After the Austrian Salute and Sigur’s painting induction Number One Son has expressed an interest in painting toy soldiers, “Just like Papa”. So we sat down with catalogues and looked in my cabinets and he decided that he wanted to paint Space Marines. He was greatly taken by the blue of the Ultramarines.
So before I went to London I hit eBay and searched for Space Marines, found some and had them sent to my Daughter’s so I could collect them and save on postage.
After my trial and tribulations in London I was able to get back home in time for his birthday where he would get them.
The set I got was all the marines from GeeDub’s Dark Vengeance box set. We sat down and looked at the figures, I have to say that I am very impressed by the plastics GeeDub produce. I fell in love with the High Elves from Island of Blood and now these are worming my way into my affections. They are very crisply detailed and look to be a joy to paint, I wanted to steal one to paint, but I wasn’t allowed. Anyway looking at them it became apparent that they were a specific chapter and not generic marines. I said that as they were his figures he could paint them anyway he chose, looking at illustrations he chose to go with the green livery, Dark Angels, instead of his previous choice of UltraMarine blue.
Next up came construction. Then came Priming which involved setting up the compressor and airbrush. All of this also came with the first steps of zen patience, because nothing can be done instantly.
Painting was the next step and Number One knocked out a figure an hour.

The overall aim was to get him to game, but I didn’t want to complicate things too much, just toys on the table.
So I made up a very simple ruleset.
Movement 4 inches. I used some marker rods for ease.
Shooting/hand-to-hand combat hit on a 4, 5 or 6.
Armour save 5 or 6 (in our first battle it was 4/5/6 but it was a bit too easy)
Three lives.

I lost.

This was our second battle using ten of my marines and ten Orks.
Needless to say, I lost.