It was probably about a year ago that Barrie, my younger daughter currently 9 years old, started to become interested in playing Memoir ‘44, a tactical combat board game about World War II. I don’t remember how it started. Maybe she saw me playing it with someone else. Anyway, occasionally I’d play it with her, choosing various scenarios depending on our mood, sometimes a scenario with tanks, sometimes a scenario on the beach, or something else. A couple of times, Barrie even played Memoir 44 with the 11 year old son of my wargaming buddy.

Of course, I have all the expansions to the game because I love the Commands & Colors system. At one point, then, Barrie noticed the Air Power expansion and wanted to try a game with that. I thought it probably a little advanced for her level of experience, but I made the following proposal: we’d start over with the first scenario (meant to be an introductory one) and work our way through the book one-by-one, in order. When we’d finished the scenarios that came with the base game, we’d start on the first expansion. In that way, we could build up our understanding of the game and the new units that come with the expansions, and at the same time make sure we hadn’t skipped any scenarios we might otherwise enjoy. She loved that idea, and that’s what we’ve been doing, with her 12-year-old sister Julia, over the last month-and-a-half.

Julia and I play as a team, always taking the Axis side. Barrie takes the Allies. We’ve been through nine scenarios so far. Usually we play a game Shabbat afternoon, but we’ve also played Shabbat at night, Sunday afternoon, and even a weekday night. One weekday when we were all home because of the weather, we played two scenarios back-to-back. We all have a fantastic time. Julia always rolls our dice, but together we choose cards. The wins have gone about 50 percent to us and 50 percent to Barrie.

I love playing games with my children.