Bringing In A New Generation

When I first met my step-son he was four years old. Within a week of meeting him i had left my bags and boxes containing my Dark Angels at his house overnight and from that point onwards he has been constantly nagging me to let him play a game. 

The setup

He's eleven years old now and his six year old younger brother wanted in on the game as well so I figured why not let them get a go. Their mum was out at a wedding this evening so we got their sisters into bed early and brought a table through to the living room and we got everything set up.

Aside from a post-it note river, road and bridge all the scenery we had consisted of boxes and small plaster barrels that I made into makeshift cover years ago. In fact almost every scenery item I owned was binned five years ago when I moved house. My gaming board and anything that wouldn't fit into a sweet tin was left behind as we had no room in the new house for it. 

Can you tell he loved it?

Tonights game was to give them a taste. It was going to be a three turn game with the boys sharing 42 Space Marines and two Predators whilst I had 40 Imperial Guard and a Leman Russ. The idea being they had to take the bridge by turn three and points were given for models removed and for holding the bridge.

I started off wasting the marines with my lasguns which really didn't seem right so I started fluffing the dice rolls at that point and missing out a few rules in order to speed the game up. By turn three I was holding the bridge despite an deluge of bolter fire and with the last shot of the game they killed my last remaining storm trooper which was on the bridge robbing me of my ten points for completing the objective. I then found out I lost 20-11. That last shot literally won the game for the boys!

The end game

I actually thought they seemed a little bored by it all but afterwards the eldest kept saying how he loved it and made me sign his daily journal entry to prove that he beat me. The youngest says it was the best game of his life and wants a rerun tomorrow afternoon. I guess I'll be playing a lot more games now they're interested!