My son Parker just turned 5 years old in May. I have been a long time gamer, and he has grown up watching me have friends over for strategy board games and miniature games. He asked me the other night if there were any of 'my' games he was able to play.
I decided to try him out with a simple game of Heroscape. I had never played using the basic rules before and decided to give him a really streamlined version of the game.
He went to pre-K last year, and can count to 100, do the alphabet, add and subtract single digits and read and spell simple words with common sounds. So I felt he could handle it, and boy was I right. Not only could he handle it, but in both games we played he beat me!
Let me explain what we did and how we played... First, I chose not to use any special terrain rules or high ground, so I used a mat I had purchased from www.HouseMouseGames.com (a GREAT store by the way, try them out if you are looking for any HeroScape stuff, and the play mats are great, although I'd love them to be a little larger, but that is only my personal opinion - for the game I played with my son they were just perfect!).
I chose a unit of the Roman soldiers with spears and also a unit of Roman soldiers with bow and arrows. He chose two units of Marro (I forgot which ones, they had the guns). We did a simple deployment and lined all of our units up on our edge of the play mat. We rolled a 20 sided die to see who would go first. My son won the roll, and I let him move and shoot with both of his units (I did not use the little turn order signs, I figured I would keep this game as basic and simple as possible, and slowly introduce new rules over the next few weeks of gaming.
He studied his cars for a moment (I had explained movement, range, attack and defense values ahead of time), he looked at the board and advanced his guys forward as far as he could. He was not yet in range, so I took my move and did the same thing, however, my archers WERE now in range, so I figured I'd open fire and attack him, I killed one of his guys.
As we moved on to the next turn, he again won the roll to go first, and moved his guys slightly forward but not enough to allow my hand to hand unit to engage him - I thought it was very smart since I hadn't even told him that, he figured it out on his own). He opened fire with both units, and at the end of that round I was left with only 1 spearman and 2 archers. He really devastated me in that assault.
I should mention here, that I was using the older dice, the ones that were red and blue in color, not the white ones. This made it easier for him to figure out how many of which to roll and read the results. I personally like the white ones better, but the colored ones were much easier for him to understand more quickly (especially since they perfectly matched the colors on his cards that he was referring to).
My turn came next and I was able to move in with my last spearman and take out on of his Marro, my archers also managed to take one out. His move came next and he was able to wipe me out and take the victory!
Our second game went pretty much the same way, but I had one spearman that lasted quite a long time against him, several rounds of rolling dice and blocking before he won.
Overall, he really liked the game a lot, and his math skills really helped out, he quickly grasped the rules and understood what needed to be done. I am looking forward to more games with him in the upcoming weeks. I'll introduce him to some more rules, maybe add some terrain and make it slightly more complex, and try and help him understand some basic strategy.
Bottom line is that I thought he would be too young at age 5 (recently turned 5), but he was not and did much better than I had hoped. He is eagerly awaiting our next game!
I'd like to hear from anyone else who games with youngsters and if anyone has any comments, ideas, suggestions, etc., to help me in future games I would appreciate it!
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