Gaming in our Pyjamas

For the whole of her little life, my daughter has had a daddy who plays with toy soldiers. She has known no different, but for most of her life not paid too much attention (she was taught at an early age not to touch my models without asking). However, the last year or so she has been paying more and more attention. She has joined me for some painting (which is just her slapping pink all over some one piece Skaven I got her), and she lost interest in that quite quickly. 

But recently, since her fifth birthday, she has been paying more and more attention to what I do. She is, by her very nauture, an inquisitive little soul, and this applies to toy soldiers just as much as anything else. I've been promising her a little game for a while. And since we were having a lazy pyjama day, it turned out today was the day. 

I decided not to do anything too drastic. I used what fantasy forces I had painted, and gave us each two units of ten troops and one unit of ten archers. The rules were simple:

4+ to move a unit

4+ to hit

5+ saving throw

Biggest unit strikes first (or, in the case of equal size, my daughters unit went first!)

Everyone moves 6", archers can fire 24"

I think it went quite well. She stuck with the game all the way through, and got the hang of the dice rolling quite early on. 

It was a straight forward way to introduce her to the very basic concepts of wargaming. She got the hang of moving stuff, rolling dice, and it's only going to help her counting. We already have another game arranged for next week and it gives me an excuse to buy and paint some more stuff, because what I really need is an excuse to do that! Who knows, she may become that rare thing - a female wargamer! Plus, she will provide a good test bed in how to get the boy into the hobby when he gets a lot older. 

Here are some photos of the highlights. As an aside, this is the first game EVER on my gaming table. Result!

The opposing forces. All my daughters stuff was on movement trays. 

My daughters archer unit takes first blood on the High Elves in the distance. 

Aerial shot of the closing armies. 

My daugher's forces closing on mine.

The first close combat. Victory to Evie's Skaven!

My High Elves take out the last of the opposing archers.

Evie shows no mercy to my last close combat unit.

And the end, victory to Evie!

High Elves and Skaven

Despite my main focus being historical stuff at the moment, I still have a massive back log of Games Workshop models. In order to try to keep on top of the painting pile, and to justify buying new stuff, I like to clear some of these in between other things.

So this week I have caught up with a couple of items. First off were another five Skaven. These are from the Island of Blood set and are very quick and easy to do. I only did five as I find that number to be manageable as a side project. They are also a good illustration of how effective washes can be for a table top army. This is before the wash:

And after with the basing done:

I am a big user of washes simply for speed. These Skaven are literally base coats and a wash and done. Up close they look average, but a unit of 20 of them on the other side of the table looks the business.

Next up was High Elves. I had five archers done and added another five to bring them up to this state:

Again,  these are a relatively quick paint job but no washes and a few highlights to make them a bit better than the Skaven. High Elves are my "try harder" army so get a slightly better paint job.

It's another 10 models off the painting pile. I've developed a system recently of having four or five projects on the go at any one time. I like this as it seems to mean I am always close to finishing something, and gives me a steady stream of complete models. The Bolt Action British are the main block of these projects, but there are others overhead block as well that should feature soon.

As always, check out my facebook page: A Cardboard Fortress