Warhammer 40K: Build & Paint Series 1 Review

Last summer, Games Workshop released a Warhammer 40k product called Battle for Vedros. This was a fairly low-cost starter set using some old Assault on Black Reach Space Marines and Orks and an extremely simplified rule set. It was intended to be sold outside of the usual channels, such as in upscale toy stores and non-gaming hobby shops. I really liked the concept and I played quite a few games using the Vedros stuff with my then-six year old son. It was that simplified! Unfortunately, I don't think Games Workshop really knew how to handle the product and it sort of disappeared. But now, it looks as if the kid-appeal spirit of Battle for Vedros lives on in a new Build & Paint series.

They almost look like M.A.S.K. toys!

Take a look at the boxes- I love them. They look like the kind of boxes that G.I. Joe toys used to come in back before everything was in window boxes. The illustrations are perfectly pitched to a kid mentality, even if that kid is 41 (in my case). The kits look fun, approachable and cool even as just model kits if you never play Warhammer with them. And, get this- they come with glue, paints, stickers, and a paintbrush. A couple of the kits even come with some great scatter terrain It's almost hard to believe how inexpensive these are, with the biggest and most expensive sets selling for $33.99 here at Miniature Market.

The big kits are Space Marine Heavy Assault, which is of five Terminators and a great Dreadnaught, and Space Ork Raiders. That kit includes a Deffkopta, which is the only way to get these janky but charming Ork flyers aside from eBay. It also comes with an excellent Warboss, some Boyz and some Nobz. Vehicles are included in Series 1, with a Space Marine Land Speeder, an Ork Wartrukk, and bikes for both sides.

These are all not particularly top-shelf units in game terms, but they are perfect for a kid or someone just getting into the game looking for an inexpensive option to jump-start one of these two armies. If you happened to be one of the ten or fifteen people who managed to get a Battle for Vedros set, all of these make outstanding additions to that set. It does feel like something of a mistake to not include any kind of quick start rules in the box- it's almost as if these are pitched primarily as model kits or toys. That's not necessarily a bad idea, but I'm not keen on selling these as a kid-friendly product that directs them to expensive rulebooks and extremely complex gameplay. Granted, the new 8th edition of 40k is on the immediate horizon and its promise of simpler - and free - rules may prove that a moot point. Once the free rules hit, it will only render these an even greater value for beginners.

Now, here's the rub. These are generally older kits- some of them are sculpts that are well over a decade old. The Ork Wartrukk and Blastabike are particularly tragic as these kits are so ancient that the Orks they come with aren't even the same size, scale, or shape as the Greenskins are now. The Space Marine kits are mostly decent monopose/"push fit" varieties, but they are still not the top-of-the-line models like you will find in a box of Thousand Sons Rubric Marines or anything like That. As far as the modelling supplies you get go, you get a basic brush that a couple of pots of base paints with each set. You won't be doing any extensive layering with these sets and frankly I think it was an oversight not to throw in a little 3ml pot of Nuln Oil or Agrax Earthshade in with each as well- washes like that are great to bolster the confidence of a novice painter. Another complaint on this angle is that the paint pots in these sets tend to be somewhat unpredictable in terms of quality, consistency and usability to the point where I'm not sure these are actually the same great Citadel paints you can buy separately. I've had some pots out of these sets that were barely workable because they were dried out.

It really is everything you need...for now...

They are fun to put together and assemble with a minimum of stress and effort, but more serious hobbyists might find them a bit boring- and seasoned collectors likely have all of these kits in some form or another in their storage foams. But there again, if you look at these Build & Paint kits as kid-friendly, their value becomes apparent. I would pick up one of these in a heartbeat to give as a birthday present, and in fact I have already done so for the last couple of parties we've had to go to- I'd like to think that we might have introduced some more kids into the Warhammer hobby that way.

So these aren't the best or most exciting kits and if you are playing the game with them as they aren't really units that most players would regard as "competitive". But so what. The fun factor here is really high, and there is something irresistible about awesome, low-cost 40k models that have everything you need right there in the box.