Ultramarines Upgrades & Combat Patrol

[Lord Marshal]

September for Macragge. Or summat.

 

 

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This collection of sculpted shoulder pads, helmets, and accessories contains 69 individual parts for customising your infantry and vehicles, which is more than the previous two Ultramarines upgrade packs combined. Among the shoulder pads alone, you get options for Phobos, Tacticus, and Gravis-armoured units, as well as specific pads for Bladeguard Veterans, Aggressors, and Terminators.

In addition to the parts for your infantry, you also get four large, two medium, and six small Ultima symbols to spruce up your tanks and aircraft, with all kinds of wings, laurels, and purity seals giving them the full Ultramarine regalia.

 

 

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You also get a transfer sheet with 255 individual decals, full of campaign badges, veterancy markings, scripture, and loads of variants on the Ultramarines Chapter icon so you can denote all kinds of ranks and special assignments. Best of all, there are multiple fancy borders and trim decals, perfect for giving your most distinguished units extra panache.

 

 

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To cap it all off, a new Ultramarines Combat Patrol bundles one of these upgrade sets with a collection of units that make the perfect core of a new Ultramarines army, led by the inimitable Chief Librarian Tigurius. As well as the Chapter’s psychic powerhouse, you get five Intercessors, five Reivers, three Aggressors, and three Bladeguard Veterans – a versatile spread of units that give you hitting power, durability, and agility all in one package. 

 

Edited September 29 by Lord Marshal

[darkhorse0607]

Upgrade sprue is serviceable, I wish there were some more non-helmet/shoulder pad bling options like Pteruges, but I guess they can't do that with modern sculpts

 

The Tyranid campaign decals sold me though. Want a lot of those

[ArielRSA]

The combat patrol is meh but the upgrades look very good

[DemonGSides]

Upgrade Sprue is not quite as good as something like the BT one, but definitely better than the BA one.  Probably TOO many unhelmeted heads, again, but the shoulderpads are REALLY nice, the transfers are super sick, and half of the sprue isn't being used by required upgrade weapons to make a squad work, so they can be liberally applied throughout your force to make guys look cool.

 

Combat patrol is interesting.  Not the best multiple buys because of Tigurius, but each squad is only half of the maximum of each squad so it does sort of push you towards buying two.  Guess you can just kitbash up Tigurius 2 into something else?

[Casual Heresy]

An absolutely perfect set of upgrades. Everything I wanted and a little more.

 

The expansion of my Ultramarines is going into overdrive!

[Indy Techwisp]

3 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Upgrade Sprue is not quite as good as something like the BT one, but definitely better than the BA one.  Probably TOO many unhelmeted heads, again, but the shoulderpads are REALLY nice, the transfers are super sick, and half of the sprue isn't being used by required upgrade weapons to make a squad work, so they can be liberally applied throughout your force to make guys look cool.

 

Combat patrol is interesting.  Not the best multiple buys because of Tigurius, but each squad is only half of the maximum of each squad so it does sort of push you towards buying two.  Guess you can just kitbash up Tigurius 2 into something else?

 

Turn him into a fancier looking normal Libby using one of the Upgrade Sprue Heads?

[Lord Marshal]

I quite like the addition of plastic vehicle symbols. 

 

I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to the other chapter upgrades to notice they'd also had them.

 

Edited September 29 by Lord Marshal

[Ramell]

James Workshop giving me just what I wanted for Sanguinalia.

[nodnol88]

Great update to the upgrade sprue, especially the vehicle pieces. Would love to know if the bigger one fits on a Redemptor. 

Really like the transfer sheet.

[Evil Eye]

Understated but entirely adequate. Would have liked some more interesting parts though, none of the bare heads seem very uniquely Ultramarine aside from the old dude with the laurels (which is a rather nice noggin). I'd have preferred some different helmets and some more ornate or just different shoulder pads, like the "layered" one used by the Company Champion. Also more trinkets, relics and doodads* those are always good.

 

If they wanted to do more bare heads, they could have just released a generic "big box of bonces" with all manner of different bare heads for Marines; all different ethnicities and phenotypes, expressions, haircuts and whathaveyou. Honestly I'd be very tempted by that, as more "could work for anything" sets are always welcome, and the heads could just as easily work for Heresy, less-mutated Chaos Marines, and heck, even classic scale Astartes.

 

*Official Imperial terminology.

[StraightSilver]

I love everything except the heads - some of them looked a bit deformed, lol. But the decals are great, especially the split blue and white Ultima and I love the vehicle upgrade pieces, tempted to use those for Heresy.

[Wispy]

How DARE they give the Ultramarines a new upgrade sprue and not the Space Wolves (who need one to go with our 2 batteline kits no one else has), the injustice

Edited September 29 by Wispy

[Ramell]

1 minute ago, Evil Eye said:

If they wanted to do more bare heads, they could have just released a generic "big box of bonces" with all manner of different bare heads for Marines; all different ethnicities and phenotypes, expressions, haircuts and whathaveyou. Honestly I'd be very tempted by that, as more "could work for anything" sets are always welcome, and the heads could just as easily work for Heresy, less-mutated Chaos Marines, and heck, even classic scale Astartes.

If you're not aware, there's already two sets of 15 heads each for Horus Heresy (called the Legiones Astartes Character Head Upgrades), but I'd be down for even more unique unhelmeted sets.

[phandaal]

The Terminator front plate is a cool addition. Wonder if we are going to see more upgrades like this, with shin plates/fist plates etc, and upgrades like this for other Chapters now that both kinds of Terminator have been released.

 

Also a Tyrannic War veteran upgrade sprue would make too much sense!

[Orange Knight]

That upgrade sprue is good but it would be a LOT better if they just had a bunch more unique helmet variations instead of so many un-helmeted faces.

 

Swords look great and the transer sheet is solid.

 

The Combat Patrol is a grear way to start an army. I imagine it will sell out like the others did...

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

The original Woodstock festival had fewer toilet seats.

[Northern Walker]

Looks a nice upgrade kit, now where is a proper Space Wolves one, GW?

[MoriyaSchism]

I really dislike this template of Chapter upgrade. I feel like sculpted shoulder pad icons are overrated and it would be better if that space was filled with more custom chest armour, accessories, weapons and helmets. Imagine if they gave you 5 unique power weapons. 

[Jukkiz]

dunno if it´s more of an upgrade or just more cad assets really. Seemingly both, neither? 

Edited September 29 by Jukkiz

[Blindhamster]

I thought the BA upgrades were actually better, exception is I do like the scabbards 

17 minutes ago, Northern Walker said:

Looks a nice upgrade kit, now where is a proper Space Wolves one, GW?

they got full kits so likely not deemed necessary 

[Evil Eye]

18 minutes ago, Ramell said:

If you're not aware, there's already two sets of 15 heads each for Horus Heresy (called the Legiones Astartes Character Head Upgrades), but I'd be down for even more unique unhelmeted sets.

I was not aware! Thank you, my surprise is pleasant and my day is improved.

 

6 minutes ago, MoriyaSchism said:

I really dislike this template of Chapter upgrade. I feel like sculpted shoulder pad icons are overrated and it would be better if that space was filled with more custom chest armour, accessories, weapons and helmets. Imagine if they gave you 5 unique power weapons. 

I agree, and realistically I think the solution would be to split upgrade sprues for each Chapter into "heads, shoulders and iconography" and "weapons, accessories and accoutrements". Sculpted icons on shoulders are nice when they're a bit more interesting than just "raised insignia"- as is, decals exist for a reason (and are honestly quicker and easier to apply and get a good result with than decently painting a raised icon) and I'd argue a set of actual separate icons that can be glued onto appropriate shoulderpads would be better.

[Subtleknife]

After such an excellent model preview, the upgrade sprue just feels like a bit of a let-down.

 

Don’t get me wrong, it is better than the last one, but it’s still lacking in so many ways. Why so many bare heads that don’t even look distinctly Ultramarine? There are plenty of helmetless heads across different kits already, so it feels like wasted space. More unique helmets and shoulder pads would have been a far better choice.

 

I also dislike the inconsistency with raised insignia: one shoulder has a sculpted chapter symbol while the other, with the squad marking, doesn’t as it will be a transfer. It just looks odd. The older (pre-8th edition) sprue had much more interesting shoulder options (the trim parts) by comparison.

 

And where are the classic weapon options? No chainsword, no power fist, no thunder hammer. My biggest gripe, though, is with the Sergeant’s helmet, the crested one. There really ought to be multiples in each kit, otherwise it costs a fortune if you want your Sergeants to look uniform.

 

I just feel they could have really leaned into the Greco-Roman theme a lot more.

 

 

Edited September 29 by Subtleknife

[Redcomet]

It is a bit weird they choose to make an UM one but not one for SW.

 

And I really don’t like any of the heads

[apologist]

The upgrade sprue's... fine? I think it's a missed opportunity for far more interesting and thematic bits, though. I would have liked to see some Roman/Classical-themed touches like cingulum (the dangly Roman 'loincloth armour') and some more unusual bits and bobs that mine the huge amount of background and artwork for the Ultramarines: a two-part cape to be the Tarentian cloak or Mantle of Ultramar; an eagle shoulder pad; a Tyranid hunter torso plate; an officer helm based on a relic Praetorian armour helm; an Axe of Ultramar; the Sceptre of Glaxian...

 

Heck, why not include some details that players of Space Marine 2 would recognise, like the old Sternguard kit did?

 

With that said, it's the same critique I have for all the Space Marine upgrade sprues (bar the Black Templar one, which was excellent). There's so much opportunity for exploring theme and interest, but the result is just so... predictable. Apart from anything else, I'm always bemused that they included so many sculpted shoulder pads, which are then parcelled with transfers.

 

On the positive side, these are all nice extras to have, and good options. It's just a step back from the Black Templar one, which had so many thematic touches and clever ideas – like visual representations of the relics you could gather from Crusade games. Beyond Space Marines, the Cadian upgrade sprue was another great example of how to do it right – new poses, new equipment variants, fun thematic additions...

Edited September 29 by apologist

[Robbienw]

The combat patrol is full of ageing kits, needs newer stuff to be appealing.

 

Decent upgrade sprue, couple of the bare heads are very odd though, look slightly distorted.