Introducing Warhammer to your own children..

Having an intense hobby like Warhammer is impossible to 'hide' from the family, and dealing with weaponry, killing and death is always a delicate issue in the family. I was not at all interested in having our kids be exposed to violence, even if it is in a fantasy surrounding, and so it has taken until now before I decided to teach the game to my oldest daughter, who is nine.

She has seen me modeling extensively for years but never really showed an interest. As part of a deal with my wife I promised not to model any gruesome models and so Chaos or Skaven was out of the question for me. My 40K Orks were about as 'nasty' as I could get away with, while modeling at the breakfast table.

I made my mind up after realizing that math in school is not much fun for a nine year old, and placing numbers and what they can do, in a fun setting would really help her enjoy them more. Warhammer seems perfect for this experiment of bringing math in a fun way into the house; there is lots of hidden math in the game, like counting, guessing measurements, making the measurements with rulers, rolling lots of dice and memorizing stats. It IS a real numbers game!.

When I asked her if she wanted to do it, she shrugged and said 'sure'.

So we borrowed the old Skirmish Rulebook from our oracle Christian (who owns most of these old Warhammer books) and started out 3 weeks ago with really simple scenarios. This book is hilarious and totally makes the game accessible to younger children that you DON'T want to expose to the tragedy of 40K, where you really can't make the leap from serious to frivolous and happy.

I have a Dwarf and a Wood Elf Army so that works out really well for my daughter; very much in line with the fantasy world that she dreams of.

In starting the games, I decided not to use magic and not to use the to hit modifiers, that would become too convoluted. The first one we did was 'Free the Dragon'. The dwarfs had captured a Wood Elves Dragon and the Elves wanted it back. It was a great success, my daughter won and she loved it. Last week we played Rob the Eggs from the Dragon Nest, which ended in a draw and today we played Shadows in the Forest, which was a real nail biter and also ended evenly. For terrain today we needed tons of trees and we used all the Playmobil trees we could find in their room. Of course her little sister (5) helped to set it up.

Look at the paint job on those Wood Elves...they were my first Fantasy Army and really didn't have clue how to paint...man I need to work on those a little. Of course my daughter doesn't care.

Our nine year-old absolutely loves the game now and looks forward to it every week. I will not introduce modeling and painting or using our toxic glues; it will be all about rolling dice and adding numbers! For me it is wonderful to share the hobby and get back into the fantasy swing of things. All in all I am a happy and proud dad! Next week this battle is coming up:

I mean, what's not to like?

Mike

PS. Later on they both helped me with some clipping of the sprues.

That is good stuff for young kids: sharp tools and a need for fine motor skills. And it saves me lots of time...

here's my 5 year old showing off her clippings:

and here they are both hard at work.