? There was Start Collecting!, then something, then Combat Patrol? Or did it go straight to combat patrol, each at varying prices, which then became uniform?

 

Iirc Vanguard was the name of AoS' equivalent of Combat Patrols in 3rd before they renamed them to Spearhead with 4th.

 

I think 40k went straight from Start Collecting(!) into Combat Patrols and the name stuck.

 

Edited February 28 by Lord Marshal

[Halandaar]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

That's the one I'm thinking of then...were they called vanguard boxes? There was Start Collecting!, then something, then Combat Patrol? Or did it go straight to combat patrol, each at varying prices, which then became uniform?

 

"Vanguard" is what AoS's version of Combat Patrol boxes were called before they were renamed to Spearhead for AoS 4th Edition last year. Every Combat Patrol box came out at the same price (£90), but they came out one by one alongside 9th Edition Codexes so there was a pretty long crossover period where some factions still had Start Collecting boxes (which potentially had three different prices), and others had new Combat Patrol sets at the new single pricepoint. 

 

I think it basically went like this (years are approximate)

• 2016 -  Start Collecting! launched for 40K and AoS (single price point at £50 across both systems)
• 2018 - Start Collecting! prices start to diverge based on contents with different boxes priced at £50, £55 and £60 
• 2020-2023 - 40K SC! sets start getting gradually replaced by Combat Patrol in 9th Edition (single price point at £90)
• 2021-2024 - AoS SC! sets start getting gradually replaced by Vanguard sets in 3rd Edition (single price point at £85)
• 2023 - 40K Combat Patrol pricepoint increases to £95 / AoS Vanguard pricepoint increases to £87.50
• 2024 - 40K Combat Patrol pricepoint increases to £100 / AoS Vanguard boxes renamed to Spearhead for 4th Edition (no increase) 

[Magos Takatus]

I used to really love Start Collecting! boxes, and have purchased numerous different ones. The Combat Patrol boxes seem to give you a lot less bang for your buck and The unit selections seems to be inferior. The only issue with my having bought a lot of Start Collecting! Boxes is that I have more Magos Dominus models than I will ever need, but they felt like a great way to get the core of an Admech army started. The contents of the Admech Combat Patrol just has no staying power. It's all bolter fodder. I think removing the vehicles from those boxes was a mistake.

[ZeroWolf]

4 hours ago, Magos Takatus said:

I used to really love Start Collecting! boxes, and have purchased numerous different ones. The Combat Patrol boxes seem to give you a lot less bang for your buck and The unit selections seems to be inferior. The only issue with my having bought a lot of Start Collecting! Boxes is that I have more Magos Dominus models than I will ever need, but they felt like a great way to get the core of an Admech army started. The contents of the Admech Combat Patrol just has no staying power. It's all bolter fodder. I think removing the vehicles from those boxes was a mistake.

The removal of the vehicles was probably 1) controlling the discount offered and 2) balance for the combat patrol game mode since vehicles are hard to deal with in the normal game let alone a unit locked one.

[Magos Takatus]

17 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

The removal of the vehicles was probably 1) controlling the discount offered and 2) balance for the combat patrol game mode since vehicles are hard to deal with in the normal game let alone a unit locked one.

I'm sure that is GW's reasoning behind it but I must confess I'm not that fussed about combat patrol as a concept anyway. Introducing people into the hobby with fixed army configurations that are wildly imbalanced without offering a lot of the cool models to hook people with in the first place? In the case of the Adeptus Mechanicus offering they offer extremely fiddly models in the jump infantry and the doggohorses that are barely more resilient than the Skitarii they are paired with. If I was a new player and the first models I had to deal with were Pteraxii I probably wouldn't come back. A nice chunky robot or tank would be easier to paint, make the combat patrol a bit less anaemic and would be far harder to break. I barely touch my Pteraxii for fear of them breaking. Now put them in the hands of a new hobbyist. I'm sure some of the other factions are in a similar boat, but I have to admit I've forgotten what's in the combat patrols because they are comparatively not very enticing to me anymore.

Edited March 1 by Magos Takatus