My oldest son can now play.

[Ghostship]

We built blutsymburgh, because they love the castles.

He's not able to think of any higher level strategy, but I'll help him out a bit.
He can understand the process and decide on movements and attacks, even if they're not the best possible moves.

We're also playing armies chosen by my two sons, by the look of the figures, so synergy et al are out the window.

It's still fun.

I deeply wish I had been 11 when this came out instead of being in late high school or university. I had no idea it existed until I was middle age.

Just my story.

[Dad_Scaper]

Ah, I remember those years, and the armies that came with them. Look at the earliest battle reports in my sig, and you will see armies picked out by the Kid. I had Khosumet; he had dragons. It was awesome.

[japes]

My son is 7 now and has been playing for over 1.5 years. At first it was just him learning to count movement and add and subtract hits and shields. Then he learned to read and it just added from there. He knows basic synergies and when not playing C3G he plays Dragons...We actually have a few Mimrings painted to proxy for other dragons since I sold the Zelrig I found to fund our start-up into heroscape.

[nyphot]

What's a good age to start introducing various concepts of Heroscape? I had my boy yelling "Skulls!" when he rolled ANY dice since he was 1.5, but I've despaired of teaching him much else. We did build some terrain the other day, which he enjoyed though it was a little tricky.

He's (finally!) gotten decent at counting and recognizing numbers, so I pulled out two army cards and tried to get him to count skulls vs. shields, but that went exceedingly poorly. He's 2 years 8 months right now.

I'm desperate to play with him.

[japes]

Originally Posted by nyphot

What's a good age to start introducing various concepts of Heroscape? I had my boy yelling "Skulls!" when he rolled ANY dice since he was 1.5, but I've despaired of teaching him much else. We did build some terrain the other day, which he enjoyed though it was a little tricky.

He's (finally!) gotten decent at counting and recognizing numbers, so I pulled out two army cards and tried to get him to count skulls vs. shields, but that went exceedingly poorly. He's 2 years 8 months right now.

I'm desperate to play with him.

2 is probably a little young but each child is different. My son has an incredible memory so I was able to read certain powers to him and explain them and he was able to recall them. We started with only a few cards at a time for him to play with and he learned others from me playing against him with new ones. It was slow at first but he caught on quickly to the basics. Start with simple one power cards and see how it goes...It may suck but maybe even try the basic sides first.

[Ghostship]

I have a five year old and an eight year old.
Until my oldest was six or so, even the basic game using marvel was beyond him.
My sons just play make believe, smash everything together, and throw the dead guys off the castle.... kind of make believe. I tried to limit the "smash together" part.

Now my eight year old can play. He wants to play the advanced rules, but really the basic rules would be his level. He can read the cards, but needs me to interpret what it means. He is able to glean that the figure has a special attack and it involves the cool archer guys shooting arrows, but he needs me to guide him through using it the first time. He picks up things like, "I have height". And once he's been through it the first time, things like, I can move this wyrmling first if it's the other one's turn.

I'll be honest. A 500 point match was fun at first for him, but he actually asked "Dad, what's the point of heroscape?"

Um, well, son... good question. Trying to explain the endgame options lead nowhere. He decided he would like to score destroyed units and count up after a set number of rounds.

I keep the scape in rubbermaid tubs in the back room. It comes out on rainy weekends or snow days. They play make believe with a set of toys that have what every toy I ever had was missing - the setting to play in. I play the odd game with my oldest, and wait for that narrow window where they're both able to play, but not so old that playing with minis, or with dad isn't cool.

They think of it now as a special thing, and that's great.

[hose]

Just to share my story...
I originally bought SOTM and marvel for my oldest at Christmas when he was 11. I thought it looked really cool and we could play it together. That Christmas he decided he wasn't going to come to my house again. Maybe it was a little childish, but I opened his presents. My second born was only four, and while we both thought it was cool, he was too young for it and I didn't understand everything too well. When he turned five, he started bugging me about it. We played and we both REALLY liked it. We only ever plated one game of basic. We were still learning, but it just the right mix of everything I wanted in a game. He has an excellent memory, and could remember what the figures did, even if he couldn't read. The strategy wasn't there yet, but he picked up aspects of that quicker than I did in some instances. By seven, he was beating me sometimes. We found this site and I was blown away. Tournaments! And more information we knew what to do with. He still picks unconventional armies at times, but sometimes it actually works. I never realized how well the unique samurai squads work until he did really well at a tourney with them. He is eleven now and we still love to scape together. Maybe soon it won't be cool anymore, but I am enjoying while it lasts. So have fun Ghostship, I am sure they will pick it up faster the more you play with them. And then you will have some competition in about a year or so

[ozzy-scaper]

My five-month-old girl drools whenever I show her my games room. That's a good sign, right?

[nyphot]

So much fun reading these stories, and so looking forward to when my boy (and new baby girl!) can play!

[ollie]

My three-year-old got her first game of 'scape in today. Jotun and Grimnak played hide and seek for a while and then they went to bed because it was their nap time. I don't think she's mastered some of the subtleties of the rules yet, but I think she's on the right track.

[nyphot]

Willingly going to bed because it's nap time? Definitely the right track!