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My son has started reading some of my old 40k rule books and wants to start gaming. He has saved his birthday money but Is Dark Millenium worth buying as a starter pack for a 10 year old?

I think it is a great Starter Set for grown ups and veterans of the hobby!

I would recommend assisting with clipping the models from the sprue and cleaning up mold lines, but a 10 year old ought to be able to follow instructions and assemble the models.

As far as gameplay goes, my step daughter was understanding wargames as a game at 6 years old (she is 8 now and want to pick her own army to build and paint). I would imagine that your son would be just fine in playing.

Really, it depends on the kid. At 10 years old, I am confident that my step-daughter would be perfectly capable of assembling her models and playing games without too many errors, and I don't know a reason why your son wouldn't be able to handle the game, fluff, or hobby aspects of Warhammer.

For someone just starting? I'd say no, for the same amount of money you could buy a large second hand army from eBay. That way, if your son likes 40k he has a good amount of units to choose from for his army and can even strip the models and repaint them if he wanted but if he found he wasn't into 40k you could sell on the army for around the same price rather than having to sell a used DI box set.

I would try and give him a few test gaves if you've got some armies available, see if he likes the way the game plays. If you've already done that and he is set on playing 40k, then by all means go for it I say!

I would say it's great for getting started. You get the pamphlet of core rules, the main rule book, and snap fit models.

Forteaching someone the hobby and the games it's a great way to go. Especially with how much easier 8th is to learn and play.

My recommendation would be to find a Game Workshop or a local board games store that has a WH40k day/provides demos to get a better understanding of the hobby. I have yet to find a 40k player in person who was not excited to talk about the game and/or all of the other stuff that goes with it (modeling, painting, fluff, etc.).

Starter Sets are a nice introduction, and they are much more valuable if the player is interested in at least one of the armies. If he wants something other than Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines I would check out the Start Collecting boxes instead as there is still a bit more money that would be needed for building/painting.

The starter set (believe it or not) is actually a great deal, and a great way to start the hobby.

That being said, vyse's advice to seek out a local GW to try a starter game is a very good idea. You don't want to drop that much money on something he'd get bored of after a day.

Generally, I would say that 10 years is a bit younger than I personally see, but it's not inconceivable. You both could have fun with it.

Me and my 5 year old play, Kap'n Krump, I think 10 will be fine

I would suggest seeing which army he is super keen on, and going from there.

Let him pick a HQ and then start buying around that. Will be a lot easier for keeping his interest if he has a "cool" army he loves

As far as the 8th edition rules go, they are certainly simple enough that he should pick up on them quickly.

I would recomend he save his money for the moment, and figure out which army he wants to play. Since you already have minis, $165 is better spent on a full(ish) army that 2 little separate armies.

I, personally, bought the box even though I had saved copies of the leaks because I wanted the primaris marines for my Sons of Medusa force and this is all the primaris marines I should need(barring later-release vehicles)

For $5 more he could get 2 start collecting boxes(value is dependent on the faction) and the Core rules pamphlet is supposed to be free to download from GW.

Thanks for all the advice. It seems to me that if he wants to play space marines, and I think he does, then we'll get the dark imperium box set. If he wants to play another race then the rulebook, codex and a lot less figures are the way to go. As a first edition player who used to play harlequins, it's a good reason to start again.

 Fireytas wrote:
Thanks for all the advice. It seems to me that if he wants to play space marines, and I think he does, then we'll get the dark imperium box set. If he wants to play another race then the rulebook, codex and a lot less figures are the way to go. As a first edition player who used to play harlequins, it's a good reason to start again.

one bit of advice, be perpared to help him with it, the DI boxed sety is still pretty easy as things go, but it's not the push fit of earlier editions. and there may be a time or two he wants your help with some of the tricker bits to do. doubly so so putting the inceptor marines on their bases.

Yeah, the new starter boxes miniatures of 40k are great for veterans, but as every edition further, they are entering the realm of making the miniatures of the Starter Set basically multipart plastic kits

This isn't the Battle for Skull Past of one piece goblins and dwarfs where you could play without a single drop of glue!

(The new miniatures aren't even in Slota bases!)

 Galas wrote:
Yeah, the new starter boxes miniatures of 40k are great for veterans, but as every edition further, they are entering the realm of making the miniatures of the Starter Set basically multipart plastic kits

This isn't the Battle for Skull Past of one piece goblins and dwarfs where you could play without a single drop of glue!

(The new miniatures aren't even in Slota bases!)

uyeah I like the set, it's gorgous, but at the same time it's less new player friendly then DV.

Its called a starter set for a reason. It is great to start out with. You get a set of really nice miniatures from two different factions with a good mix of unit types at a very decent price. This allows you to get a good feeling for the game with just one box.
I think a 10 year old should be able to handle the box just fine, I got Dark Vengeance when I was 10 and it was no problem.

My question was whether it was suitable for a 10 year old, and thanks for making it clear what a starter set is.

I'm going to buck the trend, and say that I think that Dark Imperium is actually not all that friendly of a starter. There is pretty much always going to be some assembly with GW; these are not too bad.

But I why I feel this set stinks for a beginner is that there is nothing, zip, nada to get you going in the way of scenarios or background to the two particular armies included.

The 'programmed instruction' format of Dark Vengeance was more user friendly. Here's a bit of story, then here's a scenario with some infantry clashing...here's a bit more story, then a scenario with bikers avoiding infantry, etc.

This may be a good value set to people that know what they're doing already. So before Dakka gets all outraged that someone criticized it, the Dark Imperium set is not very friendly to absolute newbies, and in fact is probably pretty intimidating. if you're without 40K experience or a friend with it, you will likely need help to get going.

Depends on the kid, but i'd be wary of toxic glue/primer. I would definitely assist with the gluing and painting. There are non toxic glues like blue testors but there are toxic things involved in this hobby. Looking back at when I got into this hobby at around 13 years old I kind of wish I had known to not get xylene/toluene primer on my hands and how dangerous solvents are, to paint in ventilated areas etc. Cause i'm a mental trainwreck now at 24 years old and sometimes I wonder how much the glue and solvents have affected my brain. No one was around to tell me not to do this, not to do that so idk.

I would say dark imperium is more challenging to start and learn than AoS, X wing and pretty much most other tabletop games. It has more models, more complicated models that need cleaning and have some fragile parts. The rulebook is large but really it's well organized and not as complex as before. But there is still some stuff involved in setting up a game properly.

^Aye, watch your kid when he's glueing/painting incase he's inhaling fumes. I know when I started off I quite liked the smell of the glue I had, took a while for me to stop.

Well, it seems he is set on a space marine army so Dark Imperium it is. Looks like that's me back painting and playing again!

The main thing about gluing will be teaching him to use small amounts. Too much glue will absolutely ruin a model. Maybe you could practice building stick figures out of the sprue first? Kinda fun and you can't ruin anything. Ruining the first figure could be demoralising.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Its called a starter set for a reason. It is great to start out with. You get a set of really nice miniatures from two different factions with a good mix of unit types at a very decent price. This allows you to get a good feeling for the game with just one box.
I think a 10 year old should be able to handle the box just fine, I got Dark Vengeance when I was 10 and it was no problem.

Ahhh ok. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they were called a starter set. I was looking for a finisher set to go with the starter set. Seemed odd to start something and not have a way to finish it.

I think it'd be fine for a ten year old. The parts are well designed to go together with minimal confusion, the instructions make sense, and the simplified rules are included in the box to get you started straight away.
I'm not going to patronise you by telling you to watch your child when gluing, I'm sure you know that, but a child could build the set alone.

A lot of us were building model kits at 8-9-10 years old - yes with glue and everything! - so he will be fine there.

Some of us learned to play D&D at 10 years old so he will be fine there too.

If he's interested in marines then it's a great place to start.

A little parental involvement will help smooth things out and if you can play it with him then you have something new to do together. My kids were 11-12 when they got interested enough to get a starter set and they are still the people I play the most. They're in college now so it can be a fun long term investment.