Ah right, forgot about Typhus and Failbaddon... still a pretty poor track record.
Isn't the new plastic Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig still exclusive for the Looncurse box? We just had this discussion in my local store today, these time-limited deals are a really poor business strategy, and super annoying to boot.
I think there just was an announcement for the loonboss to be sold seperatly.
So, for the Flying one, I could see a box containing 10 skinks ($18), 3 fliers ($60), and an EotG ($60). This one would be good as their are several configurations available for all 3 units and it hits right around that $140 mark (Javs vs Boltspitters, Terradon vs Rippers, EotG vs Stegadon)
Taking 1 unit of ambush-focused flyers alongside 1 big hulking dinosaur just doesn't work thematicly. They need to come either in a proper flying box (with a nice new flyer hero and nice new centerpiece flying monster), in a shadowstrike box (which would just be lame) that accentuates the ambush focussed nature, or in a much larger box like last year's battleforce where they fullfill the role of light cavalry for a proper army. The thematic consistency of these boxes seems fairly important as they're supposed to form the core of your army. And although rippers + EoTG might make sense
in-game they don't make a whole lot of sense
in-fluff as a stand-alone force.
For the skink based one Canas mentioned you can take the above box and swap out the fliers for Kroxigor, although I suspect that would be a less popular option. Maybe bump the skinks to 20 if the Kroxigor are included over the fliers, since the Kroxigor are slightly cheaper.
Imho, boxed sets
should include some of the less popular options. It helps with keeping the (local) meta alive, as it ensures those less popular options actually get bought. And since people have them anyway they're bound to end up using them occasionally, even if it's only to experiment. And every so often that'l cause a shift in the (local) meta as someone discovers a near trick using those unpopular models.
Also, if you don't include unpopular models in boxed sets on account of them being unpopular you're all but guaranteeing they'l remain unpopular. And including them has the benefit that a significant chunk of your playerbase will have them, so if at some point they end up being absolutly crucial to your army the playerbase won't accuse you of changing the rules just to sell a bunch of impopular models as they don't need to go out and buy a bunch of them just to keep their army relevant
For an Elite infantry one, I could see 15 guard ($55), an eternity warden ($25), and 3 Kroxigors ($55). The downside to this one is that you won't really need more than 1 EW, and currently Kroxigor aren't very popular. Also, this box would be lacking a large centerpiece model, which is something they tend to like to include.
That's why I suggested the 3 heroes to form a centerpiece. Making up for the size with quantity
Also, not all boxes have particularly large centerpiece models. Ironjawz and idoneth are probably the most similar to what I suggested. With the biggest models being 3 cavalry-ish sized creatures. SCE similarly don't have particularly large centerpieces, though their hero tends to stand out due to its mount being very dynamic compared to the rest of the models in the box.
As for not needing multiple heroes, that goes for most start collecting boxes. Loads of em have heroes that can only really be used in 1 loadout and you don't really want multiple of. At least we have summoning so we can relativly easily fit in 2 of the same hero if we felt so inclined compared to other factions.
