ArabianSquire's re-enforcements arrive.

After finishing off painting his first set of marines and getting them on the table, ArabianSquire was keen to get some more troops to bolster his numbers. Having looked around Ebay, a tactical squad seemed to be the best choice. This would give him an easily recognisable Sergeant figure, a couple of heavy weapons and an extra 7 standard marines. There are also loads of new sets out there from the Assault on Black Reach set.

In the end, though, we picked up a bargain squad. They may be in an older style of armour (mkII apparently), but the composition is there, they are only base coated and they came in at a final cost of £5.60. He's chuffed to have some more marines that he can legitimately call his own. This last point is notable as I am insisting that he uses his own cash (of which he seems to have more than me!) to fund his army - at this cheap early stage anyway. Having bought these himself he'll have more emotional attachment to them and be more likely to actually put the figures to use, and as an exercise in money management how much more example can you have for shopping around for a good price than buying Games Workshop gear (a brand new in the box 10 man Tactical squad is £23 RRP at the moment!).

On a related, but separate, note I had a quick google round for a banner to put on the Sergeant and printed out one for show. It comes from the aptly named W40k: Banners and Badges site. Loads of banners there for most 40k races and a few "historic" ones there as well. I'll let the wee lad browse around the designs and pick one for himself when he gets round to painting again.