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Wargaming With Kids: Why You Should Invite Your Children to Wargame With You

When I was a young kid, my first real introduction to wargaming was walking the two blocks to Comics Utah, a tiny shop that was nerdy kid’s paradise–and home to the quintessential Simpson’s Comic Book Guy owner. It sold comics, miniatures, and in the back it had a Castlevania video game arcade machine, which was the only thing at that shop that my brother and I could afford. It was the few quarters we could plunk into that Castlevania machine that made us “customers” and not just a couple of dumb kids, enough to keep us from getting kicked out.

It was at Comics Utah that I bought my first box of wargame models–a box of Warhammer Fantasy skeletons. This was probably around 1989, but I wasn’t entirely new to wargaming at the ripe age of ten years old. When I was nine my dad had brought home a copy of Wargames Illustrated–I don’t know where he got it or why–and I was engrossed by all the pictures and maps and diagrams. I found that there was an entire ruleset in there for playing a Vietnam game, and I quickly bought two bags of little green army men and set about getting into wargaming. I’ve never looked back.

Getting Kids Into Wargaming

But all the same, I can empathize with Comic Book Guy, because I have no doubt that I was an annoying little nine year old kid in that Comics Utah. I was hanging out, bothering the other customers, getting in the way in a shop that was only 350 square feet. So is there a good way to get kids into wargaming? Is there a way to introduce kids to Warhammer and Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action and everything else without alienating the other wargamers in the stores?

Well what we need to talk about first is: why should kids get into wargaming to begin with?

Why Should Kids Wargame?

I’m going to approach this from the point of view of a adult, the parent or guardian of the kid–not necessarily the game store owner, but we’ll talk more about the game store owners later.

Kids Should Get Into Miniature Wargaming For Pure Enjoyment

I have three kids, and I have played wargames with all of them, all genders, and many different types of games, and from ages eight to eighteen. And it’s just so much fun. You have to go into it knowing that you’re meeting the gamer where they are, and you have to tailor the game to fit them, their age, and their interests.

And some of this leads to bizarre situations. I have played Bolt Action World War II with my eight year old who declared that the neat little Normandy town I had set up of nicely painted and aged terrain was actually The Hundred Acre Wood, and that the church tower was Owl’s house, and the garden behind the farmhouse was where Rabbit lived. And then we played World War Two on top of it and shot each other up, and he had a delightful time–never losing the thread that this was a Winnie-the-Pooh game. And I didn’t care at all, because he was playing and having fun. It was one of my most memorable wargaming experiences that I wouldn’t trade for all the competitive games I’ve played in stores.

And it isn’t just the imagination of an eight year old. When I played with my eighteen year old, they hadn’t ever played a miniatures game before, ever, and we played Bolt Action (I usually introduce kids to wargaming through Bolt Action because I find the basic rules to be extremely accessible, the models to be fun, and the options to be endless). They learned on the fly, picking things up much faster than my eight year old. We were actually playing a mission, not just combat “let’s kill each other” like the simple games for the younger kids. And while they never fell in love with wargaming, they enjoyed the game and we had a wonderful time.

My sixteen year old son and I played Warhammer 40k back at the beginning of Warhammer 40k 8th Edition, when things were simple and we used power levels and didn’t worry about stratagems. (I personally think that strategems and excessive objectives are ruining Warhammer 40k 9th Edition, but that’s a post for another time.) But this son of mine, at twelve years old, was an absolute rules lawyer. With my other two kids I could just make things up on the fly to try to sort out problems, but he knew those rulebooks inside and out and he would destroy me. I had to make a rule that he couldn’t take an Imperial Knight (he was playing Imperium and I was playing Chaos) because he could table me almost immediately–I had nothing to go up against an Imperial Knight with.

The ultimate point is: it is simply fun to play wargames with kids, to introduce your kids (or your neighbor kids, or the kids in the games store) into wargaming is something that you will never regret it, whether they are eight or eighteen, and whether it’s historical or SF/F.

Kids Should Get Into Wargaming Because it Helps Them Learn

Let me tell you something about 13-year-old son. He’s got ALL the learning disabilities. He’s 13 and has problems with basic arithmetic and struggles to read. But what he does love is painting miniatures. It started small. At one point during the pandemic we were concerned that our kids were spending too much of their time addicted to computer games and we thought they needed hobbies, so we let them pick anything they wanted from the hobby store. One of them picked Halloween collectibles to set up a Spooky Town. One of them picked a magnet craft. And the youngest picked a box of Space Marines for a tabletop wargame. He wanted to be a wargamer.

Now, this is the kid who has the learning disabilities and is very immature for his age, so when he built his ten Primaris Intercessors he modeled them all to be characters from Five Nights at Fridays. WHICH IS FINE. He had his own clippers, his own glue, and he borrowed my paints, and he (sloppily) painted his FNAF Space Marines.

But the thing that was so cool is that we gave him the books, and HE READ THEM. Not cover-to-cover. He wasn’t the rules lawyer that my older son was, but for a kid that never reads, this was a pretty amazing breakthrough.

And even better, we started played the game, and he was able to work through the arithmetic of rolling dice and adding modifiers and matching rolls against tables and figuring out what damaged and hit what. The game design of these easier games is perfect for learning basic skills.

Now, it would be an exaggeration to say that Mr. Learning Disabilities is now a great reader and good at math, but he is BETTER. And the cooler thing is that many times I catch him–who never ever reads–sitting in his corner reading through his rulebooks. Sure, he’s looking at pictures, but isn’t that how we all got started? He’s making big leaps forward in his skills.

Will wargaming be the thing that pushes him over the edge into good grades and good reading skills? I don’t know, but it’s not hurting.

Kids Should Get into The Wargaming Hobby Because it Helps Them With Artistic Expression

I have made it a very important point in getting my kids into wargaming that I am not a “rivet counter” or “button counter”. If my 13 year old FNAF kid wants to paint all his toy soldiers in different colors so that they’ll match the different evil robot stuffed animals in Five Nights at Freddie’s, then more power to him.

For Christmas, we left each kid ask for one Big Gift, and for Christmas this year he chose Thorin’s Company from the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game from Games Workshop. And did he paint them in accordance with the box art or movie? Not even close. But he painted every single one of them.

I made a video six months ago or so about my Pile of Shame, where I had approximately 900 unpainted minis. As my son got more and more into painting–though never getting substantially better–he kept asking what more models I had that he could paint. So he finished up my Agincourt Knights, and my half-done American Airborne, and my Ogor Mawtribes.

And yes, he is getting better. But more than getting better, he’s gaining confidence.

He also has been helping me to paint mine. He has a deep love for dinosaurs, so when I bought the Celestial Stampede, he had some really strong ideas about what colors the Seraphon “dinosaurs” should be. One of them–the black and green Stegadon–he wanted to be undead, so he’s ghostly in my son’s way.

Kids Should Get Into Tabletop Wargaming Because They Learn Lore and History

I have no illusions that my son is going to be getting a history degree because he and I play Bolt Action, but he READS. This is my book-hating son who only listens to books on Audible (sidenote: as an author, I 100% believe that listening to books on audiobook is perfectly similar to cracking open a book and reading the pages). But he was getting into the book. I bought him the Bolt Action American source book, and he spends time reading it.

And he knows more about Space Marines than I ever thought he would. This kid, again, has all the learning disabilities, but if you find him something he loves and he will get engrossed in it, and it’s phenomenal.

Now, there’s a whole world that he’s open to: the American Civil War will get him ready for 8th grade US American History–and it’s very fun to play. There’s a world of board game, miniature wargames, strategy games, historical wargaming, tabletop gaming and more.

And it makes me hopeful for his future, because it proves that, despite his many challenges, he actually CAN learn if he’s invested enough. So now we just need to find him the subjects in school that he can get invested in.

Granted, as a young player he’s still far more likely to play Five Nights at Freddie’s than he is to play warfare with tanks–but he does play with the box of tanks. And maybe he’ll grow up to be a historian, or maybe he’ll grow up to be a game designer, or maybe he’ll grow up to be a storyteller. Whatever happens, this is a great launching pad.

What Can Game Stores Do to Get Younger Players Wargaming?

I have some pretty strong feelings about this, but the biggest one is that the FLGS (friendly local game store) needs to have activities for kids where they are free to experiment and play and fail.

One of my local FLGSs has a table in the corner with an array of about twenty paints, some brushes, and a palette. Buy a $5 D&D miniature and sit down in the store and go to town painting with all of their materials. Most often I see a parent and a child at the table, working together, and I love it.

FLGSs can also stop looking at kids with suspicion. And, for better or for worse, I think that this is becoming more possible. Of all the FLGSs in my greater metropolitan area that I can think of, only two of the eight-to-ten stores are within walking distance of any neighborhoods. This is unfortunate, but it also means that kids are more likely to go to FLGSs with adults who will, presumably, keep the kids from both overly-long loitering and shoplifting.

I also think–and I’m thinking here about the Warhammer stores especially–don’t try the hard sell on kids. Let kids come into store and look around, and paint a little, and try a game. Kids don’t have money. If you’re going to hard sell anyone, sell to the parents, but let kids just fall in love.

What Can Parents Do Better To Get Kids into Wargaming?

Freedom to fail. We all know that models are expensive, and you often cringe when your kid asks if they can have something expensive. But a box of 30 Bolt Action minis are $30. A box of Wargames Atlantic minis (which have everything from WWI to Space Dwarves) are about $30. D&D minis are $5 to $25. And there’s always eBay.

And buy the kids books–like, real paper books with tons of pictures that the kids can flip through to see all the delightful pictures, and they may pick up some of the wargaming bug.

More imporantly, make a safe space for kids. Kids getting into wargaming don’t need to play competitive 9th Edition Warhammer 40k with all the strategems and secondary objectives and chapter traits. Play simple. Streamline the rules. For that matter, now is a GREAT time to get into OnePageRules. They can read the Space Marine Codex to see all the beautiful options, and then play an easy version of the game.

Conclusion — Getting Kids Into Wargaming

No matter how you intend to get kids into wargaming, it’s more than worth it. The things that they can learn from the game will help them their whole lives, and not just when they’re socializing with other gamers, but when they’re doing arithmetic and reading and creative thinking.

Plus, as a parent or guardian (or older sibling) there’s nothing more rewarding than getting the kid in your life into wargaming.