Yesterday I entertained a family friend's kids at their eldest's 10th birthday party. After coming in in some homemade stormtrooper armour that was falling apart (filthy Rebel saboteurs) and wowing them, we proceeded to play a furball - Empire Vs Rebels Vs Scum.

I gave each team a "commander" in charge of overall strategy, who also got a stronger ship. In the end we had:
Rebels with Etahn A'Baht as the commander, a K-wing and Auzituck as wingmen.
Imperials with Captain Jonus (with ability modified to reroll all attacks) as ommander, with Gunboat and Agggressor wingmen.
Scum with Unkar Plutt Commander as a sole Starviper wingman.

We set up on the 3' x 3' playing field with rocks thrown around haphazardly. Nobody had played before, save the birthday boy, so I gave a 5 minute rundown of what everyone could do.

On the first turn I showed everyone how to do a maneuver, then we all tried it.
On turn 2 we reached combat range, so we learned how to kill each other, and enjoy doing it. I also gave everyone who didn't do a red maneuver a focus token to spend as they wished on their turn/ship.
On turn 3 I introduced the evade token and offered a choice of focus or evade to each ship that didn't do a red maneuver.
Turn 4 saw the first use of upgrade cards - unguided rockets for Jonus and Prockets for Etahn. We also dealt the first damage of the game, including a brutal double stunned pilot.
Turns 5 and 6 the game settled down, with a good deal more thinking and less bickering as they began to enjoy the options. A couple of ships got whittled down - the gunboat, E-wing and Auzituck chief among them.

Sadly dinner was called at tht point, and one of the party-goers managed to fall off a flying fox before we could resume the game. so we had to call it there. Nevertheless, all the kids (save the very youngest of them) were excited to try it again sometime. I was pretty happy with the end result, but i'd really love to take a full day to teach a group that young in future so I can get them into the full game.

Any suggestions for teaching 6-10 year olds how to play this wonderful game?

I started my boys (age 5 at the time) by just teaching them how to pilot the ship. Once they were comfortable with that, we moved onto planning, activation, and combat. I just had the FO Core set so I started them on the T-70 generic pilot with no upgrades against a TIE f/o. I was learning to play the game right along side them.

After a while, they wanted to start using upgrades. They couldn't read at the time so I would read the cards for them and they would end up memorizing the cards.

I never pushed them when they started out. Just let them have fun. I usually gave them a bit more power so they had better chances of beating me (its more fun to beat dad).

Later on they got good enough to start building their own lists. They both chose a faction (scum and rebels). So we have all factions covered in my house.

They are now 7 (twins) and just played their first 100pt tournament. It was low key only 3 matches. They both played well each having 1 win. They are excited for their next tournament next month.

My best advice is to let them play as much as they want.

58 minutes ago, Rexler Brath said:

I started my boys (age 5 at the time) by just teaching them how to pilot the ship. Once they were comfortable with that, we moved onto planning, activation, and combat. I just had the FO Core set so I started them on the T-70 generic pilot with no upgrades against a TIE f/o. I was learning to play the game right along side them.

After a while, they wanted to start using upgrades. They couldn't read at the time so I would read the cards for them and they would end up memorizing the cards.

I never pushed them when they started out. Just let them have fun. I usually gave them a bit more power so they had better chances of beating me (its more fun to beat dad).

Later on they got good enough to start building their own lists. They both chose a faction (scum and rebels). So we have all factions covered in my house.

They are now 7 (twins) and just played their first 100pt tournament. It was low key only 3 matches. They both played well each having 1 win. They are excited for their next tournament next month.

My best advice is to let them play as much as they want.

Congratulations on getting some perpetual interest from your young ones!

Do you restrict your own lists, or theirs, when you play each other at home? No meta lists? Or perhaps a ban list?

12 hours ago, Astech said:

Congratulations on getting some perpetual interest from your young ones!

Do you restrict your own lists, or theirs, when you play each other at home? No meta lists? Or perhaps a ban list?

The boys don't know what the meta is really. They create lists on what interests them which isn't necessary good/strong lists. For the tournament, i created their lists for them, but will let them create their own for the next one as they didn't fully comprehend how they should use the list.

At home, we fly whatever. My boys prefer Epic so we will do the occasional 150pt epic furball. We also do single ship furballs too.

We don't have ban lists as its not really needed. We usually fly different ships all the time.