I’ve had a few games of Sons of Mars with my son. He’s nine, going on ten, and has played a bunch of wargames with me over the years: Xenos Rampant, Midgard, and Rangers of Shadow Deep for a few examples. I was able to teach him the game and lose to him inside of forty five minutes. I’d say it’s pretty teachable.

He had a blast–but it helps that he kept rolling criticals on nearly every roll!

In fact, in two matches I failed to even scratch his long haired gladiator above while he slaughtered two of my own models. I’m not sure if that’s a comment on the dice luck of the game or if I just haven’t solved how to use favor dice effectively.

Ah, let’s back up. In this game when two models combat each other, they roll their respective dice pools and whoever rolls the highest wins the combat and deals damage. In the example above, the highest number I rolled was a 3. All five of my son’s dice were higher than mine, so he got five strikes at me. The critical dealt double damage. My gladiator… did not survive.

There are of course a few wrinkles in this system. Weapons have effects on combat via special rules. For example: the Retiarius carries a fuscina (trident) which allows him to engage an opponent from one inch away and force them to reroll one dice in combat. Next is favor dice: they’re earned a few different ways in combat, like when scoring a wound off a critical hit. You spend them to reroll dice or add more dice to a combat resolution before rolling. Between these abilities and favor dice, you have some dice manipulation you can work with to help control the random luck.

I was playing my son, so I haven’t thought it through much. Rationally I should save rolls for specific moments and really choose when to apply a reroll. I just haven’t done the analysis to back up when that is. I have definitely had rolls where my son beat me with a 5 high–a reroll would have been very powerful there.

Criticals also play a very important roll. Most abilities trigger off a critical roll, forcing you to choose between its effect or doing double damage. For instance: Knockdown allows you to, well, knock down an opponent on a critical strike instead of doing double damage. It’s a choice, which is interesting. It’s also tied to the dice, which can be a little annoying. Again, we see that potential for random chance. I’d never use a reroll to fish for a crit–there’s a waste waiting to happen. So you get them or you don’t. It appears my child… well, gets them pretty frequently!

I enjoyed playing the system and my son loved it. I see another 10ish matches in our future before it runs a little dull. The book has matches against animals and special event matches, too, which I hope to try out. The low model count, low play time, and low setup requirement means it’s an easy game to get on table with my son. For that I’m definitely grateful. He’s also engaged with the history and asking about Rome, which is awesome.

I’d say if you can do it at a low investment and want to play the game with your child, this one is probably a worthwhile effort. It’s not super deep but my son’s eyes lit up when he realized his velites could step back from our duel and throw a pilum at me to get the killing blow. He missed the first two but the third and final one found the heart.

I suppose this post now doubles as an “Off the bench.” I painted all of these models and the arena itself just this last weekend. The arena was super easy: it’s all just rattle can automotive spray paints. I started with brown, then khaki, then warm white. The models are all painted via traditional means and all brand new off the resin printer.

These are the Wargames Atlantic Spartacus Revolt figures off MyMiniFactory. I like them but the options feel somewhat limited–I’d have liked to have a few more heads. For $10 if you’re subbed to their Tribes it feels… literally just enough to warrant the price. I would not pay the full $20. While the models are characterful, they feel rapidly repetitive with only seven heads on offer. I suppose I could use various other heads from other kits. Maybe I’ll do so in the future.

The arena itself is from Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2250767 For the pillars and such, search that person’s profile. I recommend it and may even print a second copy to be able to host a Sons of Mars game day sometime. It’s about 1KG of plastic to print off and easy to paint, as evidenced above.

There you have it. Sons of Mars: a game I’d probably recommend for a few rounds with your kids. I have a campaign to play through with some friends in the future and I hope to come back and update my thoughts when I do. I had fun painting the gladiators and arena. This kind of micro project is always satisfying. Now onto the big project I previously abandoned: Clontarf. Those Irish aren’t going to paint themselves! That was the Picts, not the Irish.