Today, we’re looking at a few examples of how you can add to these units to help turn your set into a thematic Battalion Detachment ready to join your wider collection or engage in larger battles as an army in its own right. First up, it’s the mighty Angels of Death… Start Collecting! Vanguard Space Marines

First off, these little fellows are little. Before this, my experience of minis this size had come from the Chainrasp Horde from issue one of Mortal Realms, who were each made from two or three reasonably well-sized parts that could be push-fitted and went onto their bases without so much as a creak of protest. The Skeleton Warriors, though, are a far-cry from this. Each figure is broken into at least seven parts: the base, legs and pelvis, the torso, the right arm with a weapon, the left arm, a shield, and finally the head. Given the size of each component, this is challenging.I decided I loved painting skeletons when I painted the banner of my Stormcast Eternal Lord-Relictor. This fellow is using one as a banner and is waving him around above his head as if he’s no heavier than a scrap of cloth. Contents: 1 Primaris Battle Leader (HQ), 10 Intercessors (Troops), 3 Aggressors (Elites), 1 Space Wolves Primaris upgrade sprue Whilst this piece was easy enough to repair in the short-term, this caused me some big problems further down the line. Once Arkhan and his mount were assembled – I kept them separate to paint, though am unsure if I would recommend doing this to anyone else given what followed – I was faced with the task of getting Arkhan into his saddle and getting the reins to line up with either side of the beast’s head once they were all painted. This was, by far, the worst modelling experience I’ve ever had.

The Orks box has the dubious honour of being the only Start Collecting without a legal HQ choice in it, thanks to force organisational changes in 8th edition. The contents aren’t terrible however and if you’re building an Ork horde you’re going to need savings wherever you can get them. Nobz may not be an especially optimal unit for Orks right now, but it’s an extraordinarily characterful kit full of useful bitz. The Craftworlds box is extremely weird. It’s an incredible saving over buying the kits individually – if you want any two of them, you might as well buy this instead and get the others essentially free – but as a place to do what it says on the tin and start collecting Craftworld Eldar it’s woeful, since there’s no actual Troops in here. There’s only two elves, even, and one of them is piloting a War Walker. Still, most of the units are at least passable to good, and it’s quite a hefty chunk of points, too. The spirits – both those on the base and those inside the mount – were based with Celestra Grey, washed with Biel-Tan Green, and very lightly highlighted with Ulthan Grey to achieve the below effect. Given how straightforward this was, I was amazed by how convincing and multi-toned the end result was The only place you can actually get Venomcrawlers, Greater Possessed, or the new Obliterators, the new SC: Chaos Space Marines is a pretty decent deal, even if those were available elsewhere. Every single unit in the box got a points drop in Chapter Approved 2019 and the only stinker in the box is the Master of Possession (and you can proxy that as a Sorcerer with most players). You can also get by pretty well without the units in this box however, so it’s also not particularly necessary to buy. One thing to note: the guide suggests you paint two small parts separately: the spirit-skulls on the front of the creature Arkhan is riding’s chest and the rear of its ribcage. I would recommend assembling the entire torso and tail – bar arms and legs – and painting to completion before continuing. From there, I would assemble the head, arms, and as many of the spirits as you can and paint them all up before attaching them to any part of the model. Start Collecting: Skeleton Horde Review – Painting Painting: Skeleton WarriorsThe Start Collecting! sets from Games Workshop are the best way to learn the games of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. The great value boxes include everything you need to start playing, with a good amount of models and the rules easy to find online. What's more, they even sometimes contain exclusive sculpts that you can use on the tabletop! Contents: 1 Terminator Captain (HQ), 10 Tactical Marines (Troops), 1 Venerable Dreadnought (Elites) As I said above, once Razarak was in one piece and Arkhan was fully assembled, I kept the two of them separate to paint, though hindsight has left me wondering if this was the correct choice to make. Given the difficulty I had mounting a painted Arkhan to a painted mount, and the damage I did to some of my finished painted areas as a result, I can’t help but wonder if I might have been better off assembling him entirely first. It’s a decision one should make based on their confidence and painting ability.

The fact they are so small and fiddly will make the Skeleton Warriors a serious challenge for the recently initiated. That these chaps require some really careful cutting and filing work that most newcomers to the hobby simply aren’t going to have either the skill or tools to face makes them even more difficult to handle – I, with modest experience, a Citadel cutter and mould-line remover to my name – found the Skeleton Horde difficult to piece together. This Tau set also fits in perfectly with any pre-existing army. The Ethereal works great as a commander and the Fire Warriors and Drones will always be useful. In a pinch, you could even use the XV8 Crisis Battlesuits as an unofficial commander! My experience building the Skeleton Horde box is undoubtedly coloured by the high expectations set by the Start Collecting! Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Brotherhood box (which, in a previous article, I argued might possibly be one of the best things to buy as a new hobbyist). I envisaged a single, glossy booklet with clearly numbered and labelled diagrams, walking me step-by step from the most basic unit up to the most advanced. The Start Collecting box that gets our vote for “the next one to be discontinued,” there’s not a ton this particular box has to offer. Tactical Marines just don’t have much value when you’d rather run Scouts or Intercessors, the Terminator Captain doesn’t bring much to the table when you have other, more mobile, better-equipped, cheaper options, and the Venerable Dreadnought is only OK. You’re better off skipping this one for the Marine half of the Dark Imperium Starter.I was really taken with the deep-sea, almost luminous look of the cape on the box, so I decided t go with the recommended mix of an Incubi Darkness base, a Coelia Greenshade wash, and then a Kabalite Green drybrush and Sybarite Green highlight. i think the effect is spectacular.

Like the new Start Collecting: Chaos Space Marines box, it’s a bit hard to evaluate this one effectively because it’s currently the only place to get Suppressors, which are an insanely good unit for Iron Hands and, to a lesser extent, Imperial Fists armies. That said, everything in this box except the Lieutenant is a solid addition to a competitive Space Marines army, and even the Lieutenant is serviceable in a pinch. Even if you could get Suppressors somewhere else, this box would still be an incredibly good value based on what’s in it. One of the nice things about Militarum Tempestus being 4 units in 3 kits is that you get all of them right here in this box. Like the generic Militarum set this comes with the plastic Commissar (a bit like Tech-priests Dominus in Ad Mech, if you have any interest in buying Tempestus at all you will end up drowning in these guys), but also two squads of Scions and a Taurox. Squads of Scions and Tauroxes are pretty much all there is to have for the Tempestus, and the Scion kit is a dual one which lets you build the Tempestor Prime and a Command Squad too, and is full of cool bits. If you want to get some Scions on the table there’s basically no better way to do it than this – turn the Commissars into terrain statues or convert them into other things. Contents: 1 Herald on Blood Throne/Skullcannon (HQ or Heavy Support), 10 Bloodletters (Troops), 3 Bloodcrushers (Elites) For your second and third Troops choices, grab a set of Incursors and field them as two five-man squads, offering you another pair of infiltrating units, each equipped with a haywire mine for awesome area denial .Once again, I’m not as sold on the subsequent colour as I am with an Agrax Earthshade wash. There’s a certain yellow-ness to the bones I’d rather see darkened with brown. Agrax Earthshade is definitely the way forwards for me. Weathered.