Exactly what I ask in the title. My son which is 5 years old play the game with me every week. Admittedly we don't use asteroids, scenarios nor "real" placement. We just play on the table surface and I have had to strip down the rules a bit, and then adding on as we play more games.

He often makes banks and turns in the wrong direction in the late game (I guess it is hard for a 5 year old to chose arrow from the perspective of the ship, and not himself) and have problems understanding some advanced rule interaction, but I have used the game to have him train math (how many red Dice does your X-wing have?).

He also understand the difference between the orange, red, green, yellow and blue numbers on his cards. Of course he is involved in listbuilding, even though he chooses the things he thinks are cool (I want to have Chewbacca dad!) so there isn't very much powergaming in him yet.

He also just have gotten the hang of the differences between shooting at range 1, 2 and 3. He is very good at concentrating his fire (admittedly he loves Millenium Falcon and uses one 90% of the time, and I try to make his lists hard for me to beat so he often have Chewbacca with Luke or Han with Chewbacca and Gunner/Luke. This helps him concentrating his fire I think.)

As you might understand, he loves Star Wars. Interestingly I think he is still to young to Watch the real films, and he has only seen maybe 3-4 episodes of Clone Wars (since it's not ok to Watch it when he is with his Little sister, and in my opinion it is borderline too violent for a 5 year old too).

He also owns some Lego Star Wars and he loves to listen to my CD with the Music from Star Wars when going to bed. (This has the unexpected falout that his 2,5 years old sister often sings the Darth Vader theme, which my son hates by the way, since Darth Vader is an evil villain).

So, do you know any kid even younger who have played X-wing and how has it worked out?

Developmentally, the youngest kids can play is when they have enough fine motor skills not to break the models, when they can read well enough to know what the cards do, and when they can have fun even if their ships get shot down.

5 sounds like the lower limit on that, though there might be some particularly bright 4 year olds

My nine year-old daughter is starting to get into the game. She's impressed me with her ability to figure out which maneuvers she needs to do to get where she wants to go. She's also quite good at barrel rolling out of firing arcs. (She prefers imperial ships).

Actually, he can't read. I have to tell him the special rules that he has. This has the effect that I try to steer him away from some of the more complex interactions, since I will be the one who will have to remember them for him .

I actually don't want him to learn how to read yet, I have worked in school and know that there are no resourses so the kids that know how to read when they start school will just have to wait until everyone else have learned. Better he learns other skills now and learn how to read in school.

And even if he knew how to read, we are not native English speakers and I sure wouldn't teach him to read a foreign language first.

Funny about the ships is that he has never broken a model and he plays with them every day. But when his 9 years old cousin visits, he manages to break one in 5 minutes. I guess it is different from kid to kid.

That is great. I don't know any kids younger playing X-Wing, but speaking from experience from my son when he was 3 when I was doing 40K.

My son was 3 when he wanted to start painting Daddy's GW minis. I thought I put everything away one day.. I was wrong. When I woke up in the morning and I come down to rainbow marines. Should have seen the smile on his face. At least he got bolt gun metal paint on the flammer. His face was priceless.

Keep it up with him. As you said, keep it simple. I let him play 40K for his math skills as well. How many dice do we need to roll? Man kids love rolling dice. One thing to keep in mind, is let him win, but not always win.

We were once at a GW store. He herd the adults talking smack. So when he was 5, he talked smack to them. "I never loose, I am so good". The look on their face seeing a 5 year old thinking he was so good, and then thinking (they dare not say it but you can see the look on their face) how dare he. I almost punched them out. Ok for them to do it but how dare a small kid? What hypocrites.

One thing that taught me, was to have my son know how to win graciously, and loose graciously. It's hard, but you need to find the balance where he will have fun, want to keep playing, but keep playing knowing he can loose and still have fun. I would say play by the real rules, (basic rules as you are doing, he is only 5 after all) and if things go to badly, you can always "fib" that he wins, (if he keeps loosing alot. I stopped fibbing because my son seems to have the dice gods on his sides, so he actually wins by his doing. )

5 isn't too young to see episodes IV to VI. I saw them at 4 and fell in love. Never did me any harm *twitches*.

Anyway, I'd suggest he always plays the rebels - lots of shields, no fancy actions to perform. Having half his TIE swarm die would be pretty dispiriting, 5 year olds won't understand "expendable".

And of course, pull your punches a bit, or a lot. Pulling a PTL TIE bomber into a barrel roll and crushing Luke with your APTs would be great in a tournament, but not against your little kid...

Oh forgot to mention. My son loved Starwars. When he was around 5 or so and saw Episode III, he FREAKED out when Anakin/Darth Vader got burnt. So beware of that part, but he loved everything else.

I enjoy playing with my friends 8 year old. He does well enough. I get better playing him and be gets a little better every time.

The first four games with supereasy rules he actually won. For real. His rolls are often ridiculous. I am contemplating taking him with me to roll my dice when I play at different venues. Just today he managed to roll 8 crits in a row. As you get he is a pretty calm kid. He has been with me when I play warmachine at my local club a few times. Just sitting at the side lines asking questions about the game.

Oh, and we didn't start with X-wing. X-wing has a depth to it that is somewhat hard to get into. So we started out with Talisman when he was about 4, then we progressed to Space Hulk and now we are playing X-wing. Actually, I have kept Talisman and Space Hulk just because their rules are pretty easy and I saw them as a gateway for my kids to get into gaming. I tired of both games years ago but it is fun to relive them now with my kids.

On the note of him not being allowed to see Star Wars (the films). I have a friend. I like him a lot and I know he would be there for me if I asked for most things. But also, his parents let him see whatever he liked when he was a kid and he claims that it didn't make any impact on his development. Knowing him well I must say that he is living in denial. I won't get into him anymore, but most people know next to nothing about human psychological development, and since I have worked with kids with social problems for eight years I won't take any chances with my kids. I let my kids see some films that are agerestricted to 7 although they are 2,5 and 5 years old, but only if I myself see it with them or have seen it before and have made that judgement call. My parents waited until I was 13 Before I got to see actionmovies with the agerestriction of 15 (highest here in Sweden) and I think they made a good call on that. And then I only could see it with my dad (James Bond Octopussy if I remember correctly). Not only did it ensure that I was ready for what I saw, but also that I got to spend quality time with my father when we saw and discussed films together.

play with them as per normal, but do not let them use dials. Instead, when it is their time to move the ships, just let them choose whichever maneuver they want that their ship can do.

this way, you get a much more challenging opponent as well

Agree with Durham above- my 3 and 5 year old play. I let them pick their template when it's their turn. I give the mOre easily frustrated one (5) the Falcon, so he always gets a shot. My three year old actually 'gets it' and has been pretty effective with Wedge Executed an effective pincer move last time- each boy bagged a couple of ties.

Just get ready to repeat ad nauseam, "Remember to only touch them by the base!"

The fact that your five year old can play the game, even if watered down, is awesome. It'll definitely help his motor skills and spatial recognition skills (an underdeveloped trait in me unfortunately), as well as overall gamesmanship.

I played a father/son combo where the father placed out the templates for the son to choose, then the father moved it and did the actions, and the son rolled the dice. The son, while maybe not choosing the best maneuvers, made it one heck of a fun game. They did some moves that threw my plans out the door.

But to answer your question, there's really no age, so long as they can grasp the core concepts.

Having worked at GW for 5 years, it comes down more to the temperament of the kid than the age. Though we were meant to only run games for kids over 12. You would get parents that went, yeah he's over 12 and you looked at the kid and he was around 7. We had some amazing gamers that were very young, then we had some awful ones which were 14.... If the kid is patient and interested in learning I see no reason they couldn't pick up X-Wing. It's much simpler than 40k.

Friday I talk with a friend about this topic, and we are agree that the age of 14, is only to FFG protect from a demand for bad use of the game, when a kid understand the basic of the game and don't distract easy, the kid can move by herself the ship and he are aviable to attack and defend from other ship, they are ready to get into this game but with an adult to guide for, so it depends mostly of the kid, greettings.

As an addition to my earlier comments, I played again with my kids tonight. I printed out those Maneuver Cards PDF sheets that are up on BoardGameGeek and had them pick their moves from that. I had been just laying a few templates out and having them pick, but now they can see the whole range of options way easier than looking at the dial.

Added in red maneuvers and stress, seemed to work fine. Still no actions or special abilities, of course.

That is great. My son is 7 years old and does extremely well. We started with no upgrades and worked it in from there. He loves using R2 with Luke for the shield back. He picks his upgrades, matching the symbols to make sure it is allowed. He is grasping the movement strategies and loves the game. He also was basically born with dice in his hand so no surprise that he does well there. If I roll 3 hits he will roll evades all or most no doubt.

We played a pickup game where he was Luke and rolled 3 hits his 6 year old sister playing Academy Pilot rolled 3 evades.

The game is great for kids as the math aspect is educational. Repeatedly adding numbers and the probabilities that go thru your head make it learning as well as fun. My son excels in math and might be another reason he lves the game, but probably because he loves Star Wars.

Keep playing and let him work into upgrades, etc. I watch battle reps from Team Covenant and also the episode of Tabletop that helps them see the how and why connected.

Our last league, we had a 10 year old girl playing along with her Dad.

My 5 year old Star Wars and has a good collection of Xwing models that he takes very good care of. He also plays but a very watered down and kid friendly version. He is not opposed to dealing damage cards to your ships while removing these cards from his ships!

That is the beauty if this great game. It is customizable, not just to improve but to go down a few levels to accommodate even the youngsters. Let them adapt to it and let them add more when they are ready. Even playing a striped down version is fun still has the core elements for fun. Plus it is a special bond with your kids that requires interaction without video game distractions.

Urgh, the prequels were schizophrenic when it came to the audience. Childish Jar-jar bits mixed in with boring senate discussions and hideous Anakin-burning. I''m with you on the parental controls; my Dad loves Sci Fi but he would turn off the TV or outright ban the film if there was a nasty bit coming when I was young. Anyway, something for another thread...

I'm on holiday and brought some games for the children...but forgot to bring the main X-Wing box! Gutted, as they are really up for it...

I think the original Star Wars film might be alright. The most violent thing about it is the running around, and perhaps the whole arm cutting thing in the cantina (you never really see anything, so a child would have nothing to connect it to Obi-Wan slicing it with a lightsaber). I saw them myself when I was about 6, and I'm currently a successful university student on the track to becoming a mechanical engineer. Yeah, I ran out of the room when Luke was getting fried by the Emperor, but the first film is rather tame in comparison.

But at the same time, I respect your desire to raise your kids as healthily as possible mentally. Do you have a time planned for when you want to show it to him? I think it'll be pretty cool for him to have played X-wing for a while, then Dad puts in A New Hope and the Death Star assault happens, and he's like, "Dad! Those are like the ships we play with!!" That will be an awesome parental bonding moment, if you ask me.

One of the interesting challenges I've noticed when playing with my younger nephews (9 and 12) was getting them to understand the concept of game balance.

I played with my 12-year-old nephew a few times, and although I tried to go easy on him, I also didn't want to just throw every game, which meant that I won few of them.

When he lost, he'd try to claim that whichever side had beaten him was unbalanced or unfair or had something better about it (even if he'd played that side himself in a previous game). "The Rebels have better upgrades", "The Imperials have more ships", there was always some aspect of it that he determine made it "unfair". Often he'd just stop in the middle of the game and not want to play anymore because it wasn't going his way.

I wasn't 100% sure how to help teach him teamwork, sportsmanship, and the idea that it's OK to lose and that you can learn things about the game from it.

One of the interesting challenges I've noticed when playing with my younger nephews (9 and 12) was getting them to understand the concept of game balance.

I played with my 12-year-old nephew a few times, and although I tried to go easy on him, I also didn't want to just throw every game, which meant that I won few of them.

When he lost, he'd try to claim that whichever side had beaten him was unbalanced or unfair or had something better about it (even if he'd played that side himself in a previous game). "The Rebels have better upgrades", "The Imperials have more ships", there was always some aspect of it that he determine made it "unfair". Often he'd just stop in the middle of the game and not want to play anymore because it wasn't going his way.

I wasn't 100% sure how to help teach him teamwork, sportsmanship, and the idea that it's OK to lose and that you can learn things about the game from it.

That is tuff. As I said for my son, you need to teach how to win graciously as well as loose graciously.

I think the best way is to play games back to back. One game he is the Rebels you are the Imperials. Next game with the EXACT army he is the Imperials and you are the Rebels. This way when you play, you show him you are playing the exact same thing, and it's balanced. Also it's balanced because you both played the same exact army.

It takes time and Patience. Also teach him nobody likes to play a sore loser and Winning is not everything. If worse comes to worse, act like he does and show him how it looks when someone complains about bad dice or what not. I had to stop let my son win. (e.g. if he rolled all ones in 40K, I would say he still hit.) He got a bit upset once when things didn't go his way because he was so use to winning, I had to show him that he isn't the greatest and can loose, and needs to learn and adapt.

Once he saw he could be me without "cheats" he was so happy and took pride in winning and loosing now.

Hope this helps.

Well my son of 2 years old doesn't play the game but is totally indoctrinated with all things Star Wars, being Dutch English words are very strange to his language learning skills yet he is able to say Star Destroyer, Darth Vader (whom he loves since Dad has it on about everything form shirts to lunchboxes to mugs ;-) ) X-wing, B-wing, Yoda etc etc Mainly due to books like these: Star Wars ABC, Dart Vader and Son (Also available in a girl variant) and the best one out: star wars spaceships cardboard book! Coincidentally my boy likes the Darth Vader theme (i.e. Imperial March too) and calls it the spaceship song because it always plays whenever a SD comes into screen. On youtube there are several scenes with just the ships flying through space which are great if you don't want to watch the violent scenes.

One last anecdote: my son is also mad about the Little Red Tractor. Usually on working days the wife is up and away early and I need to cloth, feed and take him to the day care, sometimes we watch an episode of The Little Red Tractor on dvd while doing so. Now a while ago I forgot that I'd watched RotJ the night before and when I put on the TV and went to make some breakfast my son yelled "Dad very strange but cool motorbikes!" So I went like: where in the world are there motorbikes in Little Red Tractor? But it happened to be the speederbike scene on Endor: LOL!

Well my son of 2 years old doesn't play the game but is totally indoctrinated with all things Star Wars, being Dutch English words are very strange to his language learning skills yet he is able to say Star Destroyer, Darth Vader (whom he loves since Dad has it on about everything form shirts to lunchboxes to mugs ;-) ) X-wing, B-wing, Yoda etc etc Mainly due to books like these: Star Wars ABC, Dart Vader and Son (Also available in a girl variant) and the best one out: star wars spaceships cardboard book! Coincidentally my boy likes the Darth Vader theme (i.e. Imperial March too) and calls it the spaceship song because it always plays whenever a SD comes into screen. On youtube there are several scenes with just the ships flying through space which are great if you don't want to watch the violent scenes.

All you now need to do it introduce him to Cthulhu, through Where's my Shoggoth and you will have a totally well rounded kid