I am really looking forward to the day when I can play with my son. But he is only 2 so I know I have a while to wait. But my question to you parents out there is how long? At what age did your kid start playing? I'm not talking about when will my son be a serious competitor but when will he be able to get the basic concept of the game. I could even make builds for him to fly. I know every child is different so what your kid did won't be the same as my kid, but a general idea would be nice. Thanks

My son is 6. He flies the falcon. He does pretty well and reminds me that my k turning ties get a stress token. I bought him his own falcon, and he loves it.

There have been a lot of forum topics about this! That's awesome!

I regularly play with an 8 year old, I focus on teaching him 1 new tactic every time we play (His dad gets to play me 1-2 times and then he demands a game). He really likes the falcon too, and can totally destroy me with it. Last time we played I gave him Vader + swarm and was teaching him the boost and barrel roll game...I was letting him run him in the end game and just asked him "are you forgetting something you can do" every other round or so and he kept Vader alive and firing for about 5 rounds against 2-3 of my ships. He makes me a better player because he obviously doesn't think like me adn since I usually only play against him with theory squads, I get to test my own flying pretty much every time we play.

There have been posters talking about "simple" version or basic version for down to 5 year olds. Get them a starter set so they have their own templates (to mess with/lose), their own dice to roll, a few ships to mess with, and then maybe buy them their FAVORITE ship and they'll have a blast.

My older daughter just played the game with me yesterday, and she was flying a Firespray-31. She is now 7, but she started playing it when she was 6. Her 4-year-old sister is really looking forward to playing it soon.

One of things that I love about this game is that the basics are very easy to pick up, but it still allows for a lot of complexity if you so desire.

So far, as well as playing this game with friends, I have played it with my wife, my daughter, my sister, and my mom. Hmm....that's a lot of girls who play this game.

My son (7) has a solid understanding of the game. He like the Han Solo & Luke list. He makes his own list with upgrades. After explaining the pros and cons of the upgrades he makes is own choices. Tends to be r2d2 and shields.

Other games he plays, chess, 40k and magic

my kid is 5. he has played just a handful of times, but when he did, he did pretty well in killing me off. We played a simple version of just the movements and firing. None of the extra stuff, but after he dropped all my ships I said next time we play its more of the rules. I just need to get him a sheet with movements as sometimes the dials are hard to turn, even for me.

my kid is 5. he has played just a handful of times, but when he did, he did pretty well in killing me off. We played a simple version of just the movements and firing. None of the extra stuff, but after he dropped all my ships I said next time we play its more of the rules. I just need to get him a sheet with movements as sometimes the dials are hard to turn, even for me.

Have you tried the nylon spacers in your dials? It helps quite a bit with spinning them

I printed out GeckoTH's Maneuver cards from BoardGame Geek , and let my sons (3.5 and 5.5) pick their maneuvers for their high skill pilots when it's their move turn. No dials, no actions.

They have fun, and they work mostly on addition and subtraction with the dice. The Falcon is a good bet, but my 3 year old can point an X-wing at the enemy pretty well.

I printed out GeckoTH's Maneuver cards from BoardGame Geek , and let my sons (3.5 and 5.5) pick their maneuvers for their high skill pilots when it's their move turn. No dials, no actions.

They have fun, and they work mostly on addition and subtraction with the dice. The Falcon is a good bet, but my 3 year old can point an X-wing at the enemy pretty well.

3 years old... that is what i wanted to hear. Only a year to go! Although the .5 may make a big difference too. Haha

i played a 'modified' game with my 6 yr old daughter yesterday - it took 30mins and was lots of fun.

Adapted Rules:

• no movement templates, you just move your ship into attacking range when u want
• all ships roll one attack dice
• all ships roll one defense dice
• no shields
• no actions are chosen
• large based ships have 2 hull (keep track of damage with critical hit tokens... they look like explosions anyway)
• small based ships have 1 hull
• all pilot skills are the same so u just move and fire and get to return fire if u get destroyed
• squads consist of any number of ships - just keep a similar number on both sides - we played 5 ships vs 5 ships

it actually worked pretty well, i was surprised how much fun we had.

for the record i played imperials and got destroyed - we both had 5 ships each at the start (all different types)

As these rules stand eye results on the dice mean nothing...next time i am going to let big base ships recover one damage if they roll an eye on the defense dice if the attacker rolls a blank

I run a modified game for my two boys, ages 3 and 4. And I play it with Lego mini ships I picked up a couple years ago. I mounted them on bases and if they break them they need to fix them. We just play with attack dice and movment templates. They look forward to it each Saturday if we can make time.

It depends on your kids maturity and attention span. I have four girls and first three were real gamers at around age eight. Before that it was hit or miss depending on the game and the day. The ships are too fragile for really young ones. The young ones do not use the pilot special abilities much. They are more suited for generic pilots. I have one that will flee off the board before she gets defeated. We play huge 300 points per side games with 4 players. But, I think the tournament format with 100pts two players would be better for them because it moves faster. We write the ship numbers with players names down marker board in ascending pilot skill and then draw arrows for down for move and up for shoot. One of the kids calls out the next ship number and player. The caller goes go down and up the list each round. We add in turbo lasers and asteroids at pilot skill zero. My nine year old is really quite good at planning movement and achieving objectives.

What do you mean by "nylon spacers in the dials"? Does it make them turn easier? Some dials are really hard to turn.

You can get a nylon washer from the hardware store and place it between the two discs of the maneuver dial. It helps the dial spin easier, and keeps the two halves from rubbing together which will eventually start wearing them out.

Another thing I would recommend is to gloss coat all of your cardboard pieces. It helps protect them and makes them stand up to a bit of beating on the game table.

Play now if he shows interest. My son was 3 when he broke into my 40K box set of Battle for Macragge and started painting. Yes they were rainbow space marines, but he had this great smile, I couldn't get made.

Just don't do what I did. I let him win all the time no matter what. So when we went to a GW HQ store, he saw people talking smack so he started to as well, since he never looses. LOL. That is when I new he had to learn how to learn how to win gracefully, and learn how to loose.

At 2, I would let him do what he wants. See what he grasps and understands. Kids love rolling dice. So if anything, let him be your dice roller. Good or bad left him roll the dice. Explain to him, you are using Begining Rules, (so basically made up rules so he has fun.) Once he plays a few games, introduce a real rule and see if he adapts, and just have fun.

My son just loved rolling dice, even though he didn't know what it meant, but he had fun and that is all that matters.

My 8 yr old has played and seems to get basic movement. She also plays chess and mancala. My 3yr old likes to hep roll dice, but I have to watch the minis arround her which limits the amount of time I can play with the older one.

Play now if he shows interest. My son was 3 when he broke into my 40K box set of Battle for Macragge and started painting. Yes they were rainbow space marines, but he had this great smile, I couldn't get made.

Just don't do what I did. I let him win all the time no matter what. So when we went to a GW HQ store, he saw people talking smack so he started to as well, since he never looses. LOL. That is when I new he had to learn how to learn how to win gracefully, and learn how to loose.

At 2, I would let him do what he wants. See what he grasps and understands. Kids love rolling dice. So if anything, let him be your dice roller. Good or bad left him roll the dice. Explain to him, you are using Begining Rules, (so basically made up rules so he has fun.) Once he plays a few games, introduce a real rule and see if he adapts, and just have fun.

My son just loved rolling dice, even though he didn't know what it meant, but he had fun and that is all that matters.

Yeah he definitely is fascinated with the game. I've let him roll dice for me... but unfortunately that wasn't enough for him. So i gave him his very own card to play with (one of my extra boost description cards). That worked for about 4 minutes. He wants the models. So I tried leting him play with one of my extra tie fighters. It took him about 1.5 minutes to snap a wing off. Ha. He is like godziwa in Tokyo still. But he is just 2 this month, and even though he is a really smart/advanced kid (every parent says that I know, but he is really good at puzzle games and stuff and seems to talk much better than a lot of the other kids his age) his brain fruit needs to ripen a bit more before he is ready to get into the game in any constructive way. In the next few months I might try playing a simplified game with my wife and him. He can be her partner or maybe the universal dice roller or something. Atlhough my wife is 3 months pregnant so her time (and mine) is about to become even more limited

Thanks for all the good info all. Its great to see so many people playing with their kids, grooming the next generation of pilots

I know what you mean when kids break our toys. It happens. They don't understand. What I did, and forgot to say, is have 2 sets of toys. One for you and one, for what your kids can play with. This way you know they will break, (and become good explosion terrain ) kids have fun, and all is good.

Gets expensive, but what can we do eh? Kids love to play with what Daddy plays with.

I know what you mean when kids break our toys. It happens. They don't understand. What I did, and forgot to say, is have 2 sets of toys. One for you and one, for what your kids can play with. This way you know they will break, (and become good explosion terrain ) kids have fun, and all is good.

Gets expensive, but what can we do eh? Kids love to play with what Daddy plays with.

I've been trying to find some x-wing toys that aren't so detailed and darn expensive that we could play with in general. It would make him feel like he's doing the same thing daddy does and we could even play with some dice and stuff too. The lego's posted above seemed interesting if i could find them. Anyone know of any good star wars ship toys that are roughly the size of the miniature models we play with?

I know what you mean when kids break our toys. It happens. They don't understand. What I did, and forgot to say, is have 2 sets of toys. One for you and one, for what your kids can play with. This way you know they will break, (and become good explosion terrain ) kids have fun, and all is good.

Gets expensive, but what can we do eh? Kids love to play with what Daddy plays with.

I've been trying to find some x-wing toys that aren't so detailed and darn expensive that we could play with in general. It would make him feel like he's doing the same thing daddy does and we could even play with some dice and stuff too. The lego's posted above seemed interesting if i could find them. Anyone know of any good star wars ship toys that are roughly the size of the miniature models we play with?

here is some more info:

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/7958_Star_Wars_Advent_Calendar

http://m.ebay.com/itm/190622788778?nav=SEARCH&sbk=1

11 bucks

I play x-wing with my 3 kids aged 5 & 6. I made a thread about how I simplify the rules but I add more of the rules when we play each time. I have not win against my kids yet despite the fact they have no clue on tactics. It's hard to guess someone's maneuvers when they are so random.

That Star Wars Lego Advent calendar wasn't cheap. $50 I think it was.

Seems cheap now.

Not the entire set, 11 bucks is open with just the ships, no minifigs Included.