Have you (or other adults) move the templates for them. No stress is probably a good idea keep it at red manoeuvre = no action. I'd say only allow focus and evade as actions. After they play it a few times let the ones that seem to understand the game best fly a named pilot.

I have been asked to gamemaster some Xwing for 5 or 6 ten year olds at a birthday party. I would love to hear anyone's ideas on making sure everyone has fun.

My thoughts right now are:

Rebels vs Imperials

3x6 play area

Small base ships only

No obstacles (but maybe a few mines for laughs)

Naked ships only (no upgrades for the most part)

Turret weapons added to Y, K and HWK (maybe Blaster turret without the focus cost?)

Treat crits as hits, and don't use face up damage cards.

Named pilots just for purposes of character fun and diverse PS values, but no special abilities in play

Action step will simply be "assign a focus token" (not introducing repositioning actions or TL mechanics at the start)

Maneuvers...I'm wondering how to handle red maneuvers. Actually introduce the idea of stress? Or maybe just say, if you do a red maneuver, you don't get your focus token.

Bumping: I don't know if there should be any penalty here. Maybe still get your focus action, but you can't shoot an enemy you're touching.

I would like to be able to have each kid flying two ships, to minimize the chance someone gets left out of the game early on. I don't know what level of interest to expect. I would expect to start off with a learn to play short game, each kid has one ship and we just proceed long enough for everyone to practice dial selection, maneuver template use, rolling dice and deciding on how to spend their focus token. But maybe if it's going well, on round 3 (or whenever) I say everyone gets to field their reinforcements.

I'm thinking us dads could maybe field a Falcon and a Decimator, and the first kid to lose their ships can take it over for the rest of the game.

These are my rough ground rules. Any suggestions? Anything I'm missing?

I found some of this either contradictory or just confusing.

The best suggestion I've read so far is respawning ships.

I think the best way to judge a finally victory is from ship costs.

That way if one side takes generic X-wings and the other Generic TIE fighters

at least the cost of ships destroyed reflects that the TIE fighters will die easier.

Also I say generics because if you are going to ignore pilot abilities then just use generics.

There is plenty of variation between generic pilot skills.

If you are not going to use any action besides focus then don't use any actions,

just have eyeball results count as hit or evade, that cuts your token use in half.

The other half, stress tokens, I think 10 year olds can handle;

Green, White, & Red is a pretty simple mechanic once you have the maneuvers explained.

If you go with respawning, you may want to try an escalation respawn, something like:

Imperial side

TIE fighter -> TIE Interceptor -> TIE Defender

Rebel side

Z-95 Headhunter -> A-wing -> X-wing.

How did it go?

I'm interested on feedback regarding your experience.

I play with my two sons (12 and 8 years old), but when they have friends

we prefer using 3D printed proxies instead the original ships...

...because many child are a bit careless.

D

I was meaning to reply to this earlier today with an update ... thanks for the reminders!

So, first things first, nothing got broken or lost! There were four boys (three to start with), me and a dad playing.

I started off by rolling out my starfield and Death Star playmats, then setting out one of each small-base ship, Rebels and Imperials only, in their blisters for the boys to ooh and aah over. It was me and three boys to begin with, so I let them pick which faction they wanted to play, then let them each select two ships. I played with the birthday boy as Rebels.

I introduced movement and dice rolling, and showed them what a focus token can do.

We began play very simply. Two teams lined up against each other on a 6x3 playing area with no obstacles. Game mechanics were restricted to movement, assigning a focus (or an evade for those ships that had the option), then attacking with naked dice (no re-rolls) and the option to spend your focus or evade on the result. We did use range combat bonuses. There were no PS values considered, and activation was just a free-for-all, one side at a time. I took the idea of "move first, shoot last" and used that on the combat phase, with initiative switching sides each round. (So round 1, Rebels moved first, then shot second; on round 2, that order was swapped; and so on. I actually used the initiative chit from the TFA core set to keep track of this!)

Things were looking bad for the Imps early on, so I let the other dad field a Decimator as reinforcements. Then the fourth boy showed up, and then pizza showed up, so things went on hold.

To this point, the boys were having a lot of fun, but I could sense the game was on the verge of feeling a little dry and frustrating. So while they were eating, I reset the ships, swapped out a couple of underperformers in favor of increased cool factor (bring out the Millennium Falcon and Boba Fett's ship!!) and added target lock tokens and a few upgrade cards to each kid's spread.

So game 2 began with the added mechanic of re-rolls, turret ships and secondary firing arcs, and it continued to be mostly great fun for another hour or so.

The only sore point was the birthday boy has a habit of flying his ships away from everything (I suppose on the notion of coming around from behind to sneak attack), so he spent all his time either having nothing to shoot at, or wandering his falcon into the maw of a combined Decimator, TIE Defender and TAP maelstrom, where he then spent a lot of time bumping and dying. He was the one who was most frustrated, but all in all it was a good time, and I know he's excited to get to play more with all the new toys he got.

Congrats for make it through the day and literally not losing any ships. Did you hook the other dad into the hobby?

Glad it worked out!

Congrats for make it through the day and literally not losing any ships. Did you hook the other dad into the hobby?

Well he was birthday boy's dad so he's already been playing a few simple games.

nvm, see you already had it and it was a hit! kudoos!

I wouldn't worry about the age. My son and a few others play just fine at 8. They just don't have the attention span for a 100 point game.

I don't think you need to dumb down the rules if you're moderating.

I'd start with an obstacle course race to give them a sense how to maneuver. Treat everything as debris. Same ship if you can, all with boost so stress is meaningful.

Then I'd suggest a mission with a simple objective (escort?) rather than a straight up fight. Put them in teams with one ship each Allow reinforcements so nobody gets dropped out.

Thanks for telling us how it went. I'm glad it was a hit!

I think one of the things that kept it lively was ignoring PS and letting everyone on a side do things all at once. And just swapping move/shoot order each round seemed fair enough. That was my brainstorm on the fly.

I forgot to add that in the second game, I introduced boost and barrel roll actions as well. They didn't get used much though.

I'm mixed on this. My 5 year old son loves X-Wing, but he tires out quickly and I think it's because I might overcomplicate things for him. I'm going to start with the missions for simplicity's sake.

I'm mixed on this. My 5 year old son loves X-Wing, but he tires out quickly and I think it's because I might overcomplicate things for him. I'm going to start with the missions for simplicity's sake.

My wife teaches 5 year olds (Kindergarten) and she tells me the boys generally have a hard time not rolling around on the ground when trying to teach them their letters, so it's probably that stage in their development that keeps them from maintaining attention for longer periods and tiring out quickly.

Use the Kiss principle when possible.

_{I think it is great that you did this with the kids, and I don't think you're "crazy" at all for letting kids play x-wing. I get that these miniatures cost money and people want to protect them, but at the same time, toys are meant to be played with and adults often don't give kids the credit they deserve. Even if something had broken, I'd still say it's worth it. It's like I tell my kids when they get hurt (not injured, just a scrape or bruise) while playing outside., "You know what, getting hurt isn't a bad thing. In fact, I feel bad for the kids that don't ever get hurt, because that means they are just sitting around watching TV all day and not living life!"}

Good on you. Great idea and probably something a bit different to what they were used to.

Next time, maybe consider jumping on Strange Eons and making each kid his/her own Pilot Card. That'd be a fun little souvenir from the day. Maybe Star Warsify their names too. Eg Karl Vader, Ben Solo, Blake Skywalker, Peter Fett, Admiral Jack'bar, etc

I wouldn't worry about the age. My son and a few others play just fine at 8. They just don't have the attention span for a 100 point game.

Not all of them lack it. But I'd agree that some seriously couldn't do it.

My 6.5 year old went to a 4 round tournament (and got the first round bye, sucker!) and did fine through his games, ending 2nd out of 13. He even went to an evening tournament and did mostly fine, though the fact that it started at his usual bedtime didn't help him focus on his 3rd game!

Based on your user name, you're a local, so you'll face him sooner or later, though you've only seen him watch at tournaments so far. He forced Dany to change his Nationals list by crushing it

You could do a variation of theHeores of the Aturi Cluster fora game so that all the kids can play on the same team. might stop some from getting bent out of shape if they lose.

You could control the Imperial AI and give each person a rebel ship for them to work together against whatever mssion you pick. You could even give each person a different pilot bility and a couple upgrades.

Either way on what you decide to do I would have wat ever ists or teams or ships prebuilt and reay to play before the kids all get there.