Bot War - Robots out of IP (Spring Clean)

All set up for our first game. Always a little nervous with that first game with my 11 year old son because you really want him to enjoy it, I don’t want to let him win because I have never understood the point in that but also I don’t want to destroy him and dishearten him. Luckily though Elliot and my daughter Eden (7) are both very gracious losers when we play family games, there is a lot of above the tabletop banter and I encourage us laughing and joking and calling each other names in a well meaning spirit because it all just makes it more fun and highlights that it’s all light hearted and not to be taken too seriously.

So with all that being said, how do I get my son to have this same attitude and not be so bloody ruthless with me and kick my toys in so viciously

We set up for the basic scenario which is essentially taking and holding certain spots on the board. We had 4 of them roughly across the middle of the table

the acid house terrain is just so great and easy to set up and pack away for this and I look forward to using it for epic Warpath too in the future

I made a solid advance and took control of two of the objectives and Elliot grabbed one for himself

a a few long distance exchanges and this is where I should have seen what was happening. I ended turn one thinking

”wow these bots are really fragile”

Elliot must have finished the first turn thinking

“wow these bots are really powerful”

The dice gods were giving me their first indication that they were favouring youth on this day.

The game continued with exchanges across the table, I think by turn 2 I had lost two bots but I had the edge on victory points so I was lulled into a false sense of security that I had the edge of experience and wisdom of age behind me. Little did I realise the the blind optimism of youth was going to be my undoing. Elliot fresh faced and completely unphased by being in a “losing” position he continued his advance and contested on of the objectives so at this stage my advantage was not allowed to grow yet his advantage of kicking my toys in was ramping up.

Energy was dispersed amongst our troops and I made some poor choices of favouring some bots that were brutally dispatched by the wide eyed youthful scumbag across the table from me.
No quarter wise given and at no point did my hobby prodigy ever consider the relentless kicking I was receiving and what this might be doing to my self esteem so that continued to the end of turn 4 in which I had the edge in victory points and was winning 4 to 3, alas I had the minor inconvenience of having no more units left alive and doing whatever auto bots version of breathing is

I swore vengance and swift retribution to my new nemesis and you shall see soon enough that my fuel for said vengance will only grow and intensify as I can’t beat this little shit for love nor money!!