I went to say goodbye at my local store, cause i will be moving back from Turkey to the Netherlands next week. And since i am the only player with BA ww2 soviets he gave me the last box of Soviet Siberian veteran infantry with a bit of discount. I got it for ca, 25 Euro, however normally this box would be like 35 Euro's. Lets compare this to GW
Now the pricing of GW is totally weird as 20 Saurus are like 30 Euros, however Temple guard is 45 Eur for 15. the Black orc box will only get you 10 models for 34 Euros, or comon orcs 10 for 23 Euro's (Which is still based on black orcs/temple guard being a special choice and common saurus/orcs core, which does not exist in AoS anymore).
Anyway if we compare the Soviet box (which is a veteran unit so more comparable to temple guard or other special choices than to core boxes) to these boxes the difference is quite staggering.
The siberian vet box will get you 34 models,
-of which 32 are the basic plastic guys with a variety of guns (although you could also make some special weapon teams, snipers, anti tank rifles, officers etc).
-You will also get a metal officer/character model
-Plus a metal/plastic special weapons team, 1 metal model with a metal Medium machine gun (you need to use 2 plastic regular guys to complete the team).
-To spice up the plastic guys, you also get loads of extra metal head variant and some metal alternative arms and weapons and back packs.
Quality wise there is a bit of a difference, but none that most gamers would find problematic. Also from a design perspective, historical models are probably cheaper to make, (although perhaps the time you save on the design you have to spent on historical research).
The bottom line, however, is that with a 100 Euro's investment you will have a totally playable army, which for many people is an acceptable investment to try out a new game. And if i take myself as an example, I just took up Bolt Action, because some others were starting and It would not be a huge investment to jump on the bandwagon. It was my intention to just buy the Soviet starter army (60 infantry, a tank, officer set and a mortar team) and leave it at that. However by now i have added this Siberian veteran box, but also another tank, a self propelled artillery gun, 3 armored cars, a truck, an artillery piece and a tankhunter. And I am now even considering buying a small (like i can keep things small) german force as well.