Tonight I asked my 5-year-old if she wanted to see the new game daddy bought. She was very keen on seeing it, even though I had never talked about it to her before. I started pulling pieces out for her to see and explaining certain components, like the ID tokens and stickers (she was very concerned that my sticker sheet was missing stickers, not realizing I had put them on my figures the night before).
When she saw the tiles, she delightedly exclaimed, "Puzzle pieces!" So I showed her how to build the map and helped her make the tutorial map as though we were building a LEGO set. When we finished, she said, "Let's play!" I tried to convince her the game was too complex, but she wouldn't have it. And so it turned out that my first Imperial Assault game was against my 5-year-old daughter.
I went ahead and selected Jyn Odan and Diala Passil for her heroes. She said she wanted one girl and one boy, but I wanted her to have a melee and ranged character and she wasn't fond of the wookiee. I guess I forced these two in her because I was pleased thst there actually were girl characters to play. We ended up ditching the rule about my Imperials interacting with the terminals and she was able to fend off my assault. (I did have to help her with tactics, and while she can sound out the words on the cards, she isn't familiar with terms like "melee" -- yet!)
I aked her if it was fun and she said it was. I asked her if it was more fun than the Disney Princess Cupcake game and she nodded enthusiastically, much to my surprise (though I'm still unsure how genuine she was). But the real surprise came with her next question:
"Daddy, do you have Darth Vader?"
"Yes"
"Why didn't we play with him?"
"He wasn't in this mission."
"Can we play with Darth Vader next time?"
I thought about this and realized skirmish mode would be fun to try out. "Yeah, let's play with Darth Vader tomorrow ... Do you want to be Darth Vader?" She nodded very enthusiastically.
I gotta say, I really had no idea my daughter had taken to Vader so. I guess my Darth Vader t-shirts, socks, blanket, and pajamas have really left an impression on her. She'll make a great Sith yet.
Edited by Budgernaut