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We're in the process of nailing done a location and date for our third Kidshammer event in between NOVAs. Can't say where or exactly when yet, but it will be in June before the end of the school year. Stay tuned for more information soon!
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The second of four annual Kidshammer events will be held on Sunday, February 24, 12 noon - 4 pm, at Victory Comics in Falls Church, VA. Victory Comics is the birthplace of Kidshammer, and we are thrilled that the store is able to make space for us to return.
The event will be mostly open gaming, so that the kids can practice with their favorite armies. If anyone is completely new to the game, we can provide models and instruction on how to play Age of Sigmar, Second Edition. Please respond via the contact page of this website if you are thinking about attending. Although walk-ons are welcome on the day of the event, the event runs much better if we have an idea of participants ahead of time. Future events will occur in April/May and the summer. Dates and locations will be posted when they are known. Victory Gamers will be hosting a "mini-KidsHammer" event on Saturday, November 10, at The Games Tavern store in Chantilly, Virginia. Exact time is still being worked out, but will likely be in the afternoon (1-5 pm?). The KidsHammer event will be part of the third annual "Fawkes Hunt" narrative Age of Sigmar event. Details to come!
It was a second successful year of KidsHammer at the NOVA Open! We had eight kids, aged 7-15, turn out this year for the event. It was particularly gratifying that five of the participants returned from last year's event.
The event kicked off Saturday morning, with a morning of "open gaming", where the kids paired off and played games against each other. There were adult coaches from the local Victory Gamers club at each table to provide guidance and rule support, particularly concerning the changes to the rules brought by the new edition. Saturday afternoon started with an hour-and-a-half painting session. NOVA reserved tables for us up in the Hobby Hangout, and Sean McAfee organized and led a fun session of painting models that were generously provided by Games Workshop. Afterwards was the narrative portion of the weekend. There were two specially crafted missions that focused on telling stories. The first was a wizards' duel where each player had access to all the Endless Spells in the Malign Sorcery box. The second was a"Beast Hunt" where the players first had to kill the objectives before they could claim them - not so easy when the objectives were an Arachnarok Spider, a Colossal Squig, and a Hellpit Abomination. But the biggest narrative event was an epic D&D-style dungeon crawl led by Brian Orban, lead of the AoS Narrative at NOVA. The dungeon crawl played out on two custom-built tables, with the kids selecting heroes in their armies to explore an abandoned monastery and the caverns beneath it. It was a lot of fun! On Sunday, the kids returned to play a friendly three-round tournament, or to play more open games if they preferred that. The tournament saw some great play and was highly contested throughout. In the end, congratulations to Michael Klofft, Leo Conca, and Adam Foster for finishing first, second, and third respectively. Thanks to Peter Noone and Kevin "Bogo" Bogecki for being coaches, to Sean McAfee and Brian Orban for taking the lead on painting and the dungeon crawl, to Jesse Gaskins, Michael Hayes, and Matthew Foster who helped out with the planning, and and to all the parents who supported their kids and the event before and during the weekend. We are already planning future mini-KidsHammer events in the DC area this fall and next spring, and hope to be able to return for NOVA Open 2019! Another great KidsHammer event was held at the NOVA Open 2018 over the Labor Day weekend. 10 kids participated, playing pick up games of Age of Sigmar, learning to paint, playing narrative games, and wrapping it up with a friendly tournament on Sunday. Congratulations to Michael Klofft, Leo Conca, and Adam Foster, who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the tournament!
So what's next? (Besides starting plans for KidsHammer at NOVA 2019, of course.) We'll see. A KidsHammer dedicated Facebook page is in the works. And periodic mini-KidsHammer events in the DC-area this fall, winter, spring and summer, to keep the flame alive until next Labor Day. Keep checking back here for updates! The NOVA Open is fast approaching, and we wanted to take a moment to help participants prepare for all the new stuff planned for this year’s KidsHammer event.
Warhammer 40,000: First, good news for those who want to play in the grim darkness of the far future – there are still tickets available (although a limited number!) for the Warhammer 40,000 track at KidsHammer. Also, the game is fairly stable at this point. Games Workshop released a big FAQ in the spring and almost all 8th edition codexes have been released. Any codex can be used for KidsHammer as long as it is released and publicly available (that is, not pre-release only) prior to August 13, 2018. So Orks and Space Wolves players still have a chance to use their announced – but not yet released – new codexes at KidsHammer! All the information in the KidsHammer primer remains unchanged: Warhammer 40,000 games will be played at the 75 power level using the Matched Play section of the 8th edition rulebook, no ForgeWorld models, and only Games Workshop FAQs and Errata will be used. To make it simpler for KidsHammer participants to practice and prepare, here are the three missions that will be used for the Sunday Friendly Tournament (not necessarily in this order): No Mercy, Secure and Control, and The Relic. Age of Sigmar: The Age of Sigmar track of KidsHammer is almost sold out, with only a few tickets remaining! KidsHammer will use the just released 2nd edition rules and the General’s Handbook 2018, including FAQs and errata. Malign Sorcery will also be used (but not required!). We will have staff on hand Saturday to help everyone get comfortable with the new models, rules, FAQs, errata, and spells! We’ve also poured through all the new stuff and decided that no changes were needed to the KidsHammer primer. Games will still be played at the 1500-point level using the special “Youngblood” table provided in the primer. Because of the transition, however, KidsHammer will be lenient on base sizes and shape (try for round, but square is okay in a pinch). In order to ease transition to the new system, we will use the following mix of “old” and “new” missions for the Sunday Friendly Tournament (not necessarily in this order): Three Places of Power, Starstrike, and Total Commitment. We are looking forward to seeing returning players and new faces at this year’s KidsHammer! If you have questions, please contact the NOVA Open customer support team and the KidsHammer team will get back to you as soon as possible. I'm excited to have a new website dedicated to just Kidshammer! It was great being on the Victory Gamers website, but there is so much going on with Kidshammer that it needs its own site.
So the big news is the growth of Kidshammer: - We're getting too big for Victory Comics. The store is fantastic and we want to continue hosting events there. But the store is also growing wildly and is so popular that we can't always rely on getting even a single table on some Sundays. So we are starting to rent a large room, once a month, at the Falls Church Community Center, less than a mile from the store. Kidshammer will join with regular Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 gaming on that day. First day will be June 11, 2:30-5:30 pm. - Kidshammer at the NOVA Open is a big deal! NOVA is one of the biggest tabletop gaming conventions in the United States, and Kidshammer is honored to be a part of the offerings in 2017. Registration is going on now. The dates are September 2nd & 3rd, and it's right here in Arlington, VA. Think of it as a two-day mini-camp for tabletop gaming. So spread the word about Kidshammer - both our regular events and particularly the NOVA Open event. We're looking forward to continue to grow the club! |
AuthorSteve Duall is the father of three, a government lawyer by day, and the husband of a very patient woman. He founded the Kidshammer club in summer of 2015. He headed up the first ever Kidshammer event at a major convention - the 2017 NOVA Open - and is very excited to bring it back in 2018. Archives
May 2019
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