My 5 year old son has literally grown up around gaming. I have held game nights every other weekend for years and play everything from board games to light mini games, to heavier games like Warhammer. (Note: That didn't sound right and caused some confusion, I was trying to illustrate how the games my gaming group played were heavy for my 5 year old, meaning that games like Warhammer were out of the question to try and simplify for him because there is just too much going on, whereas a game like HeroScape of Star Wars Minis has more potential because they come with fixed weapon stats, little cards to help you understand the pieces, less dice rolling and math, etc.)
He has always shown an interest in gaming, he plays with his toys and rolls dice as he moves them and things of that nature.
Now that he is able to count and do simple addition and subtraction, I thought it might be good to bring him into some real gaming (we have done things like Kids of Catan and Candyland and whatnot), but recently I introduced him to HeroScape using the basic rules and simplified a bit... he loved it and caught on rather quickly!
Earlier this morning he asked if we could play with the Star Wars Miniatures. I am not a big player of the game myself, but my oldest son (age 14) is, and we have quite a collection. I know the game is for 12 and up (I think), so I tried to talk him out of it, but he really wanted to give it a shot. "Please Daddy, Please! I love Star Wars, I can do it!"
So I finally agreed and set up a map (one with inside walls, rooms, turbolifts, etc. and asked if he wanted to be the good guys or the bad guys. Of course he started pulling out Darth Vader and armies of Stormtroopers. So I had him calm down a bit and suggested that we take it slow for our first game, he agreed.
I setup a small 3 man unit of Stormtroopers. One was an Elite and had a larger gun (I'm sorry if I am not being extremely accurate here, my oldest son could tell you anything you wanted to know about this game, but I am pretty new). Anyhow, I gave myself three Rebel Fleet Troopers, one of them was a Captain. Our groups were evenly matched.
I said "Ok, let's set them up and then I'll explain the basic rules to you" and his reply was "Yeah, but what is the scenario!" I laughed that he used the word correctly, but sure enough, he wanted to know the back story before we would begin the game.
"Ok" I replied as I took out a mini of Vader and a mini of Ben and placed them out on the table, "We are not going to use these minis right now, but let's pretend that Ben is on a mission to Capture Vader, and he is starting off by sending in these Rebel Fleet Troopers to determine the location of Vader."
My son seemed quite eager to hear more. It seems as though his imagination is such that he really got a better experience out of our game by me setting it up nicely for him, so I continued, "If I can take out your three Stormtroopers, then in our next game, when Ben meets Vader, he will get some kind of a bonus for being able to take out the Stormtroopers... and if your Stormtroopers win, then in our next game Vader would know Ben was on his way and you'll be able to have a trap set for me!"
My son was really excited about the game now, "Let's play!" he shouted.
So the rules I used were EXTREMELY streamlined. I figure that I will do like I did with HeroScape and slowly introduce a rule for each new game we play, making it more complex up to as much as I think he can handle at one time.
I noticed the hit points and the damage each mini could do were all in 10's, so I used poker chips for the health. For instance, on the Elite Stormtrooper, I think he had 30 health, so he had 3 poker chips. I figured this game would be easy to keep track of the damage, but when using Vader or Ben or anything character like that, I noticed some high numbers, like 140 health... so I figured in future games the poker chips would be a valuable tool to help the game run smoothly and keep track of hit points and damage on some of the more powerful guys. He understood the concept quite quickly.
For movement I explained that each guy could move 6 squares and then shoot, or he could move 12 squares and not shoot. He understood that right away as well.
For the shooting and damage I just rolled the D20, added the attack number, and if it beat the defense of the person he was attacking then it was a hit, subtract the damage as indicated.
That was the entire set of rules I used for the first game and it worked wonderfully! Because of the dice being a D20, he had to do some more complex math than he was used to, and there was quite a bit of counting on his fingers, but it all worked out well in the end and I feel as though games of this nature will be a big benefit to him when he goes back to school after the summer.
As for the game itself, my first move was to enter the complex and take positions near some walls, I split up my guys into 2 groups. For his first move, he ran out into the hall to confront me at both spots, which was a huge mistake because I was able to get the first attack.
He realized after his turn was over that he should have waited for me to enter the room his Stormtroopers were in so he would be able to shoot at me first. Again, I feel as though this is really helping to teach him things such as match and strategy and problem solving too.
As my turn started, I did as promised between turns, and I opened fire on him. One of his troopers was down on the first turn. He returned fire and took out two of my guys.
It was now one of my guys against 2 of his. And we were both separate now. I moved my trooper down a hallway to try and get to a good spot to fight him, and he actually managed to come in at me from two sides, and in another turn he had taken me out and won his first game.
It was a super experience, and I hope to play more with him soon and slowly work him into more rules.
I am not sure how to approach some of the bigger characters though, we are not using any of the special abilities as listed on the big white area of the card, mainly because I think it is way to complex to start off with. I know he is eager to have a lightsaber battle and use some of his favorite guys, but I don't want to ruin the game by making it over complex for him.
Can anyone give me any suggestions or tips and let me know what I can do? How well would Vader do without any special abilities? He has a butt-load of hit points, so he'd last awhile, but how uneven will battles be if I omit those abilities and still use the point values on the card?
No comments:
Post a Comment