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Post by harlandski on Nov 25, 2017 8:06:04 GMT -6
Started getting the younger generation into Chainmail today. Used some figures from a Russian game called "Fantasy Battles" with the Chainmail Man-to-Man table. We didn't use the complex turn rules which I tried to get my head around in another thread, and there was some interpretation of the none-too-historically accurate equipment (any firearm became "arquebus"). My two six-year-old daughters enjoyed it in any case: "I liked it." "It was cool," and both want to play again. Whether that has anything to do with the fact they both chose the strongest figures (the ones wearing plate armour) and both beat daddy is hard to say... To keep things simple to start with, we just played one one-on-one combat at a time, with 'knocked out' (killed) figures replaced by the next member of their team. As we weren't tracking movement, we rolled a d6 to see who got first strike, and I allowed the first attack to be ranged where possible. I am considering for future games allowing one ranged attack before melee ensues, for the purposes of game balance. I also allowed more than one melee attack if the figure evidently had more than one melee weapon. Next time I might try to bring in some more of the rules (as I understand them) about the relative speed of different weapons. We did track fatigue, which led to some interesting choices.
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Post by foxroe on Nov 25, 2017 19:30:40 GMT -6
Hah! That's great! The "tag-team" approach was a clever idea; I think children take to that readily as it is a common theme in modern video games and such (i.e. Pokemon), and it's a great way to get them used to the system before they start worrying about maneuvering and tactics.
(PS) Should I find it disturbing that Firefox's spell checker does not flag "Pokemon" as a misspelled word?
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Post by harlandski on Nov 28, 2017 11:52:10 GMT -6
Hah! That's great! The "tag-team" approach was a clever idea; I think children take to that readily as it is a common theme in modern video games and such (i.e. Pokemon), and it's a great way to get them used to the system before they start worrying about maneuvering and tactics. (PS) Should I find it disturbing that Firefox's spell checker does not flag "Pokemon" as a misspelled word? Yes, you're right, the tag team thing worked well, as they are all too familiar with Pokemon! The next time we played I assumed the men were 6" apart, we rolled to move first, and then I allowed stationary figures missile attack at the mid-move of attacking figures, as per my understanding of the Chainmail rules. This made figures with missiles (especially 'arquebuses') very strong, meaning the native American figures pictured became by far the strongest. In a way this speaks to the robustness of the Chainmail tables, as surely firearms would defeat even heavily-armoured opponents. To keep some balance, we then played selecting figures for our teams in turn from a common pool (not quite a point system, but a workable alternative with six year olds). We also played a little with the effects of relative weapon class, though my daughters never chose to parry if it meant foregoing an attack. They are now asking me to buy some more figures to play with, so overall the experiment has been a great success, and it looks like Chainmail is a game they want to keep playing, at least in this limited form. (PS) I was surprised to discover that my phone not only recognized the word Pokemon, but even put the accent on the e for me! (Not here as I'm writing from my computer, where it's also not coming up as a spelling error...)
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Post by harlandski on Nov 30, 2017 9:49:57 GMT -6
Update: As we unearthed some more figures today (notably wizards), we made our first forays into the Fantasy Combat Table and into saving throws - non-wizard figures counting as heroes. Also we had a three way battle - though still with only one figure at a time -, meaning things got a bit more tactical, and facing became more important. The result was a draw, as - after defeating daddy, my daughters went on to finish off each other's last figure simultaneously with missile fire.
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