Playing 40k with youngins

[Perducci]

My younger siblings have shown interest in playing 40k, which is cool. The only problem I have is simplifying it enough so that they stay interested. They are 7 and 9, a bit young I know, but I say why not? Any advice?

[Penguinizer]

Remove as many special rules as possible. Maybe ditch iniative. Don't use toughness and strength rules. And maybe have all units. Maybe use same stats for units regardless of armaments and such.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

my suggestion, keep all rules...

start them off with small scale battles with basic troops with few special weapons. After they get comfortable enough with the setup, keep the battles small but vary some of the weapons...maybe include a vehicle like a dreadnaught or other light armor to introduce rules for vehicles.

basically...don't reinvent the game, otherwise they aren't playing 40k...just a game with 40k figures.

As long as you keep the variety of stuff simple in the beginning (basic marines vs. basic marines with no special weapons on either side) and slowly add complexity, they will be able to learn and adapt. Otherwise they will have to learn the game anew as they get older. Have all the charts and quick reference printed out so that they can look at it. Eventually they will just memorize it, but if they get used to seeing it then it will become second nature.

My 6yo has been playing the advanced heroquest and has played battletech when she was 5 with full rules...I made her count all the modifiers before she rolled and made her look up the hit locations...helped her read and reference quickly...didn't take her long before she knew that 6-8 were torso locations and that low was right side and high was left side...she even knew how many criticals were rolled on what number...

[Perducci]

Yeah, I'm not changing around any of the rules. I'm trying to keep it small and simple. I played a quick game with them tonight. Orks vs Imperial Guard. IG won due to some insane range guessing when firing a mortar (or maybe just really good spacial judgement). They liked it, but had trouble remembering what they were rolling for and the number they needed to get. They seemed to get the hang of move, shoot, and kind of assault.

[Scroofy]

my suggestion, keep all rules...

start them off with small scale battles with basic troops with few special weapons. After they get comfortable enough with the setup, keep the battles small but vary some of the weapons...maybe include a vehicle like a dreadnaught or other light armor to introduce rules for vehicles.

basically...don't reinvent the game, otherwise they aren't playing 40k...just a game with 40k figures.

As long as you keep the variety of stuff simple in the beginning (basic marines vs. basic marines with no special weapons on either side) and slowly add complexity, they will be able to learn and adapt. Otherwise they will have to learn the game anew as they get older. Have all the charts and quick reference printed out so that they can look at it. Eventually they will just memorize it, but if they get used to seeing it then it will become second nature.

My 6yo has been playing the advanced heroquest and has played battletech when she was 5 with full rules...I made her count all the modifiers before she rolled and made her look up the hit locations...helped her read and reference quickly...didn't take her long before she knew that 6-8 were torso locations and that low was right side and high was left side...she even knew how many criticals were rolled on what number...

Agreed, I think that is the best way to go about it

[Pilum]

...They liked it, but had trouble remembering what they were rolling for and the number they needed to get. They seemed to get the hang of move, shoot, and kind of assault.

Hmm. Were you around for ... 2nd edition, I think it was? The first boxed set, came with orks and marines. Anyway, that came with unit cards that had the stat line printed on at the top then all the things you needed to know underneath for the models, eg "Shooting: hits on a 3+, wounds orks on a 4+, gretchin on a 3+" "Armour save: 3+". Yes, incredibly basic, but making some of those up might be an idea, especially as in ... whatever edition 40k is up to now, there aren't any hit or save modifiers to worry about as far as I know.

[Perducci]

I don't know what edition rulebook I'm using. It doesn't have the tau or necrons or a bunch of other stuff. I think it was from like 98 or 99.

I also got killed by my little brother, the 7 year old. I had a 11 Space marines and a whirlwind. He had like 25 variously equipped guardsmen a Leman Russ and a Basilisk. I wasn't worried about points or anything though. He just wanted some tanks. It was fun though. He's getting the hang of it.

The 9 year old, a girl, beat me at a rescue?(the one where you have to be closest to an objective after six turns) Her commissar's unit got tore up by bolter fire leaving him all alone. But she managed to get him closer to it by an inch. Again this was a game I let them have more stuff then me. Seeing them win is fun. They get all excited and cheer. Half the time they don't know why what they did was good though. I think I'll start to turn up the heat on 'em soon.

[Scroofy]

I think you are using second edition rules which are really old and a little more complicated than 3rd or the more recent 4th. If I were you I would get the starter set "Battle for Maccrage" It comes with a rulebook, templates, a SM and Tyranid army. I think it would definetly be worth it. The rules are way easier to pick up.

[Perducci]

Ha! Me get a new rulebook...not only that but a complete starter set!!! I'm a cheapskate!!! I'm the guy playing with an entirely proxied army. Those tanks are cardboard(the basilisk looks really cool though, well its not bad anyhow. a good paintjob covers up the craptastic-ness). I also get to say I'm "old school" now, even though I'm not really.

Right now I'm playing a game with the 7 year old with mix-matched units. I'm fielding a guard/tyranid combination, and he has an ork/marine combo and the aforementioned sweet looking basilisk. He laughed at me after I shot up his warboss with like 4 different units and he lived. That punk had one wound left and made at least 8 armor saves. He wants more tanks though. So I think I'll make a couple more.

[Seaside]

They liked it, but had trouble remembering what they were rolling for and the number they needed to get. They seemed to get the hang of move, shoot, and kind of assault.If this is still an issue, I'm sure you can quickly type up a summary of the roll tables in Excel or something. Maybe you can reinforce turn structure with some kind of flow chart that demonstrates the parts of a turn, steps of shooting (i.e. roll to hit, roll to wound, saving throw). I agree with you, though - A Warhammer 40k stuff is pretty expensive. =P