New Obsession

The boys have a new obsession. Having lived through Barney, Bob the Builder, Power Rangers, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering cards, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, baseball cards and other boy type obsessions previously, I know that they will do nothing but live, breathe, eat, read, discuss, build, play and think about their new obsession for the next several months/years. Fortunately, I like this one.

Lord of the Rings Strategy game using miniatures

We went on Tuesday to the Games Workshop store at the "big mall" and spent about 2 hours learning what they needed to get started in this little adventure. Turns out it is not as simple as collecting the cards, reading the book and playing. They have to choose to be either good or evil, purchase armies and characters, put them together, paint them and THEN they can play. There is also some discussion about building a landscape area to play on and buildings and other objects to use to enhance the realism of their game.

I have not mentioned to my craft-hating children that the two hours they spent painting orcs and archers yesterday might have been considered somewhat artistic. I have also not mentioned that building a table, Helms Deep, a hobbit hole or any other landscape feature out of foam and cardboard could be considered somewhat creative. This could kill all of their fun.

Instead, I snapped photos of them painting their 75 little men and provided juice boxes and popcorn while they spent the better part of the last two days:


researching the game
figuring out how to afford the game
calculating who gets what army/pieces
reading the rule books
choosing paint colors
assembling the miniatures
priming them
painting them
playing the game
drawing ideas for a huge table and other landscape features
pricing materials for landscape stuff
hanging out with friends who were as engrossed as they were


Just too bad we only had time to fit in a little math and reading on the side. The boys are convinced that we are on "summer" schedule for school because we are down to only math and reading.

I think I will let them think that for a while longer.