Assault On Black Reach a Great Intro to Warhammer 40K
It's a war in a box.
I’m happy to introduce Doug Mason, the newest Robot Viking contributor. Doug is here to provide coverage of the immensely popular Games Workshop miniature war games, including Warhammer 40K and others. He’s a pretty hardcore minis gamer, so in addition to product reviews, he’ll be offering up some excellent strategy articles, plus news flashes about upcoming releases. To start our Warhammer coverage, Doug has an in-depth review of last year’s intro boxed set, Assault On Black Reach.
It’s somewhat unusual for an all-in-one box set to follow the release of 5th Edition Warhammer 40K instead of being released simultaneously with the rules. It is nonetheless chock full of goodness. Handy mini sized Rulebook? Check. Ubiquitous (and useless to my tired old eyes) red measuring thingy? Check. Templates? Check! These are made from the same thick green plastic used for the Apocalypse enormo-templates; very nice, with tactical looking graduations (that have zero actual game usage, but a minor quibble). Plus, you get an Assault on Black Reach booklet with the usual fluff, but it includes a very usable set of quick reference sheets at the back. The new rulebook also includes basic cheat sheets for all of the current range, which handy and helps keep your opponents honest.
But what you really want to know about are the miniatures, right? Well, there’s Good, Bad but nothing really ugly. And what is good is very good. The best has to be the plastic Orks, specifically the Ork Warboss. Big, bad and mean – a rather unique mold gets you an incredible level of detail for a plastic mini very much in line with the large metal warboss of the previous edition. Nobs: you get five and they are all somewhat unique, but there are what they are. No cool bitz to convert included, but still very nice models. Twenty boyz, with two big shootas. Again, nice figures if a bit limited on variation. Three Deffkoptas (flying stands included) are a clever addition, but to be honest they just don’t do it for me. All in all, the orks contained within are the best value in the box, with the high marks going to the Boss model.
And now the downer… The Space Marine figs aren’t bad (excepting the aforementioned Captain), but other than that they are rather pedestrian. You get the standard tactical squad, which comes with the usual options, Missile Launcher and Flamer, Sgt. with chainsword; they have a bit more detail than the previous boxed game (scopes, purity seals, missile loader dealie backpack, tactical shoulder pads), but do not seem to be a big leap. Five Terminators, including a Sgt., power fist and storm bolter kit, but no heavy weapon! You go to the trouble of including them and you can’t get at least a heavy flamer arm (or even better, everyone’s fav Assault Cannon) on the sprue? The Captain is quite detailed, including a back banner. The real gem of the Marine sprues is the Dreadnought, only seven parts to this baby, but only the slightly scaled down engine and lack of a banner pole separates it from the standard kit. It has a multimelta, which has not been available in the most recent plastic Dread so it fills a nice niche in my Ultramarine army.
So what’s the ultimate value of this set to newbs and grognards alike?
Newbies: You get everything you need, a complete game in a box for a very nice price. A little over 500 points for two of Games Workshop’s most popular armies. A black undercoat, a little blue, a little green, some metal highlights and you’ll have two painted armies to start with (the Blacks Reach booklet has a painting guide and the set comes with a nice decal sheet). Scenarios are a bit weaker than the previous box, but we can’t have everything, now can we? The new rules are the fastest ever and downright fun; you’ll get through the box scenarios in a few hours. Frankly, there has never been a better time to start playing 40k.
Grizzled Veterans: I can see that cocked eye of skepticism from here, Old Salt, and believe me I know what you are thinking. I have been in the game since Rogue Trader days myself (shout out to anyone who recalls the lone West Coast GW shop in Santa Monica in the early 90s!). But this box has goodies even you will find useful. For starters, a load of plastic minis you could not get for twice the price (really, do the math, the Space Marines alone would set you back ninety bucks). The aforementioned templates are twice as thick as before, cool green to match your Apocalypse ones and would set you back another $8 if you were to buy them separately. The figures, which I have already gushed about ad nauseum (sorry Ed), can fill out your current army or start a new one. Lotta Orks popping up out there these days. Another feature I neglected to mention is that you can substitute weapon arms on the Termies and Dred, so these guys can make decent foundations for conversions. And, worst case, there’s always eBay…
Final verdict? Exceptional value, the Orks are great, the Space Marines are nice starter or filler figs and you get the cool new templates to boot. The decision to forego terrain pieces to get the Koptas and Dred in the box make this a much better deal than the previous edition. I give it a solid B.
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April 15th, 2009 1:57 PM
I have this box and I don’t recall having different weapons for the marines. All mine had the standard gun thing excepting the guys that obviously had some rank, and those guys just had swords in addition to the gun. I’m new to the game and wanting to play tyranids but got the box because I didn’t really care about the $50 death tome of a rulebook and you get some dudes in the box. I like the orks in all their forms, and the Terminators are pretty nice, but on the whole the space marines really don’t do it for me. I just don’t like they’re style. Also, the Marines seem extraordinarily hard to put together. They’re only three pieces, but none of them fit. That just may be a bad batch, though. Any Tyranid tips for a fledgling hive mind?
April 15th, 2009 2:01 PM
Oh, man. I just did the their=they’re mistake. I feel really stupid.
April 15th, 2009 2:05 PM
Hehe.