Less for More: Blood Angels Battleforce

Today the blogosphear lit up as GW pulled back the curtain on the highly anticipated blood angels 2.5 wave release, and indeed it looked to be a solid release with many new models and the long hinted at battle force, which is why when I saw the battleforce I could not contain my overwhelming sense of unsatisfaction.

I mean I try not to rag on GW to hard, in fact I enjoy using a fair few of their products and Ill buy the occasional copy of white dwarf, but this set was so lacking it deserved commentary. Alright first off you are getting less by buying the blood angels battleforce, and not just a few pieces you are losing about a fourth of the pieces from the regular battleforce, they essentially yanked out the scouts and the additional combat squad and just dumped some Death company in there and slapped a new cover on the box, then ran to the rooftop and declared to all that a new box set was born. Normally I can take a little canoodling on the part of GW marketing dept, but this was just a slap in the face. Not only am I to pay more for this so called BA battle force but I am also expected to accept that death company are going to be a part of my army. GW is so sure that this will work that they felt it necessary to add another $10 to the regular price tag of $90.

lets look at some counter points. First off the Blood Angels are one of the hip new forces on the block (despite what the pointy eared space pervs might say) so naturally you can expect to pay a little more for a popular box set (this logic makes sense in the reverse universe that the GW marketing dept lives in where you where shoes on your hands and slaps to the face are a formal greeting) so I can see a few extra bucks for a set that looks and plays halfway decent is ok. Going back to them being the new kids on the block, they are new, well not brand new but if you look at things from a fiscal year perspective they are new, and they are not as popular as some other sets that have been bought and paid for long ago or already had molds but where re packaged. Combine that with the fact that GW is releasing two new large plastic kits and you could maybe get a glimpse of the big picture, molds cost money, lost of money, and while Dark Eldar may be flying off the shelf blood angels have been contempt to simmer.

So maybe those are not the best points, I am not great with economics and I sure as hell don't have a copy of GW's internal sales records for Q3 open in front of me right now. The one thing I do know though is when I or someone near me is getting screwed (its like spidy sense) I wont tell you not to buy this kit, but I will say that i would tally up your costs as apposed to buying a regular SM battleforce and some death company (especially from your FLGS or from WCC) Maybe there is something here I don't see, but then again there is already a few things I don't see and that's why I made this post.

Cheers

Scott

BH Senior Editor.