Shake the hand.

Lego game - Battle for Helms deep. A lesson in wargaming etiquette.

The game contents stores nicely into the box it cam in.

For his birthday our eldest got the Lego game of 'Battle for helms deep' from a friend of ours. I don't know who was more excited me or him.

After a long day at the Zoo, on Sunday. We put the exhuasted baby's to bed, and I asked the 8 year old if he would like to play his new game. We had spent yesterday afternoon building it together and we were both keen to get a game of it in. He leaped at the chance.

The game itself is a lot of fun, it gives the precept of a siege game, but it quickly became clear that it is battleline game. By which I mean the walls have little impact and either side can cross the siege ladders, and the win conditions are to kill all enemy leaders, well the good guys have more so you think it would be stacked in their favour. but the bad guys have a lot more troops and the ability to respawn the dead troops.

So after watching for a few game turns it became clear that you need to be aggressive to win, I kept sending out the respawning swordmen and keep my leaders safe in the back. Unfortunately Reilly had been caught in the siege mentality of the game and stayed behind the walls slowly losing troops and leaders.
So I told him that he would need to be aggressive to win, but by the time I had worked out a way for him to win and convince him several turns later to actually do it, it might have been to little, to late, he had lost to many leaders.

But still he gave a good accounting of himself and had me against the ropes towards the end, if the dice had of been kinder to him he might still have won.

When the final dice fell against his favour he was upset, but to his credit up until that point he had been optimistic. And we both had a lot of fun playing the game.

So I explained some basic wargaming etiquette to him. When the game ends, win or lose, you shake the opponents hand. And say thankyou for the game. I went on to explain, that we thank the other player because they to have taken the time to play a game with us, we might be upset that we lost, but as long as we had fun playing, that is what counts.

A valuable lesson for game players everywhere,one it took me many years to learn, not having wargaming parents or an older mentor.

So if we have every played a game together this message is for you.

Thank you for spending time playing a game with me.