Battleforce savings and you!

[sirrouga]

Through a combined effort of boredom, insomnia, and random curiosity I went through all the sets GW offers to see which ones are great deals and which ones are just meh. I'm pretty sure this has been done but this is including many different sets and some of which are unavailable. I looked at all the battle forces, strike forces, and even that crazy spear box. Using the prices listed on the GW site on 7/24/2009, I done this a while back and posted it elsewhere, figure I bring it here so more can see it.

In many cases, a different amount of models are given in the battleforce than what would be available from a standard box, in such cases factions are used. For example, Berserkers come in 12 packs while the Chaos Marine battleforce only has 8 berserkers in it thus I used 2/3 of the price of the berserker set. Also, this is just using base costs; not figuring in taxes, shipping, crazy people, etc so your price and saving may vary.

Lets start with the largest category, the battle forces! ($90 - $95 price range)
Starting with the best deal and going down to the worst

Dark Eldar Battleforce Saves you $56.75
Old Tyranids Battleforce Saves you $55 (Box no longer listed on GW's site)
Tau Empire Battleforce Saves you $55
Necron Battleforce Saves you $51.66
Dark Angel Ravenwing Battleforce Saves you $47.50
Chaos Space Marines Battleforce Saves you $41.50
Space Marine Battleforce Saves you $41.50
Imperial Guard Battleforces Saves you $34 (Both Cadian and Catachan sets cost the same)
Space Wolves Battleforce Saves you $30
Eldar Battleforce Saves you $26.25
Ork Battleforce Saves you $25.25


Now the next category up to examine are the larger sets; strike forces, mega forces, and phalanx! ($175 - $279 price range)
Once again starting with the best deal and going down to the worst

Old Necron Warrior Phalanx saves you $130.00 (Box no longer listed on GW's site)
Chaos Space Marine Renegade Strike Force Saves you $116.75
Old Space Marine Strike Force Saves you $81 (Box no longer listed on GW's site)
Ork Mega Force Saves you $69.75
Old Chaos Daemon Spearhead Saves you $60.75 (Box no longer listed on GW's site)
Space Marine Mega Force Saves you $58.75

And our final category of the night and it has only one entry. The giant mega box army set! (The $1066.75 price range)
The Spear of Sicarius Saves you...... $0.00

That is right ladies and gentlemen, the biggest and most expensive box set from GW saves you nothing. Not a single cent for you!

Some special nods...


Dark Eldar is the only battle force that includes some terrain.
Chaos Marines, Space Marines, and the Tau Empire battle forces contain 5 different boxes of units in them while the rest only have 4.
Chaos Daemons, Daemon Hunters, Witch Hunters, Black Templar, and Blood Angels do not have battle forces.
The Chaos Daemons Spearhead is the only set that includes its army codex.
The Eldar and Tyranid battle forces are the only ones that include a Heavy Support option.
Chaos Marine and Tau Empire Battle forces are the only ones that include an Elite option (The Tau even has 2 Elites!)


I will update this post with new sets if there is interest. If I missed a set or two please let me know and I will get them included. I realize that many of these sets are no longer available but many local stores still have some (my local game store still has a few chaos daemon spearheads!).

::Edits History::

Added notes on which sets are old and out of print.
Added the Dark Angel Ravenwing Battleforce

[lobster-overlord]

Good info, thanks. The DE only includes terrain, because that was the way they used to be. It's the only Battleforce that is the same as it was almost 10 years ago.

John M>

[Ivarr]

You did not happen to point them out ...that way we could see which set gave the best points to $ ratio?

[Fizyx]

Did they release what will be in the new 'nids battleforce, or is this just based on the old one?

[sirrouga]

Sorting them out by points would be hard to do as different people gear out their squads and units differently. I could figure out the min and max amount of points each set could produce but most people fall in the middle so in my opinion there wouldn't be of any real use to figure how many points it is when that is more determined by the player themselves.

Once more information about the tyranid battleforce comes out I will add them to this line up too. As of right now thats the old tyranid battleforce, I just forgot to add the no longer available tag. Sorrys!

[Archon]

# Chaos Daemons, Daemon Hunters, Witch Hunters, Black Templar, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels do not have battle forces.

In case of the first three there are not enough plastic-boxes i think.

Dark Angels had a box as the codex was new. The Ravenwing box is still out and serves as a "fast assault" SM box too.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1491554&prodId=prod1060246


The DE Box ist the oldest one. The saving in $ may be great but who needs all the jetbikes these days? Except from the splintercannons in the warriors-sprue there are no special-weapons. Theses weapons are not availabe as bit-sets from GW anymore. Sad but these box isn´t value for money in playing terms. Your have to buy two blisters with Dark-Lances and a jet-bike squadron box (better two) to use the models in there.

Most of the Boxes are little legal armys if you add a HQ. In the case of the TAU you can easily build a HQ from the XV8 in the box.

[sirrouga]

I didn't really consider the Ravenwing set. I'll work them out and include them into the original post asap.

And yeah the dark eldar is missing what makes them really good but that is more to being so old and odd their models are sorted out. I just did how much money you would save from buying the set instead of buying everything individual. Not saying that each battleforce has the best choice of models through.

[Mike X]

I don't know which set it was, but I'm pretty sure when the Dark Angels were re-released their box came with the codex.

And I think the last Imperial Guard battleforce had terrain in it, too.

[Suttobs]

Dark Angels Battleforce was Dark Angels Command Squad, Veteran Squad, Devastator Squad, Sniper Scouts and a Rhino is I remember correctly. All of the old Battleforce/Megaforce sets had terrain. My Space Marine Megaforce came with a jungle trees sprue.

While you can't assign a points value, you can estimate, assuming some decent upgrade and what are in the boxes. Necrons and the power armor armies are by far the winners in that.

Battleforce Cost Pt Value pts/$
Space Marine 90 555 6.17
Necrons 90 738 8.20
Tyranids 90 593 6.59
Chaos marines 90 683 7.59
Space Wolves 90 521 5.79
Imperial Guard 95 355 3.74
Orks 90 327 3.63
Tau 90 554 6.16
Ravenwing 90 390 4.33
Eldar 90 417 4.63
Dark Eldar 90 396 4.40

Avg. Pt. Value 502.6