Warhammer 40K: Are Boarding Patrol Boxes The New ‘Start Collecting’ Boxes?
Boarding Patrols are a cheaper alternative to Combat Patrols but is that enough to justify calling them Start Collecting replacements?
Now that virtually every army in 40k has a Combat Patrol box with a $150 price point (except for you Astra Militarum) is Games Workshop looking to relaunch the Start Collecting! Boxes with the Boarding Patrols? Let’s look at some numbers and options to find out.
Start Collecting! Boxes – A Brief History
A few years ago Games Workshop introduced the Start Collecting! Boxes as an alternative way to, well, start collecting particular armies. These started at a price point of around $90-95 and eventually worked up to a $110 price point after various increases and changes over the years. Remember that price. Currently, the only two armies that still have their Start Collecting! Box options are the Militarum Tempestus and the Daemons of Slaanesh box. (The latter of which is still a really good start if you’re wanting an army that can double dip in both 40k and AoS.)
Overtime, Games Workshop replaced the Start Collecting! Boxes with the new Combat Patrols. These new boxes had a higher price point but also (typically) contained more models. In many cases you could argue that the contents were also more generically useful. Not always…but in many situations. However, they had a new, higher price point of $150.
Combat Patrols were rolled out for every army in the game and don’t appear to be heading anywhere in the near future. They are still great launching pads for their respective army. And while they effectively replaced the Start Collecting! Boxes the price point may be a factor for why GW is introducing the new Boarding Patrols.
The Boarding Patrol Era?
These new Boarding Patrols appear to have an initial price point of $110. We’ll have to see if that holds true in a couple weeks when the GW Price Increases hit. It’s still unclear if these boxes (or the Combat Patrols) are part of the “starter boxes” or not. Regardless, we once again see the $110 price point reflective of the now outdated Start Collecting! Boxes.
What’s really interesting about these Boarding Patrols is the lack of (bad) overlap with the Combat Patrol boxes. I think that’s fantastic planning. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to buy 1 of each and have a roughly 1000 point army that’s actually fun to play with? Because it sure looks like that’s what GW’s goal is.
I mean, look at the Tyranid options. The only overlap is with Tyranid Warriors. Considering they can be a linchpin synapse unit and are also Troop options that seems like a really good combo. If you’re just getting started playing Tyranids you could snag both of these options and be well on your way to a Tyranid Army. Is it done? No — not at all. But you’ll more than enough models to start playing smaller games and get a feel for the army. You can then expand into other options you’re interested in. Maybe you want more Big Bugs. Or perhaps you want to flood the field with more gaunts. You’re not stuck to one option here because you have little useless repeats.
Look at the current offering of Boarding Patrol boxes coming. In total, there’s 7 boxes announced with the CSM and Tyranid boxes coming out this weekend. The Space Marine version dropped a couple weeks back. But what’s great is that each of them can slot in perfectly with their respective previous boxed set. Even the odd Chaos Daemon box works with the current Chaos Daemons Combat Patrol box (which, honestly, both should be called Combat/Boarding Patrol: Khorne Daemons). Any repeats can just be used to reinforce the existing options to make “full sized” squads.
Heck, even the Space Marine one can slot in with pretty much ANY of the flavors of Space Marine and it works. I don’t think these Boarding Patrols should replace the Combat Patrols — I think they are perfectly setup to make a great combo of boxes for the new players. Or to entice veterans to branch out with a new army. Again, the lack of “bad” overlapping options thus far is an encouraging sign. As long as GW keeps up this trend for the rest of the Boarding Patrols I think the players are going to end up being the real winners in the end.
Let’s just hope the Combat Patrols and Boarding Patrol options dodge those price increases…
