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So I know nothing about Warhammer. My daughter loves it though and she plays Dark Eldar. She told me her army was around 800 points (meaningless to me but ok) and said something about how her army gets massacred at first but once they get in close quarters, they're really powerful. She mentioned she wished she had a Voidraven Bomber.

She doesn't know I ordered the bomber and I could simply hand her the box and she'd love that. But I want to take it one step further.

This is my plan:
1) Assemble it.
2) Paint it. - I'd talk to her bf to let him know what I'm doing, and to learn her army colors. I have no painting experience but I'd watch a tutorial and make sure it matches her color scheme.
3) Surprise her by showing up at a gaming session and giving it to her. I'd let her bf know so he knows her army will be X points bigger and discretely make the necessary arrangements with the other players.

I have 3 questions:
1) Is this feasible? I love her but I'm not sure I want to spend 10 hours assembling and painting this thing. Or should I just give it to her unpainted?
2) What else would I need to do? Like would I need to print out its stats, determine what bombs and missiles it uses, write out simple strategies on how to use it effectively, stuff like that?
3) Or should I just give her the box and let her do everything herself?

Thanks in advance.

It's a great thought, but if you really want to impress her.....find out the colours of her army and get someone to paint it that knows what they are doing. If you're new to this, it's probably going to look pretty bad, which she may not like. You don't have to pay exorbitant amount, but at least someone who can use an airbrush.

Thats a very thoughtful idea.

One thing to consider is that a very large part of this hobby is the painting and assembly aspect of the whole thing.

I personally am very particular on how my models are assembled and painted, because I do it all myself. In fact, painting and assembly is my favourite part of the hobby.

I don't know how involved your daughter is in this aspect of the hobby but maybe find out before going to all that length to paint and assemble it. Especially for someone with no experience, you might find yourself messing the thing up (no offence, but it can take quite a while to get up to specific standards)

Also, many kits offer multiple game options that can change depending on the composition of the army they are in, you might chose an option she didn't want to go with when assembling the model and inadvertently make her list illegal.

Some things to think about.

Awesome idea though. I hope she enjoys the gift you got her.

That's an awesome idea to give her a fully assembled & painted voidraven.

But.... As you know nothing about the game & have zero painting experience, I would recommend NOT doing that.
1st, with vehicles there's almost always choices to be made during assembly - choices best made by the person who'll be using it.
2nd, a giant centerpiece model for someone else's army is absolutely not the way to begin your foray into painting....

So, as the saying goes, "It's the thought that counts". Give her the kit & tell her your intent. She'll understand & appreciate why it didn't happen.

Oh! Invest in a pack of magnets (look up magnetizing 40k models. I'm not sure what size a voidraven uses.) for her. That way bombs/missles/guns can be swapped out between games.

Although it's a heartwarming thought, I would not recommend doing it. You'd be better off letting her paint and assemble it

The message I'm getting is that painting it myself is a super awesome idea and I should totally do it.
Just kidding.

Actually I think I'll talk to her boyfriend and assess her desire to do the assembling and painting herself. And then speak to some people I know at local gaming stores and see if they can recommend a local artist in case I go that route.
And yeah, I'll get some magnets too. Magnetized weapons sounds pretty cool.

yeah gonna agree don't assmble it and paint it by yourself. However a great idea might be to buy it, research what paints you'd need for it, set up a work area, bring the void raven to the work area, and then call her to the work area and tell ehr "ohh hey I got this for you, I think it'd be fun to assmble and paint it together" it'd proably work better for her, and it'd give you a GREAT project to do together. Particularly during social distancing right now (assuming she lives at home with ya)

Theoric wrote:
This is my plan:
1) Assemble it.
2) Paint it. - I'd talk to her bf to let him know what I'm doing, and to learn her army colors. I have no painting experience but I'd watch a tutorial and make sure it matches her color scheme.
3) Surprise her by showing up at a gaming session and giving it to her. I'd let her bf know so he knows her army will be X points bigger and discretely make the necessary arrangements with the other players.

Couple things to note:

1) While this sounds easy it can be surprisingly tricky depending on how picky she is. If she is strict on removal of flash lines and all seams fitting she is less impressed of kit if you didn't trim flash away and there's even slight gaps Though if she has just 800 pts sounds fairly new player so maybe not that hardcore. But thing is you can't easily fix bad assemblies...
2) Painting isn't that easy thing to learn neccessarily. Depending on her painting level it's quite possible she paints to level you would need to spend months to learn and paint quite a few models in the process. And that's not even really top notch level...
2a) For some painting is half the fun ;-) Receiving prebuilt model(assuming not completely bungled up), fine. Prepainted? Whenever I buy models if they are painted regardless of quality or how they would fit they are stripped first...But here I would be in quandry because for present that seems....rude.
3) Decent enough idea provided opponents aren't dick and load up on anti air knowing what is happening

All in all 1 and 3 are good. 2 is bit of a ??? depending on how much she likes painting(she might be wanting it just as much to paint as to play with it) and how good quality you can make. Getting somebody experienced to paint it could be better though professional painting can get expensive(though result would be stunning) and finding somebody to do it for free could be tricky. And if she was looking forward to painting one...well she's hinting soon for a second

edit: And as pointed out loadouts...so if you really do this could be worth it to magnetize it but that's whole new level of things to learn. Don't know kit well to say how hard it is to magnetize. Could be easy, could be hard.

I'm gonna note here in response to Tneva's comment, that for me assmbling the model is also a biiig part of the fun, I know I'd be dissappointed if my dad assmbled a model for me...

well... actually I'd be impressed, he's 70 and his hand useally trembles so if he assmbled a model for me and did a great job I'd be pretty wowed

but yesh I like to assmble my models

True some people also like that part I'm less fan of that and screw up stages often enough that if I get well built kit I would be just happy! But certainly another consideration.

OP's thought is cool but might backfire spectacularly depending on preferences of daughter and dad's abilities ;-)

tneva82 wrote:
True some people also like that part I'm less fan of that and screw up stages often enough that if I get well built kit I would be just happy! But certainly another consideration.

OP's thought is cool but might backfire spectacularly depending on preferences of daughter and dad's abilities ;-)

i now kinda imagined a exchange service, aka one builds the models and then the next one paint's them .

That'd be actually pretty snazzy if the specific peoples like their respective stages.

Build and paint it to a base level, if the daughter paints well herself. An undercoat and base coat is enough to look good enough in a game.

Or, build it with just the odd spot of glue, to get the basic chassis built. If it can be disassembled easily to be rebuilt, she'll get to use it on the table, and can also get to build and paint it herself. I do this to get the feel of a model/unit before I build it properly.

Great idea though

Problem with things like the voidraven is (assuming you want clear canopy glass) you'll need to paint the cockpit interior fairly early in the build process, and you won't be able to revisit it once the build is done.

Other things you'd need to choose through the build are the armaments and whether the main bomb is retracted inside the fuselage or extended ready to be dropped.

It's a lovely idea but honestly probably better to give it to her untouched. A suggestion to work on it together, as someone else suggested, may be nice.

I think that its great that you want to go the extra mile for her! That you want to go further than just giving a box with some spru and show an interest in the game is quite a big thing for many.




However I echo the points above; each gamer has their own relationship with their collection. Some people, no matter their skill level, love to do it all themselves. For them the building and painting is a BIG part of the actual hobby. So to have that taken away can spoil things a little when perhaps they want to build it.
This can go beyond just building and painting to the instructions - they might have cool conversion ideas they want to do; small or big modifications or styles that they want to build a model in. Things that they might not even know they want to do until they've got the kit in their hands and start seeing how it goes together, how big things are etc...


Painting can be the very same and sometimes copy-catting another paint scheme is not easy. Plus, again, she might have really specific ideas about how she wants certain models to be painted. She might have totally red models but with that one model she wants it to have a white blaze down the left side only (for example). Something that looking at the rest of her model line, you'd never guess.
Also not every army has a single scheme - Eldar, for example, often haev a single scheme for most of the core, but then the aspect warriors might have their entirely own colourscheme that's totally different.







I would say (and I say this for most hobby purchases) whilst it can spoil the surprise, sometimes its best to go to the horses mouth. Especially if you're not directly involved enough to have picked up all the hints directly from her.

ALSO there's other ways you can show support and engage with her and her hobby - you can play. Perhaps have her cut her army in half (if she's got only one) and play some fun casual games with her - learn the ropes; engage and be part of the experience. That in itself can be a very special and great thing far more so than just model. Who knows perhaps you'll get hooked too
It's also something where you can engage with her in a direct sense rather than indirect.



I think the latter would be better, if possible as you might live far apart. You get to engage with her and her hobby directly; show your support and your desire to help her along and suchlike. Sometimes that can be a far more valuable gift than just the Voidraven in a box ready for her to assemble and paint up.

Not Online!!! wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
True some people also like that part I'm less fan of that and screw up stages often enough that if I get well built kit I would be just happy! But certainly another consideration.

OP's thought is cool but might backfire spectacularly depending on preferences of daughter and dad's abilities ;-)

i now kinda imagined a exchange service, aka one builds the models and then the next one paint's them .

That'd be actually pretty snazzy if the specific peoples like their respective stages.

That could certainly work. Though painting takes more time so not exactly even but especially for bigger models I could see some use.

And hell I would be willing to fork out reasonable money for somebody to assemble the god damn terrorgheist/zombie dragon. Whoever designed that has to be sadomasochist I have 4(?) of those and hated building each and every one of them...

Theoric wrote:
The message I'm getting is that painting it myself is a super awesome idea and I should totally do it.
Just kidding.

Actually I think I'll talk to her boyfriend and assess her desire to do the assembling and painting herself. And then speak to some people I know at local gaming stores and see if they can recommend a local artist in case I go that route.
And yeah, I'll get some magnets too. Magnetized weapons sounds pretty cool.

Bear in mind, getting models painted is one of those things that people who aren't long into miniature gaming do not realize is going to cost a LOT of money. You will usually be charged equal to or more than the price of the model itself to get it commission painted from an assembled state, because it does take several hours and paint isn't cheap.

When I do commissions I charge 15$ an hour plus whatever supplies I have to buy to paint the model (because often I don't have the exact colors they used to make their paint scheme) and I know I am on the low end. For a kit like the Voidraven if I also had to assemble it I'd be charging probably 90$.

But, keep in mind here you're doing WAYYYYYYYYY better than...basically any well meaning relative buying a gift for someone in this hobby than I've ever spoken to. You paid close attention to something your kid does, and you've cared enough about the specifics of it to get a gift that is exactly the thing they wanted. That's great! Seriously. You're doing great. If I were you, I'd keep it in the box, wrap it up with a note addressing it to "Hekatrix (Your Child's Name)" and ask to see it as she builds and paints it.

 Overread wrote:
IAlso not every army has a single scheme - Eldar, for example, often haev a single scheme for most of the core, but then the aspect warriors might have their entirely own colourscheme that's totally different.

And 8th ed with the all the craftworld/chapter/whatever free bonuses encourages mixing armies which for sake of clarity is often expected at least different colour scheme as well. Maybe she's already planning second colour scheme for different kabal.

I would say (and I say this for most hobby purchases) whilst it can spoil the surprise, sometimes its best to go to the horses mouth. Especially if you're not directly involved enough to have picked up all the hints directly from her.

At least here she has already hinted what she wants But yeah simply surprise kits can be less than helpful if you buy models what receiver doesn't really need. I would be face palming myself(maybe not exactly in their face but inside) if one of my relatives knew I have ork army and they decide to give me stompa as surprise present Apart from it being junk in game I already have 2...

Something I did for my brother a few years back was gifted him a 1:1 sized photo of Mortarion alongside of the actual model so that he could play the big guy before the model was actually built.

Might not be a terrible idea in this case!

 Kanluwen wrote:
Something I did for my brother a few years back was gifted him a 1:1 sized photo of Mortarion alongside of the actual model so that he could play the big guy before the model was actually built.

Might not be a terrible idea in this case!

The ol' paper dreadnought IOU approach.


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tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:


At least here she has already hinted what she wants But yeah simply surprise kits can be less than helpful if you buy models what receiver doesn't really need. I would be face palming myself(maybe not exactly in their face but inside) if one of my relatives knew I have ork army and they decide to give me stompa as surprise present Apart from it being junk in game I already have 2...

Luckily we have the info that A, she wants this thing, and B, we know that the voidraven is a highly useful, competitive model that's just about perfect to bring in at the 1000 points level for a dark eldar list.

This one's a slam dunk as is.

Really nice idea! I'd say don't paint it or assemble it because that's half the present! Building and painting our armies is a big part of the fun of tabletop gaming.

You wouldn't give someone a half eaten cake after all

the_scotsman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Something I did for my brother a few years back was gifted him a 1:1 sized photo of Mortarion alongside of the actual model so that he could play the big guy before the model was actually built.

Might not be a terrible idea in this case!

The ol' paper dreadnought IOU approach.

Pretty much, yeah.

It works a bit better when you have the physical item to give to them at the same time and they have a game scheduled.

You, Sir, are an awesome and kind Father.

In this case I'd just wrap it up and hand it to her.

Well you guys were 100% right.

I went to pick her up to buy her some dice and she showed me her army. It recently rose to 1800pts and she already has a voidraven, but luckily she added she desperately wants another one.

She doesn't like assembling, but her bf does and he does it for her, but she does like painting them. So just giving her the box is definitely the way to go.

Thanks guys.

Be sure to post a picture of your daughter's army. Would love to see it with both 'Ravens.

Cheers.

Theoric wrote:
Well you guys were 100% right.

I went to pick her up to buy her some dice and she showed me her army. It recently rose to 1800pts and she already has a voidraven, but luckily she added she desperately wants another one.

She doesn't like assembling, but her bf does and he does it for her, but she does like painting them. So just giving her the box is definitely the way to go.

Thanks guys.

You might want to consider something small-ish that would be for his army so that he can get a little bit of a surprise before a kit just gets dropped in his lap to be built.

Theoric wrote:
Well you guys were 100% right.

I went to pick her up to buy her some dice and she showed me her army. It recently rose to 1800pts and she already has a voidraven, but luckily she added she desperately wants another one.

She doesn't like assembling, but her bf does and he does it for her, but she does like painting them. So just giving her the box is definitely the way to go.

Thanks guys.

given your intreast in assmblingly and painting, since you where willing to do it for your daughter. you should get her to show you how to play, it might be something you enjoy and I bet she'd be thrilled if you got into warhammer 40k yourself

Theoric wrote:
Well you guys were 100% right.

I went to pick her up to buy her some dice and she showed me her army. It recently rose to 1800pts and she already has a voidraven, but luckily she added she desperately wants another one.

She doesn't like assembling, but her bf does and he does it for her, but she does like painting them. So just giving her the box is definitely the way to go.

Thanks guys.

2nd void raven doesn't go waste As it is in 40k redundancy is key so 2 of same thing is hardly unheard of.

Glad if we were any help. Your thought was cool in itself but due to nature of hobby couple practical issues to consider. More power to you that you asked for help and took it.

I'm sure she appreciates if you show some interest of her armies though. Miniature gamers generally like to show off their best models Definitely would ask to see the void raven once she gets it done.


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BrianDavion wrote:
given your intreast in assmblingly and painting, since you where willing to do it for your daughter. you should get her to show you how to play, it might be something you enjoy and I bet she'd be thrilled if you got into warhammer 40k yourself

This too She might especially find it fun to beat the old 'pa and once your skills up enough to match her could be start of fun rivalry ;-)

Oh, another thing that has occurred to me:
Do you know if she has Drazhar or the new Incubi kits? They are a relatively recent release and if she doesn't have them...you can still add a surprise to things.

Just take a photo of her army. Commision a painter and ask him to assemble and paint this model to the best level he is capable of. Furthermore, I do not know specifically about this model, but you also should ask to magnetize it if it is feasible. This way you can easily swap loadout of this plane, making it all the better for her in the long run.

Edit: It is nice to see that you had solved this problem. I myself too prefer fresh boxes rather than pre-painted models unless to a very high standard. Painting is the core of this hobby for most people anyways.