When Games Workshop announced it was making pre-painted Warhammer 40k terrain, we all got very excited – and I, for one, remain so all these weeks later. But the big question in everyone’s mind was price: how much will this hurt my wallet? Well, as of Friday’s Big Summer Preview livestream, we now have a rough answer to that question and, as expected, yes, it is a lot of money dollars.
The Big Summer Preview was honestly packed with goodies – not least a fully operational, two player Warhammer: The Old World core set (finally) and an honest-to-goodness Exodites Kill Team (yes, you read that right). Not to mention an entire new Age of Sigmar army, a new edition of Necromunda – it goes on and on, and we’ll be digging into more of it this week. Price woes aside, GW promised an array of properly exciting non-40k stuff, and it delivered in spades.
But the main event, for me, was finally getting some hard details on that stunning ready painted terrain. Even though Papa Geedubs has unequivocally shot down my excitable predictions about pre-painted models, the prospect of a game store quality table setup, right out of the box, is still a thrill. And, for good or ill, GW, delivered clarity on that too (albeit in coded form).
Shown off on stream by WarCom’s Eddie Eccles and Adam Troke, the first opportunity to buy GW’s ready painted terrain will be in the Battlefields: Armageddon box – containing “everything you need for a full Incursion size [2000pts] game of Warhammer 40,000 in one box” and scheduled for release “towards the Autumn time or beyond”, after all the new Warhammer 40k starter sets.
After ably demonstrating the new terrain’s quick and easy, push-fit construction on camera, Eccles tells us: “In terms of price… it comes in at a little bit more than the cost of two Combat Patrols”.
Given a Combat Patrol box currently retails for $170 (£105), that means this pre-painted terrain set will be priced at over $340 (£210) – though how far over that depends on how you interpret the words “a little bit more”.
The stream also showcased the regular, unpainted terrain boxes under the “Warhammer 40k Battlefields” label – leading with the Combat Patrol: Battlezone box. According to Eccles and Troke, that contains half as much terrain as Battlefields: Armageddon, is dropping “fairly soon”, and “comes in at around the same price as a Combat Patrol itself”, i.e. $170 (£105).
So, at this stage, we’re given to understand that, at launch, GW’s ready painted terrain range will cost you just over twice as much as buying the same terrain pieces in regular gray sprue form.
GW also previewed three smaller, unpainted kits for separate parts of its Armageddon terrain range – the Manufactorum Ruins, Galvanic Network, and Capacitor Cluster. But it gave no clues on their pricing, and there was no mention of pre-painted versions of those smaller sets becoming available.
A price of 350 bucks or so, with a 2x markup versus regular gray terrain kits, is actually on the lower end of what I’d have predicted – considering the development cost involved, and the fact that an entire table of pre-painted terrain in one box is probably a product more tailored toward game clubs, stores, and highly engaged hobbyists rather than lower budget newbies.
But, at 50 bucks MORE than the Armageddon box you just bought (don’t lie, I know you did) it’s still a heck of an investment for any individual fan to make in one go. What do you think? Will you be saving your pennies and selling your least favorite army to get yourself a tableful of pre-painted scenery in the Fall? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community and let me know your take.
Source: Wargamer
