Agreed, army boxes have gradually decreased in value since the Fantasy/proper 40K days. Originally you had Battalion/Battleforce boxes, around £50-60 like SC boxes and with a good few units in (the Lizardmen one for example had 20 Saurus, 12 Skinks, 10 Temple Guard and 8 Saurus Cav). I started Tyranids with the Tyranid Battleforce that was around at the time. These were great for army expansion, the only issue with them as starter boxes was that they didn't include a character model unless you were willing to convert your own. Then the SC boxes started to make an appearance around AoS 1st Edition and 7th Edition 40K era, which had less units in them but included a character, for around the same price as the Battalion boxes, so in effect had the opposite pros and cons - great for starters, but not so good for army expansion unless you had an idea for converting your second iteration of that character model into something different. The current Vanguard and Combat Patrol boxes embody the worst strategy yet - yes they give you more models than a SC box and give you a character model which the Battalion boxes didn't, but £85 is too much to spend at once for what you get, especially given that one used to be able to get entire boxed games for less. I honestly think GW should have just released the SC boxes alongside the Battalion/Battleforce boxes rather than replaced one with the other, as the SC boxes were better for new players while the Battalion boxes were better for players wishing to expand their armies, and having both on offer would appeal to both those customer bases. Not to mention this is a way more customer-friendly strategy than the current one, as it gives customers the option of just buying one for a more affordable amount, or (Gods help their wallets) buy one of each to get a huge starter collection.
Honestly, GW's insistence on only ever having 1 combo-box per faction is mindboggling. You'd think that having a couple of start collecting/vanguard options would be good. Especially for larger factions which can field distinct battalions/subfactions/themed groupings of units. Especially since these types of deal-boxes are one of the easiest ways to convince customers to buy more than they were actually planning, which in turn means selling more paints, and possibly even more other units that synergize with this particular box. On that note, why the christmas boxes only sell for like 2 weeks out of a year? Wouldn't those be increadibly popular year round? Why does GW hate boxes so much
I would mention that the standard for miniatures has increasd by quite a large margin since the battalions, though unfortunately the quantity has decreased to counter that argument.
Not to mention the poseability and customisability of new models - GW seem to think that people always want monopose collector's pieces these days.
I don't disagree but I think the limit of customization in the older sets was simply the rotation from shoulder to arm for the most part, maybe more arm poses would be nice though.
Just swap the arms out with other factions arms. Seeing orks super jacked arms on a skink is comical as fuck
Late to the wishlist/gunna buy party, but absolutely picking up the army box and kroxigors, and slowroll anything else.
I'm most interested in getting the updated Saurus and possibly the new Knights. I'm waiting to see the rules for Skink Cav before I buy.
Yeah, I just spent the last 3 months painting one metric ton of scales on cavalry, so I going to have to figure out my conversion plan. At least I already have the next size up in bases by the bulk at home.
I too have a lot of Saurus Knights. I'm wondering how it would look to have two of them on a larger base to run as Aggradons but flavor them as larger cavalry units?
Yeah, there is a good chance that I go with that too. Waiting for confirmation of the new base size first though.
I'm too lazy so I'm just going to leave things as is aha On a side note, is there some kind of list of all models that were released for Lizardmen? I've looked around and can't find a definitive list... probably not the greatest idea for my wallet...
As in, are you looking to see what models are backwards compatible with Warhammer Fantasy Battle Lizardmen? Or are you asking for a definitive list of all sculpts being released this summer for Seraphon?
Oh I meant the full works, pretty much every sculpt ever released for Lizardmen whether they are compatible or not
Gotcha, I haven't seen one for Seraphon/Lizardmen (but I have for spacewolves), but I did find pdfs of all the old GW Lizardmen catalogs on the interwebs last year.
Thank you this was quite helpful. I found a PDF of said catalogue and it does seem to contain a lot of the older models
With April's collectable coin being Seraphon, is it possible that the new Seraphon box with the Slann, warriors and raptadons is coming out in April before the full release in June?
That was my initial understanding with the release schedule. The adepticon stream implied that the box would come out with the regular release, but it is fairly likely that they were just wrong.
I think that is unlikely as have read somewhere that Seraphon army box will contain battletome as well.