Warhammer 40K: Kill Team – Are The New Kill Teams Worth It?
Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team has a batch of new Kill Team boxes coming with the new edition. Are they worth the price of admission?
Yesterday I took a look at the new Kill Team: Hivestorm boxed set and we broke down the pricing for that. The short answer is that it is technically a good value for the price — if you want those Kill Teams and terrain miniatures. But that got me wondering about the price point of the new Kill Team boxes in general and if they are worth the price point. The short answer: It’s complicated. The longer answer is the rest of this article… So let’s dive in.
The Kill Team Price Point
In case you didn’t see them, the new Kill Team boxes (for just their respective Kill Team) range from $70-$80. That’s already a jump-up from there non-Kill Team counter-part boxes for 40k. That is…if we could compare them 1:1. This is where it gets complicated. Take for example the Mandrakes above. Their new Kill Team box is $80. “Okay, so what is their regular 40k box price point and then we can figure out the difference, right?” The problem is they never got a regular 40k box release with these new models.
These miniatures were released in the Nightmare boxed set for the previous edition of Kill Team. We were expecting to see them get a solo release but, well, here we are. So since they’ve never been available solo (until now) we don’t have a price-point on a regular 40k (ie, non-Kill Team) box. The same is true for basically all of this wave of Kill Team boxes. The one exception is the Nemesis Claw box…but even that is tricky.
The Nemesis Claw Kill Team is based off the Chaos Space Marine box. That one has a price point of $65. However, the Nemesis Claw box has a price point of $75. So what’s the difference between the two? Content-wise, the Nemesis Claw box also includes: “a unique token sheet” as well as an extra sprue for all those Night Lords bits. Is that worth the extra $10?
In this case, I would argue that yes, this particular one is definitely worth the extra $10! It’s too bad the base price of a CSM box is $65…but that’s another issue. I think the tokens are a nice touch but really it’s the extra sprue for the Night Lords extras that’s adding some good value. If I were a Night Lords fan and there was a way to just order the sprue from GW or this Kill Team without the Kill Team tokens, I’d totally be doing just that.
More Complications
For basically the rest of the Kill Teams, you can’t really get these miniatures as solo releases. And, for the most part, they are somewhat unique units in that regard. You could make the case against the Space Marine Scouts — I get that. But you can’t currently order any Primars’d Space Marine Scouts from GW either. I’m guessing that could be a future release.
The point is that it’s hard to gauge the “base” cost of these units to subtract the Kill Team “upgrades” to figure out if the price point is too much or not. Each box also comes with tokens for that specific Kill Team as well which further complicates things.
Many of these sets also have some unique miniatures in them as well. The Blooded Kill Team has a Chaos Commissar and Chaos Ogryn! Plus those Chaos Guardsmen, too. You really can’t get those anywhere else at this point. You could absolutely convert many of these miniatures up yourself and that’s always been an option. But that’s not really the point I’m trying to get across here.
So let’s try to make this simplified. For the most part, if these units were released for 40k, then they’d probably be in the $60 range. They also likely wouldn’t come with the “specialist upgrade sprues” and certainly not the Kill Team tokens. That much I think we can all agree on. So yeah, these Kill Team boxes are going to cost more and I understand that from a business perspective — they are putting more stuff in the box so it costs more. But as a consumer and player that sticker shock is real.
I’m hoping that one day we do get these Kill Teams as separate 40k only releases. But I’m also hoping we get the option to order those Upgrade Sprues in some form or fashion, too. The Brood Brothers (as an example) make for a great addition to a GSC army. As would basically ALL of these Kill Teams. It’s too bad about that initial sticker price though…
I may understand the price hike but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
