Join me as I see if this relic of the past still has the ability to capture the imagination of the young.
A little more than I week ago I speculated on which edition would be the best to teach to my 8 and 9 year old sons. Ultimately I landed on 3rd Edition, due to its quick play style and relatively low mental bandwidth. These boys are no slouches when it comes to miniature gaming, as outlined in that article, but I still wanted to use an accessible ruleset that would give them a positive experience. And in short, I think it worked!
First, we assembled our armies. The boys have been painting a hodgepodge of models over the years, but nothing that could be considered a cohesive 40k army, so I already knew that corners would be cut. Both boys had assembled and partially painted 5 man squads of marines, as well as an attack bike and Rhino, each. They also each had a terminator squad thanks to last year’s trip to Kubla Con and a VERY positive experience playing Space Hulk. That was it for their 40k collections, but they also had a large number of Star Wars Legion minis (clones and rebels), so it became clear that a bit of proxying was in order. Several squads of Star Wars Legion minis were formed up to represent Imperial Guard and we had our armies!
The game was fairly straight forward. I set up terrain, rolled a scenario and instructed the boys how to deploy, along with a few minor notes on squad cohesion and the ideal use case for certain weapons. The combatants wanted to eschew the normal required deployment distance of 18″, so we were geared up for a bloodbath.
I am happy to report that the game went quite well! Movement and shooting rules took only a few turns to pick up, with extra references for special weapons, as one might expect. Both Rhinos were eliminated early (due to the close proximity of melta guns on both sides) and brutal hand to hand fighting broke out in the center of the map. Templates seem to have become something of a bug-a-boo recently, likely due to how gamey they can be, but there is something truly satisfying about getting that flame template right where you want it! The biggest learning curves came from learning how to properly gain advantage in melee, and also learning just how mortal everyone is in 3rd Edition. It is a very killy game!
Thankfully, everyone enjoyed themselves and there were no serious “feel bad” moments. Everyone got to play with their toys and cause a lot of mayhem. Unfortunately, playing the game did not immediately result in more minis being painted, but the rainy season is coming and we will have a lot more time inside to indulge our hobby. For now, I am chalking this up as a win!
