Song of Dads of Daughters - Battles on the playmat

[jp1885]

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!

[Hobgoblin]

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!

[Jevenkah]

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

[Michi]

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!

[jp1885]

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!

[Hobgoblin]

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 ...

[jp1885]

Good call (although my missus might not think so when she sees the state of the dining room table!)

[Froggy the Great]

You're doing the daddy thing right.  Good man.

[jp1885]

Now that's the best kind of praise - thanks!

[fred]

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.

[sespe]

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



Yes, that is a pink poison machine gun...

[jp1885]

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



Yes, that is a pink poison machine gun...

Now that's one scary warband!

[von Lucky]

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.

[jp1885]

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! 

[Engel]

I love it.