What I saw last night - how young is too young...?

[DarkLink]

But then what would I know, apparently there's people on the blog comments section that think me casually ignoring Buffo's trolling attempt is a sign that I'm the antichrist.

Just wait for someone to find a picture of you and photoshop a 666 tattoo on you somewhere.

But would you call checkers a game of tactics?

Yes, albeit a fairly simple one.

I still think a parent who spares the strap for very bad behaviour, or yelling and punishment for slightly bad behaviour is spoiling the child. No wonder we have so many gangs of teenager vandalising public property, and attacking old people in their homes these days. (generalisation - no specific country)

Right. Though I will point out that most criminal activity and violence, in general and amongst kids, is on the decline for the most part.

[The Inner Geek]

But would you call checkers a game of tactics?

You would if you played against my grandfather!

But on the subject at hand. I think that we get caught up sometimes treating children like children. If they are acting inappropriately, they should be told so. Not in a mean or rude way, but in an informative way. If my kids were getting out of line and I didn't see it, I'd hope someone would correct them.

I used to hang out and paint several evenings a week at a GW store in South Texas. There were many middle school and high school age kids that were regulars. Maybe it was the exception, but they policed each other pretty well. It was actually the 20 somethings at that store that got on my nerves occasionally.

[Shotgun Justice]

I never had the balls to just pick up an adults miniatures without asking when I was a bairn. I remember my first games night at the original Dalling Road GW store and being completely intimidated by all the hairy older people who seemed to know 'all the rules'.
My dad just sat at one of those tiny red painting tables and read the paper.

As others have said it isn't age that matters but rather appropriate behaviour - kids are less likely to know what such behaviour is within the confines of a war-gaming community but they are much easier to educate than obtuse, unwashed 20 somethings.
This particular sub-species (emphasis my own) needs to learn that full length leather coats often have long, flappy sleeves that cast miniatures over the abyss into the the wastelands of the dreaded store carpet.

[Vaddok Sek]

I'm in the boat that it depends on how well they have been disciplined. For instance I know a couple who frequent our local game shop and both are Fantasy and 40k players, they have a 3-4 (I can't remember exactly) year old who has been brought up knowing not to touch any models without permission. She is alot better behaved than some of the teenagers who come in the store, me and another guy were playing a game once and one of the emo **** came up to the table and started making rude comments, he then picked up one of my Empire handgunners and tossed it across the room. I mean honestly, I'm very passive, but if the owner hadn't threatened to call mall security a second later I would have punched the guy.

[Gop]

It depends on the personality of the kid. I have no problem with any aged kid IF:

• they are polite
• they are not overly noisy
• they ask before touching minis
• they have a parent/guardian nearby

I have taught my fair share of new players including kids how to play 40k and enjoy it usually. But only if they are sticking to that list. Once they lose focus and zone out it's time to stop. I usually find kids younger than about 12-13 do that.

[George Labour]

I personally try not to treat people to differently based on their age, but rather on how loud, unhygienic, and obnoxious they are. This means that little kids usually aren't going to interact well with me, but it's not like I go out of my way to be where they want to be.

Fortunately the LGS here figured out that the side rooms made good places to play games in, so there's usually at least four tables available for pickup games, and several rooms for less public sessions. It's reduced the issue with 'unattended cattle' immensely and only left the older kind of smelly, screaming, doofus to tolerate.

Honestly, after many years of having to handle improperly handled brats at a Wal-Mart I don't really want to be near them for any lenght of time, but I've found older players with bad habits and no volume control far more prevalent than the wee ones with grabby hands.

[bubbles15]

I'm actually looking for some advice. I play against a young fellow - well, he's 26 but having lost all the battles bar one we've played he's decided that I'm cheating - which I am ruddy not - and refuses to play that system again (40K).

I'm not some super general - I win only because he runs close co tyranids across the board at a marine gunline - in every battle. The one close combat I won was lumping ten death company into his gaunts. The fellow almost cried, so much so I considered retracting the move. We've put terrain over half the board, closed off every line of sight - heck, I've even left troops in place so his Doom of Malan'tai could splat them.

Since he's suggested playing WFB but - when he starts losing those battles will he stop playing that too? How do people deal with such players?

[Mal]

Bubbles the simple answer is you can't.

If the player is unwilling to learn or adapt a tactic to play the same force (over a period of multipul games) then he is simply not well suited to the game. Its unfortunate, but some people just cant play.

The only avenue left open to you is to take him quietly to one side and try to explain why his tactics are not working, try to be encouraging and tell him not to give up. One thing you should never do however is make the game easier for him. Some will disagree with me here, so perhaps I should elaborate further.

You said your using a marine gunline, well thats definately not a tournament winning army, marines do reasonable gunlines, but they are not well suited for it. So before you begin your giving him an advantage, if you start stacking more and more advantages in his favour you'll soon stop playing 40K and start playing 'let the other guy win', and thats just no fun for you.

If he doesn't come around then stop playing him... it sounds harsh, but there has to be a point where you cut your losses.

*Edit*

Minor threadomancy, please don't flame me

In regards to the OP, I spend more time at my LGS coaching new players into the game, and they are almost without fail between the ages of 10 and 13. Some can be a handful at first, but with the right guidance they will either come around or stop comming.

Im lucky that my main game group is full of very responsible people so its a great environment to tutor younger players in the dos and donts of gaming eticate. That being said I have coached young players in less cordial enviroments, and its much the same method used, repeat the same lesson over and over (lesson=be nice) until it becomes second nature to them.

The single worst experience i've had was at an event, and it wasn;t from a kid, it was an adult throwing a hissy fit because he got thrashed and taking it out on the first person he ran into after leaving the table (which was me). I was carrying my army from one table to another to prepare for my next game, I was carrying my army on a flat tray (you know the ones with the really shallow rims) and the sod knocked the tray from my hands. To make matters worse my army was mostly leads so they broke into pieces. This was a fully painted, based, and finished army... many months of hard work went into them and some yahoo thinks its ok to throw a hissy fit and smash up my army beacuse he had a bad game.

For the record he was i his 30's.

The net result of his actions, I had to drop out of the event, my army was simply no longer in a condition to play with and I didn't have enough time before my next game to make enough repairs to field it. The only reason I didn't hit the guy was because I was in shock.

Age is not the problem, never has been, never will be. People ar the problem, more precisely people who either have a short temper, a lack of self control or a lack of suitable moral ethics.
Some of these issue can be addressed with patience and time, some cannot, its not always easy to tell the two groups apart.

[Denzark]

Mal

You should have hit him. Remember, there are no problems in life that can't be sorted with the timely application of gratuitous violence.

[j-orge-287]

I would have asked for the money required to pay for the models hes destroyed...after beating the $hit out of him. These sort of people...i've heard stories about people stabbing each other, I can expect that-mostly because they're drunk. But destroying another persons pride, joy, blood sweat and tears because of losing a simple game :O unbelievable.

At my store, whenever I go in theres a new kid, only 8-10 years old, staff teches him a practice game, he looks around, asks the odd question and always seem polite. But one kid-regular guy about 14 years-has the biggest ego in the world because he one a trophy at a tourney once, talks down to everyone about tactics and lists etc. The worst part was I was having a game of 40k, i'd just set up and finished turn 1 he was bored and decided it was ok to deploy on a random table edge and destroys my command squad (via shooting) I wouldn't have minded much, but he then decided every one of my models had to take a morale check, which they didn't. So we entered a big argument and made me so angry that I just packed up and left. Next week I see the same guy get his guardsmen rolled up by a carnifex, he was desperatley trying to find a loophole in the rules that would keep the game in his favour (which it was anyway) with tears in his eyes and voice. You know the guy i'm talking about.