Re: nyys Battle Reports
I play a lot of games with my six year old son. I've found that HeroScape has done wonders in improving his math skills, and is great exposure to more complicated concepts that he won't encouter at school for several more years to come.
For instance, several months ago he was introduced to Ne-Gok-Sa and of course I told him about his mindshackle ability. He thought it was an awsome ability, and was constantly laying claim to the big Marro in order to take control of my unique figures. Didn't take too long for him to grasp the concept of 'long odds.' Rolling a 20 didn't seem like a big deal at first to him, but when roll after roll failed to work, he quickly learned that though it's a really cool power, it doesn't work all that often, and soon NGS was sent back to the figure bin.
Fast forward to last Saturday:
This past weekend we played a couple of games, and to say the least, it was a very bad example of learning that the long shot rarely happens.
My son was playing Braxas (his favorite of late), Drones and Armocs. I went for all Shades and NGS. He'd never seen the Shades played before so I explaind their NGS-like power of Soul Devour. He wasn't impressed, it being like NGS which NEVER works.
So the first couple turns of our game go by and I finally have a Shade that can roll for Soul Devour (on Braxas).... NINETEEN! Holy crap, it worked. My son starts to freak (hates to lose, funny how our kids somehow are able to perfectly mimic our behavior when we were kids), and of course doen't want to give up his Dragon.
So I relent, and say fine, we'll pretend that didn't happen. So another turn or two goes by, and I get to use Soul Devour again (on Braxas)... TWENTY! What!!! Twice in the same game? This is nuts. This time I say, sorry kid, gotta give him up. So now he wants to quit. Normally I don't tolerate this behavior at all, trying to teach him the concept of being a good sport (tough to do with a six year old though). So again, I relent, but we agree that Braxas will take five wounds instead.
The game moves along some more, and my Shades are all dead at this point. Time to bring out NGS, my last figure. Braxas swoops in, and NGS survives the assault, time for him to attack. I roll for Mindshackle... TWENTY!!!!! This is ridiculous! So I make the little guy give me Braxas this time, the HS Gods have spoken (at this point she only had one wound left, so it wasn't all that big a deal).
I turn Braxas around and start anihillating his army, but it's too little too late, as she goes down in flames and then NGS falls to a six Drone assault. The kiddo wins, and everyone is happy.
Needless to say this was a very bad game as far as teaching the odds goes. The Shades suddenly have piqued my son's interest... I wonder why?
You should take that army to a tourney.
We started to call him 'Casino Boy' because if he ever went to a casino when he was older, he'd come out with a bundle of cash since he's so lucky.
