"Frostgrave for 9-10 year old?" Topic

My daughter, who is 9, has started to more frequently ask for me to play a "toy soldier game" with her. She would probably like a fantasy game better than my usual fare and something with low model count would be preferable. Would Frostgrave be suitable for that age group, both in terms of complexity of the rules as well as in the subject matter (not looking for some sort of Grimdark)? It strikes me that the treasure hunting aspect of Frostgrave would be a good thing for including kids.

If not Frostgrave, what other rules would you recommend?

I have gamed regularly with my 11-year old for the past year – as a dad here's my take:

Complexity-wise, Frostgrave should be easy for a 9-10 year old to handle. There are only a few stats to deal with and a little basic addition and subtraction.

As far as subject matter goes, there are some 'dark' aspects – necromancers, summoners and witches all have some occult elements that may not be suitable for kids. IMO, as the parent, that's strictly a matter of your judgement about what you feel your child can handle. Some monsters (zombies, skeletons, wraiths and similar) might also be disturbing for some kids. My kid likes beating up the undead, so no problems, but kids are all a bit different!

The only other aspect of Frostgrave that might be an issue for playing against your daughter is that a basic premise is competition between wizard characters and their retinues – the default game is your wizard against the other wizard. It would be possible to tweak the scenarios toward a dungeon-crawl format – her wizard against the monsters. I know that my kid generally prefers that format where dad runs the "bad guys".

As for alternative games, the one my kid and I have been using for the past year is 'Song of Blades and Heroes' by Ganesha Games. It also has very simple game mechanics and can easily be adapted to whatever setting your daughter likes. The figure-counts for warbands tend to be very similar.

Whichever rules you decide on, I hope you and your daughter have fun! I've found it really amazing seeing some of the different tactics my kid has cooked up (compared to the middle-aged guys I usually play against).

Have you thought about buying one of the plastic fantasy buckets from Toys R Us or Amazon and letting her paint her own troops? The miniatures are roughly 54mm, so would work better with smaller hands.

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My daughter is about the same age and she likes to push my 54mm plastics around, but she is not interested in rules right now.

Frostgrave is good. I highly recommend Song of Blades and Heroes.

BC I've played lots with my 6 and 8 year old girls and they loved it

Now they did want a female cast which was a bit of work for dad but was well worth it in the end.

Even the 6 year old knew her spells after a game or two.

After a short time I found they were far more satisfied with tasks and gathering loot than simply killing each other.

I painted up a few unicorns and magical creatures that would randomly move about the table. The players could assign members of their bands to capture and tame these critters. Rescue scenarios with villain wizards thwarting their plans (led by me)