Start Collecting Astra Militarum
Greetings one and all
After taking a long break, I thought I would return to my reviews of the Games Workshop Start Collecting Boxsets.
The Astra Militarum are the hammer of the imperium, the mortal men that hold back the tide of darkness and filth that would overrun humanities worlds and slaughter their populations. Where there is killing and dying to do, the Astra Militarum will be there, backed up by the ever-inspiring commissars just in case someone decides they have better places to be.
But is the Start Collecting kit good value for money and value on the tabletop? Let's dive in and find out.
Start Collecting Astra Militarum contains: 1 Leman Russ Battle Tank, 1 Cadian Heavy Weapon Team, 1 Officio Prefectus Commissar, and 10 Cadian Shock Troops.In my opinion, a fairly well rounded selection of units.
Using Games Workshops RRP as a guide, the units within this boxset tally up as follows:
1 Leman Russ Battle Tank = £35
1 Cadian Heavy Weapon Team = £7.99 (price based off avange on eBay)
1 Officio Prefectus Commissar = £17.50
10 Cadian Shock Troops.= £22.50
All in all, this boxset combined comes to £82.99 in total. Though do bear in mind that the Heavy Weapon Team can’t be bought on it’s own, so there's a couple pounds of wingle room in this total cost.
At RRP the Start Collecting Astra Militarium boxset is £55, which results in a saving of £27.99. This is about average for these boxsets.
But now we ask, does the contents of this boxset have value on the table top?
The short answer is - yeah.
The long answer is - still yeah. The Leman Russ can be a monster with the sheer amount of firepower it can put out each turn. The battle cannon is most certainly the way to go with this kit (though it’s very easy to make it so you can swap out the turret weapons depending on your needs).
No one's gonna claim the standard guardsmen are an overpowered unit. Low armour saves, low BS, low toughness; but what they lack in power they make up for in a wide range of weapon options that can be tailored to perform most roles pretty well. The fact that they can also receive orders that can boost their potential, only make them more versatile.
Overall this is a fairly good kit. It has some rebuyabilty, though I do think the choice of a Commissar as an HQ choice weakens this boxset a bit. That being said, if you buy say 3 of these boxsets and cap it off with a Command Squad, you’ve got a fairly good core for an army.