How friendly is this game to play with pre-literate children?

Some of the Command Cards are text heavy, but a stripped down version of the game without Lore and/or those text heavy cards would work well I think. Depending on the child (and likely their interest) the text heavy cards could be worked into the game too, as they have unique pictures on them. After a few to several plays, Lore cards could be worked in in the same manner.

I wouldn't advise BL for pre-literate children. At that age (I assume you're talking 5 and under), someone with reading ability would basically have to play for them, and forget about any real ability to formulate any sort of strategy and tactics. I couldn't see a tot in that situation really enjoying it. Better to give him or her a bag of plastic army men or knights to play with.

If you have it or shop ebay for a readily available copy, Battle Masters would be a much more pre-literate friendly game. The action deck simply uses pictures for the most part and could be managed by a sharp youngster. Or perhaps Crossbows and Catapults.

Obviously you know your children better than anyone. But I would agree that if they don't have a good grasp of reading, due to the text on some of the command cards, I would wait. Since in addtion to reading, they would also need to think a little bit (plan) about what they should do, vs attack attack attack.

Or if necessary, maybe remove some of those text heavy cards...or maybe explain what they do. There are a few cards that would require some heavy explaining (i.e. the footed charge). But they could be removed since there are so few of them w/o taking away from the experience.

Of course, like I said, you know your children better than anyone else. But like others have said as well as myself, they should have a good grasp of reading and hopefully being able to plan before one plays. And you don't need to play with the Lore cards to have a good time.

Cab

This is definantly not a good pre reading kids game. If your kid is super sharp than maybe but if he's sharp enough to be able to play this game than you should use the time and teach him to read.

Hm, actually I hadn't thought about the reading problem.

well the reading itself would not be a problem, but the language would be the actuall problem in my case. But hey, maybe it would be a good way to teach the kids english, oh no, that would be german as I'm getting a german copy.

See, now I've got myself confused.

but really, Battle Masters is a game the little ones really enjoy and it would be a good training game for Battle Lore as simular creatures appear in both games and ofcourse it also uses cards, so they'd get used to working with cards.

But I understand your impatience of wanting to get them to play the game. My eldest has got his mind set on playing Tide of Iron and as he doesn't speak english that will be an even more impossible mission.

good luck, teaching the kids.