Tusk Junior

My wife and I have had her nephews to stay for the weekend (our weekend runs from Sunday to Monday). Yesterday we took them to the Walking with Dinosaurs live show at Sheffield Arena as a birthday present. It was a pretty good show, although I felt that the emphasis on the 'special effects' over story let it down a bit, but I am old and jaded, so what do you expect? The dinosaurs themselves were really good and the size of them was impressive too. It really gives you sense of perspective.

One of the boys has been pestering me to show him how to play wargames. They play Heroscape but are fascinated with the array of figures in my office/games room. So, one of them asked me last night if I would "show them my moves"!!!!! By this he meant, how to play the games, not anything else. Today I caved in and asked them if they wanted to hunt dinosaurs, to which the response was an enthusiastic "Yes". I dug out Tusk, set up a 2'*2' board, gave each of them a small party of cavemen and we set to. The table had one each of Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and Triceratops on it. I explained how to measure moves and they set to with gusto, each charging his hero in as fast as possible. The Tyrannosaurus fell first. It was simply not as aggressive as a small boy. Then the other nephew brought the Stegosaurus down. Both boys were enthusiastically throwing rocks and spears at the other two dinosaurs and the Brontosaurus saw the writing on the wall first. It fled for the edge of the table and away to safety. The Triceratops was less savvy and stayed to fight, surrounded by cavemen. It gored and trampled one group of them but could not take on the full might of two cavemen tribes. The elder nephew slew it and took credit for the kill as well as winning the game with two dinosaur kills overall. The younger one had only killed one dinosaur but his tribe had been halved in size, so I think the food will go around well enough.

Both boys, who are 6 and 8 by the way, picked up the game really quickly. Even the reaction system for the dinosaurs, which confused them initially, became clear with play. Flushed with their first hunting success, they left the game very happy and I could bask in the warm glow of being a successful uncle and leading them into bad ways. I wonder what I should teach them next ...