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During his last visit, my nephew (11y) spotted some of my miniatures and got really excited about the prospect of building some on his own. Now, his birthday is coming up and I'm looking to get him an introductory kit, but I'm not quite sure which one to get.

For now, I've settled on the SM/Tyranid Starter Kit with paints, clipper and dice. The miniatures appear to be push-fit, which seems helpful for a child his age.

Do you have any other recommendations? It doesn't have to be 40k or GW for that matter, he hasn't had any contact points with the IP so far.

Honestly, within reason (eg no forgeworld kits or anything like that); I'd say the best person to ask is your nephew.

He might really like Space Marines or he might think they are silly but he really likes Tau mecha. So go by what he's interested in. At this stage its more about encouragement and helping them along and such.

As you say he's got no real IP contact or reference points; so perhaps a simple starter set that comes with the tools needed to assemble and then let him have some choice in a store with a simple budget and such.

Could always go with one of the board games?

The boxed games available in USA and, if your Dakka flag is accurate, conveniently Germany might be the very dab.

Entirely self contained games, with a range of Very Nice Models.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/07/17/warhammer-board-games-battle-swarms-of-tyranids-and-a-monstrous-ambull-in-three-new-games/

They’re also reasonably priced so far as I’m aware. Models are pushfit too, so easy enough to get into.

I'd recommend Kill Team- fewer models to build/ paint/ break/ lose.

If he like KT it forms the basis for a small 40k force to grow over time.

What Mad Doc and Jake said. One of the boxed games or a Kill Team would be a good way to get a small number of minis and a fully playable game in your nephew's hands without overwhelming him.

Hero Quest (re-release). That is how many of us (including myself) started "the hobby" many years ago.

It's a fairly simple dungeon crawl board game that provided many hours of enjoyment for my friends and me at that age. And then we started painting the minis, which eventually led us down the road to 40k, Blood Bowl, etc.

There’s no guarantee he is going to get into the game, which is totally fine, so I agree with your choice of push fit with options for two forces. That way he can enjoy them himself and not have to try to find someone else to play with if that’s what he ends up wanting.

Space marines pretty much lured most of us into this hobby, I'd recommend anything involving them.

Space Marines are also good in that they don't have a lot of small little fiddly breakable spikes, antenna etc that could break, which can be important for a kid, a box of intercessors are solid eneugh that breaking one accidently is proably not gonna be easy