Song of Warjacks and Warbeasts: Simple wargames for kids

No pics today.

I've been recently looking at how to introduce my much younger nephew to wargaming. A couple of years ago I gave him all my old Warhammer Fantasy Battle figures as a Christmas present (including the Bretonnians and the War Wyvern) So that I could continue to enjoy them with him and his dad, without just having them sitting in a box for years and years.

But he's pretty young (think 12ish), so I needed a ruleset that would allow us to push figures around with dirt simple rules to keep his interest.

I found 1 Page Warhammer from One Page Games, which has since been rebranded as "Age of Fantasy", probably because GW got in their face. Free to download, and easy to play. Each figure has a quality that they roll to hit and save by, a few special rules, and ALL the army lists that you'll need. It's perfect and we played a great game with my old 3rd edition orcs, goblins and trolls that XMas. There is also "Grimdark Future" with basically the same rules, except using Bolters etc. It's the revision of 1 Page 40k. He's less into 40k for now, and I'm keeping my Tallarns because I love them.

BUT, then I got into Warmachine. Have only played a few small games so far, but have a painted 35 point army of Menoth ready to go. I've been wanting to find a simple "1 Page Warmachine" so that we can have some 'jacks on the table but the OnePage rules have yet to bring that one out. Maybe you could jimmy it. I dunno.

Enter Song of Blades & Heroes. It's from Ganesha Games, and it looks just as great as the 1 Page rules, BUT it looks like it can handle things like Warjacks, and gunpowder. This is especially true with the addition of "Advanced Song of Blades", which I won't try to play with my nephew, but will take a couple of the advanced weapons and spells. There are numerous supplements due out for ASOB including gunpowder and cannons (and dwarves) with the Hammer & Forge expansion. There will also be a "Steam and Cogs" expansion for guess what!? Robots and Magic automatons Steam punk style = Warjacks and Warcasters!

So I'm hopeful that this will become my simple to play WM game. Still want to play Warmachine actual, but actually don't know anybody in the North Bay Area that I can play against so here's hoping.... Also since SoBnH doesn't care what figures you use, I can start collecting Warmachine Dwarves and even the new Crucible Guard (which look AMAZING) without worrying about creating a legal army. This also means I can finally use my Mariner 'Jack without having to have silly pirates as a faction. I'm hopeful you can play Colossus as well, but we'll see.