New Experiences

Lessons from a child

Hello everyone! As I mentioned last time, I am taking some time off, so this post was written a few weeks ago. I’ll do my best to respond to any comments as I’m able. This will be my last post until after the Fourth of July holiday, so I hope everyone has a great holiday and I’ll see you in July!

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I love playing games-board games, tabletop, dice games, video games, whatever. Before we had kids, my wife and I played games all the time. With kids I’ve now been presented with a perfect opportunity to corrupt, um, indoctrinate, i mean get my kids to love gaming.

My six-year-old after completely destroying me in a 3 on 3 match.

Since I was a kid I’ve always loved the Battletech novels, but I never had the chance to play the tabletop game. Now that I am a responsible adult with a job and my own money (my wife may disagree with that particular statement), I can scratch that itch by buying a bunch of little plastic toys to march around a map and make ‘pew pew’ noises with.

My six-year-old son loves playing Battletech, although he’s not always the best of sports :-). He is, however, shockingly good at the game with a knack for using terrain that is a little scary. In the picture above you can see the wreckage of my three mechs scattered across the map where he absolutely destroyed me for zero losses.

A couple weeks ago I was driving around and noticed a game shop I’d never seen before called Fabricator’s Forge. Anything that has ‘forge’ in the name, I’m already in, but I wanted to check it out with my son with me. We stopped by the next weekend and it turns out the place is huge with tons of gaming tables, a snack bar, and regular gaming nights for Warhammer, Star Wars, and Battletech!

Warhammer 40k day at Fabricator’s Forge.

There was a monthly WH40K game going on while we were looking around, and my son asked to stop and watch for a while. Compared to how we play Battletech, these dudes are deep, deep into their hobby. We play with unpainted miniatures half the time, these guys had tufts of cotton balls airbrushed to look like flames and smoke they used to indicate damage.

This was a 3 v 3 match and there were probably 60+ units on a U-shaped map that you can see above. Although my son came into the store only really caring about Battletech, he was absolutely fascinated by WH40K. Honestly, after we looked over the Battletech stuff and picked out a couple things, I was ready to leave, but he wanted to stay and watch for a while.

I was a little annoyed, I wanted to go get some dinner, but I relented and we stayed for a while. And as we hung out and watched these guys, I was watching my son who was completely engrossed. As the players moved around and ran combat, he pulled his little stool around so he could sit up and see. He asked questions about what was going on, who everyone was, and about a million other things.

It was a fun time, and I enjoyed watching him enjoy the new experience. It’s a reminder that even when you’re in a hurry, you should sometimes take the time to see something new. Whether that’s a new game, a new book, or a new experience, it might just surprise you how much you enjoy it.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!