I submit to your eyes damning evidence of yours truly gleefully corrupting the youth! A friend and his family was visiting and their children, aged four and two were intrigued by my cabinet of miniatures. When they heard the models were not toys but playing pieces in games, they asked if they could play. Naturally I was happy to oblige. I dug up some Bretonnians and Orcs and set up a simple scenario with the knights chasing away a band of orcs who were harassing a farm. I made up the rules as we played. One side moved first, then attacked. Then the other side moved and attacked. Mounted figures moved 10 inches, figures on foot moved four inches. One D6 was rolled per attacking model. A bowman scored a kill on a 6+, a melee attack killed on a 5+ and a charging knight felled his opponent on a 3+. Naturally there was no talk of killing anyone but the knights rather scared the orcs back into the forest.
The boys showed remarkable restraint when following my instructions, and the four year old even had some tactics in mind. When I asked who his bowman will shoot this turn the young Strategos replied: "The orc with the sword, as he cant shoot me back!". On the other hand, when I asked the two year old to "roll the die and try to hit the orc" he took it literally and tossed the die at the orc and was disappointed when he missed.
The game was finished in maybe 10 minutes and resulted in a glorious victory for the boys! I believe they'll want to play again tomorrow :)
Nice! I'll have to try this.
ReplyDeleteFMB