My (just) nine year old is now an accomplished wargamer. Member of our club, with a club shirt and sweatshirt. He regularly thrashes adults and rolls damned fine.
My advice start slowly. The house is filled with my own gaming stuff and he sees me working from home painting for others.
However, Battleships first. Either the peg or electronic version with noises. Be silly. Make the noises yourself. Engage.
Next, I started my son on war boardgames at six years old, three years ago with the old Tank Battle (MB games) and Mission Command: Land, and then Mission Command: Sea. These are board games with models, bought second hand cheaply on Ebay. He really got to grips with the games after about six plays. After double that he was every bit as good as me.
Moved onto X-Wing. We started basic X-Wing first but he wanted to use the upgrade cards. Within a fortnight he was writing his own 100 point lists. He really 'got' it. His spacial awareness was far superior to mine and he rolled much better. Damn him. He also remembers rules much better than me. The dials and the rulers are good training grounds for tape measures of the future….
:-)
Moved onto basic Impetus and played Wars of the Roses. Limited troop types. Very easy basics, but a real challenge. Lots of dice rolling means a lot of action on the part of the players. No time to get bored. Busy hands makes busy minds when gaming with the young. Single element unit basing with a lot of figures = good eye candy time but also not a lot of time wasting moving individual figures. After six months of Basic Impetus he moved onto the full fat version once he had his head around the mechanics, and is as competitive as most adults.
Next up ECW, with Baroque, just a year ago. Similar basing concept. Very pretty. He likes cavalry and predictably loves the Royalists (Boo hiss). He rolls well and plays damned hard. Very similar mechanics to Impetus so he was on familiar ground. We started small but soon moved onto mega sized games. He writes lists for his armies now.
Now, he's cutting his teeth on ACW with Pickett's Charge and loving the Rebs though with conspicuous lack of success thus far. We've played perhaps a dozen games and he's won twice. It took him eight losses to get a win but oh the sweeter it was for him.
He's also tried AWI (British Grenadier), SYW (Die Kriegskunst) and WW2 aerial (Bag the Hun) although maybe they were a step too far, yet. He doesn't 'get' 18th Century stuff yet and aerial combat is difficult to think of three dimensionally. He'll get there, if he wants to persist with it.
Bear in mind, an awful lot of gaming with a child is about the kid's personality. My son doesn't like losing but not in the throwing a tantrum style. He hates when he feels he's screwed up, but hates it more if he realises you were going easy on him. He is a persistent little swine and will practice and retain info much better than I do. He spent weeks playing X-Wing every night after school until he knows all the upgrade cards and manoeuvre wheels off by heart.
The big issue with gaming was his lack of appreciation of wargames terrain and how it relates to troop types and tactics. This can only be learned 'on the job', and some of us still haven't. :-) He's got a pretty big handle on it and on car journeys will describe what troop types he's use in certain terrain features. Bless him.
I have to say having a gamer child is the best thing ever. His mum has seen how his school work has excelled due to his interest in tactics and his probability and spacial awareness. His handwriting has improved as he's writing lists. His reading was good anyway but is way better than his age due to reading rules. He's got plenty to talk about and can hold a conversation with any grown up gamer. He also plays football (soccer) football (American – soon) and Rugby Union and its affected his on field perception of the opposition and his tactics. It's all good.
Apart from, it can be VERY expensive having two gamers in the house.
Good luck. The best thing you can do with your kid.
discovers a lost dinosaur.
