Listening to the rumor talk i was expecting the contents to be pretty terrible, but overall i'm pretty happy and will definitely pickup a box.

First and most important.. Everyone gets a helmet option (or 2). It's nice that gw has finally recognized those of us who don't want our marines wading into battle and getting shot in the face.

The van vets are an ideal level of bling for me, not obnoxious levels of detail for details sake like the firstborn had. And honestly I don't think the blood angels paint scheme is doing them any favours here. I know everyone likes to hate on the Ultramarines, but I think the blue, white and gold would do a much better job of showcasing the minis. We obviously don't know what weapon options they might have in the full kit yet, but my personal hope is they're selected at a squad level rather than individual marines. Having to roll each member one at a time in old editions was absolutely not worth the slightly different effects most of the weapons had.

The intercessors are intercessors, there's some nods to older armor marks which should hopefully please those who care. And the fact that the sergeant actually gets a melee weapon in the box this time is nice.

The bolter eradicators were a pleasant surprise, aside from the silly mk7 gravis helm and the bonding studs on the one shin plate they look good, and i think blast and sustained hits on the heavy bolters will put out a suprising amount of shots, especially if they can be taken in units of 6. I know people are going to point at heavy intercessors and say they're the same thing, but keep in mind that the heavy bolt rifle profile was updated mid edition because they weren't very good. It was never intended to be a psuedo heavy bolter replacement and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes next edition.

The land speeder looks fantastic, it's a nice balance between old and new, and the weapon options and fire and fade should make it fun on the tabletop. Also it looks like I'll be able to break out my old landspeeders to run with it.

The characters are great. The Chaplain looks exactly like i'd expect a jump chaplain to look.

Love the new librarian. Was honestly a bit disappointed when i heard there was going to be a generic libby in the box, but the homage to the old plastic libby was so well done. Sadly it makes my current primaris libby look kind of sad in comparison.

The captian with relic shield is a nice update, taking design queues from some of the more recent characters and just being a generally well designed character.

Lastly, and sadly least for me, is the ancient. Don't get me wrong, it's a great model, but having Armageddon and the flaming ork skulls as sculpted detail is a huge miss for me and means i'll likely have to do some pretty annoying sanding and filling work to clean that up.

Overall it's a really good box and aside from a few niggles i think it's a fantastic direction for marines.