Kill Team & Warcry "Seasons" are TROUBLE
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- čas přidán 2. 03. 2023
- Games Workshop has made "seasons" for Kill Team and Warcry, with quarterly boxes - but I don't think they're made for skirmish fans.
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All I know is that if they did a war cry season with mordheim style City terrain I would buy every box. Then I would probably use everything to play frostgrave.
Yeah I play Warcry but haven't been buying any of the Heart of Ghur boxes ... I don't like this specific terrain type. I would love it if the boxes were more varied. Ah well I make do with my self created terrain :)
@@Morrodin182 I don't like Guhr either. Making our own terrain is fun and costs less, too.
if they reboot Mordheim I'm all in 🍟
@@dougalthomson3826 I used to say the same thing but since playing frostgrave I've never looked back.
I actually bought the first warcry starter specifically to use that terrain for frostgrave&9th age... so far it's done well
I wouldn't mind seasons if they were more creative with it instead of "get lots of walls" (kill team) and "Bamboo & Skulls & Meat trees" in all 4 boxes.
For example for Warcry you have a season playing in a city.
1st box is the outskirts, with a farm and a mill or sth.
2nd Box is the City wall.
3rd and 4th Box come with stuff from inside the city like a market place and houses.
They could easily add more ruins in the gnarlwood expansions.
As well as for kill team. Each box is a different race space ship interior.
That's exactly what tinkerturf and battlesystems are for. Don't act like you live in a vacuum or some gamesworkshop cult. Get the terrain and play it as you like.
Exactly. I am trying my hardest to get into the Warcry, but value proposition of many boxes is just weird from my point of view. If original Warcry starter set was available I would buy it immediately.
As a retailer, the release schedule has hurt sales at my store. The advantage of Kill team prior to the 2021 version was it was easy for a 40K player to dabble in. Warcry also had an easier entry point for existing players. Now. with the season model, it changes the way people approach the game. My customers feel like they have to buy all the products for the season and they cannot afford that so it makes them stay away. They focus on AoS or 40K instead. In my area, it just seems to create a sense of "too much, too often" in the minds of the players. And with the main games also moving into a seasonal model as well, it seems to create too much product fatigue from the player base.
Mate. I'm new to KT, I invested into it thinking I could play using my old minis or just use normal teams..
Picked up some SoB and I just get fucking annihilated. The Bespoke teams are so much more functional and powerful.
I feel its not as accessible as people think, the games evolved for you to buy new models for teams (which may not even exist for KT3) which I think is a bit scummy, but it is GW...
More White Dwarf/Free Release teams would be great to loop in 40k players. Void Dancers, Intercessors, Hunter Clade, and Wyrmblade are all good KTs that use regular models and an HQ or 2.
Also, on that note, free release rules for these teams would help a ton as well.
right? Even GW categorizes it as a "boxed game" which would be a huge draw and really simple for people to just grab one and be good. But greed and success got the better of them and they just had to release stuff at a furious pace!
Appreciate the opinion videos. A few thoughts:
- KT boxes are selling out simply because people want the new armies of old (Kasarkin, Breachers, Arbites), I don’t think the terrain is a big selling point, especially as it’s kind of the same each box, just with a small upgrade sprue, and a nightmare to build!
- I think you’re spot on with that Warcry isn’t selling as well. On the Warcry Reddit, folks are frequently mentioning that you need HoG for tokens, etc.
- If I was a product manager at GW (the folks who decide what to make, I would first align both systems so they work the same. 1. Always sell an essentials set for each game. 2. Always sell a basic terrain set for the season. 3. Sell a la carte add on terrain boxes. 4. Sell single army boxes. This is kind of happening now with the KT upgrade sprues being purchaseable, but it should be the norm.
- IF GW has complaints about plastic prices going up, they might want to look at the percentage of plastic being used for unwanted terrain.
it is beyond me why they sell stuff in combined boxes. there have been a few items i have not purchased because they were not available on their own. like, no, i will not spend 130 to get the one kill team that's worth 30.
I think Warcry at least did better to differentiate the terrain, but Kill Team very much hasn’t beyond the odd extras which they now seem to be selling separately anyway (albeit, extremely limited)
@@nvcn86 you won't but a lot of people will and that sucks :P
Yeah. I wanted to buy Bloodhunt, I wanted the minis but thought it would be cool to try playing Warcry, but then I learned that I still need the core rules and some other stuff from Heart of Ghur like the core rule book and decided I’ll just wait for the next “core” box set and it the expansions. At the very least they should continue to sell the starter set along with the expansions. They do this for Kill Team, Necromunda and Underworlds which is nice.
-They’re underprinting Kill Team Boxes. I stopped chalking it up to price rising conspiracy a while ago. They just don’t print the right amount sometimes.
-Warcry isn’t selling well for a few reasons. The Edition was met with initial scrutiny because we’d just had books launch with all the armies and the thought was we’d have to buy them all all over again. They mostly mitigated this with releasing the pdfs, but there really wasn’t enough of an update to justify this being a new edition. The initial armies were also… a little lame, and that trend hasn’t really improved. The old ones definitively dripped flavor, and none of the new ones have leaned far enough in (The one Khorne guy believing he’s a flesh hound is the closest). There is also a misconception that the boxes have the same terrain over and over again, when it’s not. Yes, it’s all Ghur, but we haven’t gotten a repeat of the bigger terrain. AoS has been operating on staying in one realm for a whole year since the start. It’s not new, and ironically what people have been asking for.
-GW does almost everything you asked for if you were a product manager. The “Essentials Kit” does not sell well (Its radically overpriced), and the individual packs do come out, but it can be 3-6 months from now (I literally hate that some CZcamsrs like Discourse have never caught on to this being the case).
-“Plastics going up!” Is a lie. Most have gone down over the last year. This is their yearly price rise and they will use any excuse.
personally i think a box a year with 2 sets of new models plus new terrain and all the little bits is nice, but all the other boxes should be individual releases
I think the idea is to transition KillTeam newbies into bigger WH40k. You buy one box, play with it, half a year later you buy another one - and look now you have enough terrain to try boarding actions. You will need to buy more miniatures for them, but you can actually use your teams there (at least Imperium Breachers have rules I believe). And when you played some 500 point boarding games - new edition comes out with shiny box and you are slowly pulled into bigger games.
Yep. Which in itself isn't a bad thing?
Not really. The games are pretty different and how you build the teams is pretty different.
@@Pandapeep Same terrain. Same (mostly) miniatures. 2x KT board = 1x small 40k board. They actually say things like "oh, and if you've bought two KT boxes you're good to go for Boarding Actions!"
Pretty obvious that they want KT folk to get into 40k, and probably to a lesser extent, vice versa.
This is the right answer. They want to sell models primarily, and big army games get people buying the most models generally. So kill team and warcry are used as stepping stones to AoS and 40k.
@@Pandapeep also, if they want to upsell people wouldn't it make more sense to release Kill Teams for units from existing armies? The Breachers, Arbites, and Rogue Trader crew are great kits, but how do they fit into a standard Imperium army again?
I really liked the way they handled the first year of Kill Team. The value proposition was, grading on a GW curve, really good. After a year you could have 8 distinct, fully-playable forces and 4 completely distinct “environments” to play on. It gave a really good reason to collect the whole set. I’m sure some customers didn’t like that 3/8 forces and 3/4 environments were reprints, but I imagine most people did not already have most of the stuff included. Seems like a win-win.
The new seasons are horrible, for both games and for the reasons you identified.
I also really liked how they handled the original Warcry releases. A great starter box with great terrain and everything you needed to take advantage of all of the cool stuff the system had to show off, like the wandering monsters and terrain set up cards that made games super easy to jump into even for new players. They had those terrain boxes that really created a lot of variety in environments and included their own set up cards that also included pieces from the starter box to offer even more variety. The separate dungeon starter offered a really cool additional game mode. Red Harvest brought in yet another great terrain set. If you bought all of that stuff, you’d have given GW an obscene amount of money but received a really fleshed-out game with a ton of variety and really cool stuff, and all that before getting into buying different warbands. But, critically and crucially, all of this experience required getting that awesome original starter, a value-laden box that sold out almost immediately, was never reprinted, and contained essential elements to the whole experience, like the terrain that was repurposed in all the other terrain kits and the cards for that terrain, that could not be acquired separately in any way. It really knee-capped the game.
In the end I think all of these bad decisions come down to GW inherently not believing that skirmish games are worth anything but as a conduit to army games, and a mistaken assumption that skirmish gamers must necessarily spend less than army scale gamers (despite skirmish gamers collecting tons of factions and needing lots of terrain). It’s a shame, because I really like both games, but I find them very obnoxious to get into, when it should be easy. They seem also to not understand that once you get people in the door, they tend to spend a lot more money.
This nails the same sentiment I have too. Season1 of Warcry was much better with what is inside the boxes. Ruleswise I like season2.
I moved from full AoS to Warcry because full AoS has become too much ... I don't have the time for it, and the skirmish games where a welcome alternative. I will never return to full fledged AoS simply because skirmish is my future.
Its a gw loop in effect.
Make decent game.
Add more rules that make it better.
Add even more rules.
Add way to many rules.
Add some more rules.
Man check out this new gw game!
Its not as bloated as the other ones.
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Yeah it is frustrating how both KT and Warcry went from something pretty friendly to new people to do on the cheap to trying to overcomplicate a bunch of stuff with all these changes.
Obviously nobody's forced to abide by this and all but it's just the classic run around of unnecessary obstacles.
The thing that is a little annoying is how shamelessly busted the specific boxed new KTs are as well as some soup from White Dwarf where even if you're not sweaty WAAC the difference can be night and day with the strength of armies.
A big issue with KT for me is the way they handled old factions. There was an impression that the core book teams were sort of a stopgap set of teams, and you'd get rules for ones that weren't bland eventually - as we did for AdMech and Thousand Sons. But we got those two, then it just stopped. Latest White Dwarf didn't have any KT articles at all. I think they're doing what they can to scale down their KT ambitions.
260$ plastic walls is what pushed me to 3d printing
Yeah, I give it five years. if GW dont do something significant with their terrain prices/quality/availability, they will have lost to the STL market, just like the music industry crumbled to the MP3 market. They will still be producing minis, and people will still buy them, but their already waning relevance will be surely either cemented in place from changing with the times, or dissolved from managerial incompetence. This is GW we're talking about here. Our collective faith in their competence is not high.
same.
If I was product manager at games workshop I’d make eldar and Tyranid terrain in the boxes and then boarding actions could be planet invasions or infested space hulks.
I like this you could really tell a story with the terrain over 4 boxes
This is a good idea. Gives the additional terrain more value, if you can use it at the other games / game modes.
They had some Eldar terrain in the past
The $100 dollar starter box for Kill Team is *almost* a really good product. Almost, because it doesn't have a copy of the Core Rules! Which is just so silly.
It's bizarre that they make these "low barrier to entry" games - which in themselves are really good games, no issue there - so confusing to get into. There should be one box, available all the time, that has everything you need to play the game. And play the game *properly*, not just a semi-skimmed L-plate version.
It has the core rules not the core book most of that core book is fluff.
@@davidmesh5491 Thanks for the correction, I take it back! It *is* a really good product! Who knows, maybe the best value that GW does? I must have been thinking of the Octarius book with the full rules for the two teams, but that's what Battlescribe is for, right?
can't even agree u more，so as warcry should be make like this，an always selling started set; and every year has some expands products for few brand new terrains and warbands；let people chose what they really wanted。
I "like" the theory that all the terrain and extra gubbins are just padding out. A player might be happy with just getting a warband, but if they want the warband NOW, they have to pay extra for more terrain and stuff they probably don't need or didn't want to begin with.
Or they wait a few months and get the warband they want
@@maximaalverliezen9260 You are right, patience is a virtue. But these boxes do not target the patient, it is the impatient which are abused by this model. On top, there is still no way to just buy Obliterators in their own box. And with GW either waiting very long for a release, debuffing units or dropping them entirely (RIP Greater Possessed), getting it now for the most effect is a devious motivator.
40K player here… bought the kill team boxes with the Chaos Space Marines and Traitor Guard for the models and terrain, and the thought of “maybe I’ll get around to learning Kill Team” but our mk3 Warmachine group is still alive so when I’m not playing 40K it’s Warmachine and then I don’t have time for one more game (despite painting some Mandalorians for Legion)… … …
I would like one big box per year that remained in print and available for most of the year. Each game would get a full starter setup with dice, tokens, manuals, two new forces and new terrain. Probably not a good business model, but I like it.
I am a Warcry player. I have Heart of Ghur, currently unbuilt. I wasn't interested in Sundered Fate and didn't think that I needed more meat tree decoration. Then the vampire monks came out and I couldn't resist and am building and painting that currently. I believe that the terrain with this will give me enough Ghur based pieces for the foreseeable future?
Less than a minute into the video and I can already tell you, I've been thinking the same. Both systems' switch to the quarterly boxes has had me non-stop shaking my head at them.
We were about to sell all our AoS stuff and jump into Warcry with the GF, but after seeing this, One Page Rules Skirimish looks better and better...
The idea that they are selling all these kill team/Warcry boxes so you can put them together to make one 40K/sigmar field with the terrain makes so much sense. I’ve been playing Warcry monthly for over a year and we still use the original starter terrain box. Cant beat that.
Actually, this was one of the clearest explanations of the Kill Team and Warcry games I've heard. Maybe I just need to read the back of the boxes in the store, but why the boxes existed always confused me. Now I understand. I don't mind duplicated terrain, because realistically I'm not going to buy every box in a "season" anyway. (And I agree, a 5 year cycle would be better than a 3 year cycle.)
I thought it was really odd that they didn't do different styles of walls for Kill Team, even if it was 2:2 so they can get their moneys worth from the moulds 😔
Yeah, different wall themes were even hinted at in one of Warhammer Community previews for ItD. They mentioned we're venture into Gallowdark which consists of not only Imperial vessels, but also Eldar and Chaos-corrupted ones. Well, I guess that was only lore piece, but it's a shame they didn't do at least 2:2.
At least I'm not tempted to buy all those KT boxes that are released nowadays, because I was buying them mostly for terrain.
I use kill teams for miniature agnostic skirmish games.
I bought Octarius, and don't plan on buying another big box. I've expanded into two other teams using the just-the-team box ($50-$60), and getting the book individually. As a new arrival to the hobby, it's been really interesting (and at times confusing) to try to get to know GW's release process. Thanks for breaking this down!
I've scaled back to only doing Underworlds because the pace of releases make it impossible to stay on top of and I don't have room for any more scenery; scenery is incredibly space intensive, especially some of the larger Ghur pieces. Even so, I haven't even touched my gnarlwood box and the new box should be dropping in another month or so.
I’ve been looking at Underworlds is it worth getting into ?
Starter boxes should always be available, and for gods sake mix up the teams now and then
I guess it is working for them because they have two factories and they are running full time, but holy crap I thought I'd play more Warcry but it's so flipping confusing with all the new releases, boxes, books, toads I just run some other rule set instead. It really whimpered out here with the second edition.
I really hope the last warcry box of this season has starship ruins.
Made out of trees 🤣
So do I, however I have started to make my own aztech - maya themed terrain
I would buy that! And not a seconden batch of trees
lol
Hi Uncle Atom,
I collected everything from Warcy’s first edition. For the second edition I only bought the first box. The terrain is too similar. I’d expect the newer sprues that were in the recent two boxes will be packaged together and sold separately when the next box is released. I’ll just buy that and get the scenario books separately and maybe one or two of the new warbands.
It was much better in first edition when the terrain was more varied.
I'm glad somebody else sees this problem because I thought I was alone. Too much money for "more of the same" scenery so I bought one Kill Team (I liked both teams in Shadowvaults) box and one Warcry (for the 2nd edition rulebook in Heart of Ghur) box. From here on out I will only buy one (at most) or none of the season boxes; I'll wait for the books separately.
I might sound like a butt-kisser but I agree with almost all of your points. Both games need an in-production starter set. No more big boxes; sell the factions and terrain separately.
The only one I'm not dead-set on is the five year cycles. I'm okay with three year cycles, or even two year cycles, if the changes are not very drastic such as was the case with Warcry 2nd Edition.
I think you nailed it. I bought Octarius and Chalnath, and that's been it. GRANTED I don't play very often and most of the games I've played it was my opponents first or second game, so we've actually just been sticking to the compendium teams and the core book. I have no idea how octarius nor chalnath change the game, nor do I really care at this point. I love the scale of kill team, but as it turns out, I am phenomenally disinterested in the changes from the previous edition of kill team, especially when it comes to list building.... or the lack there of. That's just my opinion, and really I don't mind the gameplay changes, though I still prefer the idea of kill team being a great way to learn how to play big 40k, even if it was slightly tweaked like alternating activations but still using the 40k rules more or less. I am trying to get more people in my friend circle into playing, which is why it has been new players so often, and hopefully I'll be more interested in looking into the updated stuff or the specialist teams, though I still don't like the "list building" for the specialists. But for now, I feel it's too many releases, with big sweeping changes to the rules each season, boring terrain, and frustrating team releases, where half of the team releases I could just buy off the shelf Oh but I get a few extra heads for my pathfinders. I think how you suggested they do releases made a great deal of sense and sounds like it would get me to buy the boxes again.
Well, seeing as you asked :)
Rules and points "printer friendly" (no art, no fluff) version available as PDF for free. Don't nickel and dime players when you're re-balancing a game with every new faction. Also, spend money on QA and playtest these bastards!
The getting started box is treated like a board game. Has everything you need to get going - two squads, terrain, and set of wargear/data cards/tokens/etc for them but "low frills" and stand-alone. The rules are likely to be out of date pretty quickly so try and make it easy to update every production run.
Quarterly drops for squads with a lovely art-filled codex with any faction-specific data cards included in the codex pack.
The terrain drops are themed around the recent faction releases, objective marker/set piece (think endless spells) and a General's Handbook campaign to match.
Custom dice and other deluxifying faction swag like rulers, tokens. binders, etc available but optional.
I was initially on board with the idea of the boxes (I only play Warcry currently). While collecting a bunch of the same type of stuff for getting a full board of AOS didn't really matter to me, I did think I'd get them and then have a variety of pieces to pull from, so I wasn't playing on the same 8 pieces of terrain or whatever from the initial box. In practice however, I literally just finished building the last meat tree from the Heart of Ghur box last night. I think maybe I overestimated how much I'd be playing.
I could see a scenario where I was playing Warcry every week, and then having that variety would be nice, but realistically, at this point I'd be more likely to buy the big boxes if they were different terrain all together.
What I think GW has decided is that most of the sales come from 40k/AoS players who want 1 or both of the forces in the box and see the terrain as a bonus. They are not intended for people to buy every box for a season, 40K/AoS or the boxed game player. They are a FOMO box and minimising the costs by duplicating boards and terrain maximises the profit.
I think part of the reason in discrepancy for Killteam/Warcry sales (aside from there just being so many 40k players) is, unfortunately, the spikier players. Warcry has an "issue" where a lot of the new boxes are only kinda flavorful in rules but also tend to be *really* bad compared to just using whatever generic models we have from our AoS armies. So they competitive players don't even want to buy them, and they get talked about less by content creators. But even for casual players, a lot of them just aren't fun to play.
I bought some of the new warcry teams and unfortunately have just had a really bad time playing with them, even in my casual lgs warcry group the teams are just *bad* and not fun. I can have fun losing and playing bad teams (it was the best part of older blood bowl editions), but not if the team I'm playing is also boring and I only want to use the generic doubles/triples/quads the large majority of the time, and even some of the team's "unique" abilities are copy+pasted abilities lots of teams have with a new name. I love how my Chaos Legionnaires look on the table, especially with my Centaurian Marshal, but the sad truth is they just play the game so poorly despite being designed for the game, and the Centaurian Marshal, despite being connected to them in the fluff, just does not fill any of the team's gaps and makes any team with it worse. The whole team boils down to just a strictly worse Stormcast/Slaves to Darkness warband, even to the point of sharing copy pasted abilities and some that are copy pasted, but also strictly worse (Shield Slam for example) but that only works on a 4+ vs the generic's working on the 2+. Even from a non-competative standpoint casual players will see things like that and go "why do I have worse dice abilities on more expensive units" and just feel bad.
Where in Killteam the compendium teams are the ones that felt half finished and bland, in warcry its weirdly the teams designed for the game itself.
I've changed some of my perspectives over the years. After Pariah Nexus, I invested in a nice resin printer to finish my undead army of necrons. The price of flayed ones is beyond ridiculous.
My playgroup doesn't go to tournaments. We are just some friends wanting to paint and play. Proxies have honestly changed our experiences for the better. I don't feel so bad letting my new friends use my minis that didn't cost a kidney.
It's very nice to be able to play a few games with my son and then let him paint a few of the proxies. I'm not constantly gasping when he drops one...
First thing, that hat is majestic.
Second, I'm a Warmachine/Hordes player since 2008.
Didn't touch a GW game since W40k v3...
My first hobby experience was Space Crusade so the Space Hulk setting is really dear to me. I can't explain why but I just love it.
Serioulsly, make anything, and I mean anything but add '... in a Space Hlk' at the end and I will probably buy it ^^
So the release of Into the Dark made me very enthusiastic and i decided to dive into the new KT season.
I got the Into the Dark box.
And it stopped there.
I never could get my hands on a Shadowvault box and those few days after the initial release were a so miserable experience, I decided to give up on the season and just enjoy what i could got.
I bought into the dark and soul shackle and then the upgrade sprue for the shadowvaults because I absolutely love the terrain. Being able to use it for Boarding actions really helped the fact that the terrain was so similar. I am just getting into Warcry and haven't purchased any of this season's boxes because the terrain doesn't seem as appealing and the warbands in the starter set were kind of lackluster. I would love a warcry essentials set with the tokens and such. I really wish there were some more differences in the terrain over the course of the season though.
Overall, I like the system a LOT (at least for Kill Team). I feel like it gives us the opportunity to get some new terrain we might not otherwise see, and new models that we might not otherwise see.
My only real complaint was that GW doesn't TELL you what they plan is until after they release some of the boxes. If I had known that GW would release the 'special terrain' sprues as a set, I might not have bought the second box--though I DID want more walls to have enough for a larger space hulk board anyway.
Tell us what is happening, and let us make informed decisions, not 'should I buy this in case it's limited release?' panic.
Now, on Warcry, it's simply never good to have a game that new players can't easily get started in. That should only happen due to supply problems, not just letting it go out of production.
This was a really good walkthrough! GW seems to increasingly have this issue of making onboarding for new players more and more difficult and deterring the longer they have an IP exist. I’m currently thinking of jumping into WarCry since there isn’t a local Mordheim scene, but there’s no simple “Start Here!” solution and it seems like even if I scrounge up starting rules and materials there’s a mountain of add-on rules and junk I have to catch up on. I’m barely hanging onto new KT as it is.
Being a fan of the previous (red) Warcry, but also liking the current Kill Team (& having a finite IKEA Kallax capacity for big GW boxes), I decided to pass on the re-jigged Warcry entirely as I wasn't really enamoured with the swampy terrain or desperate for any of the minis. As far as KT, I got Octarius, but left the next 3 boxes on the shelves. I did get Into the Dark and Soulshackle because I can use two boards of terrain in other games (and I like the walls/doors & minis included) but that's it for me. I don't really intend to EVER buy another big box. I have years of games really.
Oh, my Kallax shelves are also completely full now!
My bud and I both love the meat trees and have bought multiple boxes each. (Me 2, them 3!)
We also have started devising custom games to play with more than just 2 players in warcry, so more mats and terrain helps us achieve that in a natural way.
One thing to remember is that terrain is generally made in China.
The terrain variations for Warcry are actually pretty neat, but I don't need 4 sets (I have the first two), but third set has neat little huts... They have said on many occasions that you can toss 4 boards and the terrain together for a Sigmar game, 2 boxes would make a smaller point game as well.
Of course, the trees aren't very good for a Sigmar game, don't block any line of sight or obstruct much of anything.
Likewise, I'd vastly prefer a vs box with 2 warcry bands, a narrative book, cards and dice with no terrain or core rules as the quarterly release for less money. It'd inject some "new" in on a regular basis, could focus on a narrative path like it does now, but not burden folks with unwanted/ unneeded terrain.
Oh, and the gallowdark stuff would be more interesting to me if Boarding Actions wasn't spread across four narrative books and most likely doomed with a 10th edition release anyway. It looks like a neat format.
GW have given up on casual gamers. Their focus is on making as much money as possible from their whales before the pressure of plastic or whatever else starts hammering them. With 3d printing etc they know their days are numbered.
Yeah as a recent kill-teamer (?) I wanted to get the new soulshackle box as my entry point…. I ended up getting the starter box, some gallowdark terrain and board (from eBay) and another kill team for the same price as soulshackle… so I have more variety and now I’m free from buying the other gallowdark boxes…
I agree a starter pack, an annual terrain pack, and new teams individually seems like a more logical model to me…
As a newbie, the first season of Kill Team boxes was great. I could collect the teams and build up a variety of terrain. Once they switched to season two with all the same terrain, I stopped buying after the first box. There are only so many walls I want in my collection after all. Personally, I hope they go back to some sort of variety again down the road.
Waiting for any individual teams to come out a few months later is fine by me too, however it has also made me more choosy about what teams I might buy. I was willing to get a box with a team I didn't really want in order to get the cool terrain. Now I don't have to do that either. It works out though, I could afford to buy the rough rider horses for some kit bashing fun instead.
Thanks for the 10 years of content and counting. Keep up the great work and I like the opinion videos.
KT Player: Season 1 I purchased all boxes because they had different varied terrain (even if older) and I don't/didn't have any terrain so was fine
Season 2: I purchased ITD, didn't pickup Shadowvaults thinking I'd pick it up sometime later (ha, so much for that!). After pricing it out (what it's going to cost to get the two teams and the rule book separately for Shadowvaults) I did just get Soulshackle, not because I want the terrain at all, but it's cheaper (because I would like both teams and the rules) to just buy the damn box instead of getting it all separately. So I think the marketing ploy might be "buy the box, because it's cheaper than buying the two teams, the rules, and the narrative sprue separately". I'll also note that even though they release the teams later, one of them (Karskin) is still pretty much out of stock everywhere, so even if you potentially can get the teams later, it's not a sure thing.
Good morning gamers.
Good morning
Morning Gamers Good
Merci. Toi aussi
Morning!
I also only realised with this new Kill Team box it was all the exact same walls each time with a few extra trinkets thrown in. To me, that is awful for a new player wanting to get into the hobby. Generally new hobbyists enjoy painting terrain the least, and now they'll be painting the same walls four times. Even I would find that rather mind numbing. But "seasons" are what made me give up entirely on new Kill Team after trying it, as soon as I saw the quarterly schedule and that my GW Store would only allow you to play the current version, my first thought was "No. I ain't made of money."
Are we actually expecting a new player to buy a whole box of two teams and terrain every 3 months though?
I liked the idea of this for Warcry at the start because I liked the theme, but the terrain has not been living up to the storytelling I had hoped to see, and they seem to be inconsistent in how they release the terrain separately. The instant sellouts of kill team side has been a nonstarter,and lack of a warcry starter is a weird oversight.
The "seasons" thing is an attempt at copying the video game industry, where, they want you to think they're "providing a service" and you have "seasons" as a way of them pushing out updates and tweaks and more and more monetization...
It's a nonsense. At the end of the day it's just a money grab, video games aren't a service, nor are GW's products. Just a shame so many people keep falling for it.
I play both 40K and Kill Team, and have got the first 3 boxes for the Into the Dark season, and will try to get the last one. My aim is make a "Zone Mortalis" type full size board, to use with some homebrew rules, as well as a space hulk the modular terrain could be a command bunker or a warehouse for some indoor 40K games. Will try out some Boarding Action rules as well. But it has not been cheap......
I bought Heart of Ghur, and I already have a ton of models for different warbands from my army collection, plus other terrain pieces (from OG Warcry, and the Graveyard set from some years back), so you are spot on Atom - there's nothing in the additional boxes that has piqued my fancy so far. One or two of the warbands are nice, but I'm not desperate for them. Ironically, I'm the type of player GW are trying to appeal to, because I dabble in both 40k and Age of Sigmar. But I don't want my whole AoS board to be filled with meat trees, I like to mix it up a bit.
I think the only real advantage to how these boxes work is if you skip or miss the first box, you still get the terrain for the set if one or both of the teams interest you. Ive got every kill team box, but its also basically the only gw game i play. So i want to support it.
I'd like to see maybe new kill teams come out into a new compendium and I'd put out 2 full on sets..with dice/counters/rules a year. Warcry needs a "Essentials" kit as well. I've bought zero of either because the Warcry stuff is very SPECIFIC for Warcry games (no meat trees in Firefight). Space is a problem for me anyway so storing terrain is always iffy at best.
I haven't bought a Kill Team or Warcry box since Octarius. I'm still holding out hope that they'll reprint Space Hulk eventually so I'm not particularly interested in the current KT setting. There's only so much terrain you can build and paint and ever use 🤷♂️
I had introduced my brother to Kill Team a couple of years ago I wanted him to get into a skirmish game that was easier and cheaper than 40K and to have a game he can find players to play with.
This last year has had no good boxes to buy, so we shifted over to One Page Rules instead.
Most people in my community buy the boxes and whatever they don't need, they sell on the internet. It's much cheaper than buying things separately. It works in the opposite direction too. If you just want to buy one team, you can get it second hand, sprues still fresh. And you know who might need a lot of terrain, even the same style? Except AoS and 40k players? Tournament organizers, clubs, etc.
Love your videos and opinions. I have grown tired of 40k’s complex system of rules within rules. So the idea of a 500 point limit, limited strategies and limited units makes Boarding Actions interesting to me. I also enjoy KillTeam so it is a win/win for me.
Very good point. I'm a little confused as to the same terrain. I do really like how we are getting two new factions for warcry each release. As that is my favorite skirmish game. I'm more of a destruction guy but some of the new warbands are great. The vampires, rotmire creed, jade obelisk, skinks, I'm really hoping to see the Forrest gitz fleshed out. With jungle goblins and spiders for the next box. But that's me crossing my fingers. And I like the hornes of hashut but I do wish they were chaos dwarfs. And the kill team stuff is cool but why change the dimensions of the game board?
I wanted to get into Warcry so I hunted down Heart of Ghur specifically because it had the rulebook, tokens, and dice. It helped that I love the Horns of Hashut models. I had little interest in the Jade Obelisk minis or the terrain, again, and only like the new vampire warband from the latest box.
While I can't speak on Warcry, I'd argue that Kill Team ITD/S2 was the perfect way to sell boxes for EVERYONE, particularly for casual players.
Gallowfall was my first box after buying the S1 starter set + 2 specialist teams. I don't feel like I missed out on ANYTHING in S2 - can't say the same for S1 Octarious and Nachmund which I now have to pay scalpers pricing for.
- new (or newer) players were more likely to pick up Box 1 as the "starter" set box with tokens, rulebook, and all the extras.
- for subsequent releases, less incentive for dedicated KT players (who purchase every big box) to buy more boxes as the terrain set was largely the same.
- better big box availability for people who were looking to get into S2 as they could buy into any box to get the terrain set.
- for players who already owned the the terrain set, buying the two separate KT faction boxes turns out cheaper (at least in AUS) than buying big boxes.
Unless you're a hardcore/rich collector, you don't buy every big box. You but one box (maybe 2 if you want the two types of terrain) and eventualli later you buy the team boxes you're interested in. The big boxes go out of sale very fast, so I really don't care if they re-propose the same terrain in more than one big box.
I jumped into Killteam with Into the Dark around 6 months ago and I've never felt the need to buy any of the two new boxes. I'd probably buy a box that is not Close Quarters themed, though. But I guess with this season approach I'm not going to get the chance to do so for at least 6 more months. Also good luck to GW to make me jump into 40k, lol. I can't stand having more than 10 minis on my side of the table.
As a Warcry player, I'm not really sure who the quarterly releases are for. Unless you want both new warbands and the terrain, it's definitely worth it to just wait for the individual releases of the 1 or 2 things you do want. They don't really work for new players because they're lacking rules and tools. Even if you can afford to regularly get them and want all the warbands, you end up with an unnecessary amount of very similar terrain.
Definitely agree that Warcry should have a starter box, and at the very least these quarterly boxes could try to vary up the terrain a bit. Even within Ghur, we could have huts, ruins, or the starship wreckage instead of just more trees.
Kill team has the appeal to be able to have lots of different armies and quicker battles. I got the starter box and between that, old Necromunda terrain and random stuff I can do a good amount with a lot of freedom. The Gallowdark terrain does look slick. But not for £90
I think Kill Team technically started on seasons the year before Warcry did, it just didn't have a seasonal theme. That's why it has separate starter to the seasons. I honestly could see Warcry get a similar starter to the Kill Team one in the next year and hope it does.
I also think the seasons are an overall benefit to the game. Like I'm getting into playing Warcry and I imagine if we had a year like Kill Team did previously with 4 boxes each with distinct terrain set ups I'd feel compelled to buy all of them to get the different environments and teams. With Warcry's current season I can work at painting some first edition warbands, use the downloaded rules, and then once the 4th box comes out decide which one of those still available through GW or independent stores I like the most to get a set of flesh trees terrain. And if the season's terrain particularly grabs me then I can maybe pick up one of the other boxes and have both enough for an AoS table's worth of terrain plus 2 more warbands I likely would have brought individually later on. I have no FOMO issues with the game, there's a steady release of stuff I can get excited about and pick up eventually, and if a box releases that is a must have I don't have to think about how I spent a chunk of cash on a slightly different box set a few months before.
But maybe I'm the exception to how we engage with these games and everyone else is completionists
Agree 100%. I shouldn’t have to dig through Reddit posts to figure out to get started. Kill Team, Necromunda, etc. Have an evergreen starter than optional add-ons.
Or, better yet, support indie games. Probably your better bet.
I'll admit, I fell into this rabbit hole; but it did pay off in the end. Look at the context of how these releases happened. "Into the Dark" KT box released before 40k started their "Arks of Omen" narrative and the Boarding Actions rules. So at that point, all I saw was the Space Hulk terrain that I was all hyped up for, with no clue that 40k was going to have rules to accommodate such terrain. Didn't even fathom it, since 40k for me is 1000+ pt armies going at it on a open battlefield, not tight corridors perfect for small skirmishes.. So I rushed to my LGS, got the "Into the Dark" KT box; which was my first foray into the kill team.... THEN I heard about "Arks of Omen", and the use of Space Hulk terrain in the new rules. So I bought the Abbadon book, and noticed you need twice the amount of terrain for some of the missions than what the "Into the Dark" box offered. What do I do? ...Then GW released their "Boarding Actions" terrain set, with twice the terrain than the "Into the Dark" KT box. But why would I buy the BA box, only to have TOO MUCH terrain in the end? So my only solution would be to wait for the next KT-Gallowdark box for the second half of the terrain I need, to have enough for the "Boarding Actions" missions. By the time I figured that out, I missed out on the "Shadowvaults" KT box, and waited for the "Soulshackle" KT box a month later, that I managed to pre-order right when it went live on the GW site.... I mean, in the grand scheme of it all, I did wind up saving a lot of money, since the kits were $220 (CAD, x2 = $440+/-), against $900+/- worth of plastic and books, if I were to buy them all separately...
I bought the Octarius set last december for 80€ (Massive discount). 4 days ago I bought the Kroot Kill team because they look really cool and pretty and 1- No money for big sets (I'm a not working student, I paint comissions tho) 2- the sets aren't available anywhere, I believe my local (60km away) store didn't get any copies of into the dark or soul shakle. I think the Kill teams should come with their own stats, not necessarly the rules of the game but the team's stats. Like, I wanna build them and paint them but what loadouts do I glue? Yes I can use sites to get that information but it's illegal.
I've gone in hard on KT. Here's why:
The last GW game I played was 40K 2nd ed. Was away from the hobby for 20 years, but kept both of my armies and all my books. When I returned a year ago, everything had changed so much, that getting into 9th ed seemed almost like starting over. Which was discouraging since I had two large forces. But, they'd need considerable reworking to play in the current system.
So Kill Team seemed like an easy way back in... Figured I could try out a lot of different forces, to see how I liked them. Plus, even if I didn't stick with KT, I would be collecting a lot of terrain I could eventually use in 40k.
But, after playing KT, I found I really liked it. I got the entire last season. But, this season, I've only gotten Shadowvaults, mainly for the reasons you mentioned. I haven't liked the forces that come in the other boxes that much, and since the terrain didn't entice me, there was no reason to get them.
If Gallowfall has forces that I like, I will probably get that one as well. But, even if I had loved all the minis that come in the current season, I would have been hard-pressed to buy all four of them. I agree that far fewer people are going to buy every big release from Warcry and Kill Team if they continue with this strategy. Hopefully it doesn't cause them to just discontinue their skirmish line, eventually.
Considering the “space hulk” is an amalgamation of ships from different races/species, the fact that that all the space hulk terrain in each season isn’t representative of the races in the box, is very disappointing. Wouldn’t it be cool to explore the looks of different ships of Necrons, or Orks, or Chaos Space Marines, or Tyranids…you get the idea.
I've been pondering the same things recently. As of today (and I think at least since Tuesday) the Skinks vs Masked dudes box is no longer available, at least at my country's GW store. I was quite surprised it lasted so long, as to be still avaialble when the vampires vs Khorne doggo cosplayers came out. But AFAIR it was similar for Into the Dark, which was still avaialable when Shadowvaults came out (and Shadowvaults sold out quite fast).
I do buy all the KT boxes, since the inception of the new edition. I quite like the ruleset and I'm having fun playing it (although I do understand most of the things that people don't like, I do get confused with the visibility rules for some edge cases). Also, my decision making for buying them is: if I like of want at least two of the three things (2 armies, terrain set) I get the box... and thus far it was true for every release. I didn't own any terrain before, so all the boxes in the previous season had at least one advantage. Then I liked both teams in Octarius, SoB in Chalnath, both in Nachmund (even if CSM only get an upgrade sprue), The Blooded in Moroch. Then in the new season it was: yay for twice the Gallowdark terrain (as now I can play boarding action), thrice yay for all the teams, with the third terrain set being redundant. Unless I run a small KT event for some friends and we can have a couple of tables simultaneously - but again, I doubt that all of them would be those close corridors games.
As for Warcry, some of the new releases made me interested, but the fact that there is no essentials set with tokens is off-putting. Acrylic tokens are really expensive from what I've seen, so I would probably resort to print them, as it's impossible to grab them from GW.
The thing is, the board size and combining potential *isn't new*. It was a thing in KT 18, where the boards all had flipsides for combining purposes. Same for Warcry.
And with Warcry, they used to (and still do!) Actively encourage combining terrain sets. Every box contains those terrain setup cards to shuffle, and they do keep using stuff from the core box/Heart of Ghur.
Tbh, at least for Warcry, the terrain is also different enough for me, and the campaign growth content (every box comes with separate new objectives!), That I am annoyed I am not a Warcry only player, and the teams in the sets have to compete with other stuff.
It's a really fun model of releases, really helping you get into the setting, but the price in combination of me feeling sorta "meh" about the teams more often than not (and the terrain, until the Bloodhunt box and the idea to put flock on the meat trees) almost break my heart: A great idea and concept, roadblocked by being... Certainly *bold* in design decision, but maybe too bold.
As someone said: A more conventional, Mordheim/city style design would have been *fantastic*, and really let the game be something to focus on. A bigger board is just kinda flavourful, I dunno.
I think they're just trying to be way, way too many things at once and not pleasing anyone *really* in the compromise. Which is a shame, since I love a lot of those ideas.
But as someone entering the hobby. In order to have an optimal start, you need to find the first box with everything included. They do have a kill team starter set for kill team, but you don’t get everything included. So it’s cheaper to just buy the rules and Etsy the rest of the supplies than hunt down that first box.
You can also join 40k boarding action (especially) / AOS game with having to add just combat patrol box (don't know AoS equivalent is it still Start Collecting?) So you have 4 cool teams to play, and for a different box you can already setup new game :)
I think in AoS are calles Vanguard boxes and yes, I agree with you.
I wanted to start with Kill Team but I didnt want the Orcs nor the Krieg units so I didnt get the first box with the orcs terrain. I could've have bought the bix but than I would still need to buy the compendium to play anything else besides those two armies. So I've waited.
Than they've released thenstarter set with the same models but less terrain so that was even less interesting to me.
I wanted to get into chalnath since I love myself some T'Au Empire, the imperial terrain could be easily used with my already existing terrain for 40K but there were no rulebook or Tokens in that box. So if I wanted to stsrt with Chalnath, Id had to buy the essntial dice, rulers, and Tokens, than the rulebook and the compendium on top and that is just not a good starting point so I eventually gave up the idea of starting playing Kill Team.
I think the quarterly boxes are sold the way they are with the terrian for another reason you didnt mention. It could be they are also doing this for players or new players who may not be interested in the previous/current box set and wait until a set comes a long they may want to buy a quarterly box for rather than the cheaper single unit boxes. I did this with the kasirkin/necron box set. I only wanted the kroot when Into the Dark launched, and didnt get a full box set with terrain until the kasirki/ necron box 2 boxes later
I bought Into the Dark and Soulshackle just to get two birds with one stone: 1. start with KT and 2. get the terrain for boarding actions.
And I'm still waiting for my ordered terrain set from the Shadowvaults box (I buy the book later) to have the opportunity to play those missions, too.
I don't know how I approach the final Gallowfall stuff but my plan is to have this one whole KT season and the boarding actions stuff (AoO books), build it and play it with no need to expanding it. Just like a modern version of Starquest(German name)/SpaceCrusade - that Game I wanted as a kid but didn't get.
I've had Octarius sitting around for a year. I haven't learned it yet because from the outside it seems like everything changed really rapidly and I don't feel like I have time to keep up with it. Slowing down big box releases would definitely help with that feeling. Even if it is an inaccurate one.
Octarius is still perfectly valid. Box releases are basically new factions and new terrain kits (usually with some minor optinpal rules exclusively for narrative play). ItD released a new mode of play, however it's not a replacement for open (as in non-interior) play. Even Octarius factions are still relevant, because KT is rather well balanced :). Kill Team is not big 40k fortunately. While there are new teams released every quarter, if you don't pick those up, there is very little to catch up. Balance dataslates maybe, but those changes are minor and easy to follow.
@@CirroStratus thanks for the input. That makes it feel much more worth the time to learn it.
@@OriginPainting Orctarius is in fact one of the most popular terrain sets to play on, in my experience, and I think we'll see it be used in tournaments untill such a time as when the game is completely revamped (if they do).
@@MiBasse awesome, time to go learn 😁
4 boxes of the same terrain for kill team means I only have to pick 2 of 4 up to get the “new” stuff
GW product strategy has loooong been based on bundling things together to justify high prices but forcing purchases of things people don’t really want.
It would be smarter to offer:
- a rotating starter set
- regular terrain/supplement releases
- rolling releases of ready to play Kill Teams
I am pretty sure GW does not care about long-term effects. Each edition lives for only three years, after all. So whoever they loose from seasons fatigue will be likely recaptured by new edition (or at least it will attract new people to replace the losses).
I personally do not mind the same terrain (as long as it comes with new neat extras), but that's only because I lend my terrain for local stores (for community use) and local events. It is nice to have my own copy that is always at home and a lending copy. This way I won't be too upset if something gets broken or stolen. And I enjoy a 'bundle discount' on the content of season boxes.
Also - as a rabid kitbasher - I want to create thematic boards: tyranid infested, chaos-defiled, ork-occupied, used-to-be-a-craftworld and even just a fancy imperial ship board with cleaned up interiors (for my custodes/rogue traders). Basically, a home turf for my kill teams. Which will require permanent additions to the same walls. So for me personally space hulk season boxes are not enough, and I will be picking up more walls.
At the same time, I fully agree that for someone who only wants to play at home this is too much of samey terrain (and I hope local people with this problem will sell walls to me for cheap 🤣).
I’m honestly surprised there are enough people willing to pay these prices to keep GW going. I definitely agree how they SHOULD be doing this. Have starter boxes always available, which contain ever you need to play, and sell everything else separately. Come out with new war bands and terrain on some manageable schedule for those players that want to expand the game. I doubt GW will do that though, they seem far more interested in squeezing every last nickel out of their customers.
I got Octarius and Chalnath during pre order. But I wanted Krieg units and Sisters miniatures. Other than that I can honestly say that none of the other boxes interested me much. Games Workshop is a business and they need to make money, I am not surprised that one faction is old miniatures Tau were old minis with an upgrade sprue if I remember right. Not dissing GW but I am more interested in Historical stuff these days.
For GW skirmish games, warcry rules, warcry army lists, kill team rules and primaris army list are all free. So, skirmish games is so accessible today. Even for minis, the smallest WHAOS and WH40K starter boxes are enough to play
I think it's really more that they want the skirmish players to 'graduate' into big army games. I understand that they're very different games and that skirmish players don't necessarily want to move to army games, but kill team especially has always seemed like an onboarding system for 'big' 40k.
They also tend to separately sell the terrain kits on their own without the kill team stuff (and they're usually an amazing deal, at least in the UK).
Skirmish leads to army terrains , having four different but linked terrains create a cool ghur terrain , so it’s to flesh out Ghur this broken realm focus area
I agree this new format w the same terrain is a very bad idea. I love having a quarterly release to look forward to but I think each box should have the smaller version rulebook that is in the Kill Team Starter tho. A box w the same old terrain and no core rule book - that's also OUT OF STOCK - makes it pretty hard for new hobby folk to get interested in this stuff. The Into the Dark terrain is nice and has it's uses but GW really missed the mark on the inside VS outside terrain. They could have had different interior looks to the Gallowdark as you explore deeper inside the Spacehulk. Hobby on ....
Totaly agree with you. That is also the reason why i stopped buying Warhammer any more. I paint what i have, and play with what i have. Having so much releases doesn't get me excited, just makes me sad. I might buy some of the Kill Teams or Warbands separetly, but i havent done so yet, despite some of them being out for quite a while.
Honestly, as a 25 year old who have been into this hobby for 7 years, i just wish that things were "just as before". I got into Warcry when Catacombs came out, and since bought all separate Warbands up to Heart of Ghur. It was awesome, we had accessible warbands who came with different languages (Not english speaker my self) and plenty of weapon and head choices. It was also amazing to get those different terrain sets for like 60$ (600 norwegian crones for us) which i used in LotR and DnD. It was also amazing to get different creatures like ogre, this cat sphinx thing and a cyclopse. It was accesable and possible to buy separetly. It was also in stock for most of the time. Now, i cant really put the word right on why i dont find new Warbands intriguing, but i guess they just lack something for me. The whole idea that if you dont buy "this" set in a few days then you will lose it forever puts me off even more.
The Kill Team holds a special place in my heart. The "first" kill team was amazing and flexible with elites and such. I always disliked the 40k scale, i just wanted a small team of fighters whom i can paint really well and have a good time with on the board. What came after was Kill Team 2.0. And the rules were actually great and easy to use. But the price was way too high. Yes, the first Kill Team was a smaller version of 40K, but you could use any model and put it in your Kill Team or create an awesome scenario where your guardsman have to fight 3 Necron Lords who have just awakened. Or the idea that your Tau force manged to find an old Stealth suit in the end of their campaign and use it in the finale battle. Or when my friend played Drukhari and i played only as a Sly Marbo, where i have put traps all over the junge terrain and the whole game became this battleship style guessing game where he had to get to his ship alive and save some of the stuff he pillaged. I could use any model, compare its stats that come with the models in the original boxes any way and use it in my Kill Team without problems.
With the coming of the new Kill Team and all those "tailored teams" i cant do any thing with my older models. All the new Kill Teams are super specialized and have special rules that can only be applied to this specific Kill Team. And the rules are locked behind those books and huge boxes. To buy a team is not enough, while warcry warbands come with cards, Kill Team just makes it so much worse. Already having the book and trying to convert already existing models to the ones in the book is almost impossible or takes a lot of effort.
All of this just makes me sad and most importantly just puts me away from their current and future products.
I would argue that keeping the terrain the same for Kill Team is actually a positive for consumer friendliness. It's the exception not the norm to buy all of the boxsets of a certain series, while most people will only buy one for practical and economic reasons. Keeping the terrain the same minimizes FOMO because you aren't missing out if you don't buy say, the 3rd box which is unique in the series. And the Kill Teams themselves follow about 2-3 months after the boxset they come in which is not a hard wait either, so there's no real FOMO there (to anyone with an ounce of willpower who knows the release schedule). Buying the one big boxset you like, then maybe picking up some solo teams when they release is imo much healthier for the consumer than multiple big boxes which, I can be fairly certain, if GW wanted to would be made mandatory for play (because of course they would).
I bought the Nachmund box because it had both of my favorite factions and some additional terrain for missions from the Nachmund book. For the "inside" season I only got the terrain and the game board + rules for 40 euros. For me (like many others) who only plays Kill Team and have nothing to do with the big 40K, it really makes no sense to buy several of these "inside" boxes because they are so similar. I'm really skeptical about what GW is coming up with for Kill Team's third season.
The season model has single-handedly killed my interest in pursuing Kill Team or Warcry any further. Having the new models locked in these massive boxes on release is a major buzzkill. The fact is, I don't want to have to struggle every few months deciding whether I want to pay a major premium just to play with new factions.
I hate those big quarterly boxes. I don't mind 1-2 a year if there is different terrain in them. But definitly a starter box that is always available is essential for getting new players into the game.
I had bought every Warcry set up to Heart of Gur. After HoG I didn't bother, because:
Space, the boxes are big.
Cost, they are not cheap.
Repeats, similar terrain doesn't make much sense to me.
If these boxes were spaced out more, say 1 a year, with completely different terrain (like they had been up to this point), I'd still be buying every one. But at this point I will probably only buy 1 out of each season, and maybe not even then because GW broke their 'gotta collect them all' hold they had over me previously.
I think you’re right, it’s a reasonable theory that GW is repeating terrain on 3 month runs as a cost efficiency move for production-given how much they struggle to keep sets in stock, I think they’re being very conservative, for fear of on over producing stock.
Also agree with some other commenters that I think it’s unclear what cross-pollination GW envisions for Kill Team and Bighammer players-I suspect Kill Team is meant to introduce new people with smaller, more approachable boxes to slowly lure them into interest in buying larger (I’m curious especially to see if this will reflect in any major changes in 10th edition rules that bring it closer to kill team.
Lastly though-this seasons model reflects video games like Fortnite, CoD, and Destiny with seasons. With a bigger push on organized competitive play in Kill Team, and most competitions centered around the current season’s terrain (Into the Dark-exclusive seems common for tournaments as of now), keeping one standardized set of terrain per season moves it more to a sort of subscription model; the only way to continue participating in tournaments is to buy at least one new box each season cycle.
My issue with the gnarlwood terrain is that one box doesn't feel like enough terain on the board, plus I buy every warcry box for the sake of having the full warcry collection
I miss the early warcry days where there was an amazing core box then stand alone warband releases along side self contained terrain sets
Something you didn't touch on is the books. So let's say I want one of the new teams, but not the whole box. I could buy that team and the corresponding book, but now I have rules for another team, more terrain bits, and missions that require that specific terrain composition. So then I think I might as well get all of it since I'll have all the rules. And then I'm convinced to just buy the box.
I wish the rules weren't in two-team booklets, but it makes business sense for them. FOMO gets people buying the missing part of their book.
I was excited for boarding action only to find I need to find a second half of the gallow dark terrain or fork over $200 for more terrain than i need
I think the main idea behind the Into the Dark season is to entice existing players into buying at least one of the season's boxes - everyone was really hyped to try a new format for Kill Team, but it's contingent on that new terrain. So even if you're a player who has a bunch of teams already, one of those big boxes is a tempting buy, specifically to get that corridor terrain. The big boxes are always going to be a gateway for new players, but the season format is a way to bring back seasoned players who may already have a few teams under their belts, I think.
I think it comes down to whether you like the terrain or not, like I don't like the warcry terrain which is partially why I'm not interested in those boxes. For Kill Team I actually do like them keeping the terrain mostly the same because Into the Dark actually plays different enough from regular kill team that I like that they are supporting that somewhat separate game mode a lot. Also they did add some new cards to update the regular kill team missions and rules recently. We'll see if I like it in the next season in kill team though.
Have you played on the different Warcry terrain sets during this Ghur season? Yes all trees are based on the one’s in the Heart of Ghur set but in the end they all play totally different. I have 0 intention to ever play AoS, but I love the diversity within the same style these bring because it’s really affecting the strategy. And mixing and matching now looks better than with the first edition of terrain only warcry sets.
it's funny, because it means that each subsequent box release will actually make more money per sale because after round one, they aren't paying off the manufacturing costs at all for the terrain.