After I got over the disappointment that Blood Angels are apparently now slated for February (let’s hope that rumor is way off, as opposed to the Blood Angels) I decided to take a look at what is in front of me: Space Wolves and Orks. Not bad. I have a couple wolves myself. Not that into the idea of starting an Ork force, but hey, I do like them, and wouldn’t mind painting up a dozen or so for fun.
Would I buy this box? It’s hard to say. I’m leaning just slightly towards yes. For $125 I’d get some Wolf Guard, Grey Hunters, and the new mini-rulebook, and I don’t yet have a 7th edition book yet so there is some appeal there. That alone is close to $100 if GW priced them separately, and then there are some Orks to boot, which makes this a pretty nice value, probably. I find it interesting that they are using existing Space Wolf kits for this box for what amounts to what is probably quite a bit steeper of a discount than you normally get them for, but hey, they are still getting $125 from you for this kit, so I’m sure they aren’t too upset over it. The only further suggestion to improve on this box in my view would be to add some terrain to the mix, and make it a truly fully-featured set.
Values and discounts aside, I really like the premise of this box. If GW wants to push the narrative aspect of the game, there is no better way for them to do so than a series of narrative-in-a-box releases. This also, while not billed explicitly as a “starter set”, really does seem to serve exactly the same function as Dark Vengeance. The sematic difference in their marketing suggests that there may be more of these boxed sets to come, and I hope that’s the case. It’s a nice sly way to get people collecting secondary forces, while also keeping us happy with getting what feels like a lot for our money, a very alien feeling for GW customers!
Then again, it seems like GW has just been throwing things at the wall for the past two years and seeing what sticks, so while I am certain they intend to release more of these, if this does poorly it will probably stay a one-off, and that’d be a shame because I’d much rather pay for something like this than a single army starter box. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out!