Wargames, the next generation

On 26-27 July Wargaming the Age of the Anglo-Saxons will return to Sutton Hoo. I have always been keen to find a way to introduce youngsters to our greying hobby and so our group will be staging a series of skirmish games at the event.

To this end I have developed a simple one-page set of rules which I call Valhalla. They are loosely based on Fistful of Lead.

The first play-test is with my 10 year old grandson. He seems to have mastered his poker face when playing his cards and rolling the dice.

His warband is led by a figure he had painted at last year’s Sutton Hoo event.

A couple of days ago we ran several more play tests. Each game lasted between 30-45 mins, which is pretty well ideal for introductory games for youngsters. Each player has 3 figures: hero, warrior and archer, and we had two players on each side.

Although all of us are several decades older than the 8-14 year old target audience, we too had great fun with the games. Sometimes I think that very simple rules can produce quite exciting games even for experienced wargamers.

I highly recommend the Sutton Hoo event for anyone with children or grandchildren in tow. There will be other games as well as ours and also a painting table and re-enactors.

The simple one page Valhalla rules can be freely downloaded from my website here.