Well, after our first game of Star Wars Minis last week my son really has been really eager to get back in and play it again. We have been mostly playing the basic HeroScape and he has done quite well, but I think he likes the SW game better because he is such a huge fan and always watches the movies and cartoons and has no trouble pointing out characters by name, making the game flow much faster since he already knows who is who in the Star Wars Universe. Also, since he knows the game is for the "older kids", being able to play it (even the very basic streamlined version that we play) makes him very happy with himself.
My older son likes the D&D Minis, so it looks like I'm going to be getting hooked on buying into the whole collectible game thing again (something I had no plans of doing after MageKnight, HeroClix and MechWarrior), at least I like these minis better (the D&D and SW minis), and I like the cards with fixed numbers better than those clix dials anyhow.
I wanted to add some rules into the game this time around and slowly make it more complex so he can learn one or two new things at a time and handle it without any frustration. This time around we added in Vader and Kenobi. My son has been having a great time playing the Empire, so he continued and took Vader to lead his troops. I explained his special ability to double attack in hand to hand if not moving and he understood this quite well.
We setup our cards, and used poker chips for the hit points (each chip was worth 10 points, so Vader had 14 chips, Kenobi had 10, etc.), this method of stacking the cards with the chips seems to work better than trying to use those little cardboard point tokens when they take damage, or trying to keep track of it on paper, it just makes the game flow faster and is a bit easier - especially for him being only five.
If you read my last session report, I controlled some Rebel Fleet Troopers as they tries to gain access to one of Vader's bases, they were killed, and as a result we decided that this time the Empire should have an advantage because they knew Kenobi's forces were on their way.
My group of characters consisted of the Rebel Trooper Captain (I will keep calling him Captain Antilles, but he was not named that on the card), and a small band of Rebel Fleet Troopers. They were all lead by Ben Kenobi. My son had a squad of Stormtroopers with one Heavy Stormtrooper in there (doing more damage per hit) and they were lead by Vader himself. The point totals were completely equal except I did not let Kenobi use any special force powers, only Vader with his double attack.
The special bonus he got for winning the last scenario, was to setup his guys wherever he wanted, and when we entered the base he would have the first attack. It actually worked out quite well for him, he did a great job putting his guys around corners and setting them up nicely. Perfectly positioned to defend against Kenobi's soon to come assault. I wanted to take out his heavy Stormtrooper as soon as possible but it wasn't possible for me to get any shots at him in the beginning.
As the game began, my Rebel Fleet Troopers met a lot of resistance entering the base and I lost two of them right off the bat, but I was determined and my wave of troops pressed forward into the main base, taking out Stormtroopers left and right. The feel of play really felt like the movies, troopers vs troopers as shots blasted back and forth down the hall, the only thing missing were R2 and 3PO trying to cross the hall between them. :)
After a few turns had gone by, we were down to a few troopers on both sides, that ended up in a shoot out in a hallway on the right side of the throne room. While this battle raged on, Vader and Ben finally met in the hallway on the left side of the throne room. Kenobi and Vader had an epic (and long) lightsaber battle while the battle on the opposite side ended with Captain Antilles being the sole survivor.
As the lightsaber battle continued, Vader was doing quite well and Kenobi was quickly running low on health, so Captain Antilles ran to his aid. Antilles arrived too late though, he managed to get a couple of shots off, only one of which actually managed to hit and damge Vader, but it was at that moment that Vader's saber cut down poor old Ben.
As Vader turned and moved towards Antilles, I did what any Rebel Captain would do when facing the Dark Lord, I turned and ran! I managed to get out of the base before Vader was able to reach me, and I told my Son he was going to call for help and get Luke and Han to join him in another attack.
It was a great game and lasted about 45 minutes or so. My son has been improving in his math skills quite a bit with this game. In HeroScape we never needed to figure any double digit numbers, and in this game it seems as though all of the numbers are double digits, making it more difficult for him to figure out some of the dice rolls and once in awhile he needs some help, but overall it isn't bad and he is learning the rules quite well.
Thanks to everyone who helped me with suggestions from my last posting, I think that I'll be enjoying Star Wars Mini games with my 5 year old for some time to come now, and have as much fun with him and this game as I do playing with adults my own age.
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