"HOTT or Orcs Drift?" Topic

Which rules set would be better in introducing my 8 and 12 year old nephews to fantasy miniature gaming?

Anybody have any comments on either HOTT or Orcs Drift?

Any other recommended mass combat fantasy rules?

Many thanks in advance for your answers!

Fantasy Rules! by Chipco and Armies of Arcana are both enjoyable.

If you're looking to introduce them to gaming, I'd look smaller -- skirmish level instead of mass combat. There's a lower entry cost, and they won't need to worry about units and formations. If you go that route, Mordheim is actually a pretty good buy -- the starter box contains enough figs to field two warbands, plus it comes with ruins to fight in. I also know from experience that these rules are within the grasp of tweeners.

If you go the other route, I'd go with something on the scale of Warmaster -- the units are more abstracted, and formations aren't terribly important. There are fewer rules to worry about, as well.

Fantasy Rules! is a decent choice if you don't want to get tied to GW -- it's mass combat, and it's built around units.

Warmaster is fantastic, and it has the advantage of moving pretty quickly. Units sweep across the board at great speed, and combats are completed in a single turn, so there are not boring slugfests where units just sit locked in combat, not moving while you roll lots of dice turn after turn.

HOTT is pretty simple, and you'll only need to keep track of a dozen or fewer elements for "mass battles." You could easily enlist any figures, including toy dinosaurs, army men, whatever, for armies. For that matter, you could just put one figure of the appropriate type on an element base (typically 60mm x 30mm for 25mm, 40x20 for 15mm). I'd hesitate to use rules requiring lots of individually based fgiures -- too easy to knock over, drop, lose, etc. Good sized bases also give you the benefit of a large handle for the figures so your metals won't get bent or broken. HOTT doesn't bother with formations per se although you are well advised to from up elements into battle lines. You would do best to have some familiarty with WRG style rules, however, even though HOTT is the clearest of the family and has a lot of diagrams. HOTT is very easy to learn from someone else but a little slow to learn just by reading.

Skirmish level stuff is a good idea too -- it might be easier for them to understand. A game like Heroquest might be ideal, if you can find a copy.

I'm surprised noone recommended the GW LOTR games -- a boxed set is fairly cheap & gives a good number of figures. Characters are expensive, though, so you might want to substitute others. But the rules are easy to learn.

I haven't tried Orc's Drift but IIRC it is similar to Warhammer (individual figures with individual stats?) If so, it may be a good choice. Do you play any fantasy games?

I was just going to recommend GW LOTR. It is an easy and fun game. Also, ARES is a pretty good game that is still fairly easy. The advantage that ARES has is that it is not tied to any particular figure set. If you get into any of the GW games, then you end up tied to their figures (for LOTR you can get other figures).

The advantage of GW stuff is that it is usualy easy to get the games, and also easy to find other players, although in my experience, if you are willing to run games, you can find players for almost any game.

I play HoTT but Ive never played Orcs Drift. HoTT is 8-12 year old friendly. For more information go to 'The stronghold' web site. There are lots of neat pictures there to look at too.

I've only played HotT but I think it is an excellent way into wargaming: it can be played with ~40 models in 25/8mm which only equates to 2 units in certain systems.

The rules aren't overly complicated but provide a significant complication to make it more than an exercise of line em up and march them foward.

Another major advantage is people can use what they like! models/manufacturers/ideas which means you can have fads - my current idea is an inuit army for 28mm using copplestone models.

http://www.btinternet.com/~alan.catherine/wargames/strong.htm That site is the best place to go to read about hordes and apreciate it's godleyness :)

I have played many games of Ares with my (now 10 year-old) son. The mechanics are easy to grasp and easy to modify so that just about anybody can play. One Battle report here: http://tablegamer.com/ares/bendad/bendad.htm We've played many time since then

I remember a game that included a 45 y-o man, his 8 y-o son and a couple of high school seniors. I use primarily Mega Bloks Dragons models (no painting required) with ARES, so it's a great con draw. The 8 y-o kept putting together models with different weapons and asking me questions like "what if the wizard has a huge axe, what'll he roll then?"

To keep the game within his reach, my response varied but was something like:

"THATS the 2d8 Axe of sharpness and wow is that cool, I hope you're on my side" and

"thats a TWO d8 fire sword and that's the greatest sword in the world" and

"that's the staff of fire, and it rolls 2d8 in close combat. a formidable weapon!"

You get the idea. Everyone had a ball, and his dad came up to me later praising me for keeping his kid interested. I replied that the boy made that one of the funnest ARES games I'd ever played.

Hey, that's a different thread isn't it, ah well the important thing is not to worry too much about the "rules" and make it fun for them, then it'll be fun for you too.

jim

Many thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

I agree with the suggestion of Ares by Majestic 12 Games. You can try the free demo from their homepage:

http://www.mj12games.com/

My 9 year old (soon to be 10) started when he was 8. He loved it and painted up a Dwarf army. You can't go wrong using Ares.

Thanks,

John

Lots of good suggestions here:

I introduced my son and his friends to GW LOTR, and WH40K as well as WHFB and they haven't had any problems........

HOTT was easy, although I played it but not my son.

I would definately start out in skirmish games. They are a lot cheaper to play and and faster to paint.