Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: jp1885 on April 27, 2015, 02:00:35 PM
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While many of you might know me from my VBCW nonsense in the Interwar section, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Fantasy genre (having played WFB as a kid).
Now my six year-old daughter has been expressing an interest in wargaming, and so after reading a few threads on this esteemed forum, I downloaded Songs of Blades and Heroes onto my Kindle for us to try out.
There was a very high chance of her wandering away bored after a few minutes, so rather than spend money on fantasy miniatures that would possibly never see the light of day again, I decided to use some of her Disney’s Frozen figures, and a smattering of her other toys…
Sven the reindeer’s antlers have been stolen buy the unscrupulous Prince Hans! Queen Elsa, Princess Anna, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf must travel to the icy wastes (a white towel and some rolled-up dishcloths) beyond Arandale to retrieve them. Standing in their way is Prince Hans and his evil sidekicks Captain Hook, the Witch and an archer.
Queen Elsa and co had to get at least one figure to the other side of the towel to get to Sven’s antlers. We played the game twice (swapping sides the second time) and in each game poor Queen Elsa bit the dust, but her sister Princess Anna made it to the other side for the win!
Hopefully this thread will feature more SBH goodness from me and my eldest!
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/Wargames/38%20Fest%202015/IMG_0552_zpsswms5zgs.jpg)
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/Wargames/38%20Fest%202015/IMG_0553_zpsd6ed8555.jpg)
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Brilliant!
I haven't looked back since getting SBH for my son's sixth birthday last September. Toys as miniatures is clearly fertile ground: my four-year-old daughter invaded the battlefield with some My Little Ponies during a recent game; it was hard to get annoyed as she sedulously advanced them with the Long movement stick!
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Awesome! Using toys at hand for miniatures seems to echo back to how grown-ups must have started wargaming. ("If only we had rules to go with all these toy soldiers...") And it gives the little ones the chance to see all gaming is played in the imagination as well as on the tabletop.
Enjoy the family fun!
Jevenkah
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I appreciate the trend of dads and granddads to post AARs of the first or early games they played with their children. I will have to do similar soon, I guess. It is the enchanting and wonderful realm of pure fantasy that we can raise for them without the obscuring modelers perspective to perfectly painted miniatures. I look so much forward to it!
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Thanks for your comments folks - we had a great time and she seems to be up for some more games in the future. Any doubts that she's a canny little b*gger quickly evaporated when she first raced for the finishing line!
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Here's a tip for amusing kids for a long time on a rainy afternoon: get them to paint some simple terrain (hills and the like). Give them plenty of paint but only very small paintbrushes for hours of absorption on their part and tranquility on yours ...
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Good call (although my missus might not think so when she sees the state of the dining room table!)
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You're doing the daddy thing right. Good man.
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Now that's the best kind of praise - thanks!
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Excellent.
Both my daughters have enjoyed SoBH - they like to rummage through my figures to put together warbands - this often seems to be their favourite bit, and can take longer than playing sometimes!
Despite SoBH being great for intro games it really seems to have some depth too - my eldest really likes to use halflings and then makes very good use of the leader rule and ganging up advantages.
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Great! My daughter has proven very effective with her "Littlest Petshop of Death" warband:
http://wanderingview.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-songs-of-blades-and-heros.html (http://wanderingview.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-songs-of-blades-and-heros.html)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GUrx2RscrXc/U8oF0bae4ZI/AAAAAAAAASY/O2groucg0Jc/s1600/warband.jpg)
Yes, that is a pink poison machine gun...
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Excellent.
Both my daughters have enjoyed SoBH - they like to rummage through my figures to put together warbands - this often seems to be their favourite bit, and can take longer than playing sometimes!
Despite SoBH being great for intro games it really seems to have some depth too - my eldest really likes to use halflings and then makes very good use of the leader rule and ganging up advantages.
Thanks! We have only tried the basic mechanics so far, with no leaders, but she soon got the hang of playing safe and rolling two activation dice.
Great! My daughter has proven very effective with her "Littlest Petshop of Death" warband:
http://wanderingview.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-songs-of-blades-and-heros.html (http://wanderingview.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-songs-of-blades-and-heros.html)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GUrx2RscrXc/U8oF0bae4ZI/AAAAAAAAASY/O2groucg0Jc/s1600/warband.jpg)
Yes, that is a pink poison machine gun...
Now that's one scary warband!
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Children are great for reminding us what is possible with our imagination.
And Hobgoblin: thanks for making me laugh out twice in the same thread.
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Children are great for reminding us what is possible with our imagination.
And Hobgoblin: thanks for making me laugh out twice in the same thread.
Agreed on both counts! :D
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I love it.
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Great to see!
Used to play SoBaH with my daughter when she was small. We used Star Wars minis - as long as Princess Leia and Yoda got to kick ass, she was happy!
Six year old girls are merciless foes...
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Very merciless, with an uncanny ability to roll high too!
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Since my eldest and I are dipping our toes into fantasy gaming with SOBH, I remembered the days, about a quarter of a century ago, when I was into Warhammer. Most of my old figures have since been lost/given/thrown away (*sob*), but I still have a handful of Celtic warriors (the remnants of an aborted WFB Albion army project).
I painted these approx. 25 years ago, when I had the patience, eyesight and steady hand to at least attempt a three-colour washing/drybrushing technique (not to mention painting eyes, stripes and patterns), as opposed to the basecoat and dip method I employ today.
So, after languishing in a cabinet in the garage for over two decades, I thought I’d dig them out, rebase them and give them a fresh coat of matt varnish (oh, and give the naked fanatic a loincloth to protect his modesty – I am gaming with a six year-old girl after all) before re-branding them as a SOBH barbarian warband.
I thus present to you Wergyn’s Raiders – barbarian warband from the lawless Marches of the Manlands!
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/SOBH/Wergyns%20Raiders%201_zps6qvjdln5.jpg)
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That's beautiful: it remembers me my first Hero Quest games. I never stopped after that! :)
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Thanks! :D
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A rainy Sunday during the Summer holidays...
Perfect for an impromptu game of SOBH on my eldest's play mat!
My Celts barbarian raiders have been making incursions across the river that separates the Manlands from the Faewold, prompting the Elves, led by a local prince, to go forth and guard the crossing.
This was the first outing for my daughter's pre-painted Elves from EM-4, and very nice they are too! (She has yet to decide whether to base them properly, or leave them so that they can be stored in the box.)
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/IMG_0790.jpg)
As the barbarians begin to cross the river, the Elves move from the forest in piecemeal to meet them. Rather than make use of their long-range bows, they wade straight into the raiders.
The spear wielding bodyguard soon dispatches one of the berserkers with a gruesome kill. Luckily the nerve of all but one barbarian holds. The Elf magician then freezes the sole barbarian archer. However they fail to exploit these successes, opting to move behind the raiders to cut them off, leaving the bodyguard and magician exposed.
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/IMG_0791a.jpg)
Outnumbered, the bodyguard manages to fend off the barbarians for a while, but is eventually knocked down by one of the warriors and finished off by the now recovered archer. Soon the magician also falls to a gruesome wound, causing one of the Elf archers to flee. The remaining archer and the prince are also soon dispatched, leaving the sole survivor to watch helplessly as the barbarians cross into the Faewold once more...
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/IMG_0793a.jpg)
Who or what is that mysterious giant hand? Is it a vengeful Elfin god, a spirit of a long-dead behemoth, or my youngest deciding to reposition some of the fighters?
During the game I did question my daughter's wisdom of not using her archers or making a group stand at the crossing, to which she replied "oh, I'm just being weird..." That's my girl!
I've also painted this creepy spook from Mason's Blind Beggar range for future games...
(http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae220/jp1885_photos/IMG_0794.jpg)
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Great fun! A very enjoyable thread.
We have no kids to drag into wargaming... I wonder if I could interest some of the cats. Some have exhibited a talent for rolling dice.
-Michael
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This is just great! :-*
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Thanks folks!