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Hi there,

I'm a married 40 year old mom of 4 kids, 3 of whom were introduced to the hobby by my husband last year, 2010.
(our 17 year old daughter generally wants no part of our geeky hobbies)
After much discussion and deliberation, our sons decided on their armies and asked Santa for their respective battleforces. This past Christmas was a 40k day as my 10 year old got his Tyranids, my 9 year old his Orks and the 7 year old his Space Marines. They also each received a nice set of brushes, some templates, tape measures etc. Thankfully my husband never does anything half way, so he'd already researched and purchased the necessary modeling tools, paints, primer etc, so once they had battleforces in hand....it was time to begin.

Opening the first box was completely overwhelming. Sprue after sprue of TINY little pieces...it was complete chaos and appeared to be a nearly impossible undertaking. I was totally intimidated and looked at my husband to see the same thoughts swirling around in his head too. We both wondered if we'd made a costly miscalculation! Could we really make this happen or would it end in frustration and a box full of expensive plastic pieces???

We went into this knowing that we'd have to be heavily involved with my 7 year old and his army, modeling etc, but hoped that my 9 & 10 year old could "get it" quickly. To my relief, they all jumped right into it and now, with little guidance, the older two are able to completely assemble their minis without much oversight, although the 7 year old's interest wanes at times. After several months of practice, cursing and some tears, all the battleforces are nearly complete. Personally, I turned the corner when my 9 year old and I assembled his Ork Trukk. There were so many pieces and it definitely felt like we'd bitten off way more than we could chew. But we just took it one step at a time and to both our delight, the finished model looks amazing! I felt a huge sense of accomplishment after finishing the trukk and now see the little individual models as relatively quick and easy (sometimes!). It's a nice place to be especially when I think back to the horror I felt pouring through that first box!

My husband had always planned to get his own army if it was something the boys liked, so now that we feel more confident about the modeling aspect, he recently bought his Spacewolf battleforce. For me, after months of working on my sons' armies and listening to my husband recount cool Abnett stories about the Horas Heresy, I started thinking about what army I would pick. I've always been into scary things. I grew up on the classic Universal monster movies, then graduated to early 80's horror flicks - add to that almost 30 years of playing video games, I knew I definitely wanted an army that looked mean and scary. Couple that with my husband's nickname for me "Chaos", the choice was obvious. So two weekends ago while watching some guys play at the local comicbook store, I final broke down and bough my Chaos Space Marine battleforce. So far I've assembled and primed the 5 Possessed CSM and can't wait to get started on the next unit.

Now for a little venting:
GW could definitely make this hobby more enjoyable if the Codex and army builder lists were better organized. I'm completely confused as to how to assemble my CSM. I know it's designed to be flexible, but it would be nice to have some suggestions for beginners on how to assemble a well balanced army. Between the 5 of us and an army builder program we bought, I know we'll figure it out, but it's still very frustrating. It's also disheartening when we watch guys who've been playing for decades - nearly all their discussions revolve around confusion about or questions related to the rules and referencing the rule book, over and over and over again. We'll see. It could just be because I'm a complete beginner, but at this point, I have no interest in actually playing the game, just building my army.

Thanks for your interest. I'll post some pics once I figure out how to navigate this site.

~Jen

Welcome to dakka and wow a whole family of 40k thats pretty good luck hope you guys have fun in the world of 40k

wow, welcome ^^ it good to see a family get into the game, in my own family its just me and my younger brother(nids for him). I hope when I start a family of my own, that I can do the same as you and yours has, its impressive to say the least, now go forth and Claim some skulls for the Dark Gods! well something like that. have fun and enjoy your time here on Dakka, most will be more than happy to help you, be it List Building,Painting, Basing or evening Sculpting Green stuff. there will be tutorials galore, just look and you'll find what you need, and if you don't find it post up a thread and I am sure people will be likely to either link you, or give helpful input.

Welcome to Dakka.

My wife and I play (She runs Eldar and Dark Eldar, and have been playing for a year. I run Necrons and Orks these days, and have been playing since 40K was born

We have two kids, 5 and 2, and the 5 year old is developing an unholy fascination with my orks. She's a little young for assembly (glue, knives and 5 year olds do not mix ) just yet, but is beginning to pick up the basics of the game.

My advice is to keep it simple, ruleswise. 40K is a very complex game, especially when the old hands try to find a rules loophole around another rule that may not be perfectly written, and the blood gets ankle deep over the metaphorical meaning of the word 'and'. Check out the You Make The Call forum for examples

It's great to see another gamer family out there If you need advice, rules help or similar feel free to ask. This forum is a helpful bunch, mostly, and i'm always willing to answer a PM if you want to bounce one at me

Hey - welcome to Dakka!

Yes, it's true that the codex listings can be pretty intimidating if you've never seen them before. Especially if you're starting with battleforces, as opposed to starting with the Black Reach set. In Black Reach, you only have a couple of the options on the models, whereas with the battleforce, you get everything!

Anyway, this is what Dakka is for. I'm sure people would be up for helping you pick a simple armylist from the contents of a Battleforce - try the 40k Army Lists forum...

Thanks for all the responses! The internet has been fantastic for researching our questions, but so far Dakka has been the primary source for the really good information. That's why I decided to join officially.

I also forgot to mention that we did buy the Black Reach set, more for the overall value to add models to two of our sons' existing armies. After having assembled Orks and Space Marines from the battleforces, we put together the entire BR set in an afternoon. My 9 year old didn't need any help and the 7 year old only needed a little help with his dreadnought.

Thank you again for all your encouragement! I really appreciate it.

Hi *waves*! Nice to see more Chaos players out there . Have you decided on a colour scheme yet?

Greetings, welcome to out mostly sane site. Any particular legion you want to run with?

Welcome to the Dakka family!
Hopefully the more dysfunctional children here will not be too big a nuisance.

Enjoyment of 40k does depend on the quality of your opponents..

Good luck!

Wow, thats quite an undertaking you got going there. It's nice to see a family getting into the hobby together

As you noticed, it all gets a bit easier as you go along the rules are pretty much the same way. Just take it nice and slow and you'll get the hang of it in no time - all it takes to avoid any disputes is a bit of discussion with the other player, and some common sense. Anything you want to know, people will be happy to help but you seem to have got the general idea of it already.

Must make for some interesting shopping trips if you happen to go past a Games Workshop...

Wow, that's really cool that you guys all have a hobby in common, but if your husband is anything like my dad, you could probably say mother of 4 haha. Good luck with our armies and learning the game.

A 40k Family (minus the daughter). You should have some fun at Tournaments in years to come! Keep having fun.

Now that's not something you hear about everyday, an entire family going into 40k. Well, I hope everything goes well with the painting and gaming. There will be some road bumps every now and then, but don't let any of that discourage you entirely. Welcome to the Dakka community!

Great intro. Hello and welcome.

Welkom to Dakka! Sounds like you five are going to know what to play on family game nights from now on...

I'd suggest, once you've gotten over the "Whoa, Bitz!" part of beginning, and are getting comfortable with your models and units, as well as the basic rules, to make a dedicated gaming table somewhere in the house (basement, rec room, maybe even something you could pull out from under the couch) that's the right size, with a little simple terrain (once again, plenty of tutorials.) You won't always need to go to the Hobby shop for a game with that many players around.

What a cracking introduction post! Welcome aboard. A family of gamers...now there is an interesting way to divvy up the household chores. 'Today's objective, is taking out the trash' let battle commence to decide who does what...

Cannot wait to hear more about how your army progresses, keep us posted!

Welcome to Dakkadakka! Thats neato that you got a majority of your family into the hobby. (maybe you can at least get your daughter into boardgames). We look forward to hearing about your family's progress.

Heh. Give her time, she'll come around. Maybe you could soften her up with a copy of Space Hulk or a card game. (:

Don't be intimidated by all the tiny pieces. You've got an amazing head start on a bitz box. One of you is playing Orks -- just you wait until you figure out Orkifying everything in that box. (:

Nice to here about a family spending time together, let alone spending that time on 40k. Kudos!

Welcome. You've found a nice corner of the internet. I have a pair of sons who enjoy the figures. One likes playing with them more than the other. The other has an unhealthy obsession with zombies and undead. Good times are ahead.

One thing you might want to do is play a couple fo short games with partially assembled figures so that you can see what they do before you fully commit.

I haven't decided on a legion or a color scheme, although the fluff around the Black Legion is really cool and I really like the way the Thousand Sons look and their fluff as well. As for painting Thousand Sons....wow, I don't know.

I also haven't decided if I'll run Chaos Undivided or pick a Chaos God to follow. One thing I like about Chaos, in 40k and in life, is that there are no strict parameters. I can have Plague Marines fight next to Khorne Berserkers, next to Demons, etc. On the other hand, having nearly limitless combinations also presents it's own set of challenges.

For now, I have the battleforce and this weekend I assembled and primed my 5 Possessed. I also painted my very first model today, which turned out OK. I'm encouraged by my initial attempt because I know that with practice and more research on techniques, my skills will improve. Having seen the minis that the local guys play with at the gameshop...I wouldn't be embarrassed to play with him as he looks now. You can definitely spot those players who enjoy the modeling/painting part of the hobby and those who just want to get some models on the table to play the game. For now, I'm inclined to just shoot for great looking models...maybe the desire to play will come with time. Hopefully, my boys will have enough manual dexterity to paint theirs to their satisfaction as well.

Thanks again everyone for your awesome welcomes and encouragement!

Jen

Welcome to Dakka!

Hello and welcome to Dakka.

Welcome. Figure out how you like to play (theme, particular minis or whatever) and then build it!

So what if thousand sons are rubbish in game! Play them anyway!

Also don't be afraid to proxy (so 'this guy has a meltagun' even though he has a flamer) to test things. Your space marine son and space puppy hubby will have lots of bitz you can use & vice versa!

Now if only my wife would play..

Its definitely daunting coming up with your first army list, especially when you've never played the game before! My advice, aim for 1000 points to start with. It sounds like you've already been doing your research around dakka and a few other sites, so that's good! Here are my two cents about the armies that I'm familiar with:

Chaos Space Marines:

Do yourself a favor and pick up a Daemon Prince for your HQ. Give him wings. You can experiment with giving him different Marks and Spells without having to modify the model at all.

You have the CSM battleforce? You could do alot worse than building your initial 1000 point list around a squad of Marines and a squad of Khorn Bezerkers in that rhino.

When building up a squad of Chaos Marines, don't mix-and-match the weapons. Go with two Meltaguns, two Plasmaguns, etc. Having a squad with a heavy bolter and a meltagun doesn't work terribly well.

Orks:

Boyz. Lots and lots of Boyz. Then some more Boyz. Almost every ork army list calls for a whole bunch of boyz. For your son's 1000 point list, suggest that he build a "Green Tide." This basically means that the Ork player is going to overwhelm his opponent with sheer numbers. Its going to be tough painting all of those orks, but it will be worth it. When he moves up to 1500 points, he'll have all the orks he needs to experiment with a number of different ork lists. (Kan Walls, Mechanized, etc)

Make sure that he has a Nob in every one of his Boyz units. Give that nob a power claw.

Space Marines:

Vanilla Space Marines are a bit more tricky. They are the jack of all trades. You'll have to ask your son what sort of army he wants to play. Mechanized (lots of tanks!), Gun Line (Sit back and shoot anything that gets close to you), Drop-Pod Army (Lots of drop pods falling on the table), etc. It sounds like he has a decent start between the battleforce and Assault on Black Reach.

The squad from AoBR has a flamer/missle launcher. I would suggest that your son assemble the full squad from the battleforce the same way. Then take the extra 5 marines from the battleforce, and give them the other special/heavy weapons from the set. This way he can experiment with the different weapons in his squads by swapping them out.




Oh, and welcome to Dakka! Don't be afraid to post in the Army List Sections! People would be more than happy to help you out with your army lists!

Welcome to Dakka, and to 40k. Its adicting

To help on list builds read some reviews on internet, and enjoy the hobby. Assemble the units is the best part (for me at least).

Oh, and you have an adorable family, i hope my future family would look like that

Welcome, I started last year and now dragged my older bro and younger bro in though the younger one does not seem all to interested...

Welcome to this wonderful hobby. Might I recommend you take a look into the black legion? Its the first CSM legion and has a ton of lore from horus heresy. I seem to recall you liking what your hubby stated about horus heresy and well The Black Legion was the legion of Space Marines ran by Horus before he fell and took his guys with him. So its a cool chaos legion to begin with but one that may provide additional interrests to you.

Chaos? You got some sense then!

Welcome to the hobby!

By the way, your sons might appreciate thr Assault on Black Reach box, which is £60 and contains quite a few orks and space marines.