"Wargaming in Schools" Topic

One of my wargames friends is an IT techie in a local school.

He's volunteered to set up a wargames club for any interested pupils.

So, I guess 1/72nd plastic are the way to go for cheapness, but anyone got ideas for simple, quick rules? Or any other advice?

Deprnds on their age really. My mate runs an after school club and uses Warhammer 40k, The Uncharted Seas, The Old West (WH Historical) and Bolt Action. I think he misses off some of the chrome and hard bits but the kids seem to prefer it as they play "proper" games like adults do.

Check out the Junior General website, it has quick and easy rules, scenarios and usually has templates for making paper armies for most.

juniorgeneral.org

WW2 – the old Charles Grant battle rules

18th century – the old Charles Grant rules

Sci-Fi – the old Char… no, hang on – WH40k – most kids know it

Wargames Soldiers and Strategy has had a few articles recently on doing this – the most recent issue (Alexandrian Successors theme) had one that comes to mind, but I know there were others.

Thanks! Kiddies will be 11-16 I suppose, and emphasis on historical.

Maybe some of the Neil Thomas rules? his recent 'Introduction to Wargaming' had some decent sets.

When I was at school we chose our own rules for the wargames club, no teachers involved, but I guess times change.

We have a local gent in San Antonio named Blake that has been working with kids doing summer day camps with wargaming. I think mostly DBA and HOTT?

Another gent does this with a local military academy. He gives each a painted mounted knight as part of the course participation. He either does the old Chipco thing or something that he has modified.

I have not asked if we have picked up gamers long term with this. If nothing else, we get exposure to the hobby and more people don't look at as freaks (although that posting about crack and the gaming convention is enough to scare anyone away!)

Asking teh pupile would be a great place to start.

However;

Paperterrain has paper soldiers and buildings for the ACW.

Get a couple of maps and run Kreigspeil with some umpires (maybe later once the club is established)

Having a few historical boardgames such as Combat comander around as additional options.

David

For a few years I ran a miniatures group of HS Honor students who formed a history club in Central CA. They played FOW, napoleonics and ancients (COE/WAB)as we rotated the era during the year. Two meeting each month with 10-12 active student gamers. Another California HS group I am aware of is Duke Winser's group (see link). They cover periods of SYW, napoleonics and ACW. Like my group, Winser's group played complete scenario miniature games with the gamers learning about the various periods.

winserswargames.blogspot.com

link

M aka WR

We used a variety of rules including: WAB, LotOW, Infinity, FoW, warmaster ancients and TSatF.

They didn't have much of a problem, the key was usually just to tell them what they needed to roll. Don't worry about them understanding the rules too much.

I just went with regular figures, not sure why you'd have to go with soft plastics. I used several different scales from 10mm to 28mm.

Did this four years in two local middle schools twice a week.
My advice: Preparation

good robust terrain
simple rules
laminated quick-ref sheets
comparable squad-sized forces.

Play to have fun, to teach, not to win.

Bolt Action. Pretty cheap on Amazon and fun to play. 1/72 plastics are cheap too.

I run a boardgames club at the school where I work and another teacher (who is in my weekly gaming group) runs the wargames club.
At the wargames club the boys mainly play WH40K and LOTR with their own figures. I took X-Wing down once and they liked that. They are also playing some WW2, using FOW rules.
If you friend is aiming to get some figures and rules to intruduce them to wargaming, then I would recommend SoBH, as the rules are simple and they can play with GW LOTR figures which they can pick up cheaply on ebay and they are familiar with.

Why will the emphasis be on historical ? You need to let them choose what they want to play, with the emphasis on fun.

SoBH would be ideal. Fun to play and easy to personalize a warband each. Leave out the magic and you have historical. If they take to it, you can move onto larger games systems. A couple of well chosen plastics boxes should be enough to equip a group of players.
Cry Havoc would be another option. A box of perry foot and mounted should cover all the troops.

When I ran school clubs I would take in figures, rules and terrain to set up games. Pretty soon, kids were bringing in their Warhammer stuff and either using their own Warhammer rules or simply making them up as they went along!

When I ran one I got all the kids to put in NZ$10 and brought enough eM-4 plastics for them each to get a sprue of 5 figures plus one copy of Combat Zone that was donated to the school library.

Robert

I third SOBH, I play it regularly with my son (aged 13) and his friends learned the rules immediately, and enjoy it. As others said, can be used for ancient and medieval skirmishes. Also the derivatives Song of Drums and Shakos for Napoleonics and Mutants and Death Ray guns for Post-Apocalpyse, but we use it also for "hard" Sci-Fi. Flying Lead for WW1 to moderns , pulp and near future, uses the same mechanics but it is a bit more complex.

Juniorgeneral.org is the men. I played some of his stuff and it works perfectly.

Emphasis will be on historical as its what my friend plays. I think the idea is to educate the little blighters when they're not noticing….

As the school is putting a small amount of money into the project, and possibly paying my friend for his time, GW is probably not a reasonable use of tax-payers £££££

I've been running a club at the local middle school for almost 6 years now (plus a club at another school for a year as well).

1/72 figs are good for WW2 and for Modern stuff--For WW2 I used Rapid Fire for Rookies and for Modern, Ambush Alley.

For sci fi, I do a slightly simplified WH40K and Chain Reaction (which also is used for Nazi Zombie games).

The kids have liked all of these. Not so liked was space ships using Full Thrust (the entire plotting your move thing was a big downer for them).

At the school where I only ran it for one year, I also did a DBA game, which was actually well received, but that's the county's IB school, so the kids are more cerebral.

Rob

If this to be in a USA school, I would be worried if any of the soldiers will carry firearms. Almost all schools are pretty much de- militarized. Kids get in trouble for having a cookie that is in the shape of a gun. Also not sure how war fits into the new Common Core standard teaching program in most US schools.

Consider non-military games with miniatures such as chariot races, or sporting games with figures. Maybe role play games where players cooperate to solve problems together. A fantasy quest what does not pit the players against animals or creatures but instead against against natural obstacles that needs team work to solve. Maybe a Lewis and Clark expedition game , but of course always friendly and respectful of the Natural Americans.

This how I got into wargaming over 40 years ago, a teacher ran a after school club,
It fired up my passion for history (and toy soldiers), I still have friendships I made all those years ago.

Our club was asked not so long ago by a local school,can we do something around the Roman invasion of Britain, Yes we can,we can do large DBA Romans v Ancient Britons.
Then the question are you ALL CRB checked, lucky there are a couple of our members that are and it was able to go on.

I would like to wish all the luck in the world,

PS – rules I would give DBA an outing, up to you how big and how many figures on a base to makes up an element,

Question.

This is all very well and good for gaming. However, is there any pick-up in interest in history and do the kids do better in the subject? Or is it just an excuse not to do boring classwork and play games. If there isn't an increase in interest in history then you're really taking money under false pretenses from the school. ( I mean, heat, light, space). This is especially true if you're putting on a game during class time. This is one reason the playing of fantasy or non-historical might be over the line.

So do the children improve their study of history?

What statistics can be offered?

I'd start with simple rules – so Neil Thomas, Featherstone (a lot of GW mechanisms should be recognisable for WH40K etc fans) and the like, and probably something small to start – until stuff accumulates.

So how about Featherstone Skirmish Games and then let/encourage them to expand/complicate/simplify and write their own variants as it goes along?

If skirmish games are too limiting, go for the same idea but for Divisional games.

DBA probably a good idea for ancients – pretty simple and widely played.

Sounds a great idea – benefits for literacy, numeracy, cooperation, artistic development, logic and if you are luck a bit of history as well.
I wish him well.

Bangorstu… a question:
How did the school club turn out in the end ?