Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: When Free Marine Options Are Too Much
We all love the new all available 40K Space Marine options being free – but there is a downside.
Goatboy here and let me tell ya – I don’t hate the idea of all available options being free as it lets army building and models building become a lot easier to do. I just hate it when your dang kit doesn’t come with all the bits. It is frustrating to see some of these new freemageddon Space Marine units carrying every option available. Especially since all the other armies seem have limits set into their rules.
Some Unit Examples
Take the Space Wolf Wolf Guard units as an example. Here is a model that doesn’t really have a boxed set as it is a mixture of Sternguard with Vanguard Vets. There isn’t a box that lets you take 5 Combi-Meltas with every power weapon option available, is there? Oh and also Jump Packs on all your guys?
Looking at the sprues – the Sternguard only have 2 Combi weapons of each variety and a few close combat weapon options. The Vanguard Vet box has more Combat Weapon Options but of course none of the Combi-weapon things you could get. This means to build the current super units we are seeing you need to somehow find 5 Combi-Meltas, 5 Power Axes, 5 Jump Packs, and then 5 old man Space Wolf heads with sweet beards.
Look at the crazy Blood Angels list from last week with 94 Inferno Pistols. How would you even think about getting all of those without 3d Printing them or finding other methods to source them. I think most of their kits came with 2 if I remember correctly. I won’t lie I have seen a lot of terrible models with a Thunder Hammer glued to their back with the fist still attached. I could also see some awful “Melta” tips added to bolters and pistols to try and get away with surfing the meta.
I know I am complaining about armies with models and Dataslates from the beginning of the edition. I am guessing all of this will be moot when their new book comes out and the whole – only let ya take what is in the kit fully comes to being for all of the armies. I think the latest “new” book with incorrect load outs from what is in the box set is the Tau and I expect them to get in line whenever we might have a new edition coming out.
Equipment Based On Box Contents
It’s frustrating for sure and part of the reason why 40K can be really hard to build a good army builder for. Each little choice has multiple options that have points, rules, and interactions that can become a pain to truly balance. It is why I think we should really look at units with their points designed to have everything on them. We should remove the whole – remove these guns and unique things to try and shave off “X” amount of points in the army. All their options are basically the default of the unit.
This way you could build the unit based on what the box art shows, it all works that way, points are balanced to that, and you can easily create “armies” by just buy X amount of boxes. Right now it is so hard to build a good Space Marine army because you need this many kits to get all the right options available. It just feels like a frustrating mess to try and get anyone into playing the game competitively when the best “common” army is just not really within grasp due to trying to source every available option.
This is the exact same thing with Tau and all their weird weapons that got added to their Dataslate for their suits. The gun we all feared because it led to pure lack of interaction wasn’t even available in the Crisis Suit boxed set. Heck there was only one of them on the Commander Box because it was an experimental weapon. I just wonder why these things fell through the cracks when so much of the time the kits determine what the unit can take.
Think About New Players
Look I like having options for armies as it least you create some unique load outs but at the very least let a regular player be able to get them. I have a ton of kits so finding parts to kitbash my way to a unit is easier for me. I keep so many plastic bits holders full of nonsense from my years of model collecting. I probably have enough Combi-Meltas to get the 3 units of bearded jerks needed for the Space Wolf Army. I have enough random close combat weapons to do all kinds of stuff to any Marines.
I just don’t think it is fair for a new player to look at these best of lists and try to figure one out to let them play.
