Games Workshop opens pre-orders this Saturday, July 11th, at around 1pm ET for a fresh wave of Warhammer 40,000 starter sets, the first big beginner push of the game's new 11th Edition. The boxes hit store shelves two weeks later on July 25th.
If Space Marine 2 left you wondering what the tabletop side of the 41st Millennium is all about, this is the weekend to pay attention!
The headliner is the new Warhammer 40,000: Starter Set, which packs two full Combat Patrol forces. Space Marines on one side and Orks on the other, plus the Core Rulebook, a Starter Set Handbook, two battlefield boards, terrain, dice, and rulers. Spikeybits pegs it at $250 in the States, with official pricing to be confirmed when the pre-order listings go live Saturday.
That big box tops a three-tier beginner slate. The Introductory Set ($77 per the same rundown) is the toe-dip option: a Space Marine Lieutenant, five Intercessors, an Ork Nob, five Boyz, six paints, a playmat, card terrain, a brush, dice, and a 48-page handbook.
Above that sit two Getting Started sets ($170 each), one for Space Marines and one for Orks, each bundling a full Combat Patrol with 11 paints and a faction intro booklet.
Smaller $35 miniatures-and-paints bundles and a $45 paints-and-tools kit round out the lineup, alongside a trio of Black Library hardbacks led by Ghosts of Cadia.
Yes, that means you could be rolling dice in the grim darkness of the far future for under $80!
The other big beginner signal is Codex: Orks. Games Workshop confirmed in its Big Summer Preview that the greenskins get the FIRST codex of 11th Edition, a 178-page slipcase book with 15 detachments right out of the gate, arriving alongside new Ork kits like a redesigned Trukk, a new Mek, and a Warboss with 16 head options.
GW hasn't pinned a release date on the book yet, and Wargamer estimates that it will land at the end of July or the start of August, rather than in Saturday's wave.
Why does the edition number matter if you've never pushed a model across a table? A new edition resets the rules for everybody. Veterans and rookies are all learning 11th Edition from page one this summer, which makes right now the least intimidating moment to walk into a game store in years.
Edition-opening starter boxes have also historically been the cheapest real way into the game, since they bundle two armies, the rulebook, and the play surface for well under what those pieces cost individually. And leading the codex line with Orks tells you the rollout order: the two starter-box factions get their full army books first.
This is, of course, the same universe you've been fighting through in Space Marine 2. If you've spent the past two years purging Tyranids as Lieutenant Titus, the Intercessors in these boxes will look VERY familiar.
Saber's shooter pulled a massive new audience into Games Workshop's setting, and that pipeline keeps growing, with the Techmarine class abilities recently revealed for the game. The tabletop is where all of that lore started back in 1987!
One more thing to keep an eye on this week. The global Siege of Death Mire campaign, which has players worldwide logging real game results to decide the fate of a hive city on Armageddon, wraps up on July 13th. Week 2 went to the Imperium, and the win unlocked a brand-new Ultramarines character: Kaius Konorius, Marneus Calgar's champion, who carries a pair of blades named Severance and Rebuke. Expect the full reveal treatment once the campaign closes.
So where do you actually start? Grab the $77 Introductory Set if you just want to find out whether painting and rolling dice is for you, go Getting Started if you already know your faction, and split the $250 Starter Set with a friend if you've got a willing co-op partner, since it's two complete armies in one box. They all land on July 25th.
For the Space Marine 2 crowd specifically: what's standing between you and the tabletop? The price, the painting, or finding an opponent? If one of these boxes gets you in, are you joining the Space Marines or the Orks? Let us know in the comments below!
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