need a bit of help from those with kids

[Gaijin18]

I find myself in a new situation

For those with kids say around 9,what army would you suggest getting them started in 40k with I was thinking orks?

Suggestions,comments would be hugely appreciated!

[aurak_merc]

My child is younger than that, but from those locals with children in that age, they tend to get hand-me-downs from uncles/dads/family friends of whatever is available. However, those that seem to have the quickest grasp seem to be either Orks or Imperial Guard. They can model and paint the Orks pretty well, and the IG come with lots of recognizable vehicles and little army men. Of course, Space Marines are so common that you could probably pick up a good sized lot for fairly cheap.

[Gaijin18]

well I was thinking orks because they can be an easy basic paint scheme,,,green brown and metal,,,something a kid could cut his teeth on painting and also ork tactics can be simple,shoot,wahhhhhhhhhh and get into cc?

I am tryin to stay away from marines cause everyone plays marines

[oaflord]

Orks are a good recommendation indeed. The reasons you mentioned are exactly why. Easy to paint (basecoat the skin green, leather brown and guns metal, devlan mud the whole thing and your kid just painted an army that looks better than a lot out there) and easy to play (move shoot charge...). I say go for the Orks.

oAF
(father of 2, soon to be 3 and the oldest is almost 7 and painting any GW girl models I can get for her)

[MagickalMemories]

You probably don't want to hear this, considering your previous post, but...

Space Marines.

They're the biggest sellers for a reason. They're the most physically resilient army out there. With 2+ and 3+ saves galore and S & T 4, they're beasts in comparison to most other armies. Plus, there are 9or, can be) les special rules to remember. Remembering that your Orks are S3, but S4 when they charge, on top of all the other Ork stuff, can be a pain for a younger kid... not to mention that, with 6+ saves, he probably won't really enjoy picking his models up by the handfull as you shoot them off of the table. He won't like you killing his vehicles with bolt pistols, either.

Space Marines look cool. They look heroic. They're "the good guys." Kids love that.

If I ever get one of my kids to start rolling 40K dice with me, that's the first army I'll plug down in front of her.


Eric

[oaflord]

You probably don't want to hear this, considering your previous post, but...

Space Marines.

They're the biggest sellers for a reason. They're the most physically resilient army out there. With 2+ and 3+ saves galore and S & T 4, they're beasts in comparison to most other armies. Plus, there are 9or, can be) les special rules to remember. Remembering that your Orks are S3, but S4 when they charge, on top of all the other Ork stuff, can be a pain for a younger kid... not to mention that, with 6+ saves, he probably won't really enjoy picking his models up by the handfull as you shoot them off of the table. He won't like you killing his vehicles with bolt pistols, either.

Space Marines look cool. They look heroic. They're "the good guys." Kids love that.

If I ever get one of my kids to start rolling 40K dice with me, that's the first army I'll plug down in front of her.


Eric

See now this is why I love this hobby. Everything Eric said was right. Everything I said was right. Just two different perspectives, one being primarily painting and one being primarily gaming. Everyones hobby is different. I build and paint first and game second. Eric can chime in and say something different and neither of us is wrong as it is how we take to the hobby.

Losing can be cool as the death cries and trukk explosions you can vocalize as you take said models off the table can be pretty cool, but Eric does have a point... Kids don't like to lose, so perhaps Marines may be the better choice, just create your own chapter and write your own history... That to me would be super cool for a kid.

oAF

[MagickalMemories]

Very true, oAF. It's just a matter of which perspective matches his.

If I was in his shoes and looking for the easiest models to paint, I think I'd be torn between our two suggestions and possibly Chaos. I think I'd say (1) Orks (2) Chaos (3) SM.

Ork vehicles are ramshackle and don't "require" the same kind of precision in painting to look "right." Space Marine models, on the other hand, I'd say are probably overall easier to paint since they're typically primarily one color. In the balance between the two, I'd weight the benefit of easy vehicle painting over easy troop painting because 5e is very vehicle/transport -centric. You'll probably have a lot of them as you go on (especially with Orks).
While CSM are very similar to regular SM, they have the benefits of Nurgle and Slaanesh. Want to paint in garish colors? The Lust God approves! Can't paint a model without it looking sloppy as Hell? Sounds Nurgly to me. lol That's why I put CSM above SM for ease of painting. They're more forgiving.


Eric

[Gaijin18]

globing paint makes them nurgle? good grief my first marines were chaos and I didnt even know it.


Thanks for the replies thus far,,,lots to think about,course I might just start him out with the starter game and see which he leans more towards.

[porkuslime]

My 10 year old daughter has chosen Dad's Tyranids as her starter army..

Course, she helped paint/dip them 2 years ago, so she is invested in the force already. Plus, she has inadvertently seen over 50% of Aliens..

We run a genestealer horde.. so lots of dice and in-yer-face combat..

[jul]

My son was more interessed in Epic last year, but it went off as he doesn't have the patience to paint (yet, finishing Lego Harry Potter is a different story), but he was 5.
We did play a couple of games of Space Hulk and he tended to enjoy more the Genestealers.

i was about 10 when i started the hobby, and as Eric said, SM was my first pick. during my time working in a store, kids around that age either started the flavour of the month (50%) or Orks but if a relative was playing then the first pick was different, i knew a guy whose son decided to play Tau as a first army (which makes sense, the mecha design is very appealing, even to me... )

Overall the best bet would be to make him read the description of each in the Rulebook, it's pretty straight forward, onece he choose one or two armies, you discuss it with him, i'm sure you have plenty of knowledge to help him making a choice that would be fun for him to build and play. I'll say Orks or SM, both of them can also be cheap to collect as a starter army...

J