"Hero's Cape

[Mooseman]

I just got done with a good game of "Hero's Cape" with my three year-old brother. Anyone else been so despret to play that you simplify the rules and play with your younger sibling/relative?

[markwars]

When I first bought this game my son was still 4 years-old. I definitely dumbed it down a bit back then.

[Aldin]

*chuckle*

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but my four year old daughter takes the pony and the girls (Theracus, Nakita Agents, Kelda, Raelin) and has little parties in the trees. Heroscape makes a great playset.

~Aldin

[QBakies]

The only person I play with is my (now) 11 year old son. I'm trying to get him into these types of strategy games.

[dead_radish]

I play with my wife and 13 year old daughter.

My daughter usually gets bored about round 4, and my wife tries hard, but she just doesn't have the drive to kick my ass like I'd like her to have....

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by dead_radish

I play with my wife and 13 year old daughter.

My daughter usually gets bored about round 4, and my wife tries hard, but she just doesn't have the drive to kick my *** like I'd like her to have....

My wife has the same problem. The one time I really want her to come after me and rip me apart and she just doesn't have it in her

[markwars]

My wife can whip my @$$ if I forget to take out the garbage, but she has no interest in whipping it on a field of plastic hexes.

[The_Finder]

So true. Only play against my girl for the time being and I get really excited to design a cool map, then I take the time to examine every Army card, looking for synergy or areas of explotation....

I get really amped after work when I know we are going to play...and she is like Eh about it. She doesn't even build her own Armies, I build a pool of about 3 or 4 different teams and she picks the one she likes. But it isn't the same...

Playing with her is just going through the motions, I need someone to want to kick my behind as bad as I want to kick theirs.

[jlo]

When I need a fix I get my 4 yr old and 6 yr old to play. I just mediate but they have a blast building the map. I have them play with extemely basic rules and we all have a good time. They are scapers in training. They be kicking my butt in the game in no time.

[LongHeroscaper]

My wife plays the game very well. I rarely win . Or maybe just because I am sooooo bad. When I have kids, I will definitely teach them how to play Heroscape and other strategy games.

[j-Bird]

My wife is the only one I play with; our 8 month old son is a bit young to play, although the second edition rules makes some good reading at story time.

I sent my 8 year old nephew a master set for Christmas to get him, my sister and Mother Bird playing. They will all be visiting us later this year and I plan on getting some games in.

[markwars]

This is something I posted a few months back...it seems appropriate here since this thread is about playing with youngsters:

Let me start by saying that I am lucky enough to live in the DFW area, so I do get my chances to play other adults on orderly maps from time to time. But on a day to day basis my only HS partner is my seven year-old son. He loves this game. It has cool figures (which he likes regardless) and buildable terrain (which he also likes regardless of the game) so he's going to want to play with the pieces no matter what. Sure sometimes the terrain is hosting a Hotwheels gathering or Su-Bak-Na is off fighting Star Wars figure, but the important thing is that he likes this stuff.

As a dad my wish is that by the time he's 9 or 10 he'll be a competent player that can at the very least hold his own against other kids his age. And my dream is that he will love to play this game with me even when he's visiting me in the nursing home. So I have had to strategize about my day to day approach to Heroscape.

There are two things that I am really really trying to avoid. Number One is making my son hate this game because of the way I play it. Number Two is giving him a bad attitude about winning or losing. It's a double edged sword. On the one hand I can teach him by example and dust him game after game and tell him "that's life". On the other hand I can let him beat me to give him that carrot while foregoing any real life lessons thus indulging my desire to have someone to play. Neither of those seemed like much fun so I've taken a different approach. There are ways to show kids the nuances of the game while letting them feel in control. If building maps helps keep your son's interest then that is great. My son likes to help, but he's not quite ready to build large coherent maps yet.

Here are some of the ways we play with the express purpose of keeping his attention and interest...

Unit vs. Unit play - This way of playing came to me after participating in Kentak's awesome "last man standing" event last year. What we do is simply play one card vs one card. It's very useful when we get new figures to just try them out and see how they work in game play. It's also very quick and if my son loses there's twenty more matches within an hour. As long as he is occasionally winning and we keep switching up units his attention is locked on.

He Drafts All Armies- This way of playing has taught me more about the game than him. I always let him know that he better give me a crummy army because when we play this way I give no quarter. Typically he will select about 800 points worth of large figures and heroes and I'll be stuck with about 200 points worth of figures he doesn't particularly like. This method has taught me how to utilize figures I myself would never choose and how to capitalize on better figures' weaknesses. By letting your kids decide on your army they can also learn that perceived crappy figures can sometimes be really good and that the figures everyone likes have problems too. After about a year of this kind of play I know he is getting smarter because he's making better and better decisions about which figures to give me to ensure a win for himself. He may not be making macro-level strategy decisions yet, but having a good knowledge of what figures do what is paying off for him.

Scenario play rather than Match play - This is a way to play that both of us enjoy. We build a huge map, place all sorts of baddies on it, and then let him choose a force to achieve the objective with. The good things about this...it teaches him how to build good maps, it teaches him how draft an army based on his opponent, and it never puts me in the villain's seat. I'm merely the Dungeon Master (so to speak) and he's the only participant. If he loses he doesn't feel like Dad beat him, and if he needs advice along the way he feels like it's fair to ask me.

These are the three most effective ways I've found to keep his interest and ego intact. These types of play also serve my own selfish desire to train my son to be a Heroscape master. I say if your son wants to build maps then more power to him.

Having said all that there are still times where I feel like it's appropriate to play my son straight up draft matches and either beat him or let him win. It's my job as a parent to know when the appropriate type of play is needed. Heck sometimes it's best to not even use the rules and instead chuck marbles at figures in his sandbox.