The War on Christmas!

This post is a bit different, since it contains both an Army Spotlight and a battle report using that army.  I'll start with the battle report and then do the Army spotlight. 

On Boxing Day (26 December) this past year, I ran a "War on Christmas" scenario at the club. For the last few years I have tried to run holiday themed scenario games at the club for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. They have been pretty successful so far. Prior to this game, I generally ran The Silver Bayonet: A Wargame of Napoleonic Gothic Horror. That setting assumes that supernatural forces prowl about the edges of the Napoleonic battlefields, growing more powerful from the chaos and bloodshed. The setting is perfect for the holiday-themed games, and the scale is fairly small - 1:1 figure ratio, 28mm, with 4-10 figures per side. Follow the Silver Bayonet keyword to see posts with other holiday themed games. 

The Toy Soldier Battalion stands firm at the entrance to
the North Pole village.

The other end of the village is defended by Red Gnomes, Jack Frost,
 a squad of elves, and the Toy Cannon. 

However, the figures I had put together numbered far more then a dozen a side, so though I set this game in the Silver Bayonets setting, I used Blood & Bayonets, a larger scale Napoleonic warfare game, for the scenario. I thought it was a success, but will probably go back to a smaller scale Silver Bayonet game next year as it gives the more unique characters more of a chance to shine. 

The North Polar Bear and friend prowl the ruins of Santa's 
old hall, glaring at Ratmen lurking in the woods. 

Gnomes and Toy Soldiers move to stop the snowmen and 
Winterbolt, while on the other flank, the Ratmen advance
on gnomes and Christmas tree-ents. 

A band of Ratmen prepare to finish off a shaken band of Red Gnomes
while Jack Frost observes.

Winterbolt is destroyed but the Snowmen still attack!

The Christmas Tree-ents have just slain the Mouse King,
but a large band of Ratmen are out for revenge!

The scenario was fairly simply, Santa Claus was defending his village at the North Pole, with his defensive force of elves, gnomes, polar bears, and toy soldiers, while the "Hexan", or evil forces attempted to crush the Toy Maker and his followers, bring the world  into an even deeper gloom. The evil forces were led by Winterbolt (lifted from a Rankin/Bass cartoon) and the Mouse King (from The Nutcracker and the Mouse King). Their forces including Krampusse, snowmen, ratmen (Skaven figures), and goblins. It is basically a modified version of the “Assault the Town” scenario in the main Blood & Bayonets book, those who want to read the actual scenario and look at the stats I assigned to the various forces can download a pdf of the "War on Christmas" scenario. I just ask for feedback, whether you run it or just read it. 

The game went over fairly well, I think. Some of the players think it was unbalanced in favor of Santa's forces, but I believe that was a result of unfamiliarity with the Blood & Bayonet rules. I definitely plan to run the game again to see if it runs better with greater knowledge of the rules. 

The Army Spotlight is for the Christmas forces I have collected, built, and painted to run Christmas scenarios. Many, but not all of the figures are from War in Christmas Village, others come from holiday themed releases from Reaper. Others were 3D printed for me by club members, Chuck especially printed a ton of gnomes and some Christmas specific miniatures. He printed a lot of figures from the Lords of Wintervault collection. I also purchased Eureka Toy Town Soldiers, they seem to only be available outside the United States now, sadly. 

Our current abode is too small, but I hope to have a house someday where I can build a proper Christmas village and have these figures on display therein for each holiday season. I expect to try and build on this force. 

Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, Jolly Old Saint Nick

Bane Deer and Blitzen as a man-deer.

Winterbolt and Jack Frost

Frau Perchta and three Krampusse.

Santa and two reindeer.
One of my goals for this army is to acquire a Rudolph,
eight reindeer, and a proper sleigh. 

So, two of the snowmen are from War in Christmas Village,
and the broom wielder is a lucky find at Dollar General, repainted. 
Those three form the leadership, but I love the 23 snowmen I
made from scratch, especially their hats and
scarves (my wife helped with those). 

Here you see the snowmen "in progress" back in 2023.

Christmas elves!

Christmas Goblins! Along with Present Mimics!

Toy Soldiers on Parade!

The Nutcracker Prince, commander of the Toy Soldier Guard,
and the Toy Cannon and crew 

A Christmas Tree-ent, Winterbolt, and a Shaman Santa. 

Zombie Deer, Frau Perchta, and the Mouse King. 

Fearless Veteran, 2025

 Other Fearless Veteran tournaments are described here: 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.  

The 2025 SAG Fearless Veteran tournament was excellent. We had six participants, so three games for each of the three rounds, and everyone played a different opponent each game. 

As always, we were playing for the trophy, the winner's name on the Fearless Veteran plaque, and club bragging rights. But this year the trophy was the One Ring, since we were playing the 2024 edition of Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game!

For the tournament we played 500 point forces with any army list allowed, including "legacy" lists. Most of us used Table Top Admiral to build our lists. Each round was a different scenario from the main rulebook, Round 1: Domination, Round 2: Reconnoiter, and Round 3: To the Death! This provided a different challenge for each scneario, holding objectives, getting the table, and destroying enemy forces. We determined final tournament standings by 1. Win/loss record, 2. Points Earned, and 3. Points given up. 

Paul Westermeyer is our Fearless Veteran 2025!

Ken Jacobson presents Paul Westermeyer the One Ring trophy
as the Fearless Veteran of 2025.

1. Paul Westermeyer, Mirkwood Spiders, 2 wins, 1 loss, Pts for/against: 34/18

2. Ken Jacobson, Dale, 2 wins, 1 loss, Pts for/against: 32/14

3. Terrance Johnstone, Ugluk's Scouts, 2 wins, 1 loss, Pts for/against: 32/17

4. James Young, Wood Elves/Rangers of Mirkwood, 2 wins, 1 loss, Pts for/against: 29/21

5. Jake Nedza, Minas Tirith, 1 wins, 2 losses, Pts for/against: 18/39

6. Robert Kendzie, Riders of Rohan, 3 losses, Pts for/against: 5/41

Paul is the first non-repeat winner since 2021. 

Fearless Veterans to date:

2016 - Ken Jacobson  (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2017 - Wayne Wiltshire (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2018 - Wayne Wiltshire (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2021 - Michael Adkins (Kings of War, 2nd Edition)

2022 - Wayne Wiltshire (Bolt Action, 2nd Edition)

2023 - Ken Jacobson (Black Powder, 2nd Edition)

2024 - Michael Adkins (Knights and Terrors)

2025 - Paul Westermeyer (Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, 2024 Edition)

Hopefully, this will be the last time Fearless Veteran is played in December. We are going to schedule the 2026 tournament for March or April hoping to get better turn out with a less busy time of year.

Fearless Veteran, 2024

Other Fearless Veteran tournaments are described here: 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.  

The 2024 SAG Fearless Veteran tournament was a great time. Turn out was low again, but we did get 4 participants, the minimum number needed for our small, friendly, club tournaments, we could have handled 8 players total. 

This year we tried something new, the tournament game was Knights and Terrors (KATS), a fantasy miniature wargame that club member Jake Nedza is writing and developing. KATS is an army level high fantasy wargame which focuses on ease of play, tactical decision making, and broad support for your existing fantasy army. It uses armies painted and build for Warhammer or similar games and it has been reasonably popular in our club. We thought acting as a play-test tournament would help Jake out. 

As always, we were playing for the trophy, the winner's name on the Fearless Veteran plaque, and club bragging rights. 

Michael Adkins was again our Fearless Veteran!

1. Michael Adkins, 3-0

2. Paul Westermeyer, 2-1

3. Robert Kendzie, 1-2

4. Justin*/Jake Nedza, 0-3 

*Jake's friend Justin was only able to play a couple games then Jake stepped in. 

Fearless Veterans to date:

2016 - Ken Jacobson  (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2017 - Wayne Wiltshire (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2018 - Wayne Wiltshire (Flames of War, 3rd edition)

2021 - Michael Adkins (Kings of War, 2nd Edition)

2022 - Wayne Wiltshire (Bolt Action, 2nd Edition)

2023 - Ken Jacobson (Black Powder, 2nd Edition)

2024 - Michael Adkins (Knights and Terrors)

The 2025 Fearless Veteran tournament is this week, we will be playing Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. 

Hopefully, this will be the last time Fearless Veteran is played in December. We are going to schedule the 2026 tournament for March or April hoping to get better turn out with a less busy time of year. 

Some ship models

I'm going to try to get the SAG blog up and running again. I have some more club specific posts planned but here is a post to get things going. Cub members, if you have projects you'd like to highlight here, please let me know. 

I thought I would share pictures of some ships I finished scratch building during the recent furlough.

First, I built the Sea Ghost from U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. I've loved this ship and this module since I first had it as a kid. I started my current tabletop RPG campaign, Awakened Legends, with this module, and the players acquired the ship as their own. The campaign has been all about running classic modules for modern players, and we have moved on to an expedition to X1 The Isle of Dread . The players are using the Sea Ghost to get there. 

So, I wanted a model of the Sea Ghost, but I wanted to be able to handle scenes below decks as well. At first, I tried to find a way to #D print one, but the price was enormous and I couldn't find someone with the right sized printer. Then I had a spark of inspiration, when i came acorss a color set of deckplans for the ship online. Using those deckplans, a printer, and some foamcore & styrofoam, I was able to create my 3d Sea Ghost!

Here are some pictures of the ship in progress and the final version.

For the sides, I found some wooden building side images
and copy/pasted then printed the sheets. Much quicker then painting! 

Finished ship with a couple 28mm figures for scale. 

Showing the breakdown of the decks,
all glued to foam core.
Magnets hold the decks together in play.  

And a couple images of the ship in game play, attacked on the way to the Isle of Dread by sea creatures.

Next, a steam river boat, which is still lacking a name.

Back in 2002 at Gencon I ran a scenario I called “Mucking About the Swamp” using Space:1889 Soldier's Companion rules. It was a lot of fun, basically, a British scientific was trapped on an island in the Venusian swamps where they had been conducting an archaeological dig. The local lizardman tribes considered the stone circle on the island sacred ground and tried to kill the interlopers.

I've run it a few times since, and I've been revamping it ever since, wanting to add some elements to improve the scenario I completed one element during my recent furlough period - river gunboat! In "Mucking About the Swamp" it will be the relief force, coming to save the day. 🙂

It's scratch built around a "sushi take out boat" and I think it came out pretty decent. Far from perfect but pretty good for my skill set.

I worked on it sporadically for two years, so I've included the "during" images as well. The figures in the "finished" images are just some Napoleonic period British sailors I had nearby, included for scale. The various guns are magnetized so i can customize the weapon load out for each scenario. Should work on Venus, Earth (Khartoum?) or fit right in on the canals of Mars.