I’ve had the joy of playing more games with my son lately, specifically Xenos Rampant. We spent a good chunk of last month painting up armies and are now four games deep into our little scifi excursion. I’ll say at the front: as a game to teach my son about gaming, it works quite well. He’s nine with some gaming experience under his belt (Alpha Strike, Rumbleslam, Rangers of Shadow Deep). This is his first “Army game” where you control something resembling a platoon.

He’s had a lot of fun, though a portion of that is because the scenarios have been a little wonky. We’re playing book scenarios which I’ve found to be somewhat hit or miss. Were I playing with an adult I’d probably try to set clearer parameters for each mission. Sometimes it just straight up doesn’t work well and the only reason the game doesn’t end turn one is that my son is…. well, a kid. It takes him a bit before he realizes the obvious victory tactic.

For example: we played “Scenario Charlie: Convoy Ambush.” I was escorting three vehicles across the board and my son had to stop me. If he captured a vehicle by defeating it in melee, he would gain 5 VP. If he destroyed the vehicle via shooting, he’d gain 3 VP. I gained 5 VP for each I removed from the board and 3 VP for each that came off with only 1 or 2 health left. So if you’re my son, trying to stop the vehicles, what do you do?

Yeah, you blow them up with your big tank that’s good at blowing them up. I think the idea is that I should weave my way across the board and destroy him before he destroys the vehicles. Knowing that now, I’d set it up differently and take a different approach. I’m still skeptical–he only has to destroy 2 vehicles to just… win. Period. That’s 6 points to the 5 I would get for getting the third vehicle off the board.

This leads to the next issue: elites. My son is playing a full elite force (because he’s a kid and it’s simple). That has lead to me having to create what are effectively my own elite units out of the lesser profiles by using upgrades. Otherwise, my forces just evaporate the moment he looks at them and I very much do not have a good method of surviving a direct shoot out. If your opponent brings 6-8 point units and you bring 3-4 point units, I’m not convinced that ends well for you even if you hit the same points total.

That said, I’m having fun with my son and that’s good enough for now. The command system has provided reasonable friction, the scenarios have been fun and varied, and I find myself wanting to rearrange and produce a new force to try out. I by no means believe this game will work as a long term game to play with your friends. I’d class it as a game you pick up and play a dozen times with whatever force you feel is justified for that much usage and then put it away. Use it as a hobby project excuse, have some fun, then move on. That’s reasonable in my book.

I complained above about elites–to be fair, in Lion Rampant the rules directly tell you not to be a jerk and make a full elite force. Several missions in Xenos Rampant actually force units to be 3-4 points, which effectively bans elites. The system is knowingly not built for it. I’ll further say that when I built up 6-7 point units to fight my son’s 6-7 point elite units, the game got more fun and competitive (in a friendly way). Customizing the units to build my vision of how they’d operate was fun and allowed a different vision to come to life for me.

If you’re looking to play this with your kid, don’t be me: give your kid heavy infantry instead of elites. Make one unit an elite. If you’re playing with a friend, setup some parameters. The game likely plays best by playing with heavy or lighter units. I’d even suggest playing at higher points totals so you can customize your units more. Start with light and heavies then build up to 8 point units with tons of flavor. Play the game at 36 or 40 points instead of the usual 24–worry more about how many activations each side has instead of points value.

Not to sound too down; there’s been a ton of advantages to this system I’ve enjoyed. It’s been a great excuse to setup various tables, as you’ve seen throughout this post. That’s been fun! My son has started to build his own custom units, which has been an excellent experience for him. I’m hoping to push him to redefine into Heavy Infantry with more specialization, like having personal shields or teleportation tech. The game is a great excuse to build kits that don’t have games assigned–like the Wargames Atlantic stock of fun scifi concepts. Matches are fast, which I really look for when gaming with my son. Against an adult I imagine we’d take 45 minutes per match average. Against my son that’s a little over an hour average. That makes it easier to fit into a weeknight or Saturday morning before we go out in the afternoon.

On the whole, I’ve really enjoyed this project. I’m legitimately having fun gaming with my kid and the hobbying was a blast. We have a few more games left in us before we likely move on (he’s been asking to play Alpha Strike again) but until then I’m hoping he gets more into customization and really starts to envision his own force.

As a father-son game, I recommend Xenos Rampant. It’s served the job quite well. As a random thing to pick up and play a few games, I also recommend it. There’s my impression. We’ll see if I play enough to get to a review.