Skirmish at the Old Stable

"Did you see that sorcerous warrior taking shelter near the old stable?"

"Yes, he was covered in blood."

"And there were Elves with him. At least two of them!"

The farmers did not normally traffic with the allegedly cursed warriors of the Wizard Empire, and even less with self-evidently dangerous folks like Elves.

"They must be up to something... something not good. What should we do?"

"I say we burn the stable! Then they'll go away!"

...

This is the report of the first time I've played a minis game with my six-year-old son. He's tried his hand at painting (there's still room to grow his skills), and we've played some board games. But this is the first time playing an actual legit miniatures war game.

Before we started he exclaimed "I can't believe I get to play a grown up game!"

Battle is about to be joined.

The attackers (me) were trying to burn the barn. Every attacking figure in contact with the barn got to roll a d6. On a 6, the barn would burn down and the attackers would be victorious.

The defenders (my son) were led by an old plastic chaos warrior selected because "he has a lot of blood on him, so he must be tough". They'd win by eliminating the attackers.

The rules were basic OSR derived. Each model had the following stats (assigned by me):

• Hit points
• Movement rate in inches
• Armour class
• Attack bonus (added to d20 roll, must = AC to hit) per weapon
• Damage roll per weapon
• Range for bows

This is what the defenders' stats look like. They severely outclassed the attackers. But that's okay, since this is a narrative game.

In terms of gameplay, we used the following rules:

• Roll initiative per side each round, using a d20 (this felt tedious after a while).
• Combat is resolved simultaneously (good for less book keeping IMO).
• You cannot shoot into or out of melee.
• You cannot move away from melee once you are engaged (I think this will become a free hack thing in future iterations).

You can see how the attackers planned to - and indeed did - move as they attacked.

I don't have a lot of progress pictures as I was pretty focused on playing and explaining (and holding the "no-we-can't-arbitrarily-change-rules-or-dice-outcomes").

Our terrain rules were as follows:

• Newly ploughed field = half movement rate.
• Those big clumps of trees and = impassable.
• To cross a linear obstacle (fence, hedge) move up to it. Roll a d6. On 4+ continue movement, 3 or less you're stuck (this actually felt pretty good in gameplay).

The defenders didn't take a single point of damage. Talk about an unbalanced scenario.

I got five or six rolls to burn the barn, but it failed to ignite and the would be arsonists were mercilessly butchered one by one.

The fate of the attackers is sealed. Note how HP is correlated to shield and shirt colour for easy identification. I guess I should try to get a set of markers that match my paints.

My son was pleased with his victory, and immediately suggested "let's play again, but switch sides this time."

"Sounds good" I said, and we set about preparing for our second game of the afternoon....