The man cave isn't big enough for 10 kids and two adults... even after we gut it & clean it up.

Besides, since all 3 of our birthdays are within 4 days of each other, I figured you'd put on a party for all of us! Actually that weekend is pretty screwed up schedule-wise or I'd have you over myself. We'll just have to let the kids beat up on us some other time.

A necron lord with a ressurection orb is a good choice for a necron force so I've heard. And yes, lots of warriors, with some scarabs to soften up and tie down some enemy units. How many points has Thing 1 painted?

None in 'crons... quite a bit in his Doom Eagles. We're going to do a big push to get his vehicles done. I think if we finish painting what he has in-hand, he'll be over 3k in marines, with good depth and options. Did I ever mention that I HATE painting vehicles?? That's why I wrote the bloody things OUT of MY space marines list. Fiddlesticks!

I know, I hate painting vehicles, except walkers.

That's because walkers aren't vehicles in the normal sense... they're filled with character, personality and individualism... a personification of their creators' form embodied in a weapon. Tanks are vehicles with weapons on them... walkers are "living" weapons.

Perfection.

I actually like painting vehicles, but they are easy to overdose on. Try painting 7 land raiders in a row. I couldn't

Gitsplitta wrote:
Anyone know a good Necron player who can give some advice on army construction & competitive builds? (though I know the 'crons aren't particularly competitive without a new 'dex)

I'm a fairly good Necron player as for as Necrons go for competitiveness. Really your best bet for Necrons is to buy a battle force or two, a monolith, and a foot lord or destroyer lord. This will give him a get casual competitive army and shouldn't be too taxing on the wallet in the long run. He will have easily a 1750 army with this and then though in the tomb spyder he has and a few upgrades on his lord and he will have a nice army. This is the best way to start an army for Necrons. Really no other way to do it.

He would be looking at

HQ
Necron Lord w/ Res Orb

Troops
14 Warriors
14 Warriors
14 Warriors
14 Warriors

Fast Attack:
3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers
10 Scarab Swarms w/ Destruction fields

Heavy:
Tomb Spyder
Monolith

Total Points: 1898

Plastic People wrote:

I'm a fairly good Necron player as for as Necrons go for competitiveness. Really your best bet for Necrons is to buy a battle force or two, a monolith, and a foot lord or destroyer lord. This will give him a get casual competitive army and shouldn't be too taxing on the wallet in the long run. He will have easily a 1750 army with this and then though in the tomb spyder he has and a few upgrades on his lord and he will have a nice army. This is the best way to start an army for Necrons. Really no other way to do it.

He would be looking at

HQ
Necron Lord w/ Res Orb

Troops
14 Warriors
14 Warriors
14 Warriors
14 Warriors

Fast Attack:
3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers
10 Scarab Swarms w/ Destruction fields

Heavy:
Tomb Spyder
Monolith

Total Points: 1898

That's actually a pretty popular list at my LGS with a few 'cron players minus the tomb spyder I've never actually seen one played.

Sounds like a great place to start then... thanks!

Finally something to show!!!

As mentioned before... Thing 1 now has a bee in his bonnet to get his marines done, however... he's hardly doing it grudgingly. He dove right in and painted his rhino to a near exact match of the one I painted for him months ago, he just did it... I picked it up thinking it was mine & put it on the shelf... right next to it's identical twin. I weathered them both to match the Predator... and he's all ready to attack the whirlwind next!


Here we are... a Doom Eagle armored patrol, investigating an abandoned ork Mek works...



And a close-up of Thing-1's latest effort. Underneath all that weathering is a very nice paint job. A little heavy-handed with the wash yet, but technique will come with time and practice...

Looks great!

I love the old HKMs ssssoooooo much more then the new ones.

When i first looked at it i thought the ariel was broken.


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Is he good at gems?

Nothing wrong with strong washing, i used to do the same and they never looked toooo bad.

Thats fantastic though, it means he has agood eye and a natural talent at this kinda thing if he can just copy the rhino off the bad with no directions.

Imp. Monkey

I just picked up some thin piano wire so we can to the arched antenna thing. I replaced the broken plastic antennae with wire on the other one long ago... so it's time to do the same with his new one.

I was just really impressed that he could make such a good copy of my original without any direction or input from me... says a lot about how his skills and confidence have developed. Also, I can now say that I paint as well as a 9-year-old...


There will be another pic soon, he's going to covert an old MW whirlwind into Doom Eagle... shouldn't take him too long at all.

I wish i had loads of old warhammer to convert and repaint.

Your son is a lucky kid

And great Rhino

tanks = Air brush and lots of wet brushing

This blog inspired me to grab my 9yo nephew for a weekend to play a few fun games and paint some mini's- i normally have to drag him away from the computer or dvd's- no issue this time

Currently I only have the AoBR set and luckily for him he chose to play SM's for the whole weekend (the orc force is a little under-powered??)

All in all turned out to be a fun weekend

Funnily enough he is also wanting to make his own Necron army..

It is great to see you and your kids having stuff in common and working together and thanks for giving my the idea with my nephew.
He enjoyed the weekend as much as i did and really needed the break from his parents and drama that is happening there atm. (custody battles of the non-dice rolling kind)

Your objective markers are great aswell

Lepto.

Great stuff! It's really good to see you getting your kids involved in the hobby!

It's actually quite funny, the first army that I collected and that my main gaming partner collected were both 'crons. What it comes down to really is the more warriors you can pack in, the better. conversely, the more warriors you can kill, the more likely you are to win.

Well, he's making progress on the Whirlwind, all on his own with no input from me (love that he's gotten to that stage). Good thing too, those of you who follow my Mantis Warrior blog may have noticed there have been no updates lately... just no time, too many other things to take care of at home to find the time to paint.... and when I am finally free (9-10 PM) I'm freakin tired. BUT... the boy has time and is making good use of it! The little one has been asking me if he can work on his orks... sadly he still requires a lot of oversight which I haven't had the time to do lately. I will make a point of setting time aside over the holiday weekend though and sitting down with him for some painting. Expect updates soon!

- GS

Some great stuff here. Your eldest son's painting is actually better than mine lol.

Dateline.... whirlwind.

Well, the whirlwind is done. You'll note there is no picture. That's because by the time I took a close look at it, the whirlwind looked like it'd been duct taped to the wall and had globs of silver paint thrown at it from 10' away. All he had to do was carefully re-paint the green parts boltgun metal, do a quick wash and all would have been well in say... 30 - 60 minutes, but he globbed it up so badly that I had to take a couple of hours of my very rare painting time and re-paint the entire vehicle. Even with that you'll never see a close-up of it because it looks like crap.... globs and runs everywhere... Thing 2 did better the first time he held a brush. Oh was I PO'd... this was a WW built (like the rest) on one of the original rhino hulls & it was so mucked up I almost pitched it. Luckily washing and weathering can hide a lot... as does "tabletop viewing distance".

So, we've had a serious discussion about paying attention to what we are doing... and doing a job right or not at all. I think he's re-gained a bit of his focus now and we're painting his Marnius Calgar figure together... so with luck he'll be back on the straight and narrow in short order. It was just such a shock to see him do one vehicle every bit as good as I can, then the next as if he'd never held a brush before in his life...

Maybe you should post pics, and then we can do the "ewwww what happened?" thing and a bit of peer pressure (or whatever it is when its full grown men and a 9 yo)

Just drill some bullet holes and chip some bits and wear some pieces down.

Then you can say it has EXTREME Battle Damge.

If I was going to put bullet holes in THIS tank I'd use my 30/30...

Lol, I have used .22, 9mm and 40 S&W brass as basing. Anything else just seems too big for even the big barrage guns.

Paint stripper?

EagleArk wrote:Paint stripper?

The kid is only 9 man, hes a bit young for a stripper!
Oh, wait. Ok, I got ya. Give him some simple green and a tooth brush, tell him to get scrubbing!

whalemusic360 wrote:Oh, wait. Ok, I got ya. Give him some simple green and a tooth brush, tell him to get scrubbing!

This would teach him a better lesson than anything else, I think. I've used the Simple Green method, and while it works relatively well, it's still a good bit of work. It would definitely lodge the idea of "do it right or face the consequences" into his psyche.

LOL... well, he is almost 10... at that age I was already.... ah well... that's a story for a different "Forum".

I think we'll let this one slide. It's OK looking, just not up to close scrutiny. He is enthusiastic about working on Calgar with me so I don't want to blunt that by making him re-live a past failure.

Thats a shame.

Calgar leads the Chapter?

Well... Calgar equivalent...

ChocolateGork wrote:Calgar leads the Chapter?

Hey, Telion trains other chapter's scouts! Why can't Marneus lead another chapter? Besides, it's only a matter of time before Matt Ward writes something like that in an attempt to make the Ultramarines sound like the most super duper spectacularly perfect guys that existed ever ever.

This isn't the same Matt Ward that used to play "Robin" in the 1960's TV series "Batman"?

I'm not sure, but some suspect that he plays C.S. when writing books.

Remember... Goto is a 4-letter word... no swearing on the forum... especially THIS blog.

Your right. I'll edit it, for the sake of the children.

Gitsplitta wrote:This isn't the same Matt Ward that used to play "Robin" in the 1960's TV series "Batman"?

Err.. no, that would be Burt Ward

Great blog by the way, I've been following this since you started

Gits:

I think you are a great parent, and your wargaming with your boys is the sort of thing I know they are going to remember fondly in may years to come. (I wish I had done more things like this with my Dad when I was a boy.)

It sounds to me like "Thing #1" was just a little overeager to spend a little more time painting and modeling Calgar with his father.

While I can well understand your frustration at what should have been a job well-done turning into something horrific, I think you may be missing a valuable learning opportunity with your son. It might be better for you both go over the model looking at what went right, and what went wrong. It sounds like the paint was not thick enough; there may have been additional challenges other than haste he had trouble getting around.

My unsolicited advice: it's best to strip it down and repaint from the ground-up, not as a punishment, but as a new skill to learn and challenge to tackle with dear 'ole Dad.

You're probably right rashad, and I do really appreciate your advice and suggestions... I need to remind myself that he IS just a kid, and even though he's capable of adult work it's unfair to hold him to that standard all the time. It's unfortunately too late to revisit the whirlwind as I've already "fixed" it for the most part, but I'm sure there will be other opportunities and when he doesn't live up to my "expectations" I'll remember to chill and try to turn it into something positive.

We're moving along well on Calgar, spent the weekend camping but I'll post a WIP in a day or two. We've been discussing each step as he goes. He does the work though & I check each step over carefully before we move on. So far we're both having a good time and he's doing a very good job. We'll need everyone's comments as we go. This will be the warm up for a figure he'll do for a painting competition this fall at our FLGS. I figure it's OK to advise him and get him exposure and ideas on dakka, but I won't lay a hand on the figure... he has to do the whole thing himself. That WIP we'll post in it's entirety so you all can chime in and become part of the process.

Looking forward to seeing his progress. Does he (or you) know what figure hes going to use? We may even be able to help figure out what will work well for judging.

I too look forward to his next piece. Who knows, a little more experience and he may well decide to return to fix the WW later on. What models is he considering? I bet a bike lord would look great in those colors!

Well, his options are kind of limited... we were thinking of one of Calgar's bodyguard as they're pretty cool looking and he's got them already. We have Telion too, as well as a number of older minis o mine that he can have. He's trying to save his money up to buy Crons... but I'm sure he'd entertain any suggestions.

Im a bit biased, but the robbed DA guys look pretty awsome. I'll take a few pics of my favs later and post em. I can supply the body if thats what he wants. Or a sternguard for him, using the FW ravenguard heads (they have beaks, seriously) and go all crazy.

Having looked Calgar's posse over, I think the chapter champion in Doom Eagle silver/red will be an amazing sight.

You could always work with him on a conversion.

By now you must have countless bitz and the coolest models in painting comps are the ones that are converted.

@rashad: Not sure exactly which guy is the champion... the box is long gone... we just have the assembled figs on the bench.

@CG: Yeah.... I've been thinking about that... but I'm adamant that I'm not going to lay a hand on the figure if he's going to enter it into a competition and I'm not sure he's ready to handle all the tools and techniques used in converting yet. We can always try a conversion first, then fall back to the champion if the conversion doesn't work.

@WM: The "robbed" DA guys? What? Did someone roll them when they were out looking for a good time? I actually used a DA head to replace Calgar's in the model Thing 1 is working on right now... you'll see it in a bit. You're right, those are cool looking figs.

Robed, whatever, I can't spell. Maybe hes not ready for conversion work yet, but a kitbash is no harder then anything else (which is what 80% of the "conversions" are, including alot of mine) and can have amazing reslults. Some good basing using random bits and hes good to go!

Actually I talked with him about this and he's really excited about the prospect of doing his own conversion! So, we'll start there... and if it doesn't work out we'll use the champion figure from Calgar's group and the emergency back-up. I can walk him through the processes needed to do the conversions, I'll just take a separate model and do a conversion on it as we go, so he can see each technique on a real model, yet he will be doing everything himself. He's seen me build up enough figures from a bunch of scattered parts that he's quite comfortable with the process.

I suppose we should wait until the rules for the kids competition come out before going any further... he's still working on Calgar which will be a good warm-up as we're going to try to paint him to a high standard. That'll keep him busy for a while.

Is 'calgar' keeping his bolters?

Yep, we haven't modified the model at all save for the head... this is just his first exercise in painting a very complicated model.

Can't wait to see the finished results!

Which head has been used?

A Dark Angles head... looks pretty neat but I"m struggling with how to paint the recesses. I'll get a pic up tomorrow so you guys can see where he's at.

Sounds promising.

I hit, recesses first then move to the raised bits. Followed by an ink wash.

Man really cool blog. Inspired me to paint! New rule for me to move onto the next squad only when your done with the one your on! thanks!

Glad to hear it! Things have been slow on the 40k front... Kids have been busy doing summer things, but that's as it should be.

Gitsplitta wrote:A Dark Angles head... looks pretty neat but I"m struggling with how to paint the recesses. I'll get a pic up tomorrow so you guys can see where he's at.

For skin I generally follow this tutorial:
1: Cover skin with elf flesh
2: Give a liberal wash of Ogryn Flesh
3:Repaint the skin with Elf flesh, leaving the ogryn flesh in the recesses
4:Highlight with a 1:1 mix of elf flesh and bleached bone.

Sounds good, thanks Munch!

Can't wait to see it

Did Calgar run away

LOL... no, sorry... the boys have just been busy doin' summer stuff. I never push them into painting as I don't want to have it be a negative thing for them. If they both behave themselves at camp today I promised them a small 40k game tonight, so I'll take some pics including Calgar as he stands and post them later on...

Thanks for the poke in the ribs though.... I get so involved in my own projects I forget about the kids at times.

The joys of tiddlypeeps and warhammer. I'm forever bringing things over to my friends house only to be held up by his little brother going "what's that!!???"

As an alternative skin painting idea:
1: Paint the skin with Tallarn flesh
2: Orgryn flesh wash
3: Either drybrush elf flesh on, or mix dwarf and elf flesh and highlight up with these mixes. I generally go 2:1, 1:1, 1:2

Hope that helps

Imp. Monkey

Munch & IM: thanks for the skin suggestions. We'll try them both out (not on the same figure) and see how they look.

Expect a shot of Calgar & a battle report later on.

GOD OF WARRRRRR

Finally... something interesting to show!

Well, it's been a busy summer for the boys which has NOT included a lot of 40k (which is fine), however we finally got a chance to play a small game yesterday. 500 pts each... orks v. marines v. eldar. Thing 1 has been experimenting with eldar lately to give himself a break from his SM army. Thing 2 picked his orks who are great at low point values, and I took my mantis warrior marines.

Setting up a decent game for 3 people is a challenge when everyone wants to play independently (i.e. the boys don't want to team up). It helps that we have an 8' table with lots of sight blocking terrain. I'm also very careful about the victory conditions I choose. In this case, I set up 3 different objectives on the table, all dead center, one in the middle and one near each end. Each objective was keyed to the army deploying near it (orks, SM, eldar). Victory conditions were as follows:

- 2 pts for owning your own objective, 4 points for owning someone elses
- 2 pts for killing an opposing commander (assassination)
- 1 point for each opposing unit you destroy

Deployment zones were 1' x 2' rectangles in the two corners and in the opposite center. The other key is that I put myself in the middle position as the middle guy almost always gets hosed. I also put restrictions on what we could each take at this small a point value... nothing heavier than a dread, rhino or trukk, no big charachters & you could use a squad commander or similar as your commander if you wanted. No more than two slots in any category other than troops.

Here are our armies...


Thing 1's craftworld eldar. He wanted the Dire Avengers but paid for rangers... not sure if that worked out to his advantage or not. 10 DA, guardians w/ scatter laser, farseer w/ doom, wraithlord w/ star cannon & sword + 2 flamers.


Thing 2 wanted lots of hand-to-hand boyz. 26 boyz w/ 2 big shootas + nob w/ BP & PK (his commander), trukk boyz (nob w/ PK), 2 deffkopta's w RLs, 1 deffkopta w/ RL


My Mantis Warriors: tech marine (commander), rifleman dread, two squads of sniper scouts w/ HB... one of which has Telion. No h-t-h capability... strictly a scouting and shooting force intended to give my boys something to whomp on.

More later.... have to help around the house a bit.

I need to sit down and take a closer look at the Ork Codex, that's a lot of stuff in 500 points!

Git uses army builder, so unless there is a problem with that, I'm quessing it's right.

Orks are dirt cheap, you get a ton for smaller point games.

Goterdamrung wrote:I need to sit down and take a closer look at the Ork Codex, that's a lot of stuff in 500 points!

You definitely should read up.

I count 32 orks which at six points a pop is only 192pts before any upgrades.

A trukk and three koptas aren't 300pts.

Ooh, looking forward to Updates! I wonder who won... my money's on the Eldar?

Next update will be later tonight, spending the day with family hanging out by my brother-in-law's pool. Ahhh summer!

Heh, enjoy yourself, then. I'm itching for Updates.

I've followed this thread since i joined and i must say you are a great father to ur children.

Thanks J, the jury is out on my fatherhood skills until we see what kind of men my boys become. But until then I'll keep doing my best.

Well, believe it or not my monitor just cashed in it's chips. Luckily I've already goy all of the photos loaded so I can finish the battle report over lunch tomorrow. Now to see when the budget will allow for a new monitor...

Calgar will be finished tomorrow. We almost scrapped him but I had am epiphany at the last minute that saved the figure,
still... this one is only temporary, we will eventually build a new one from scratch.

More tomorrow...

Ive got some older monitors we are selling at work, though not sure how much shipping would be. Shoot me a PM if in dire need for a cheepy.

Man those armies look sweet!

That they do..

That they do..

Thanks WM, I'm going to do a little research on potential replacements & check my cash flow. I'll get back to you if needed. I've been kind of toying with the idea of replacing that monitor anyway... this just kind of forces my hand in the matter.

Thanks everyone else too! You're support really helps keep me motivated.




All right... need an early sanity break, so here's the next portion... The battle takes place in an abandoned ork Mek Works (my spiffy terrain from Senji Studios).


Deployment: Mantis Warriors (center left on the gaming table)
The Mantis Warriors recon team were the first to arrive & had already secured their objective... but had to wait for reinforcements to arrive along with the extraction team. They knew there was ork activity in the area, so they holed up in a nearby building with the two scout squads on lookout on the roof, and the techmarine performing damage checks and maintenance on the dreadnought in the bay below. The Rifleman variant was an unusual choice for the mission, but it would have been more than adequate for dealing with the ork light armor intel had pinpointed in the local Bad Moons Clan arsenal. Luckily, no such support was required as no resistance had been encountered.


The SM objective is on the other side of the building, several inches away (but close).

Deployment: Bad Moon Orks (rear right on the gaming table)
A bellowed order from "da Big Boss" Gitsplitta sent several dozen orks scrambling to make a trek out the old Stompa fac'try to retrieve the warbosses pet squig, Spot... after the umpteenth attempt by the mob to leave the viscious little creature behind. There were rumors that "Bugboys" had been seen in the area, so the nob running "da show" pulled together a few extra boys... just to be safe.


The ork objective is marked with the blue arrow.

Deployment: Eldar (near right on the gaming table)
Farseer "he who shall be named later when I have time to start thinking about my Eldar again" awoke with a start... in his meditations on things past, present and future he was revealed a terrible image. An Eldar exarch, captured in battle, beaten into unconsciousness... and chained to a crude alter to appease the dark ork gods. While it was a blessing that they had not simply killed him outright... releasing his soul to be devoured by Slennesh, he must not be allowed to perish! The Farseer immediately pulled together a strike force. Luckily, there was a long unused web way gate not too distant from where the exarch was being held (isn't there always? ). There were "complicating factors"... but those would be dealt with as needs be.


The eldar objective is marked with the blue arrow.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For some stupid reason, I did not take a photo of the table each turn like usual, so I've fiddled with the arrows I use to show movement for the missing turns. Hope it's not too annoying.

Turn 1:

Here's the opening shot of the table on turn 1. Our relative positions are shown as well as the objective markers (blue arrows), who goes in what order and our first moves. Ignore the "2+" on the MW building... that is erroneous.

Eldar: The Eldar decide to protect their Farseer by joining him to the guardian squad, which is also the only squad apparently not hell-bent on suicide. They move to rescue the exarch, while the dire avengers advance towards the orks (and the center objective). Thing 1 also announces that his wraithlord is going to wipe out the entire Mantis Warrior force by himself, and advances it appropriately.

Mantis Warriors: Bemused by the audacity of the Eldar plan, the rifleman and tech marine move out from their protective shelter and the entire Mantis Warrior army opens up on the WL. They're actually pretty well set up to deal with it as everything in the scout units can wound on a set number, eliminating the advantage of the WL's toughness, and the autocannons are S7. Unfortunately while they hit and wound respectably... the WL makes a half-a-dozen saves or more... and emerges unscathed.

Orks: Advance uncontrollably towards everything (very orky). Trukk boyz go for the squig while the koptas and infantry advance towards the eldar & central objective marker. One deffkopta turbo boosts towards the center of the table (it's behind the smelter just behind the marine objective).




... that's all for now, unfortunately I left my narrative for the battle at home, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow. However, I will also have a nice shot of the finished Calgar figure for you by then. So you get a bit of a bonus!

GS

First time I've looked at that ork board of yours! Looks great, I think particularly because it's not at all anything like the boards I play on (cityfight and mars terrain)

Hello, I'm 31 and have been playing since early second edition (I calculate not long afte Rogue Trader). Life moves on and so I've taken several breaks away from the hobby. I've only recently dug out my Blood Angels and started to re-work/amend my army. I'm having a great time just modelling and painting, though its slow going with time constraints that I didn't have as a kid.

I just want to say that this Blog is awesome. It's fantastic to see the development of two young hobbiests and the valuable input they are getting from the old man. I just stumbled across this blog yesterday and have felt compelled to read through all 16 pages.

This is easily one of the more interesting and satisfying blog reads I've found lately I think what you guys are doing is really something special. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to following you guys as long as you are willing to post.

Man, I love how you add stories to your battles. I'm really excited at how this game will turn out.

Yes the new terrain looks good! I think now you need to start adding elements of elevation to your board!

@IHEART & Choc: Thanks!

@CK: Thanks! Won't be able to do anything like it again... but considering the money and hours I've spent on rule books, figures and modeling supplies... money spent on really nice terrain is well worth it (and it makes the games a lot more fun).

@BeeLow: Sounds like you have a history similar to mine. Welcome back to the hobby. I'm really glad you've enjoyed the blog thus far. I hope to keep it up as long as I can. It's kind of neat that the blog has been inactive for quite a while & now that I have a few things to report on there are entirely new readers checking it out. Please chime in if you have anything to add or have any questions. Don't worry about the slow going... my 40k life is at a snails pace now... just is that way when you hit adulthood I guess.

@Much: Thanks! Some times I have them figured out before we do the battle (mostly), but they always get better after the battle is over and I can work them over in my head (and have the gaming action to think about as well).

@SLion: That is entirely possible. I've thought about a series of cascading steps making one end of the table rise up... or a couple of very shallow layers with a river cut out between them. Wouldn't take all that long to do, but then I'd have to figure out where to store it all...


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Well, here's the photo I promised... chapter master of the Doom Eagles... the KING of BLING, a walking rummage sale on miscellaneous Imperial propaganda so ridiculously festooned that only a complete and utter DESK JOCKEY would ever deign to walk around like this. Do you know why his arms are in that position?? It's the only way he can get his massive, draped carcass moving forward! The displacement of his heavy power fists throws his chest forward and with effort he can maintain forward momentum. Don't ask how he stops.... you don't want to know.

Oh sorry... meet "Prince Gillian" Chapter Master of the Doom Eagles.

Boy this figure just stinks to high heaven. Silly design, poorly molded, stupid looking head. Thank God for Chapterhouses' skull helmet and the fact that the doom eagles believe that they're already dead for giving me a viable excuse to use it. Thing 1 worked for hours on it, but it's filled with so much crap that I had to work for hours to try and save it... all the while the paint got deeper and deeper and deeper. I was just about to strip it and sell it on e-bay when I thought of the skull head. Still had to do a terrifying amount of grinding to get it to fit (after cutting it down) but the end result is at least unique... and that skull head is simply awesome.

So for now at least, he has a chapter master. We have both resolved to build a new chapter master from scratch... at which point Busta Rhymes here can go into the "for sale" bin.

I actually think that that Prince Gillian is not half bad. very nice eye for details and I love his helmet. Well done

Weird thing is he's not in focus... same camera set-up I always use but it's like he's still defying me even now... Might be "hammer time" when we get a new one built.

For some reason, I find that chapter master hilarious.

In a good way, not mocking you at all

I do actually quite like the chapter master, though it does look like he has buck teeth

So im guessing its not your favourite model?


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Does he have a painted posse?

He's a chapter master! He's a Chaplain! He is the Chapel-master!

I read the foot banner as "Gilligan", and wanted to call him 'little buddy'.

My amusement aside, it looks like thing 1 did a better-than average job on a below-average mini.

LOL! Might have to do a truscale marine to be the "Skipper". But then.... the upside would be that I'd get to model MaryAnn and Ginger! Busty blond cannoness and her flamethrower wielding aide perhaps? Hmmm... I wonder if anyone has ever rendered the cast of Gilligan's Island as 40k characters before?

Like I said, he had a LOT of help from me, I freely admit it. He was working really hard on it, and getting very frustrated as it was one step forward and two steps back. He did all the base painting, washing, highlighting, pads and such. I came in over the top and did the clean up, bling and the head.

Yes, it is a chaplain's head... but as I mentioned before, the skull motif works with the Doom Eagle fluff... and this is actually the third head that I tried with this figure, and it's the only one that even came close to looking good. Luckily at table-top distance the figure looks good. The skull really stands out against the recess which makes him look pretty neat. I to chuckled at the teeth... but... it's iconography... you gotta cut it some slack.

Speaking of iconography, I keep trying to convince Thing 1 that the Doom Eagle symbol should be a stylized eagle lying on it's back with it's feet sticking straight up in the air and a little "x" across it's eye. Can't get him to go for that yet.... but I'll keep trying!

What happened to the hodded head? I havent had a go at Calgar yet, and now I'm a bit worried.

It would've worked fine but the paint got too thick on it and we lost the detail. I believe it would've looked perfectly decent when finished as the hood matched the cloak, giving you the sense of a continuous garment. I had just pried it out and was about to toss it in simple green when I had the idea of using the skull head.

One of the things that made this figure so difficult for us to deal with is the metal base color of the doom eagles... I think it would have painted up much better if you had a base color that was non-metallic so that all the bling was a contrast to the solid base color rather than just "more" metallics.

I must admit to being pretty disappointed in the quality of GWs metal castings, at least the one's we've been getting lately. They are poorly formed, don't fit together well making assembly a nightmare, detail is often substandard... they're just a pain in the you-know-what to work with. Their plastics are far superior from my experience, on top of being much easier to modify (and that's coming from an old metal-worker... so I'm used to working with metals).

Retrieved from the vault of dusty mini's ( complete with real dust). Thank the Emperor that my painting has improved.
This conversion was my chaptermaster, at least the metal figure was decent.


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PS. my first posted pic!

How retro, now you just need to make a blog!

PS. my first posted pic!

I with you on the metal coplor scheme. Difficult to make good contrast...

Did you upload it to dakka? Thats the easiest/fastest loading way to do images.

Of corse the one time I actually want an auto append SL gets between my posts!

whalemusic360 wrote:How retro, now you just need to make a blog!

I have no time to paint; barely time to post and read.

( the chao's gods are telling me to mow my grass)... arggggg!!

Its raining in Ohio, you cant mow..........
Now get to paintin! Also quick thread highjack question, do you play necrons very often?

@Solar_Lion: I always loved your original marines... clean, crisp, striking... everything you could want in an army paint job. Thing 1 likes them so much that he's going to take the unit you gave him and leave them as-is rather than re-paint them. I kept one back myself & he sits on my desk in a place of honor. I guess it's my first actual "swap", though I haven't given you anything in return yet.

If you haven't already... upload your images to dakka as WM suggests. It's easy, and you can use those images anywhere on the web... not just on dakka. Nice really. I empathize with your no time to paint problem. This marine trade has me stressing as everyone else is piling in & being so productive, and I know 4 people are working on things for me and I've JUST gotten to the point where I'm starting to paint my first trade... meanwhile none of my armies are getting painted... oh, and the housework is piling up too.

I need about... two clones, and I'd even give them the fun stuff to do & I'd do the work... but at least I'd know I was making some progress.

Lol, I hear ya. The swap is taking like 70% of my painting time, just enough to make small updates on my actuall armies. Ive got a massive pile of half painted guys just asking to be finished, but using them for swaps seems like cheating. And now that I made a table, I have to make terrain too! Ugh x5.

Those Eldar look really good.
are you letting him branch out into other armies?

also, why not try sanding down the medals and stuff, and maybe using one of the hooded DA heads?

@pie: Actually he is branching out. He'd collecting Necrons as we speak, but he needs to finish painting (the main part) of his marine force before he can start working on the crons. As to your second suggestion... I did that, that's what Whalemusic and I were referring to in the previous set of posts... but the paint got too thick on the hooded head and as I was taking it off for stripping I had the idea of using the skull head, which my son and I both like better.

whalemusic360 wrote:Its raining in Ohio, you cant mow..........
Now get to paintin! Also quick thread highjack question, do you play necrons very often?

I live in WI. we'll mow in the snow...

Are you directing the Necron question to me?


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actually I'm really close to finishing yours ( WM ) and gits figure.


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actually I'm really close to finishing yours ( WM ) and gits figure.


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Still waiting on the rest of the battle report. As much as I am interested in the painting and artistic part, I also like to see if he is developing is sense of strategy’s and tactics, sportsmanship and confidence. After all I will be playing against him hopefully some day soon.

I'm happy to report that I've just purchased a replacement for my computer monitor... my new monitor is now 32" across!! (OK, so it'll serve as the all-purpose monitor for the electronics in the "man cave"... not just my computer).

So... when I'm eye-ballin all-yalls paintin', I'll be able to spy out every last mistake 'cause they'll all be like... 4" big on my screen! OK, it's a cheap TV so I probably won't be able to see anything clearly... but I can PRETEND that I can see your mistakes so you better be nice to me!

So there...

Update tonight from home, I keep forgetting to bring the darn narrative in to work with me.


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Oh good Lord.... all my painting mistakes in 32" widescreen.... Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all...

Oh geeze, who gave git the credit card?

And yes SL, the cron question was for you. I guess I better get to paintin, hes only assembeled at this point!

Well, let's get back to the topic at hand shall we?


Turn 2

Eldar: The Eldar continue to advance towards their various objectives. There is some shooting by the wraithlord and scatter laser with the guardians but neither has any effect.

Mantis Warriors: The wraithlord is now close enough that only one unit of scouts can shoot at him, while the other unit shoots at the ork deffkopta. Neither unit accomplishes anything... so much for "sniper" scouts. The rifleman dreadnought does put a wound on the wraithlord though, so that's a good start.

Bad Moons: The various mob elements continue to move aggressively forward (and to the side like). The trukk boyz claim the ork objective and the main mob takes some pot shots at the advancing dire avengers (to no effect).


Turn 3

Eldar: The dire avengers finally close enough to unleash some pain on the ork mob, killing 6. The guardians and farseer consolidate their hold on the eldar objective. Meanwhile in the center, the wraithlord charges and destroys the nearest scout squad on top of the building. Now... in future I'm not sure if I'm going to allow this as the roof of the building is considerably taller than even the eldar dread... but he made his difficult terrain test and we could even get him to stay on the side of the building... so I figured it was fair enough. (see below) After destroying the scouts, the wraithlord consolidated onto the roof.

Mantis Warriors: Scared to death of the impending wraithlord, the second squad of scouts dives into the building, they can only hide in there one turn though and must exit their next turn of be considered destroyed (house rules). The rifleman opens up on the wraithlord again with it's autocannons, but the eldar armor is proof against the shells and the machine emerges unscathed.

Orks: The large boys mob continues to move forward... lots of shooting at the dire avengers... when the smoke clears only three are left standing.



Nasty surprise for the scouts...



Turn 4

Eldar: The wraithlord climbs down from the building top, and tow starcannon shots kill the techmarine. The guardians start to move into a long line to get their scatter laser and farseer into positions where they can participate in the battle. The three remaining dire avengers make a mad dash for the middle of the table and the relative safety of the building that's next to it.

Mantis Warriors: With the wraithlord gone, the scouts move back onto the roof of the building. The rifleman backs up a bit to avoid an assault from the wraithlord and pours more autocannon fire into it, giving it it's second wound.

Bad Moons: The big mob moves towards the center objective, while the two deffkoptas turbo boost across the back of the table to contest the eldar objective. The third deffkopta takes a pot shot at the surviving scout unit, who is saved by the cover the building provides.


Turn 5

Eldar: The wraithlord dives into the building (remember the big garage-type door in the back), not wishing to get handed it's third wound. The dire avengers notice that the orks are at a choke point where only one can get through at a time between the building and the wall and only a few can participate in the combat. They shoot & charge the orks killing 2 and winning the combat. The orks are still fearless however and the combat is a push.

Mantis Warriors: Having nothing else to shoot at, the scouts and dreadnought open up on the two rearward deffkopta's, killing one and putting a wound on the other.

Bad Moons: The surviving deffkopta is pulled back to join his buddy in the rear, while a second round of HtH results in no casualties on either side.


Turn 6

Eldar: The wraithlord emerges from the shed door, and rounds the corner to support the Dire Avengers still locked in hand to hand with the orks. He takes a pot shot at one of the deffkoptas doing no damage. The scatter laser shoots the MW dread, but no damage is done. Dire avengers are eaten by ork horde.

Mantis Warriors: Scouts unload on guardians, killing 3 but not causing them to route. Dread fires into back of wraithlord... no damage.

Bad Moons: Assume control of middle objective


Thing 2 makes the end of game roll..... game ends!


Final Score:

Eldar - 7
MW - 1
Orks - 7

It's a tie!!!



Dire Avengers last stand...


Saved!

Sounds like dad got whipped up on pretty good like.

Yep, kids are gettin' smarter... and I aren't.



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Some comments in review..

I thought Thing 2 did well as orks. Nothing earth shattering strategy-wise, but then he's 6. His orks kept moving, secured their objective and went for the center objective in force... hard to argue with that. He even remembered to get the truck back into the battle after dropping off the boyz at the objective.

Thing 1 certainly has overcome his "timid" tendencies which is a good thing... and his wraithlord probably could have easily wiped out my entire army if he'd wanted it to. His main mistake as I see it, was to force Thing 2 and I to fight only him. We took occasional pot shots at each other but with the exception of the one volley of mine that did 3/4 wounds on the deffkoptas, my entire army was forced to focus on the Eldar the whole game. Same for the orks. Now his aggressive tactics did get him enough kill points to tie, but mainly because my MW's are such a soft target. The reason his wraithlord didn't finish me off is that at turn 5, he decided that the advancing ork horde was going to be a problem and opted to keep me in the game. Good thing, if I hadn't done all that damage to the DKs... they might have done enough damage to his guardian squad to lose him that objective.

While I wasn't really trying to win the fight... I wasn't trying to throw it either. It continues to amaze me now paper thin a scout based force is and how ineffective their shooting is in general, sniper rifles or not. The rifleman dread did fine, look forward to getting him fully painted so he can officially join the ranks. Though in any game this small, I would normally always take one CCW to make the dread a threat in assault. I can't blame rolling this game... my rolls were average, just ineffective. It's going to take a lot of work and practice to figure out how to make this army competitive (though I admit that this particular army was not picked to be competitive... see my other thread for details).

Thing 2 is much happier now that the chapter master is done, and he's eagerly looking forward to painting his marine swap models and his second tactical squad.

As always... thanks for reading!

I love the power Sword on the Wl looks really good! and love the guardian colorscheme! Over all good battle report, sounded like you all had fun which is important especially for little kids.

That power sword is made out of a piece of wood with a little bit of green stuff to build up the handle... (didn't have a real wraithlord sword). It's amazing that it's still in-tact considering the figure has been dropped several times.

I got the guardians (and farseer for that matter) off the web... but I agree... the color scheme is very simple, but it works quite well. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably never have the time or inclination to re-paint my eldar properly, so the only improvements or upgrades they get are when I can get the occasional deal on already painted figures. Not the best solution... but it's where I'm at.

Yeah, we had fun. Neat thing is we'd do a turn or two, then go do housework for a bit, then come back and do another turn or two, then go do some other chore. Kept mom happy, we got our game in and it made doing a bunch of chores not quite as odious as usual.

Excellent report. Now to get thing 1 to work on using your foes against yourself. Thou I have to admit he pretty much accomplished his plan.

Congrats to the thing(s)

Out of date slightly, but Re: Chapter master.

It's an interesting question of colour balance, metallic base colours are hard to "outdo" with detailing as you rightly said.

I'm no genius with a brush, so I have developed a rule of thumb to not use more than 4 different colours on a single model (excluding shades/highlights) of which only one can be metallic.

I also avoid painting fiddly bling if I can't think of good colours for it (see the link in my sig for an example of how much detail I can conveniently forget).

All the best for future painting!

@Atre: Thanks for the comments, unfortunately I couldn't get the link in your sig to work... would like to see what you've done.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/297396.page

I should also apologise for referencing my own stuff as an example - I HATE it when people do that (cocky self promotion).

The abaddon model has piping all over the breastplate, plus other detailing and skulls EVERYWHERE. Hard to spot in those pics actually, side effect of my ignoring them . Compare mine to the GW pics or some of those on how cool is my mini etc... I'm not saying that mine is better by any stretch of the imagination, but the simplified approach stops the detailing overbalancing the model*.


*IMO one of the big risks when us simple folk are painting Special Characters.

Hey bud, this blog continues to be an inspiration, yesterday spent the day playing 40k with my 12&9 yr old nephews, both of whom had previously expressed an interest though the younger is pretty easily distracted. They were great, played well and had a fantastic time. Thanks for leading by example!

@Atre: Don't worry about it. I refer to my stuff as well, not because I'm trying to be self-aggrandizing (at least I don't think so) but because I know my own work best... so it's natural to use it as an example. I see, just because all the stuff is there doesn't mean you have to accentuate it by painting it separately. Good point, especially if all the bling distracts from the figure. Well, at least that chapter master figure looks pretty good at table-top distance, and looks really good with his existing termies. Eventually we'll sit down and plan out and build his own custom chapter master from scratch... and that will be a very fun project all on it's own.

@inmy: Ah, now you make ME jealous... it'll be a while before the boys and I get a chance for another game. So tell us a story about your game? What did the kids seem to like best? Did either of them do something tactically or strategically that surprised you? Did any "great moments"... improbable or otherwise happen during the game that were noteworthy? Go ahead, hijack the thread for a bit.... we'll be camping with the cub scouts all weekend so someone should be posting something to keep the thread interesting! *grin*


On a separate note I need some advice...

Thing 1 is having a birthday party at our FLGS in a couple of weeks. Roughly 10 kids, all his buddies and all 40kers (9-10 year olds). I "hire" a couple of older boys who help out at the store for a few hours to help run the games, the kids play, we have cake afterwards... all very nice. I have some ideas of how I'd like to set the games up, but I'd like to run them by everyone and get your input... especially those of you who are younger or have experience with kids roughly about the same age.

Most of the boys are used to playing at the Friday "young bloods" thing they have at our FLGS each week. They play by the rules (mostly) but are pretty fast and loose with the FOC... it's really just to get the kids enthused about the game and get the basic rules down. As a result, when a couple of the older boys entered a regular shop tournament they were pretty unprepared for the level of competition and demands on time presented by that format. Now it's not my idea to go overboard, but I would like to give the boys a more formal look at what it's like to play 40k. I've only got 3 hours slated for the party, so we're only talking 1 game really.

Here are my current thoughts... I would appreciate any C & C.

- To give the day an overall theme, split the boys into two teams... "forces of the Imperium" and "Xenos/Chaos"... luckily with this group they pretty much split right down the middle... especially as my son has access to multiple armies and can shift as needed.
- We'd have all the tables end-to-end so there was a feel of the two sides squaring off in a larger battle, but each pairing would be a separate battle and you can't cross your table boundary.
- 1000 pts each (should be easily manageable but big enough to be versatile)
- Must adhere to FOC, no more than 2 slots in each non-troop category
- no named characters
- pairings would be made based (roughly) on skill and experience, so the newest boys get to play each other and the hardened veterans duke it out vs. each other (my son can help with this as well)
- each pairing would have it's own specific victory conditions for the battle which again, would be part of the greater effort.... I might even make up a little story to set the battle up to get the kids more into it.
- probably do a standard deployment (DoW) to keep everything simple.

The victory conditions along the "front" would be chosen as in a real battle plan. Assuming 5 pairings for example... the center might be a simple annihilate mission (to destroy the enemies center), the two to either side could be objective based for holding key positions and the two on the outside could be the one where you have to get units into the oppositions deployment zone (i.e. trying to outflank them). Something like that... so that all the boys feel like they're a part of a greater battle. To this I'd probably add universal secondary objectives (to all tables) like assassinate.

Might even photograph parts of the battle to show here on the blog (jury's out on that).

Anywho... while the kids are eating their cake & ice cream, I'll pull together the results of the day, and make up a quick story describing what happened & spin the tale for the kids with the tale at the party's end, along with giving out a few prizes.


I do have some specific questions though:

- Overall... do you think it would be fun for the kids? Games aside, does having an overall "theme" for the day add to the fun of it, or won't it matter (as it is extra work).

- Do you think limiting the non-troop slots in any category to 2 will accomplish anything? Emphasis on this game is fun, not competitiveness... so I'm trying to dumb-down the lists a bit, but at 1000 pts I don't know if that's even necessary.

- What missions or victory conditions do you think would work the best? How about more "universal" secondary objectives.... any other ideas? Don't want to make things too complex, but I do want to make it interesting and fun.

- I'd like to give out a few prizes at the end but I'm not sure for what... or for that matter what to give out. I thought about making a cool objective marker (which I'm sure none of these kids have) or I could always do gift cards at the store. Then again what do I give awards for? It's only 1 game, not a tournament.

- "Gift bags" are typical now-a-days for parties (each child gets a little goodie bag of treats and simple toys to take home) but gaming stuff is so expensive that I just cant see giving out a gaming related bag for each kid. Is it cool to just do a normal, non-gaming related gift bag?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer...

Not in any order and as you know I don't have kids, but I have "mentored"

My opinion: looks good. I 'd keep the rules as close to the original as possible. If they have been playing for a while they are building experience on what they already know. Changing the rules is harder to wrap your head around while in the mist of battle. The ability to adapt is key and a learnable skill, but the day is about having fun..

I like your idea for an overall battle theme. To me Stories make the game memorable. Give out prizes for events; I like the GW battle report on the “ rock star moment of the day”. A particular event or turning point of a game or cool moment. Call it something fun. IE.. the crusher award goes to ________ for his dread for wiping out all of XXXXX ‘s _________squad. The PETA award for creating another librarian squig. The super soaker award for the _______’s captain for shrugging off massive fire power. Best save moment ect. Everyone get a moment of recognition and there is always moment(s) in every game.

When we use to do kids tourneys ( small ). Every great moment we stop everybody and announce it. “ Blessed by the Emperor Captain flapjack of the IHOP marines just survived 24 dice worth of shooting unscathed.” Or in the old terminology “ the Brent Paradox” of storytelling. This should add some heroic moments to your story telling.

I can help with objective markers if you need something. Just let me know and I’ll whip them out this weekend.

I love your secondary objectives you use with the thing(s). Again it makes the game a better story, opens up new opportunities to win and quite honestly what make your battle reports so fun to read.

And lastly…Thou I'm old and probably out of touch.. don't give out prizes that cause players to "win" for money/gift cards. It's ok where you want to encourage competitiveness, but if you want a relaxed game, it doesn’t work. Besides these kid are already under peer pressure to win.

For mission I would do one thing throughout, mostly to keep everything organized (like your brain). I would say all annihilation or Capture and controll, and all the same set-up, tho different terrain is cool.
I wouldnt limit the FOC to 2 slots of anything or named HQs as its only 1k points, let em go nuts, assuming that the FLGS has house codicies to check things out.
For prizes, talk with the store and see if they can give you a bigger break then normal and get some of the small 3 packs of guys for em.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440273a&prodId=prod1630084
The store has about $4 in one of those packs, so see if they can sell you 10 for like $5 each. Notmuch moneyz, give em to everyone! Just about every army has one of those boxes (not Deamon/whichhunters, specific chapters, DE).

Sounds fun.

I would check that the kids can all make 1k with the 2x restriction on specials and no SCs. It could be ugly if 1 kid can't make points or has to play with an [eg] ubered vehicle heavy army to make points (ie. no-one else will have the guns to take him/her on).

Otherwise I agree with Solar lion

Also make the rules v.v.v. clear in advance. Maybe give the kids a print out a few days ahead of the event?

Hey Gitsplitta, if you go with an objective prize, or would like some objectives for the battles, I have a bunch of decently painted objectives that I could send over to you. The first one is a cool orky objective marker cobbled together from an aobr ork backpack, a deffkopta engine and two plastic rectangles.
My second objective is a cut up berzerker helmet half buried in the ground.
The third one is a bunker entrance hatch for a chaos base of operations, with the words "KILL! MAIM! BURN!" written on.
The fourth is a damaged dread arm painted in the colours of the blood angels, while the last 2 include a small dark angels statue and dark angels storm shield resting upon a rock. Tell me if your interested.

Also, I think a story of how all the battles are connected would be very cool. This month's white dwarf has tips on adding narration to battles and campaigns.

When I want a batch of trophies that look decent, yet do not cost much, and are not 'money' prizes, I go down to my local Hobby Lobby/Pottery Barn/Craft Store, and buy some plastic "Chargers", the plates you put under things on tables to make them purty. You can, usually, find copper, silver, and gold.

Then, I go buy some clear inkjet sticker pages, measure the interior circle of the charger, and make a quicky template. I put in some fluff for the event, store, date, etc. Gold for first place, and so-on.

Print out, cut out the circle, peel the sheet, and apply to the center of the charger.

Instant tournament plate.

IF you have a steady hand, you can use a Sharpie to write along the outer circle of the charger. Runes, the winner's name and army, etc.

--Brian

As a casual and competitive (teen) gamer who helps the 'young ones' with battles, rules questions, FOC etc. I'll give my two cents on your idea.

I wholeheartedly agree with Solar_Lion's view on having prizes and a story (and silly awards and commentaries to keep the atmoshpere lively).

Having endured/survived several (large) games with 9-10 year olds at my FLGS I know of many ways to (lose and) gain the attention of the younger children and keep them focused on the battle. So here are my top tips.

1. In a game that large (even with two people per table) it is important to give all of the children a simple objective (Anhilliation is the best from my experience, since a lot of kids don't seem to like C&C missions {because they don't like it that their HQ can't take objectives and that killing things doesn't give them points} [which is unfortunate for me because I prefer C&C]). If their are children their who like Capture and Control have them play one and other on one of the tables and work that into your narrative, this brings me onto point 2...

2. Narrative. A nice good setting is a good start, make up a planet name (Maroc V would suffice), a battle name (Battle for Death's Row etc.) and you already have the idea of spinning them a yarn about it and telling them the story anyway. All you need to tell them before the battle is 'Location, Time, Reason' kids seem to lissten to these points the most, then you tell them the rest of your tale after (or during) the game.

3. Prizes. I like the idea of giving them all a cheap box and try to negotiate some deal ($4-$5 would be ace). BUT, you should maybe also award two other prizes, one for most points and one for sportsmanship. (these prizes could just be another cheap box of SM/Eldar/Chaos/Guard)

4. FOC. it really depends on what minatures the kids bring with them. If all of the kids have at least one generic HQ then enforce the 'No Named Characters' rule, but if that aint the case and one of them turns up with a Named Character and no other HQ's then lift the ban. Same with the troops minimum, but personally I would try to enforce it since 1k points allows a lot of flexibility.

Yours

Gathering Storm

Hope thing 1 enjoys his party.

How about having each game be an objective game, with a single objective dead in the middle of the table and Spearhead deployment.

You could do up a bunch of quick objectives using spare bitz in a crate/pile/etc, with a simple paint job and wash. Shouldn't take very long to do something like this.

If the objective is contested, then the player with the most KP wins. If this also results in a tie, have a roll off. Winner gets to keep the objective, and as a bonus, will have a micro-trophy.

Or if you don't want to leave anyone out, have two objectives on the table center-line. Each objective is worth one Victory Point, and the player with the most KPs gets one Victory Point. Player with the most Victory Points gets their choice of one of the objectives, and the loser gets the other.

First off: Thanks to everyone for your great ideas and offers of help... I feel a "plan" forming.

@Heff: Actually I was thinking of something similar to your second idea. Though I'd probably do an Annihilation mission as previously suggested to keep it simple. However, I'd have one objective for each participant which they could lay out as a secondary objective. At the end of the day, they'd each get to take their objective home with them. That's a lot of objectives... several for armies I don't have any bits for, but maybe with the help that's been offered already I can get it done in time.

Count me in for a DA, BA or DE objective if needed!

OK guys, I'm going to mostly out of touch for the next few days, but when I return Thing 1 and I will have hammered out the details

Right now we have Imps, demons, tau, tryanids, nicrons, orks & 2 space marines (not sure of chapter but can find out... think one is BA).

The markers don't need to use the actual army figures of course, just need to be appropriate as objectives for that race. You don't have to go crazy on these, but try to make them nice enough that the kids can look at them as something to aspire to in their own painting and modeling.

Just post here if you want to volunteer for a particular marker, that way I can keep it all straight and everyone knows what's still needed.

Thanks again everyone for being so generous!

Git

Whats our deadline (not the event, maybe a 4-5 days in advance)? Let me know for sure on the SM chapters. You want em on 40mm bases correct?

Party is on Sat the 13th, so... in my hands by Wed. That way if we're short or I need to do some fixing due to shipping damage, there's time for that.

Yes, 40mm bases is best just because that's "standard", so they can use them without getting grief from their opponent. I'll post the chapters as soon as I know them.

Woo, that'll be fast. I'll get something SMish together for ya, not sure what tho. May end up being just a statue style marine if thats cool.

OK, I just realized how short a period of time that is... next week! Sheesh!

If you can get something to me by Friday, that would be fine. I'll PM anyone who does not already have it my mailing addy. If you don't have time to paint but can build something... that would be very helpful. I know enough "cheater" techniques that I can generate a pretty decent paint job in very short order if need be. Plus I'm all outta 40mm bases and I'm not sure my order for them will be here in time. I can pay for shipping if you'd like.


WM: That would be fine... thought about that myself as an option.

Thanks!

As I said above, I have a bunch of completed objectives already on hand. I'll work on the demons. What would daemons fight fight for?

A PILE OF SKULLZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know what, it all depends on the army. If it's a khorne army, the pile of skulls would work very well. For a tzeentch army, nurgle army, slaanesh army, or a mixed army, not so much.

If its a kids army I would be supprised if it were that organized/themed. Im guessing its going to be mixed.

Go ahead and PM me your addy Git.........again.........

A sacred artifact of some sort... I imagine they'd all be interested in that...

Will a pair of Tyranid objective markers suffice, or do you need more?

PM me an address, and they'll go out the door this weekend.

--Brian

Yeah, I'll need an adress to send you the objectives.

Thanks Brian, have PM'd...

Man, that thing with the giant missile in your gallery is really impressive! Not compensating for something are we?? *grin*



OH, and the Zulu Kroot are awsome!


@Munch: You should have a PM too. Thanks buddy.

Ok, I'm pretty much stumped on a demon objective. I like the idea of an ancient chaotic artifact but as to what that artifact is, I coming up blank.

Gitsplitta wrote:Man, that thing with the giant missile in your gallery is really impressive! Not compensating for something are we?? *grin*

No, not at all. At least I didn't paint it pink...

How about an alter made out of stones with some chaos symbols around it? Take a look at the marker I made with the eldar chained to it. That eventually will get the chaos alter treatment and it looks really good. I just grabbed some stones out of my driveway... smaller ones for the base and a thin flat one for the top.

It's a deal. I sent you a PM with a similar idea, except it was a small raised cylindrincal piece with a chaos star in the midddle and runes surrounding it.

Will be incommunicado for a couple of days. MunchMunch has got my shipping addy if you need it. I 'think* we're pretty well covered...

WM: this is a BA for sure, but statue is fine... could use one more SM obj if anyone else want's to take a whack at it.

Thanks again everyone, your the best!

Git -

WiP! Have a safe trip, Git!

I have a ba objective marker. I'll send it over with the others when I'm finished.


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@Briancj: Very nice work.

And done.



On the way! Thanks, MunchMunch for helping out!

--B.

Thanks.
Update:
The daemon objective is almost complete, just touching up the star. The ba dread arm needs a few highlights but other than that, it's done. I'd take pics, but something's wrong with my camera.

I have two on the way... IG and Necron

Geez I feel lame.

I'll do a genaric Imperail for SM or Imp as needed and a Tau if no1 else wants it.

hmmm...

I do have some leftover marines i'm probably not going to use...

i'll see if i can make something

I fugured out I dont have enough bits do do a convincing Tau marker. I do have a SM one ready for ya tho. I can send it unpainted if you want to paint it up for whatever chapter is needed.

Argh, forgot he wont be on much this weekend. Anyone know what the not-BA SM chapter is? Also what color are the FLGS tables?

Snuck out

BA and U marines.

FLGS has dozens of boards, all colors.

You guys are great... Thing 1 is all cranked up about what you're all doing. Everyone should chime in on the blog so we know what's covered. I can paint. Any extras (if there are any) will be given out as prizes.

Git

Great Idea!

I'll try to make a space-marine-y one, but i'm not sure if it'll be done in time.

Also, have you considered making all of the boards seem like a huge mega-board?

it's imperials vs. Xenos, and each board is connected in some way. capturing an objective on a board gives your side that stratagem. For example, a space marine captain with an orbital bombardment targeter is stuck in enemy territory. taking him means your side gets access to 1 orbital bombardment. This prods them into strategizing more. Some other ideas are:

- Power Plant
- Ammo Dump
- Fuel refinery
- Statue or chapel that counts as sacred ground
- a mycetic spore launcher
- a Tau bunker
etc...

you can send reinforcements to other tables, and if the need becomes dire, you can retreat to another table.
Also, you should kind of play it like planetstrike , e.g.
let the defender set up defensive postitions and such.

Finally, some background you might want to use

BATTLE FOR TARMUS VI

The planet of Tarmus VI is a crucial supply point for the imperium. It provides munitions, tanks, and various supplies to the far-flung armies of Man. Today would be like any other day in the history of Tarmus: The oppressed populace would continue to be forced into producing countless iron behemoths for use in the war. But today is unlike any day. Today, the leaders of variouss Xenos factions, led by a crack team of Eldar and Warboss Gitsplitta's horde of greenskins, have banded together in an alliance of necessity to destroy the planet. A massive attack is swiftly carried out by the invaders, but they appear to have underestimated the garrison of space marines and imperial guard at their own peril. Now, only one question remains:

WHO will win the battle of Tarmus VI?

Do with these suggestions what you wish

I need your address again git, forgot to save on my excell sheet and I'll never find it in PMs.

He made me the caregiver of his addy, so I'll PM you with it.

Heres the two Objective markers that I made for thing1's birthday, I'll be shipping them out on monday morning for Git to paint in approprite colors.
The 1st is a tech marine that has discovered a chache of arms. Hes sporting 2 powerfists, a Twin Linked Heavy Bolter, an Assault Cannon, and a Power Axe.

2nd is a damaged homing beacon along with various SM bits left from those who made their last stand in that location, hoping that reinforcments would yet appear.

whalemusic360 wrote:

Here at CRAZY EDDICUS', our prices are INSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!

Lol, yeah that one was lots of fun to make.

*snark" Good one Bri...

Back now. Those look great WM, I'll give 'em a good going over when they get here. You can tell what kind of shape I'm in after spending the weekend camping because it took me 3 tries to spell "good" correctly.

Lol. well to make your job a bit easier I already cleared the mold lines and drilled the barrels on everthing (including all 6 on the assault cannon). About time the zillion extra Ravenwing Land Speeder pieces came in handy.
This also inspired me to make some objectives for myself, which I'll share latter on my plog.

My son wanted to say "thanks" to everyone for all the work you're putting in on his behalf, rather than my saying it... I thought I'd give him the com. (I'll just type.)

"So to everybody who's helping me out I'd like to say thank you for doing this, and using your own time to do something nice for me. I really appreciate it and hope my friends enjoy them (objectives) as much as I'm enjoying you guys volunteering to do them for me. Thanks again! Bye!" - Thing 1

Ah, that's sweet.

ok remind me when thes have to be in your hands?

What weekend is the party?

This comming friday! Only reason I havent offered up more.

whalemusic360 wrote:This comming friday! Only reason I havent offered up more.

QFT.
If I had more time, supplies and ideas, I could have made Thing 1 a and his friends more objectives.

Friday if they're painted... earlier (if at all possible) if not.

They only need one objective each... so you guys will be providing plenty as it is. Thanks!

Update: all my objectives are completed, ready to be shipped out tomorrow.

Cool, thanks Munch.

Hey... SIGN YOUR WORK!!

Put your name (or dakka name) on the underside of the base so the kids know who did them! They may well be future dakkites (especially considering the exposure they get indirectly through my son talking about the blog), so having a connection to the forum might pique their interest.

Ah crap, to late. They got put in the mail this morning.

That's OK, I'll "sign" them for you when they arrive!

Hey guys, will anyone who sent in obectives chime in on what you sent so I know exactly what's on it's way? Looks like Thing 1 is going to have a full house and I want to make sure I have everyone covered. I got Whalemusic's, but no one elses as yet.

Thanks!

Bad news: the post office contacted me, the package was lost. Sorry.

O.K. Much, really sorry about that. Hate to see your time wasted. Which one's were you doing?


Update: 2 AM

Teleport Homer taken from my own objectives: done
WMs SM cache: done
Ork totem: built, painted, needs flocking
Chaos alter: built, painted, needs flocking

On deck:
Vespid hiding in tall grass (only tau in the house)
Necron power stone.

Will get up in 3 hours to flock objectives & head off to work. Half way there. WM, not sure I'll be able to paint your cool tech marine in time, just too complicated. Will either return it or see it gets into hands of deserving youngster, as you prefer. If anything shows up in the mail tomorrow, then tomorrow evening gets easier & the tech marine gets painted too! Fingers crossed. Decided I need more bits in the house for armies I don't own...

Night all!

I was doing the chaos daemons objective, the ba objective, and the ork objective. Tell Thing 1 and his friends, that I'm sorry.

Not your fault, and I already have you covered. I'll put up pics of what I've managed to do so far later today.

If you cant get him done in time, consider him a gift for T1s birthday.

I sent off two Tyranid objective markers.

--B.

whalemusic360 wrote:And now that I made a table, I have to make terrain too! Ugh x5.

You could always start a terrain swap thread too, lol.

You guys should see the two I through together last night... even I think they're good. Heck, I'd be willing to use either myself. Not bad for 1 nights work.

WM: Will do that, though I'm hoping to actually get a chance to use him as intended... but Thing 1 would definitely get a kick out of it (he thinks he's cool).

Briancj: Great! That's the one race where I have absolutely no good answer for in my own bits stock. No good ideas either really, and yours were really top notch.

Don't forget to change the thread title after your son's birthday!!

Or maybe even start a new one!

I forgot about that... technically he's already 10 so... thanks!

Hope Thing 1 has a good birthday party.

It's a shame I live overseas from you (and away on holiday as well), cause I have some SM objectives and 4 Tyranid objectives that I could have spared. :(

Ah well C'est la vie. You have to post pics of the battle once it's done. And I hope yours sons' team wins the battle.

Thanks GS, I'm sure the kids and Thing 1 will all have a good time.

Quick shots of what I've done so far...


My first Imperial objective marker... not too fancy but decent. This was made a while ago before I'd settled on a basing scheme. *note: The original photo has been updated here to show the addition of the tree & shrub and a better lighting set-up.


Whalemusic360's space marine cache...



Chaos alter. Table is a piece of foam, pole is made from a toothpick.



Ork Totem objective... cobbled together out of bits.



The injured vespid scout for the Tau marker is painted and has been glued on the base. Now to make lots of tall grass for him to hide in. Should be interesting getting home as we've had a ton of rain and are having flash floods all over the place.


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Wooo - hooo! The tyranid objectives arrived!

*whew* That's a relief.

Thank you Briancj!! They look fantastic!

That chaos altar is very similar to mine. It was a large rock with a big chaos star and a summoning book.

Happy Birthday Thing 1 !!!!!

Hmmmm..... a summoning book is an excellent idea. I might have one of those that I can place on the altar.


Thanks Blackhand, I'll be sure to let him know (actually I'll pass on everyone's good wishes).




I'll take photo's of the proceedings & report back. Probably have to wait until next week as we have friends staying with us on Sunday so we'll be busy. Thanks everyone for your efforts, whether things got to me or not you all have my sincere gratitude (and that of Thing 1).

Look good! Glad you noticed it was a techmarine pack as well.

If he does it again next year, or if T2 does similar, give us more then a week and I'll get you some really cool stuff.

Will do, and thanks.

T2 is a little young yet. None of the other boys in his class play, which isn't surprising as they can't read yet. By next year he'll be reading (they've been working towards it, just not quite there yet) & maybe in a year or two he'll have his own group. If not, he can keep playing with his brother & his friends... he's caught on well enough even without reading that he can play very competently (though he still needs help with knowing what he needs to roll & some rules)


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Next completed objectvie...

The only tau in the house... a vespid that Thing 1 used a bit of stray store credit to buy. Decided to contribute it to the cause.

The story behind this one is that this is a tau vespid scout... for those situations where ariel reconnaissance is required combined with steath. Unfortunately for this particular vespid, a squadron of land speeders came apon him out of the sun, badly damaging a wing with heavy bolter fire. He managed to give them the slip before they were able to finish him off, now all he can do is hide in the tall grass and hope that rescue comes before the marines find him.


I suspect this will not be everyone's favorite... due to the nature of the tall grass it doesn't photograph well. But the kids just love it! There is a fully painted vespid in there somewhere...




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Last but not least, an objective for chaos marines. The sacred helm of Gozer the Gozarian, champion of chaos. Said to posses magical powers for any champion of the ruinous powers who is brave enough to seek it out and place it on his head.





This was my first attempt at marble. Not great... but OK at table viewing distance.

Lovin' the ghostbusters reference! Go-ZER! I quite like the marble, maybe a light stippled/sponged grey to break it up and then a gloss varnish on the block alone. Have a great day today and all the best to the Things (what mrs. gitsplitta must make of all this I don't know!)

All of those objectives look great. I like the idea of the vespid (just a shame I can't see it properly) as an objective marker. The second chaos marker is ace.

Very cool objectives. I might follow suit and make some. They look fun ^_^

@graven: Hmmmm.... that's a good idea. I have some time this morning, I'll give it a try. I'm adding a spell book to the summoning alter anyway so I might as well tidy them both up. Ms. Gitsplitta gets a day without "her boys", which as you might imagine is quite a relief. Actually, she's always been a big supporter of the hobby, long before we were married she was buying me figures (though she does not game herself). She'd making T1's birthday cake in the shape of a 40k tank!

@GStorm: LOL, the vespid was kind of a desperation move... it's the only tau figure in the house of any sort, so I had to come up with a viable excuse for an objective using it. Luckily it wasn't that hard to paint and the tall grass covers up the fact that I didn't go into great detail on it. Believe it or not, I trimmed the grass back from it's original density... from several angles you can actually see the vespid in there now.

@vent: Excellent! Please be sure to share them. I'd sure they'll be great, especially if you're not quite a sleep deprived as I was for most of these!

I love the chaos marine objective !

Hey! I just figured out that I can reverse the panel on my photo box to a much better neutral grey. Wow, that's so much better!

OK, here's the chaos marine objective after the tweaking graven suggested... grey/green specking and a somewhat diluted gloss varnish on the marble.

Nice improvements... thanks bud!

Cool, can't wait to see the battle

Did some final tweaking of the summoning alter for the demon player. Painted rivets & studs, most importantly added a summoning book. Had some fun with the pages. The stand isn't much, just a roughly shaped blob of green stuff, but given the time constraints it'll work out just fine.



Since this will be my only record of these objects, I think I'll update a couple of the older images, you'll be able to tell by the change in background.

Very nice, on the daemons objective, as well as the csm objective. I like the reference to arthurian legend. Nice work!

The party was a smashing success!!

I got comments like...

"This is the best 40k party EVER!"
"These objectives are EPIC!"
"If I gave you the stuff would you build my army for me?"
"These look like figures I've seen on Dakka."
"Would you paint my army for me?"
"I had a great time... this was soooo cool!"

Even the folks who run the store and the boys I hired to help run the games were really surprised at how well it all went, and the other parents seemed pleased at their smiling, excited boys as well. Turns out everyone showed up... even though one didn't RSVP, so I need to make a necron objective after all... but, as he didn't have an army (I think his attendance was a last-minute thing) I just lent him my army (I'd brought a little MW army to play against Thing 2) and he and Thing 2 played their brains out!

We did DOW deployment, kill points to determine game victor. Each victory (no matter by how much) was worth 1 victory point towards the overall (global) battle. If you owned your own objective at games end, it was worth another point towards the overall battle. I did tell eveyone the tale of Taurus VI to get them fired up.. but really, these kids didn't need any further firing up... they were battle ready! I also had a story to explain each objective, and as T1 and I handed them out, I'd take a minute to explain why each objective was an objective for their army. The kids ate it up.

Well, that's enough talk... the pics will say it better than I can...

The battle ensues...


Proof that Dakka dice really work.


Epic conflict between the Doom Eagles terminators and (traitor for the day) Blood Angles Death Company.


Nids close in on their objective.


Original predator b-day cake, made with love by Mrs. Gitsplitta from a photo of T1's predator.

Cool! I'm glad they had so much fun!

that looks magnificent

Looks like they had fun, glad it went well.

Must have earned you like a thousand "Best Dad" points!

Well, at least some "coolest dad" points. The objectives were a big hit.... when I was giving the kids their pre-game pep talk and let them know that not only would they be playing with objectives that my friends and I had made specifically for their armies, but that they'd get to take them home... the boys lit up like so many Christmas trees! It was fun to see that. Made all the late nights worth while.

Oh WM: When I let Thing 1 know that you said that he could keep the Tech Marine objective as a birthday present, he let out a whoop, jumped up in the air and gave me a huge hug! So... I guess you did good!

Much props on the cake Mrs. Gitsplitta! Happy b-day Thing 1, I'm glad it was a blast! Which side won the day??

I'm so happy it went well for you Git.

So whats on for next years big event? Apoc? lol.

Ah, forgot to mention that.... the Xenos were triumphant 7 vp's to 4. Unfortunately Thing 1 took a pretty serious whoopin' from the BA player (turned chaos for the day)... apparently the Death Company just ate 3 units of his before finally being dispatched by the remnants of a tactical squad... which at 1000 point level was pretty devastating. But, he seemed pretty unphased, mainly I think because he got enough $$ in gift cards that he doubled the effective size of his budding Necron army in one go (Monolith, Hvy Destroyer, Tomb Spider, 2 pariah's & 2 wraiths). He basically bought out their stock of anything useful.

He's got another gift credit for GW and enough money that he earns by working around the house that I think he can fill out any one of the new squads.

I actually think the smaller battles are much more fun for the kids than Apoc. They do Apoc at the store every Friday and while there's a lot of shooting there isn't much strategy (the kids just bring what they have, they don't really write up an army list). I think putting them in a more formal setting made it more fun for them.

Next year I might introduce a painting competition or something like that. Best figure and best unit perhaps... something to encourage the kids to start painting their figures. As you can see from the pics it was a sea of bare plastic. I also might offer to spend some time with the kids teaching how to paint over this year. Teaching them the basics wouldn't take long and would give them a solid foundation for later years.

Sounds like you might end up being the cool 40k dad for more kids then your own! Glad the kids had fun and everything went smooth. T1 is quite welcome, it should fit his fluff pretty well also. With the DE getting the short end of the new equipment stick, a find like that would be substantial.

Who took a Land Raider at 1000 points? Looks like the BA player is using some older stuff as well.

Cake looks great, but I bet it got a 6 on the damage chart and exploded (into everyones stomaches). Super realistic fire battle damage too

That was the joke as I was adding the candles.... "battle damage". T1 insisted that I put one at the end of the barrel.

Actually it was T1 that took the LR to ferry his termies around. I imagine that worked fine until they came out & got jumped by the Death Company. I did challenge him on it when he was building his list as the point sink for LR & termies was so steep that it left the rest of his army very thin... but he insisted. I need to fix the front ramp... not sure how (or when) that got broken.

My little MW army did pretty well for itself... 4 dreadnoughts w/ MoTF to repair them in 1000 pts is nothing to sneeze at. Your sternguard finally got to run with his brothers in a real game... they did very well. Ran them as a screen in front of the rifleman dread and the combined group really laid out some serious damage.

I'm about to become a father to my first son in the next 2 weeks sometime, and reading (trolling rather) through this has been a source of inspiration for me somewhat! I keep joking with my wife that my expensive hobby is about to get twice as expensive =P haha. But it looks like i'll have to wait another 10 years before my son can really really get in on the action!

Speaking of nostalgia, my first army was the DE from the 40k battleforce way back in 99' or 00'? My dad bought it for me and my little brother. I fell in love with it but fell out cause there was noone to play with. And the DE models were butt ugly. Sad that even as a kid i thought that....

I'm looking forward to some father-son time at the FLGS painting and fighting. *Sigh* can't wait!

My youngest started at 6, so you won't have to wait as long as you think. He still can't play by himself as he can't quite read yet... but aside from reading, he knows the game's general rules, his units, how to move etc. In other words I can play a real game with him, I just have to be there to remind him what numbers he needs to roll & about any special rules.

And yes... your expensive hobby *will* get twice as expensive! *grin* Start them off with your models, then help them build and army of their own with the extras you have lying about. Once the get the basics of the game, modeling and painting down... then you can let them expand into something all their own. That's what I've done with my eldest and it's worked out pretty well. He's built a respectable marine army out of my hand-me-downs & donated figures. When he's done painting the bulk of it (he's got 1 unit and 3 vehicles left), he will be moving on to Necrons. Then hopefully I can sit back and relax a bit and let him do his thing on his own.

Then I can start working on painting and modeling with my younger son a bit more than I have. Or perhaps even work on my own models....

Work on your own models? Outrageous Gitsplitta. With guiding Thing 1 and 2, objectives for parties, and the marine swap are there any hours left in the day for that? lol.

Seriously though I've said it before and I'll say it again kudos on this project, I think its brilliant that your youngsters are being brought up in the true spirit of the hobby, through your hard work and that of others. A++ indeed.

Markers look awesome! Some great inspiration there. I'm so envious of Thing1, having so many people to play with. Wish I had that many friends that play WH40k -.- tierd of losing to my buddys orks

Gitsplitta wrote:
Nids close in on their objective.

Huzzah! Nids close in on their krazy straws, to drink the lifeblood of the planet! Mmmmm.

I'm glad the markers made it, and it looks like a good time was had by all.

Huzzah!

--Brian

Yeah, they young man loved his objective. I will "quietly" see that he gets the other as well, I just didn't want to cause a ruckus by giving one boy two objectives while the rest got only one.

I'm happy that you used some of the background suggestion. Your kids seem to have had fun. Also, i think that painting lessons are a great idea. I personally hate "seas of grey". One or two units is okay, but a whole army is just bad. That's why i almost never field unpainted units. granted, my work could use some improvement, but at least i paint it...

We have a rule when we game at home... "no unpainted figures". This rule is occasionally bent as long as painting is in process, but I've never fielded an unpainted figure at our FLGS. I think Thing 1's land raider is the first one he's fielded that wasn't painted... but he's been working dillagently on his army, so I figure it's OK (and the LR is on the "to be painted soon" list).

I did use your idea... not quite verbatim but I did use the concept to set up the battle. Once the kids got going though, they weren't interested in stories... they wanted blood! *grin* I did have the two older boys who were helping write down particularly heroic moments from the battles & at the end of the games I read them off, remembering to mention everyone. That, they appreciated.

It's good that thing 1 had a brilliant birthday. I'm guessing that he will want the same kind of party next year.

I wish I could have had something like that a few years ago...

I also abhor sea's of plastic (which is why my 'nids don't get much use right now).

My bro's rule for when I'm playing at home is that you have to have at least started painting the minature, cause of this I have a rhino with a fully painted interior (but no paint on the outside) several 'half-painted' CSM and two half finished DP's.

For me, playing with and against nicely painted miniatures is just more fun. Takes some of the sting out of losing if you know deep inside that your army is better looking than your opponent's. *grin*

I don't mind young kids having a sea of plastic, but I get a chuckle out of 'ard boyz where the majority of players are seasoned adults, many of whom have been playing for many years... with seas of plastic.

To each his own... that's the beauty of the hobby, you can do with it what you will.

I have to play painted simply by the nature of how I paint them. They dont get attached to their bases untill Im basically done painting. I have played with some vehicles that are not finished in the paint catigory, and I really need to go back and highlight all the DA I have. Most of that is simply because I've become a much better painted then when I started.

Looks like it was awesome fun

I didn't have it up long for "security" reasons, but I have a GREAT photo of all the boys smiling and holding out their objective markers (we did a "thank you" group shot at the end). The looks on their faces says it all... they had a really good time!

Great job with the event! Things like this make it so that I can't wait until I have kids of my own .

Wow talk about an inspiring log!

I'm still trying to explain to myself why my painting is worse than a 10 year olds...I guess that's why I like painting black so much.

@Thing 1: Happy Belated Birthday!

Iron Corsair wrote:

@Thing 1: Happy Belated Birthday!

seconded

Happy belated birthday!

He says... "Thanks!!"

:-)

nice to be able to start with building a army in a less peice meal fashion Now lets see some painting!