The Kids Are Alright, the Monsters, Not So Much

This Monday was the first day of spring break here, so we had grandkids Ollie and Evie over for their first sleepover in our new house.   Of course, HeroQuest was on the menu.

Five years ago the church I worked for at the time had a big garage sale, and one of the items was the basic HeroQuest set with an expansion pack (something Skeleton King).  They were asking $10 for it.  I knew enough about the game's value on Ebay that I gave them $20 and I still got a good deal.  Saved it for the day when the grandkids might want to play it. 

A year ago when I first introduced it, HeroQuest was a hit even when Ollie and Evie had to include little sister Lucy (age 4 at the time).  A year later, I noticed a huge uptick in the older kids' understanding of the rules and an astonishing memory for details in their previous games.  Evie for example regularly reminded her brother that because he had a staff he could attack monsters on the diagonal.  Clever girl.

This time to make it more interesting I replaced the players' tokens with mins from my fantasy collection, which was a big hit.   We played the third level in the basic set, the lair of Ulag the Ork, with Ollie playing his wizard and Evie her Elf (they both like spells).  We ran the Barbarian and the Dwarf as NPCs.  It was a near run thing, thanks in part to Ollie favouring Leroy Jenkins tactics and thinking his wizard could also be an assaulter.   Before the final boss fight I let them recharge their spells and "found" them a healing spell in a chest to top them up.   Ulag never had a chance.  

It was absolutely fascinating to see them be so engrossed by a totally material game, with physical tokens, when they are so accustomed to playing video games.  The kids went home demanding another game in the near future.  We might also try a very basic game of a fantasy game like Dragon Rampant, because I think they're ready for it.  I hope that decades from now, days like this one will give them happy memories and maybe some play ideas with their own kids.

Bloggers Down Under - A Meetup in Canberra

Just finishing a lovely month in sunny Australia and starting to digitally dust off some of the photos I took while down here.   Expect more in the not so distant future, once I get back to snowy Canada.

While in Canberra (I was fortunate to be sent on a fact-finding trip to the Australian Defence Force Chaplain College), I had the good fortune to meet up with Alan Saunders, aka Kaptain Kobold, proprietor of the quirky The Stronghold Rebuilt blog (Alan is also on Twitter - @KaptainKobold).  Besides being one of my wargaming heroes, Alan endeared himself to me with his fearless Frocktober campaign to raise money for research into ovarian cancer, which claimed Madame Padre.

My partner Joy and I (left) met up with Alan and his wife Catherine (right)at the National Museum in Canberra, to see an exhibit on Ancient Rome.  

Alan and Catherine were great company, and as transplanted English (no they didn't come over as convicts) who have lived in Australia for some years, it was interesting to compare our impressions of the place against their experience.  We found them engaging company and I wished we could have found time to game together.  Hopefully one day.

The Rome exhibit was a curated selection of holdings from the British Museum.  I suppose my favourite piece was this stone burial vessel, which depicts scenes from an imagined and happy afterlife, rather like what a religion created by Too Fat Lardies might depict.

"OK, mate, you're too drunk to ride that donkey.  Get off."

"Sod off.  Doncha know who I am?   I'm fecking Bachus!"

Finally, the obligatory Rome Gift Shop (TM) astonished me with a vast collection of Playmobil figures, including Roman legionaries, ballistae, and a giant trireme!  

Behold the glory of the fully assembled Playmobil Trireme.   

Row well and live!

I realize that Playmobil gets a bad rap from some quarters - it's not as exciting as Lego, many playsets have the same boring bourgeois European vibe that you get from a house full of Ikea furniture, etc.  However, there is a whole world of Playmobil historical sets, including ancient Egyptians, and some interesting Viking/Dragon crossovers.

It all has possibilities, especially as my partner Joy has three lovely grandchildren who are still quite young but could be gently introduced to wargaming via Playmobil.   I had better start collecting sets now, so we could do this when they get older:

Blessings from Down Under!

MP+