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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Harry Faversham on 25 October 2024, 08:09:12 AM
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To realistically introduce a child to basic wargaming?
???
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I played my first games of Hero Quest and Lionheart with my daughter when she was about 5 or 6.
She grasped the mechanics pretty quickly and had fun, but that fun came more from the fact she was playing a game with daddy rather than the game itself. She did paint with me on and off from the age of 3 though, which she did like in and of itself.
Fast forward 6 years and now she's into horse riding and making (stage) masks and is not up for toy soldier games with her dad. But I am still contemplating running a small D&D campaign with her and her friends, so I haven't given up completely yet :D
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My lads were playing Space Hulk at 6 years old ;)
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I got into the hobby via the lord of the rings films in 2001 - I was 7. I've run games for players around that age who were more than able to grasp the rules.
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Mine were as early as 4-5. 'Basic' then has to be the key word of course but it was easy enough for me - they live with the house full of wargames gubbins so inevitably they just asked if they could play!
I think that's the real key, let their interest, if they have one, develop naturally. Accordingly my daughter will very occasionally play but mostly isn't bothered about board games, wargames etc., but does love video games. My son on the other hand is a reflection of me and loves the lot lol
The other tip is to let them modify the game as it's being played, however they see fit. It's then a little closer to the sort of make-believe play that young children universally engage in. Indeed often after a battle my son will insist that we then do a "free roam" i.e. just use the models as toys and make up a little story.
Ultimately, that's what most wargaming is anyway, so... :D
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Yes - five or six. I got back into ALL THIS by painting up some miniatures for my son's sixth birthday, along with the Song of Blades and Heroes rules. We'd dabbled in Brick Wars (a Lego-based wargame) beforehand. Song of Blades proved a huge hit.
Lionheart, which I picked up on a whim (and for a fiver!) a while back, is a great suggestion from Daeothar. I have vague plans to recycle the plastic figures into multi-based elements for TTS and KoW, but we've discovered that penny-based 25mm or 1/72 figures - four to a 50mm square sabot - work perfectly as substitutes for Lionheart itself: a great option if you want to play the game with a more 'wargamey' feel. It would work perfectly with small kids, and it introduces some foundational principles of rank'n'flank games: flanking, support and the like.
Another game that kids can pick up easily (through play rather than rulebook) is Hordes of the Things (or DBA). Set the 'paces' measurement as your base width (or whatever - but make clear how much each element moves), photocopy or print out the table of combat results and it works really well. If the kids have started with Song of Blades, the combat system is essentially the same, so it's an easy switch.
Also, things like Lion/Dragon Rampant and Ravenfeast/One-page Fantasy Skirmish (http://www.geocities.ws/friendlyfungus/OnePageFantasySkirmish.pdf) are simple and intuitive. Six-year-olds might not make much sense of Lion Rampant on their own, but they'll have no problem playing in and enjoying a game with some grown-up facilitation.
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I've played a slightly streamlined version of Donnybrook with my daughter from about her 6th birthday - we play a lot of boardgames anyway, she regularly choses to play Zombicide and often asks to play wargames too. We typically play stuff on the pulpy-swashbuckling end of the spectrum and switch it up, from Atomic Cafe-esque post apocalypse to Warhammer Fantasty style black powder fantasy
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My kid and I played a Gorkamorka campaign at about 7.
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Put paint and brush in child's hands along with a model - and be prepared for purple Sherman tanks! But letting them 'create' something of their own gives them a sense of ownership which MIGHT get them more invested in the hobby. Worked with my nephew who 30 years on is still going, better painter now of course.
Also, kids don't need rules, they have this magical device called Imagination (as referenced above). Let them use it. Pretty sure that's how most in my generation got started - Airfix plastics, Lego buildings, blanket or dirt hills and away we went until somewhere along the way we discovered rules and started down that long road to ruin.
If you can find a copy of the American Heritage book on the American Civil War, or something similar, with its lovely illustrations of battles, might be a great way to whet a kid's appetite for more. Certainly did it for me, I found that book in a school library at an early age and spent hours and hours drooling over those images. No doubt that was my largest inspiration - though I have left ACW behind these days, figures sitting forlornly ignored. If you prefer some other period, maybe an Osprey or three - not the MAA series but the ones with mutliple battle maps types (not sure of series name).
And I have to ask, this question isn't being asked because there is a new grand baby in the mix and as soon as eyes laid upon infant, visions of shopping expeditions entered grandpas head?! lol. (or uncle or whatever relationship, neighbor's kid, etc.). lol
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I used to run an all-ages club at a shop for fun. Seemed like somewhere around 10 was the age when the younger players could game and not have to be “babysat” of that makes sense. There were a couple of maybe 9 year olds, but they had brothers.
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I didn’t get started until I was about 14 years old (30 years ago) but I’ve run club events with much younger kids and it’s worked great, depending on what rules used of course.
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Notwithstanding all the comments above, remember that it depends on the child! Some kids will love wargaming and some won't. My firstborn loves the hobby, my second child has zero interest.
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Any age really if you explain that the alternatives are being a chimney sweep or garment manufacturing.
Yes, yes, I know there are those pesky child labour laws but it's a hobby you won't be paying them to be your stand-in opponent.
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It was about 7 for me with Milton Bradley's American Heritage series of games: Broadside, Battle-Cry, Hit The Beach, and Dogfight.
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I had a Dungeons & Dragons-like game that my kids liked to play when they were 6 and 9, it even came with figures. My daughter, now 46, asked me yesterday what the name of that game was and for the life of me I can't recall. She was hell on wheels with that and Monopoly though, and even beat the old Impossible Mission I had for my C-64...Stay a while, stay forever!!! BWAHAHAHAHA
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My kids both loved playing with my GW 40K tanks when they were about 8 or 9. They rewrote the rules as we went but it was fun. My daughter loved painting my second hand armourcast orc vehicles pink and yellow. The look on my gaming group's faces when I fielded them was truly priceless. Sadly they favored electronic gaming as they got older. Though my son decades later started doing RPG's and asking me how to run them so you never know.
Go for it and have fun would be my advice.
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Thanks chaps. My grandson's four, this year for his Birfday, I wrote and illustrated him a book about Vikings. Think Noggin the Nog here, daft stories and silly cartoons. I'm getting him the Playmobil Viking Fortress and Longship for Crimbo. I was thinking of taking a couple of dice with me for after Christmas dinner, see if I can fan the embers!
;)
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I think at that age the playmobil is great just by itself. No need to have rules just play imagination games with him.
The book sounds like a lovely gift.
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At that age daft stories, cartoons and dice should be a hit! Especially when your grandfather is actually playing with you.
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Thanks chaps. My grandson's four, this year for his Birfday, I wrote and illustrated him a book about Vikings. Think Noggin the Nog here, daft stories and silly cartoons. I'm getting him the Playmobil Viking Fortress and Longship for Crimbo. I was thinking of taking a couple of dice with me for after Christmas dinner, see if I can fan the embers!
;)
A friend of mine in the UK has the Noggin the Nog miniatures - I hadn’t heard of them before; after he showed my email group the figures I watched a ton of the shows on YouTube. How much fun is Noggin?!?
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I had a Dungeons & Dragons-like game that my kids liked to play when they were 6 and 9, it even came with figures. My daughter, now 46, asked me yesterday what the name of that game was and for the life of me I can't recall...
Heroquest perhaps?
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A friend of mine in the UK has the Noggin the Nog miniatures - I hadn’t heard of them before; after he showed my email group the figures I watched a ton of the shows on YouTube. How much fun is Noggin?!?
I've got them all too! Can't make my mind up whether to paint 'em up properly, or go full on old sowjer style, with gloss varnish?
???
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I think the style of painting Hobgoblin does would suit them. A slightly pastel/watercolour style
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=77384.0;topicseen (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=77384.0;topicseen)
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I'd echo starting them with something akin to Hero Quest. I made up a "custom dice" version of 40K for kids back when my nephew expressed an interest.
However, I'd also echo...they'll either get into it, or they won't. My nephew (now 17) absolutely lost all interest. I knew he wasn't going to be into wargaming when he'd see my table set up with my buddies with a huge, fully painted wargame underway...and he wasn't phased. I'd have lost my mind as a kid seeing that stuff.
Nothing is worse than "forcing" your hobby interest on a son/daughter/niece/nephew, etc.
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I think you can't intruduce it to him ??? (https://mazzani.pl/projektowanie-wnetrz/). If he likes cool if not leave it. Like @Elbows says there's nothing worst than forcing intrests on somebody :?
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When he was about 10 I took my son about 30 miles to play a wargame he enjoyed it he destroyed a Tiger tank and won the game. But he never wanted to play another one. I also took him and his sister to a Salute wargames show in London they loved it but one is now an engineer and one is an aspiring writer. You can only show kids things you can't make them like what you like.
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Don't count young people out - wait until they get to around mid-30s with school, marriage, young kids behind them. That is when you'll know if they are interested or not.
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Heroquest perhaps?
I thought that was it but looking at the game doesn't ring any bells. I don't think there were any monsters in the game, only different hero figures.
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I thought that was it but looking at the game doesn't ring any bells. I don't think there were any monsters in the game, only different hero figures.
Dungeonquest, perhaps? Were these the heroes?
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/cOcAAOSwKMlnI3GN/s-l1600.png)
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Dungeonquest, perhaps? Were these the heroes?
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/cOcAAOSwKMlnI3GN/s-l1600.png)
Those figures look right, but I remember them as each being a different color with at least 1 being a female.
We need Sherman and Peabody's Wayback Machine!!!
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This poses a nice conundrum :)
I've been browsing the Boardgamegeek website for dungeon-like games with (plastic) miniatures, and they do not go further back than around 1985. Older games usually had either cardboard chits or meeples of some sort.
So the games I came up with that come close to your description are either Dungeonquest (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/472/dungeonquest) and Warlock of Firetop Mountain (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1144/the-warlock-of-firetop-mountain).
But the included minis are not in different colours, and I don't spot any female characters either. Which is not to say that those versions do not exist. In fact, I did see later comparable games (outside of your time window though) which did have coloured minis and male and female versions of the characters...
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Chances are the game I had was Dungeonquest. All I can honestly remember is that my oldest daughter (under 10 at the time) routinely kicked everyone's butts every game, my son would stomp off when she won.
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All I can honestly remember is that my oldest daughter (under 10 at the time) routinely kicked everyone's butts every game, my son would stomp off when she won.
Kind of reminds me of my lad's first game with the Dynamic Dunderheads.
He started as 2nd Lieutenant 'Johnny' Hero and ended it as Major Tantrum! He threw such a strop, I bonked him on the melon with a measuring stick, then dismissed him from the fields of glory. Miserable, grassing, little git came back with his mother in tow and all us 'little generals' got a rocket!
>:(
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LOL! My youngest grandson (7 today!) got out of throwing fits when something doesn't go his way a while back and can now give as good as he takes. The little rascals learn quick!