Son just getting started, learning to play

[jbcmarine]

My son is 7 and is just learning to play, and I have a couple of questions that i can't seem to find in the rule guides online:

1. If you have 2 energy cards attached to an active Pokemon, and you retreat him, do you have to use another Energy card and then discard it, use one of the 2 (or whatever the retreat value is) and discard it, or do you have to discard any of the enegry cards at all?
2. I still don't seem to understand the Damage Counters and how they relate to attack points, can anyone describe that a little better?
3. Can you only attack an opponents defending Pokemon? Or can you attack their bench as well?
4. When attacking, once you have the required Energy cards required for the attack, you don't have to discard the Enegry cards after each attack, their good for as long as the Pokemon isn't knocked out, correct?

I appreciate any help anyone can offer, our first game we tried to play we kind of just made our own rules up as went...it was quite interesting to say the least to let a 7 year old design the rules! :)

Thank you in advance. - jbcmarine

 

[Cipher 2008]

My son is 7 and is just learning to play, and I have a couple of questions that i can't seem to find in the rule guides online:

1. If you have 2 energy cards attached to an active Pokemon, and you retreat him, do you have to use another Energy card and then discard it, use one of the 2 (or whatever the retreat value is) and discard it, or do you have to discard any of the enegry cards at all?
2. I still don't seem to understand the Damage Counters and how they relate to attack points, can anyone describe that a little better?
3. Can you only attack an opponents defending Pokemon? Or can you attack their bench as well?
4. When attacking, once you have the required Energy cards required for the attack, you don't have to discard the Enegry cards after each attack, their good for as long as the Pokemon isn't knocked out, correct?

I appreciate any help anyone can offer, our first game we tried to play we kind of just made our own rules up as went...it was quite interesting to say the least to let a 7 year old design the rules! :)

Thank you in advance. - jbcmarine

1. You have to discard the Energy already attached to the Pokémon that is retreating. If you don't have enough Energy, you can't retreat.
2. One damage counter is equal to 10 damage points.
3. Unless an attack says something like "Choose one of your opponent's Benched Pokémon", you can only attack the Defending Pokémon.
4. Correct - as long as the attack doesn't tell you to discard them.

Might I draw your attention to something here:

https://www.go-pokemon.com/tcg/howtoplay/ (Official website)

That place has basic rules, information on card anatomy, and a fun interactive demo. That'll help both you and your son to learn. :)

 

[Geometric-sama]

And another point to note on #1 - you just need to discard that much Energy, not that many Energy cards. Some Special Energy cards count for 2 or 3 Energy. For example, if you have a Double Rainbow Energy and a Lightning Energy on a Pokémon that has a Retreat Cost of 2, you only need to discard the DRE, not both. But beware, you have to discard cards one at a time - if you discard the Lightning Energy first, you'll have to discard the DRE too to make up the cost, no matter whether you go over by doing that.