Growing Pains - Starter Set Comparisons

Right now I find myself doing a lot of research. 

With my part of the world still in lockdown, there are only so many ways to enjoy the hobby, and aside from painting and modeling, studying feels like a productive use of hobby time, especially with some of the goals I have in mind for 2021. This has looked like continuing to collect and read rulesets of games outside that of my local community, investing time in thriving online communities, and watching the titans of the industry and how they operate whenever they unload a new edition of their flagship series.

I'm talking about Warhammer 40k. 

9th Edition is dropping like so many drop pods, and with it comes a new series of Starter boxes. Lucky for me, my LGS had a copy of the 8th Edition "First Strike" box, which appears to be a comparable product to the Recruit Edition, and so I purchased both with the hopes of comparing and contrasting the contents, and how accessible the boxes are for new players.

Spoiler alert, 9th wins but still has a ways to go. There, I saved you seven minutes. For those of you with a smidge more time, here's the breakdown in three categories.

Miniatures

Both boxes come with a cool selection of models, 8th Ed with Primaris Space Marines and Deathguard, and then 9th with the former and the Necrons. The model count is 15 to 20 respectively, and as this Bell of Lost Souls article states, the First Strike box doesn't contain full model counts for any of the units contained therein, whereas the Recruit box does, and has units that can become the base for a starter army. This doesn't waste your time, or compel you to chase an extra handful of minis to round out your units, so where miniature contents are concerned, points for the round go to 9th Ed.

Side note: the models in the 8th Ed starter are colored plastic, which while I don't love the material is really great for differentiating the two included factions. Additionally, I find these models an easier fit than the 9th Ed minis. If this were a standalone board game (and in some cases I'm sure it is,) the 8th Ed box would win this round.

Rules

I'm not judging here which version of the rules is better, but which starter set helps you learn the rules easier. Both starter sets have short campaigns to get you eased in, where they gradually introduce the concepts of moving, shooting, charging, combat and morale. 9th does this in an intuitive way, where it's manual builds the concepts into the missions, so the scenarios become the rulebook. This feels more illustrative than 8th's approach, which separates the core rulebook from the scenarios, and chooses different places to omit information that isn't necessary to enjoying the starter box.

However, I think the Recruit box suffers for not having a core rulebook at all, since the rules it decides to include are staggered through the four intro scenarios. There's a link to the rules PDF in the back, but having the little 20-something page booklet wouldn't have broken the bank, and seeing how the handful of phases and concepts you've just been taught now slot into the full core rules would have been the perfect way to stick the landing. Being an under-30 who grew up without consistent internet access, I can see how this omission would have impacted me as a younger person with little to no financial stability, especially if the only full hard copy of the rules is a daunting 65 bux and 300+ pages. Poor people deserve access to games, period the end, and for that I'm going to say the rules category is a tie. 9th illustrates its concepts better in the big oversized manual, but 8th gave you more to chew on without turning you upside down to shake out your pockets.

Growing up poor I'm a bit jaded with the practices and prices of industry giant Games Workshop. I wrote a few comics about it in 2013, and got some really negative stuff out of my system, but I don't want to diminish impact of price increases that keep people of impoverished communities out of wargaming, and the predatory practices that encourage that FOMA spending (fear of missing out limited edition garbage.) Which of these boxes is a better starter? 9th's starter box is a better value, and also its the version of the game everyone will be playing when we're allowed to breathe at eachother again, so if you were looking for a review telling you what to buy, Recruit Edition is a decent introduction to the hobby. Neither box is perfect though, and I think that's an important takeaway from this quick and dirty comparison; we can always do better whether you're a person living in a world or a company who's goal is to sell books and miniatures. 

Thanks for reading.