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I'm 39 and my boys are 9 and 5.

Both are very into the whole idea of painting and playing 40K. I've been letting them paint up some of my older stuff, and some 'practice' models that I've picked up on eBay. Not played yet but we're getting close. My regular opponent has kids the same age, and we're thinking of running a battle one afternoon where the kids play eachother and we help with the rules.

I've also dusted off my old Space Crusade box and have stripped my crappy 25 year old paint job off the models with a view to painting it up properly, and using that as a more simple introduction to tabletop gaming.

I'm also well up for getting them into RPGs and may try running a gentle D&D game with them.

My kids are into hockey, trees houses, bows, dogs, monsters and Pokemon oh and Mario. So I consider myself a gaming father I play Mario with them a lot now. But most of time is spent at a rink.


My kids are 7-5 had them pretty late 23. But had to get my feet under me first with a house car and job with benifits lol.

My son is now 15 days old, took him into the man cave, he cried. I'll try again in a couple of years : )

 Huron black heart wrote:
My son is now 15 days old, took him into the man cave, he cried. I'll try again in a couple of years : )

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

Looks like we got a future ork player on our hands!!

Our kid is just over a year old - but we already got her a full set of (stuffed) polyhedral dice.

*EDIT* I am in my mid fifties, my wife is in her mid thirties.I am wishing now that I hadn't tried to run from her for so long.

I spend my Tuesday nights running a Pathfinder game for between 8 and 12(!) nine year old second generation gamers. (I am pretty sure that one of those nine year old gamers, Samantha, is... smarter than I am, And certainly smarter than I was at her age.)

Two of them also play Kings of War - and own their own armies, with a third building a Forces of Nature army.

Kids can get into the hobby a lot younger than people might think.

The Auld Grump - In the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game, Sam told one of the pirate NPCs that she is new at casting spells, and it would take longer to cast her healing spell than normal... then cast both Charm Person and Cure Light Wounds on him.... Players like that are to be treasured and feared!

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Our kid is just over a year old - but we already got her a full set of (stuffed) polyhedral dice.

*EDIT* I am in my mid fifties, my wife is in her mid thirties.I am wishing now that I hadn't tried to run from her for so long.

I spend my Tuesday nights running a Pathfinder game for between 8 and 12(!) nine year old second generation gamers. (I am pretty sure that one of those nine year old gamers, Samantha, is... smarter than I am, And certainly smarter than I was at her age.)

Two of them also play Kings of War - and own their own armies, with a third building a Forces of Nature army.

Kids can get into the hobby a lot younger than people might think.

The Auld Grump - In the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game, Sam told one of the pirate NPCs that she is new at casting spells, and it would take longer to cast her healing spell than normal... then cast both Charm Person and Cure Light Wounds on him.... Players like that are to be treasured and feared!

lol Auld, always fun to read your comments

Yes, kids certainly can =D You're a brave soul for taking on a campaign with adventurers that young I've run (and continue) to run adventures with my boys. At one time we had Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder games running with 6 boys (my three and my friends three - all the same ages)

My favorite scene from playing with my boys is when one used telekinesis to untie a NPCs shoe, tripping them, then killing them by throwing their very dead brother's character's body on top of the hapless NPC, making them fall in the spike pit, which had just claimed one of their own party. I kept looking for the Roadrunner to come careening by I swear lol

Anyway, out of the family gamers we have 4 MTG players, everyone plays on the computer, although one renegade switched recently to console gaming <shudders> and while I've tried to get more of them into the wargames I'm into, so far it's only me and my second oldest (who plays Necrons to my Orks). Although he's recently asked me if he can get a Starter DE box as he has an idea he wants to try out ^_^ and he's planning paint schemes soooo I'm pretty happy

For the record - the Reaper Bones miniatures are a godsend when running a game for kids.

Not only will they survive the children, they survive when the cat decides that she wants to play, and starts wildly batting one of the models around the living room....

The Auld Grump - they also survive being sat on....

I'm a wargamer parent.

4 year old girl hasn't shown too much interest yet but she loves Star Wars and Harry Potter so there is much hope. When she gives her lightsaber a flick and swish and says Alohomoroa it warms my heart.

As well as a few light boardgames my 6 year old son and I have already done a bit of wargaming (and painting) with Starcrashers and a bit of simplied MtG: Arena of the Planeswalkers (aka Heroscape).
You can see our games of Starcrashers and a link to the rules here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=128
As well as starcrasher's spaceships he's also painted up a few models at convention paint-and-takes.

I've got way too much stuff stashed away just in case the kids take to it it. A nearly full set of Battlelore 2nd edition, A bunch of LoTR stuff, Imperial Assault, and tons of minis. Basically a bunch of stuff I might never get to but the kids provide a ready excuse for stashing it away.

The wife and I do a good bit of boardgaming. I think we're both looking forward to a couple of years from now when we can all play as a family. I just picked up kids Catan and it might be workable with a 4 year old...

 Easy E wrote:
My daughter and I played a Gorkamorka campaign from 5 until 8 or so. We played about once a month or so. She also made her own fort for it.

Just last weekend my daughter and I played a wargame together, and it was her idea even!

Not to old for her old man/wargames yet!

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

The Auld Grump - In the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game, Sam told one of the pirate NPCs that she is new at casting spells, and it would take longer to cast her healing spell than normal... then cast both Charm Person and Cure Light Wounds on him.... Players like that are to be treasured and feared!

That is genius. Not genius for a ten year old, just genius.

I have a son and a daughter. The daughter doesn't game but the son is into Warhammer 40K and other games. We play and built/paint miniatures since he can hold a brush. He is 22 now.

 Fifty wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

The Auld Grump - In the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game, Sam told one of the pirate NPCs that she is new at casting spells, and it would take longer to cast her healing spell than normal... then cast both Charm Person and Cure Light Wounds on him.... Players like that are to be treasured and feared!

That is genius. Not genius for a ten year old, just genius.

Playing with the group again tonight - no game next Tuesday, but on that Saturday we are having an in character Hallowe'en party, all twelve(?!) kids are expected to show, along with most of their parents.

The last month has been a smaller game, which should wrap up tonight.

Time for a small, but targeted, zombie apocalypse - Sam figured out that it was Bad Guy vs Bad Guy, Not Good Guy vs Bad Guy, Party vs Bad Guy, or Party vs Town - with both the Party and the Town caught between them, after the second game - faster than any adult group.

There are three frighteningly smart kids in the game - Ian, Dain, and Sam.

The Auld Grump *EDIT* I have run this scenario more than a dozen times, in a whole plethora of systems - starting with 1st edition AD&D in 1981. then RuneQuest, then WHFRPG, then 3e D&D, and now Pathfinder....

My 9-year-old plays 8th edition 40k with me, as well as X-Wing. The 7 and 5 year-olds play various board games with me (NOT Candy Land or Shoots-and-Ladders, but real board games), and I'm painting up a Sisters of Battle Army for them (they chose the colors... a few models will have pink and purple hair).
We will be getting my son's friend a Deathguard army (his dad gets the Primarius marines) for a birthday here in January.

Nurgle (I mean, GW) spreads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My 9-year-old plays 8th edition 40k with me, as well as X-Wing. The 7 and 5 year-olds play various board games with me (NOT Candy Land or Shoots-and-Ladders, but real board games), and I'm painting up a Sisters of Battle Army for them (they chose the colors... a few models will have pink and purple hair).
We will be getting my son's friend a Deathguard army (his dad gets the Primarius marines) for a birthday here in January.

Nurgle (I mean, GW) spreads.

As the son, my dad has used me as an opponent for all sorts of historical wargames over the years, but when I tried to get him to play 40k with me he refused.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
As the son, my dad has used me as an opponent for all sorts of historical wargames over the years, but when I tried to get him to play 40k with me he refused.

Refused to play? Time to call in an orbital bombardment on those Napoleonic squares!

My son used to sit and "paint" with me when he was just short of 3...yes, 3. The results were interesting to say the least, but he did get better. I'm happy to report many models from that period were stripped and given a second life. Some, not so much.

His first foray into miniature gaming came with seeing 'The Hobbit' and getting the GW starter set as a birthday gift. He painted a force of Goblins and actually took 2nd place in a FLGS tournament before he discovered WHFB and was immediately a follower of the Horned Rat. He has...I kid you not...approximately 14K pts. worth Skaven, all square based(*sigh*). He went on to Lizardmen and has about 6K of those as well.

When AOS rolled around he was put off by the lack of matched play rules and sort of shelved his minis. This year, however, he and I signed up for the AOS Championship Tournament at Adepticon next year as it's happening right at the beginning of his Spring Break. He's spending Christmas break studying for the ACT and rebasing Lizards(sucks!). I'm doing a Nurgle-themed Chaos force. So, yes, once the bug bites it's always gonna itch. I'm really looking forward to spending some time at ACON with him and watching him play again. It's been a while.

Gamer family

Wife, and daughters aged 12 and 8

We all play Pathfinder

My wife collects and paints Cygnar, Gators, Eldar and Tzeentch Daemons, but rarely plays.

Eldest daughter collects, plays but rarely paints Everblight and Nids

Youngest collects paints and plays Harlequins and Circle Orboros

I collect, paint and play when i can : GSC, Deathguard/Nurgle Daemons, Admech, Menoth, Rhulic Mercs, Farrow, Trollbloods, Circle Orboros, Xwing ...

My son loves to play Shadows of Brimstone. He started when he was 5, and it's now our family game. He also helps me assemble miniatures (for SoB, but also some Bandai models and Reaper Bones) and we occasionally paint them together, usually once I've forgotten how much trouble it was cleaning paint out of the carpet and off the table.

He also likes the Fighting Fantasy book series and the Mantic equivalent, which is a bit smoother to play and faster paced, Rise of the Shadow King.

My daughter is only two, but she's interested in my 40K models and often asks me to read "stories" from the AM codex. She's partial to the good guys and is excited by any model that can pass for a "knight." Tyranids make for useful wards to keep her out of places she isn't supposed to go.

My brother has three boys, and every single one of them wants to play the "model game". The oldest has been voraciously devouring every army book and codex we have. My soon to be 5 year old daughter is also reticent that she will be painting models and playing the game with me soon. We may have to organize a junior gaming night.

From my website

INTRODUCING 40K TO MY KIDS
The first glimpse of 40K that my kids got was when I went on Steam and downloaded the original Dawn of War computer game as it was on sale. Seeing me play it they asked me about it. This lead me to begin talking about the universe of 40K. They were much more interested in the story of 40K than the computer game and we began to talk about it and I told them the various stories that I remembered from playing 40K when I was a kid myself.

Unfortunately this led to more questions! Who was the Emperor? Why are the Eldar dying out? What is an Ork? Whats Chaos?

It reminded me of how rich, but also tragic the 40K universe is. Unsurprisingly the idea of a universe of terrible monsters and incredible deeds was very appealing to my eldest two in particular. I guess I should disclose at this point that I have 5 kids, currently 10,8,6,5 and 5 (planned for 4 but got twins!).

So I started looking around for an outline of the future history that took us up to the 41st millennium. This led me to stumble on the videos of Arch Warhammer and his youtube channel. These were great as they were audio we could have them on in the car or in the house and the kids loved them, there is the occasional coarse language, but not much! The necrons getting immortality but being trapped in their metal bodies was a big favourite!

They also liked hearing about what I had played, so stories of collecting, painting and playing were duly passed on.

It was only at this point that we actually had any sort of interaction with GW. We went on down to our local store for a look around. Bearing in mind I worked part time in the GW store in Oxford Street (the Plaza) in the mid 90's I thought it would be familiar but loads had changed! First of all the boards were now plastic and detailed, but there was no no fantasy battle? It turned out that chaos had won and it was all over! What the....! 40K was still there however. We picked up some figures and a starter paint set and got home for some painting. The kids loved this. Spent a nice weekend painting together, with the youngest two painting pictures. GW paint is water soluble! so easy to wash off!

Since then we picked up some codex's and then the new 8th edition rulebooks. These are regularly taken to bed and have to be saved as they fall asleep in them! It seems they are pretty sturdy and survive having the face of a drooling child peeled off them!

Sadly they have not followed me as a guard lover, instead my eldest (girl) like nurgle! the boys like Eldar and Tau.

Reflecting on involving them in the hobby I think its great for their literacy, although to be fair they eldest two devoured all the Harry Potter books as I'm 'one of those' dads that won't let them see film till they have read the books, and they like Roald Dahl, who has always had a dark core to his books. Its also led us down avenues of exploring historic events, as so much of GW stuff is linked to events/periods in real history.

Another benefit is the maths side of things. Even list building using power levels involves math, and we have played a bit with spreadsheets too (so some basic algebra) when working out points.

My biggest concern at the minute is cost. We have a 'nothing new' till everything is painted rule.

With summer holidays looming I hope to get a bit more time doing some modelling with them, will post updates.

update Dec 2017

6 months on and still 40k'ing with the kids.

Have been well supported by both the local GW store and found a local club. The legion of Peterborough Wargamers that has allowed kids to see the 'end game' of 40k gaming in the sense of loads of absolutely beautiful armies as well as people playing each other in a competitive sense.

We agreed to collect in the following order - Eldar/Tau/Guard. This is principally as you need few models to get an army built for eldar so we can get one out quick. Will put photos up on xenos page on this site (yet to be created)

Tips for modelling with kids:
Transfer paint to dropper bottles. Save space, stop spills, stop paint drying out (save money). You can even chuck them in a bag to go on holiday! This is the single biggest improvement to painting with kids! The fow improver mixed in means paints thinner and as you work from a palette (A4 plasticard works well) kids put less on brush.

Half brush rule! This is the only painting rule we have. No paint should be more than half way up the bristle of brush at any point. This means paint and brush used very carefully.

Snap Fit space marines - cheap (ish) and kids able to assemble and paint

Ebay for cheap models - vehicles especially.

Work on getting kids to do solid block colours then wash. This allows good results both fast and simply.
​
Share mistakes!! Process of correcting errors important as kids see process and realise it's ok if things go wrong (not getting perfect first is single biggest frustration for kids.... and all of us I guess). Experiencing this is good for social and intellectual development as well

One of my nephews is big into the hobby. He was playing Infinity and Malifaux before high school, and has gotten into Magic the Gathering a lot. My other nephew isn't as big into the hobby but enjoys his Malifaux Gremlins.

We just let them play along with the group. The one that plays a lot knows the rules really well, better than some of us old fogeys.

I'm not a gamer parent and can never be one.

My nephews (wife's side) are so heavily into sports that gaming won't ever poke it's nose in unless it's a console sports game.
One of them is on the spectrum and can bore you with sports stats for hours. Couldn't tell an orc from a space marine, though.

The nephews on my side are likely to be the same.
The nieces were already co-opted away from gaming and into the pinkness of cosmetic-and-clothing collecting habit my sisters do for a hobby.

My kids are 9 and 7, and we play a bunch of games. My wife is a gamer too, so that helps. We play 5th Ed D&D every two or three weeks. Both kids have starter 40K armies they've painted a bit, but we've yet to get proper games going. Living in a Golden Age of board games has been a godsend, and we play a ton of those (Zombicide, King of Tokyo, Imperial Assault, and loads more.)

I've been playing since I was 10, and now I have a 9 month old. Sadly, that's a bit young for Warhammering, but if he is anything like me, he's going to be painting and playing (and probably beating me...) in no time!

Now if I could just get him to stop eating all his toys...

I think the most important thing is spending time with your kids (or nieces/nephews) and sharing what you love with them.

They're gonna do what they're gonna do, cuz kids be like that lol

Which is why I kinda laugh that my #2 son is now starting to DM his own group - he's creating a campaign of his own, slowly, as he loves world and character building, but he took that next step recently and actually got a hold of some of his friends from school, to try to make a group up. Not bad for a pretty shy kid, tbh, even if he is technically an adult atm (18, just got out of school).

My #3 son may not be into 'my' games, but he always likes to look at my models and actually, with encouragement has started doing a lot of artwork. Now we talk about colour theory and he already knows tons more than I do!

Not talking so much about my #1 son because he's on the autistic spectrum and having a tough time of late. That's just how it goes sometimes =/

Enjoy your babies/youngins, they grow up waaaaaaay too fast :( For realz.

I think at this point, I count as a Gamer Babysitter....

The youngest of them (by a few months) is now running her own game at her school.

Her parents hired me to write a Pathfinder adventure for her to run - building off of The Keep on the Borderlands.

There are times that I am very happy with the world.

The Auld Grump - molding little minds, because the world needs moldy little minds....

*EDIT* Apparently, two of the kids have already decided that they are going to be married, someday... I coulda sworn that nine year old boys were still deep in the 'Girls are Yucky!' territory....

No kids, but a lot of friends with them.

I have a niece that's 5, and she's my sprue-monkey. "I need 75, 76, 33, and 35"- and she's on it.

Two kids, one quite new, and one 3,5-year old. The latter has been painting with me for a year or so on and off, but for the moment is more interested in building than painting. He's almost emptied my bits box of legs and bodies so I'll have to get him his own kits soon... We also freqently bring out and play with board games like Space Hulk. In his version the Genestealers are very nice chaps and friends with the Terminators. He also loves rolling dice. So I'd say he's showing quite a lot of interest so far, we'll see how it goes in the future

My boy is 7 and has just started an ultramarine army.

I thought it would be great to get him in to something which doesn't involve a screen.

He absolutely loves it and has started reading codex's, rule books and White Dwarf magazines. It's encouraging him with maths, using his imagination, and thinking strategy.

Best of all, it is teaching him to lose.

It's a damn expensive hobby, but it's a good hobby.

I'm not at present, but in six months I will be

Which means six months to get hobby/house projects done before any hope of doing so goes out the window.