Welcome to Armageddon! Literally the most fought over planet in the entirety of Warhammer 40k, it’s even changed its name if you go back far enough. But anyway, I digress, welcome to the Armageddon box for the 11th edition of Warhammer 40k. I’m hoping by now many of you have had a chance to try out the new edition and are enjoying it as much as I am. Instead of focusing on the edition itself, this is purely going to be looking into this box, what it gives you. Also, a side note. By the time this comes out the rules for both Orks and Space Marines will have changed because their codexes will be out, so I won’t dive into specific rules as much as I will the feel of each unit.
Box contents
What do you get in the box? Well quite a lot. Not all of it will be forever relevant, but it has something for everyone, plus the star attraction, a whole load of models.
Operation Imperator
At this point I don’t think there is any doubt when it comes to GW creating lore books, they are always of excellent quality, go into depth on whatever their topic is, contain plenty of amazing art and get us thoroughly on board with the setting. This is no exception. A 114 page book filled to the brim with all the lore of Armageddon, past and present. The artwork is stunning (I especially love giant Ork Gorkanauts waddling their way into a Hive city) and the miniatures are exceptionally well painted. It has a little bit of a general section at the end to introduce people to 40ks world as a whole and other factions, but that’s just a little add-on. One thing I did really like was that it shows off a load of Space Marine chapters present on Armageddon that aren’t well known, like the Dark Krakens, Imperial Harbingers and Marines Malevolent. Giving you a taste of these chapters plus a clear picture of their paint scheme is a really nice way to interest people in more unique corners of the galaxy, rather than the boy scouts which are the Ultramarines.
Core Rules
All the rules you’ll need to play the game (apart from your actual army and unit rules that is) now in a handy small softcover book. Being small and only 89 pages it is easy to transport to any events, plus pick up and flick through to find exactly what you need. The rules are all generally well written, and for the more confusing ones there are plenty of diagrams to help you understand. This is greatly appreciated because sometimes written rules can be interpreted in any number of different ways.
Missions Deck
The crown jewel of 11th edition, the new mission system. This deck, with its handy easy to read cards, plus the new disposition system, makes for much more dynamic and interesting battles that aren’t just ‘kill them all’ or ‘fight over 3 objectives’. These make it so you can gear your army towards the kind of objectives you want to play, while your opponent does the same, and you end up with a mission where you can both do the thing you want to do while hopefully messing with the opponents plans. Or just seeing who can do their thing more effectively. Secondary objectives are still around and still useful. Twists are still there, but while a couple do interesting things, a lot just mess with the carefully crafted formula which is the new mission system, therefore many people don’t use them. I would have liked to see more quirky twists. It would have been nice if the deployment maps featured the recommended terrain layouts as well. Now of course not everyone wants to use recommended layouts, but they are usually the most balanced way to play. At this time I think they are only available on the app, which isn’t ideal. That said they may have been too small on the cards to be actually useful.
One final thing to note for newer players, sometimes you’ll draw a secondary mission that isn’t physically possible to complete (involves transports when there are no transports for example). Several missions like this will say to re-draw if this happens, but not all of them, so it may be frustrating. If you are reading this, just house rule it to always re-draw impossible missions.
Campaign Deck
A hard one to properly review without playing a full campaign (I didn’t quite have that amount of time or friends available!) but I shall give you my impressions. If we take this deck in isolation, it’s perfectly fine. It gives you a way to string several missions together, give your force objectives, gain resources, upgrade your units, claim territory and generally add some narrative elements to your games. And the new mission system already made them more narrative, so this is a nice cherry on top.
It’s when it’s not in isolation it starts to fall apart. Because there are only limited cards, to not have things be awkward or to avoid cards getting lost, everyone in the campaign needs their own copy of that deck. Not the worst but not the best. Also, it’s a bit vanilla. In the last edition we had crusade rules in all the codexes chock full of individual lore and appropriate agenda and locations for our factions. It was very thematic. This edition's version is totally missing that and relies purely on the mission deck. You can, and should, expand the narrative with your own stories, but it would have been much nicer to keep the custom crusade rules each faction had, in combination with this deck somehow. We don’t currently know if more campaign decks will be coming out throughout the edition, like the previous, and quite immersive, campaign books.
But I digress, looking at this deck as purely a starting point to the edition and as something you get in this launch box, it’s honestly solid. The future will tell us the rest.
Datacards
Datacards, my old field. Here is something which right out of the box is great, but falls down 100m into the race. When you pick up this box, read the rules, build the models and want to get down to fighting, everything you need for all the units in the box is here, printed on high quality cards with nice imagery and clear text. For a new player these are without a doubt, great.
The problem comes with the cadence of Warhammer releases, and the fact that the two factions in a launch box are always the first two to get codex release. That means that by the time this review is released, albeit 3 months later, the rules on those cards are entirely out of date because the Ork and Space Marine codexes have been released. Does that mean you can’t use them? No, and for a new player I would recommend not worrying about these kinds of things and just enjoying the cool models you’ve bought with these rules for as long as you want. But it is annoying, and eventually you are left with a stack of nice cards destined for the trash (can they be recycled? I don’t know, but they have a shiny layer so that’s usually not a good omen).
Transfers
Not much to say here. Orks and Space Marines transfers galore for those of you who enjoy such things.
Miniatures
While everyone has their own opinion on what is cool, I’m going to give you mine! Your mileage may vary, but honestly I think most people agree we’ve got a pretty nice set of models here. Even if the Orks do tend to win on cool factor…
● Captain with Relic Shield - This is my captain, there are many like it but this one is mine. Stanley Kubrick would be proud. Yes it’s another Space Marine Captain, but he looks good none the less.
● Librarian - Wizened looking Librarian in a cool post. I swear they stole this pose off a Thousand Sons sorcerer, but it was cool the first time around and it’s still cool now. We can share.
● Jump Pack Chaplain - Chaplains are always a welcome sight to add some variation in the Space Marine ranks, and this one is nice. Good pose, and excellent use of tactical smoke for the stand.
● Ancient - Very nice, and a lot of what's on the banner is sculpted, so don’t worry so much that it’s only cool because of GWs awesome paint job.
● 10 Intercessors - What do you want me to say? They are Space Marines. Moving on.
● 5 Vanguard Veterans - Jump pack infantry never stop being cool, and they have some nice poses too. Although I know some people don’t like the whole ‘always jumping off a tactical rock’ look.
● 3 Eradicators with Heavy Bolters - Now these guys look boss. Super chunky and their guns look like they will do some serious damage. These are the ones I’ll be sad watching get shot off the board on the first turn.
● 1 Land Speeder - Never been a fan myself, but Land Speeders almost have a cult following. I’m glad all you cultists have a new one, and the base connector is actually pretty sturdy too.
● Warboss - On to the Orks. Yes, it’s a big Ork. Ok that’s unfair, it's a really nice sculpt with great details on it. Although I ain’t painting those checkers.
● Big Boss - Another big Ork, but different. Another nice sculpt. I especially like his badass axe and his little creature friend on the base.
● Banner Nob - This banner you DO have to paint well, at least partially, the bits at the bottom are at least sculpted on. The Ork carrying it looks cool too.
● Painboy with Grot Assistant - Possibly my favourite model in the whole box. Both of them. Ork ‘docs’ are something out of nightmares and this model gives you a great sense that whatever is coming, it’s properly worse than what you came in with. And if he doesn’t get you his determined assistant will!
● Weirdboy - Everyone I’ve spoken to, Orks lover or not, loves this model. It’s sheer madness perfectly encapsulates Ork psykers.
● 20 Boyz - "Orkz is best! Grab ya shootaz ya gitz!!" — Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka
● 10 Gretchin - The cannon fodder in an army already pretty cannon fodder heavy. I love the old school pointed helmets though.
● Wartrak - A solid Ork vehicle (looks not construction, this thing won’t hold together long in battle) with exactly the right amount of rockets!
● Big Mek Dakka Rig - You were all waiting for this weren’t you? Of course you were, it’s the Dakka Rig! What a machine. So big. So stompy. So laden with exposed ammunition drums that are begging for a stray bullet. This is definitely the most fun model in here and I think anyone will enjoy it on the battlefield, blasting away with its oversized cannon and multitude of rockets.
Putting it all together
All the models in this box are push fit, and honestly GW did a really good job with it. Early push fit models were often clunky and had issues with either staying in place or getting in place to start with. These however are really good. I think out of all the models in the box I glued two pieces, and that was just to make them a little more sturdy. Certainly for someone new to the hobby who hasn’t mastered the art of building quite yet, these are perfect. I haven’t had any parts fall off yet either, and I’ve thrown them around a fair bit.
Sometimes these big boxes with combined sprues can get confusing. Thankfully GW added a nice sprue diagram to each of the instruction pages indicating which parts on which sprue belonged to the current model. This was a great help looking for specific small parts on a sprue that also built several other models.
So yeah, all in all I had a really good experience building these.
Taking it to battle
Orkses never lose a battle. If we win, we win, if we die, we die fightin' so it don't count. If we runs for it, we don't die neither, so we can always come back for anuvva go!
What I did when reviewing this box was to play one battle against a friend myself (I was Orks) and then got two other friends to play against each other and give me their feedback.
In the first battle against my friend Dink, we didn’t worry about missions, we kind of just threw some units down, got a feel for them and had some fun. Things turned out surprisingly balanced. The Orks won but not by much, and it could have gone either way if my dice rolls hadn’t been as good. All the units were fun to play with, with the Space Marines feeling a bit more stoic compared to the wildness of the Orks, but both worked well. Sadly I manoeuvred the Dakka Rig badly so it didn’t get a chance to cause chaos for half the battle, but I made sure my other friends knew to get it stuck in.
In the second battle, Mike vs Mike, a battle for the ages, they did things more sensibly. They picked dispositions and as such generated proper missions from the mission deck. Plus used secondaries throughout. This is of course the right way to do things and leads to a much better game. It was during this game that we discovered that the Ork Waaaaagh army ability…is terrifying. If timed right and you roll well, you can do some serious damage to your opponent (although if it’s timed badly you are very much on the back foot for the rest of the battle. There were numerous clashes including the Dakka Rig and Land Speeder getting into a fist fight, the Weirdboy and Librarian getting into a fist fight (there were a lot of fist fights), and, of course, the eradicators getting pummeled off the board early on (I shed a tear). The Orks took the victory in the end, but both players enjoyed their game and happily chatted to me on their thoughts of the set as they went along. One thing that was mentioned was that the box could do with some pre-created army lists, that also include your armies disposition and main army rule. The dispositions especially are essential for using the mission deck that comes in the box, so is a glaringly obvious omission.
It might seem like the Orks are the standout in this box from what I’ve said so far. And honestly, you might be right. But that’s because that’s what Orks DO. They stand out. The Space Marines are just as good, just as capable in a fight, just in different, more sensible ways. So don’t give up on them just yet.
Where to go from here
Honestly, the rule of cool is king. The box gives you a really solid start for both armies with no obvious holes to worry about. What you get next is going to depend on both what you think would look cool in your army, and what kind of army you want to play. Do you want to go vehicle heavy with the Space Marines? Or maybe you want more line infantry? Do you want more giant Orks? Or maybe you are going with a true horde and just want to flood the board with Boyz and Gretchin? These are some of the choices but there are many more. The choice is yours.
Conclusion
The Armagaddon box is a great way to start the new edition and it comes with a good variety of content. It gives you nearly everything you need to start playing and includes tons of fantastic models, whichever side you choose. The rulebook is easy to use, the mission deck is smooth and the unit cards are helpful. You will get hours of fun putting together your models before you even get them to the tabletop.
Its flaws are more focused on the new player experience. Those unfamiliar with the game might struggle to realise that on top of the unit rules, you also need your army and detachment rules etc. The lack of army lists in the box with attached dispositions is a worse omission because it means using the well crafted missions is effectively impossible. Existing players won’t struggle with this, they know the score, but for new players the experience could definitely have been improved.
That said, me and my friends will certainly be getting a lot of use out of this boxset in the future and it’s an excellent addition to any Space Marine or Ork players collection. Keep an eye out for future articles where you just might see what kind of crazy paint schemes we’ve come up with for all the models. Until then, happy gaming!
