"Best miniature line to introduce young children" Topic

Best miniature line to introduce young children to gaming/painting?

preferrably cheap and plastic for toddlers with supervision.

Big old army men. Get them at the dollar store. Easy to paint (black on grey for Germans, brown on green for Americans, brown on Tan for English). I think this is probably the way most of us started (the older ones anyway)

If you are designing the rules why not use something that they already have and enjoy.

My eight-year old stepson would play anything with Pokemon, Yu-Gi-OH or Kirby in it. I have even toyed with the idea of Pokemon D20.

I could see using Winnie the Pooh toys to create an exploration of the Hundred Acre Wood. The possibilities are endless.

Armymen or those 90mm plastic knights.

G.I. Joe and Barbie

"Oh... Joe rolled a 6, Barbie's head explodes into a red mist." Your turn Little Johnny.

(15 years later on a couch)

"Well doctor, it all began when I was seven..."

Actually, I like bilros' suggestion. Ease them into it. Start with big green men, then onto HO scale, then when they are ready, lead. Although you might want to hold of on the "Chicks w/ guns" for a while

West Wind horror line :)

Or Teddy Bear Wars

Plastic army men are good. So are plastic cowboys (and Indians, if you want to go there). And plastic knights.

I would also recommend the grey, green and tan army men that were suggested earlier. They are dirt cheap, pre-colored for sides, and easily replaced when bent, crushed, cut apart, and burned.. I haven't tried painting any but the large features would be easier for young hands than figures with finer details.

EM4 sells those old 28mm Dwarfs and Orcs from the Fantasy Warriors game for £0.20 GBP each or £7.50 GBP for 50 - they're nice robust plastic figures with integral bases. And they're good enough to paint up for more serious games later on.

Pick up some plastic D&D CMG minis, or some Star Wars CMG minis from eBay - nicely pre-painted. A basic box comes with rules for play using stripped down d20 combat rules.

I started my kids with plastic army men with marbles to shoot them down.

Then LegoWars got them thinking about how to build their own custom forces.

Now they're collecting and painting with the best of 'em !

Bob

I play with my 2 boys (3 & 5). We use dinosaurs and plastic army men (about 6 inches high from the dollar store). The rules are: a dinosaur that touches a man automatically eats him, men can shoot (kill) dinosaurs on a 4+, men move one pencil and dinosaurs 1 ruler.

The older one wants to add some "characters" into by including action figures with special abilities (this might be how GW got started).

I have bought the small (1/32?) scale soldiers but find the casting is way worse then I remember it from my youth. I found some cowboys that where not bad (again at the dollar store – keep checking).

My next step is to have them help build some terrain with me.

My brother in law bought Heroscape and they loved the set up and the figures but were not interested in the game all that much.

PJ

If you are starting kids out in the hobby, as stated by everyone else, go with 54mm (or larger) dollar store figs. There is also a lot of neat stuff at Toys R Us. If you want play sets covering the AWI or ACW, you will have to buy those someplace else.

Check out the plastic soldier section at michtoy.com.

Wild West! Kids really get into the whole "good guy vs. bad guy" thing. Also, unlike some of the fantasy and sci-fi lines, they have instant identification with the genre. All but the youngest children know people wear cowboy hats, ride horses, and that guns have six shots.

In short, if they have seen one Western they are probably familiar enough to play in a Western game. Plus, you can get a bag of plastic cowboys for a few bucks!

- - - - - - - -

On a side note, if they are really young I would stick to cowboys only and not bring in the Indians. I'm not trying to be Politically Correct here, but it might work better if you avoid promulgating stereotypes against Indians.

Finally, consider running the game RPG style (which is how I run my Gutshot campaigns): put all the players on the same team (pitted against a GM) and give them the same goal. Rob the bank, capture the outlaws, something like that. If all the kids are on the same winning team, they will feel better about gaming and can talk about it together when you're not around.

Anyway, just a few thoughts on the matter!

Mike

It's relatively new and quite inexpensive:

ROBOGEAR.

They build 'em, can paint them too and they are perfect for war-gaming, of course.

My daughter (4 and a half) started painting when she was 2 and has her own collection of miniatures (mostly unleaded discards from my collection) now. Granted, most of her 'painting' involves finding new and innovative ways to combine pink paint, white glue and static grass, miniatures optional. :-)

As for gaming, we've recently started with Pirates of the Spanish Main. We play it as a race, no shooting, just move your ships, load up cargo and take it home. I found some plasticard sea critters at a toy store that are well sized for "giant sharks, sea horses, etc" that we'll use to liven up our next game.

The whole "killing stuff" aspect of most games I'm going to introduce pretty slowly (she's rather sensitive and I see no reason to rush it) so my next project might be the Care Bears RPG.

Thomas, let me know how the Care Bears RPG comes along, I have a potential customer in my house. ;-)

I have a 7 year old boy who really likes to play with de Wizkids D&D figures. You can build good size armies from "commons" out of several e-Stores arounde the internet. They are pre-painted and most of then are quite good sculpts.

not any of our semi-naked females unless you want to teach them about the 'birds and the bees' as well...............lol

Some of the historical 54mm plastics coming out these days are much better than in years past. The ones sold by Accurate I particularly like. Look over the whole world of plastic toy soldiers at: classictoysoldiers.com

CdtKiley, my 3-1/2 year old daughter has taken an instant liking to Star Wars figures. She's already been painting plaster cast figurines and a few of her plastic horsies.

I'm already starting to think up a way to put gaming in with the 3-3/4" Star Wars figures for her and the neighbor kids when they get a little older. I remember back in High School when I babysat my brothers and the neighbor kids we did similar things with their Masters of the Universe and GI Joe figures. At the time I was using a streamlined version of AD&D and Top Secret rules.

I'm suprised Hasbro hasn't tapped into that between having the Star Wars RPG and all those Star Wars figures kids have.

"not any of our semi-naked females unless you want to teach them about the 'birds and the bees' as well...............lol"

Depends how they're raised, Mrs. H. Number One Son will be three in two weeks, and he's still breastfeeding. He knows what they're for! (In his world). Took him to a lingerie show when he was one, and he wanted to latch onto every model in the convention center...

Both he and his 5yo sister know that Daddy's little men are "soldiers", while most of Mommy's figures (the great naked fanatic and Amazon hordes) either have "tutas" or "tutis and zitsis".

The boy will get Heroscape for his birthday. He's just starting to pick up counting from his older sister, and I expect counting hexes, dice, etc., will speed up the process.

Next, I have to dig out the old Playmobil knights and Exin Castillos out of the back of the spare room closet...

Allen

I agree with Rotor...but I am biased. If they aren't old enough to paint..buy them the Schliech and Papo 90mm knights. They are really sturdy and go for as low as $4 USD each. Shliech is exceptionaly detailed...and Papo is close but a bit more cartoony. They are already painted. Can't beat that with a stick...but if your kids do...the knights will probably survive it.

My son picked up quick on Attactix Star Wars.

Rabbit

Playmobil - cheap, robust, no need for mounted/ dismounted variants, no painting and you can use virtually any figure for any gaming genre. Changeable hats, guns and weapons.

Gone are my Foundry Pirates and Cowboys to make way for the poseable plastic ones.

I started getting my son into BattleTech when he was 5. He's 7 now, but still loves it when we find time to play. The trick is not so much to try and teach them the game, but rather, lay out some options for them, explain the consequences of each, and let them decide. They'll pick up the rest as they go.

When he was 6, we got into Void and he loves it too. In fact, he's beaten me on more than one occasion - although his mother is the reigning champ for now. Again, we lay out suggested tactics and let him work out the best route for himself. Maybe I just suck at these games... that's a distinct possibility.

Finally, he's painted a couple of BattleMech figs too. One I gave him and one he picked out at the LGS. That last one was an Annihilator that he gave an "interesting" paint scheme. He decided to paint the base like a road surface (complete with yellow dashed line) rather than to flock it. He's got the creativity, now he just needs practice!

Last year we played a game we made up with his plastic army men (he has hundreds). He won that one too. The rules were made up in about 10 minutes time, including tanks and APCs as well as rules for morale and bonues when troops stayed near their COs. He loaded a bunch of guys into an APC and rolled up my left flank. Dumped his guys out behind my dug in troops and cut them down. It was ugly. Oh, we also had rules to make use of the sandbag emplacements that came with the figs. Which is why he decided to flank me and break my lines rather than waste his time trying to overcome my defensive bonues. Smart kid.... I should never have let him take the flamethrower guy!

Now my daughter is 2.5 and she's ALWAYS loved our minis. She calls them "guys" and is facinated with them. She'll be playing soon methinks...

But as to the question of what's "appropriate"... Well, these games are an abstraction of war. War is a graphic and serious topic, but in the context of these games, the abstraction removes the "icky" bits enough that kids can enjoy them without having to bring the "adult aspects" into play. When they're older, you can start to talk about why we have wars, and what it means when a REAL soldier dies. War ain't pretty, but wargames don't have to be ugly.

One reason we play these games is to get a view of what it CAN be like. But children don't have to take that from them. They can view them as just another game like monopoly or whatever until you feel they're mature enough to discuss the more serious issues that wargames explore off the table.

Brandon

Instead of using plastic men with questionable or difficult situations to explain, what about doing simple gaming with clay/Playdoh. I once saw in an old issue of Dragon magazine, I think, a simple, yet fun game these guys developed, and you know how much kids love Playdoh.

PJ Parent wrote:
The older one wants to add some "characters" into by including action figures with special abilities (this might be how GW got started).

ROFL! I just laughed so hard I snorted over that! Too funny.

My son just turned two this month and I got him his first die. We were at an Old Navy store and they had these super-giant "bubble gum" machines with toys 'n stuff in them. I popped a quarter in one and out came this great big six-sided purple die with black pips. Brought a tear to my eye, it did. My wife just shook her head and laughed. My son's first six-sider. ;-}~

He's still a bit too young and more accurately, destructive, for me to get out my WK Pirates of the Spanish Main ships. He doesn't have the patience to play anything longer than 10 to 15 minutes but I'm sure that will change. The one thing we do play that he's really good at is the Bob the Builder Memory Game. (flip two cards over, try to match two like cards). I can't wait till I can start teaching him some miniatures games!

Great post by the way!

::plug::

Critter Commandos was created for kids. Cute characters that don't really die, and can be painted in all kinds of weird color schemes and still look good. And the rules are pretty easy.

And I also make a game called "Toy War" based on using whatever you have.

-Paul @ Team Frog Studios

::/plug::