Cowboys, Indians and Rubber Bands...

Sometimes the best games are the ones you didn't intend to play.  Ones with house rules; made up as you go along.

That was the case the other day when we got out the toy soldiers I got Edward for Christmas last year.  He had a set of game rules called War Pigs.  It's a simple table top game that uses toy soldiers as pieces.  The rules, as far as I read through them, looked pretty simple.  But we never quite got that far.

Edward started telling me about the games he'd set up on the floor in his room growing up, ones where he made up the rules as he went along.  There were two sides, with the furniture in the room acting as terrain.  The weapon of choice: a rubber band.  The winner was the last man standing.

Next thing we knew, we're off creating our own game.  

We each set up on one side of the table.  The trick was to knock over the other's soldiers with the rubber band, which was fired from a from an oversized tongue depressor with a notch cut in one end.  You couldn't fire from in front the chair, you had to be outside the edge of the table, winging the soldier didn't count he had to fall over, you could fire high or low, which ever worked.  We used candles, coasters and a rock for obstacles.  No figure could be completely hidden from your opponent.  

The first game we placed our guys on the table and merrily fired away.  The next two games we started further back and after 5 shots, you could move any piece the length of your firing stick.  The more figures left on the table, the easier it was to hit one, or two, with a single shot if you got lucky.  Half the time you hit the figure behind the one you were aiming at.  Sometimes you hit your own.  It all counted, if they were knocked over they were out of the game.  

We played for about 90 minutes.  We knelt, stooped, crouched and sat to get our shots.  Rubber bands ricocheted off the table, the candles and ourselves.  Nyala tried to help, but Mara wasn't all that interested.  

In the end we had a great time.  We packed up the toy soldiers and stuck the firing sticks in the bag, along with the rubber bands.  Next time we might play a variant of capture the flag, or seize the hilltop with soldiers flying everywhere. Who knows, maybe Custer will try his last stand again, only this time with slightly unconventional weapons.