Saturday, April 18, 2009

Pirates vs Robots: An Outdoor Game






A beautiful spring evening here in Virginia and the Lead Gardens are ablaze with a battle between the Pirates and the Robots! Taking it outdoors with my little guy (who is a "not so little" 3.5 years). In a desperate bid for glory the Robots tried to take control over the Pirates hoard of AA batteries hidden in a "stick fort" we constructed for them this morning. The Pirates were a bit overmatched since they were a constant scale (54mm toy soldier) versus an escalating force of Robots whose leader topped out at 18 inches of hard plastic, battery operated, missile firing glory!! Needless to say the fighting was bloody until the robots decided to become friends with the Pirates and came in to have a glass of milk before bedtime...

3 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

Okay, what rules did you use?

I ask because I know a fellow who has run at least one "Garden Game" with his oldest boy . . . but who has one son around the age of yours.


-- Jeff

PS . . . the verification word is "popmen" . . . which is probably quite appropriate for your post

littlejohn said...

Jeff
I think we might call the rules "an outdoor random initiative diceless flexible scale miniatures game featuring regenerating kills and intuitively determined sequence of play. The game requires no specific basing scheme nor is ground scale constant, terrain is ad hoc but cheap, and might be called a beer and pretzels game except underage players are allowed...and to make things even more interesting, the rules change during play! The best part about it that you don't have to purchase any "rules supplements" or "army books"...but you do need a few AA batteries! ;)

..all kidding aside, the game started when we were on a walk to pick up pinecones because I am trying to come up with a cheap way to make trees for my "grownup" games and the little guy made off with the sack of pinecones to add to his "stick house"...which soon became a fort to be quickly taken over by the pirates which apparently annoyed the robots who seem to have had some prior claim to the turf...and the rest is history...

Fitz-Badger said...

:-D