Gaming with the boys

I've been playing a few games during the last few months. My main opponent for X-Wing moved to New Zealand. I haven't had a lot of time to get down to the shop. My main opponent has been Rhys.

Rhys, prior to deployment. He set up the terrain.

We started the year playing Lion Rampant with Lord of the Rings models. While he enjoyed that he really wants to play "Real Lord of the Rings", like he's seen me play at the shop.

Over the last year Rhys has collected a very respectably sized Gondor army. Between e-Bay purchases and an army a friend was selling off he has all of the basic troop types in large numbers.

Gondor advancing through the trees of Ithilien.

Rhys chose the armies for this battle; the classic match up of Gondor vs Mordor. I bought the Mordor from the same friend who sold off the Gondor. Another large army that needs to be painted.

Since Rhys is still learning the finer points of miniature games we kept the rules simple. We did not play with Might. He concentrated on measuring his moves, counting the dice and simple tactics. He still gets excited and just wants to pick guys up and move them. He's gotten good at reading the dice, but often forgets if he is supposed to add the results up or just use the face value. It's still a lot of improvement from a year ago, which is how we measure things with Rhys.

The two armies closing.

In this game Rhys did a great job of forming a battle line, supporting his front rank with spears and keeping his archers where they could shoot. It was a close run thing but in the end my wharg riders couldn't carry the day by getting behind his line, getting beaten by his knights.

The end is near.

Lion Rampant and Lord of the Rings are both great games to play with children. The basics are simple enough to pick up quickly but there is a lot of tactical depth for them to discover as they play more, and get older. Rhys was looking over my shoulder as I wrote this. He had two observations, "I won that" and "I want to play Lion Rampant on Friday". That's a win in my book.