"Best Warhammer Boxed Set?" Topic

I mean, the boxed set for each new edition, with the rules and two matched armies in plastic…

* High Elves and Goblins
* Bretonnians and Lizardmen
* High Elves and Skaven

I'd have to say the two with the coolest stuff and best miniatures would be Island of Blood with the High Elves and the Skaven, and the most recent one, Soul Wars, with Stormcast Eternals and Nighthaunts.

Island of Blood:

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Soul Wars:

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Bretonnians and Lizardmen

The bretonnians were a little weak in that set I thought.

My favorites are AoS, especially the khorne stuff and soul wars especially the night haunt stuff.

3rd edition – Warhammer Fantasy Regiments with 10 plastic figures of each of goblins, orcs, elves, dark elves, skaven and dwarves. Great value.

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I liked Brets and Lizardmen personally – and some of the Bretonnian knights and archers are still making up the numbers in a historic medieval army.

Bretonnians and Lizardmen.
This was back in the day when their Bretonnians could actually be used as historical figures.
This was just before absurd detail became mandatory.

where there not 2 other starter sets?

empire vs orc
and
dwarf vs orc?

that being said the High Elf vs Skaven is my favorite because they are 2 of the 3 armies I actually play

There was a night goblin and dwarf set…

Yeah, Skull Pass, that was also a great starter.

The game went seriously downhill when they went to box sets with plastic miniatures. WFB 2nd ed was a nice boxed set of three books :)

Warhammer Fantasy Regiments doesn't fit. Though it was super-awesome for it's time.

I took EVERYONE'S skaven! [cue maniacal laugh]

I dn't have much familiarity with later sets, but I really liked the Brets vs. Lizardmen one.

Tough question for me. 4th edition boxed set was my introduction into the hobby. I bought it for 40% off from a Waldon Book Store. I swapped my Elves to get more Goblins. I had hordes of those Gobbo spearmen and archers.

I think the Night Goblins in the Skull Pass boxed set were some of the best sculpted Goblins GW ever made, definitely the best plastic Gobbos IMO. I often wondered who sculpted them. That being said, the Dwarf counterparts in the Skull Pass set were dreadful. Almost 2D.

The best overall quality were the Elves and Skaven from the Island of Blood. I don't game with either army but they were some nicely sculpted starter armies.

Well the Best Warhammer boxes were:

4th Edition – Elves and Goblins

You got a nice start of two Armies with that Edition.

&

6th Edition – Empire & Orks

Nice Additions to the Orks and Goblins and Empire.

Though this one really is the best:

102 miniatures for $40 USD plus tax.

I picked up three of them for $10 USD plus tax for each of them (toy store had them for sale).

Worst was:

Totally destroyed Warhammer Fantasy Battle and replaced it with Fantasy Space Marines.

It is interesting to note that GW prices on figures have actually dropped in many cases when looking at things like this.

Someone just posted a Lizarman starter army on ebay for $200. USD It is second hand but intact.

It contains:

1 Lizardmen Saurus Lord on Foot
1 Lizardmen Skink Priest
1 Lizardmen Army Standard Bearer
5 Lizardmen Cold One Riders
6 Chameleon Skinks
3 Lizardmen Kroxigor
32 Lizardmen Saurus
24 Lizardmen Skinks

If you were to try to replicate it today you would need to buy:

1 Saurus lord
1 skink priest
1 standard bearer
8 Cold One riders
5 Chameleon skinks
3 Kroxigors
40 Suarus warriors
24 lizarman skinks

Because of how they package stuff today. If you bought this at retail price, with no Start Collecting sets or anything like this, it would cost you $265. USD

I believe that boxed set was released in 2003 or so, say at least by 2005, and I think it was about $200 USD when it came out. In 2018 dollars that $200 USD is now worth about $258. USD

So the price, even with the discount you should get for buying the army set in bulk, has really stayed the same.

The 4th edition set is hands down the worst. Four miniatures poses replicated a few dozen times, plus some cardboard standees for monsters. SWEET

As someone who has owned every single WHFB starter boxed set save 1st edition, my opinion is that the newest one is the best, with the most cool stuff, and with the purtiest sculpts.

However, I do find myself in rare agreement with Mithmee, specifically about about Battlemasters. That box set was the bee's knees at the time and is STILL cool.

Still play Battle Masters with the kids! Never could get them to make the leap to WH. Now there's Dragon Rampant so still hope.

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Mithmee, I got started in WHFB by purchasing 7 sets of Battlemasters that were on sale for $7 USD each and then split them with 2 other friends so we had Empire, Orcs, and Chaos armies. (and a beginning Bretonnian player later got the non-empire knights)

The miniatures in that game were horrible even by those days standards (~1993 ??).

Cheapest does not equal best.

It was a good way for beginners to get started however.

Battle Masters were the worst ever plastics figures made

Centurio Prime,

That was a complete steal and great buy.

Congratz,

The store that I got my three at only had the three copies.

If they had more I would have gotten them.

7 Boxes for $7 USD each.

714 miniatures for around $50. USD

Cheapest does not equal best.

It was a good way for beginners to get started however.

True but they do work.

Battle Masters were the worst ever plastics figures made.

Now that is a matter of opinion, since they are no worst than the Elves or Goblins from the 4th Edition box.

Plus I am not a big fan of GW latest stuff.

Well, if BattleMasters is on the list, that one. Because it's the only one I ever bought or played. Still have it, still love it.
I almost bought Skull Pass, but by that point I'd found Warmaster, which is more to my liking as a game than WH. Plus, I find 10mm easier to paint.
Oh, and yes, my two starter armies for Warmaster were Dwarves and Orcs & Goblins. So, effectively, the 10mm equivalent of Skull Pass.

I've never bought a WHFB starter, but I have admired them. I think GW makes terrific boxed sets. I had several copies of BattleMasters, and still have some of the figures. I made a set out of Warmaster figures. That was a fun game.

I'm attracted to the Isle of Blood one (whatever issue that was), and Soul Wars. I've never cared for starters with Chaos.

andy

At the time they came out, I think the Bretonnian & Lizardman armies had been most neglected, so I think that release was the best.

Well the Bretonnian's are still being neglected.

Never was a fan of the Lizard's.

3rd edition and Battle Masters get my vote, respectively. I've collected up dozens of the battle masters minis for a project. Monopose mania! 😁

I tend to be fond of the 6th edition starter boxed set (Empire versus Orcs). Decent figures, full rules and a Mordheim-style ruined building. That said, it could have been improved by including the Ravening Hordes army list booklet (which instead was packed with WD) and a few more terrain items, and the Empire infantry would have been more versatile with separate heads (I needed to decapitate a number of them to be able to glue in spare heads from other sets).

7th edition boxed set had some interesting ideas, but somehow it seemed unfinished. The mini-rulebook was nice idea for transportability, but the small text makes it more difficult to read, and it lacked a lot of additional material. There were lots of interesting extra bits in the sprues (like the pony cart and tied up slayer) but no attempt to make proper use of these – and the extra introductory leaflet seemed pretty sloppily done.

4th edition was maybe the most minimalistic, with two pretty slimmed-down rulebooks and four different monopose figures. On the positive side it had the army list booklet, on the negative side no magic rules were included.

5th edition was stylistically an upgrade over the previous one, with more figure poses and some of them even multi-part with limited poseability. And the rulebooks were more impressive and packed with much more material. On the other hand neither magic rules nor army lists were included.

For the 8th edition, I have not seen the contents in person, so cannot comment (though I own the full-size version of the rulebook).

But in some case like Battle Master they were more interested in getting a bigger buying audience, i.e. "the kids". And not more geared to older gamers & modelers i.e. s … I saw the same thing with GW's Epic game. The 2d version was much more geared to the "kids" than more "seasoned" wargamers, IMO. And it was the biggest seller of the 4 iterations of Epic.

They still are in biz to make a profit as we all know … So getting more buyers is always a goal, of course. Even if as we have seen they have "missed the mark" with some of their releases. It happens many times no matter what the business is making/doing.

E.g. the movie industry turn out PG and M movies so they can get a bigger audience. I.e. not just Mom & Dad but the kids too. R & X + movies limits the market obviously. I don't even think the major studios even make Rated X anymore. And have not for a couple of decades, or longer.