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. 

Army Spotlight: Wellington at Waterloo

We have another Army Spotlight: Rob's British force, Wellington at Waterloo. This is a 28mm army used primarily for Black Powder games. Rob has both French and British Black Powder armies, but since his Brits are a frequent opponent of my own La Grande Division Fictive, I thought it best to spotlight his British force. I copied my unit stat cards from Rob's concept, his revised cards are included below as well. 

Rob has been kind enough to provide the text for the photos of his army below.

Rob:

My figures are a combination of Victrix, Perry, and Warlord. This whole 28mm Napoleonic thing started when I was at Historicon about 12 years ago and some vendor was selling Victrix infantry boxes for $20 a pop. I got 2 French and 2 British, which was basically half of each army.

Wellington and Uxbridge. I also have Picton from Waterloo, but he was a bastard and he doesn't have his proper uniform, so to hell with him. My other generals are named after fictional characters from the greatest wargaming website of the early 2000's: Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames Page

That's Lord Uxbridge in the blue. He's on the wrong horse, as I assembled my officers a little carelessly. I've always been fascinated by the story of his amputated leg.

Wellington and Colonel Bindon Mudd leading the 33rd Yorkshire. Wellington was accidentally glued to Uxbridge's horse, which is saddled with a Tiger Skin. I had assumed that Wellington would get the fancier saddle, but it turns out that Uxbridge was the saddle dandy.

Household Cavalry (Life Guards). When I started with the British, Perry wasn't making these in plastic, so I only bought the Hussars. It didn't take many battles before I realized that I needed them eventually. I originally intended to make them Horse Guards, but since my Hussars were already in blue I wanted the unit to stand out more and so chose the red-tunic'd Life Guards. 

Life Guards once more. I went ahead and decided to make them a unit of 12 mounted 3 per base on... 65mm I think? 70mm?... after I was unsatisfied with the previous cavalry mounted 2 per base on a 50mm. This configuration looks better on the table.

 

Perry Hussars. There's so much detail on these guys, which made them a pain to paint but they came out well. I have 3 units, 2 of 10 and 1 of 8. You need to look at the Shakos to differentiate them.

British foot artillery. British foot artillery from Victrix. Cheap plastic but sporting lots of detail. Love this kit. I prefer using 2 guns to represent a battery. If I had to do it again, I would probably mount these to smaller square bases, but I think they take up a more realistic amount of battlefield real estate this way. If I had my way, we would use three guns to represent the big Russian batteries.

Chosen men with a casualty marker. There were a couple of riflemen in each box of British infantry sprues from Perry, so of course I had to build the 95th. They are technically a little bit better than the standard rifle company in the rules, but I increased the points cost to bring them into line. I think there were a couple of casualty markers in each box of Perry Hussars. Very thoughtful of them! One of these days, I need to find an appropriate model for Sharpe.

69th South Lincolnshire, 1st (and only) battalion. Units on the British side are differentiated by the color of the collars and cuffs, and also the tunics of the drummers. Technically every battalion should have two flags (one regimental and one union jack). I was originally going to have 36-man units, but decided that was too many at 28mm scale, so the number of command figures got reallocated during painting.

This is the 33rd Yorkshire, 1st and 2nd Battalion. The flags are printed from an inkjet on thick resume paper, then put together with watered down PVA and worked into shape. I should technically paint the edges afterwards to hide the constructions, but that's too much work. The flags were printed from scans of the flags which came with the various kits from Victrix, Perry, & Warlord. Those were printed on glossy paper, however - that's why I did a scan and reprint on all of them.

Soldiers of the 4th King's Own, showing my desultory brushwork. I prime black, then undercoat the flesh brown, then build up a couple of layers of dry-brushed colors. The faces and hands get a flesh wash, then another highlight. It looks good from 3 ft away.

The 4th King's Own, 1st and 2nd Battalions.

Just enough detail on the paints. Bent and broken bayonets are a huge problem with all my Napoleonic figures. It's mostly the Victrix models, which are mostly in more dynamic poses designed for skirmished or single-base figures rather than ranked infantry. If I had to do it over, I would have stuck with the Perry figures.

A rifle skirmishing company from the 44th East Essex flank battalion is set up to screen 2 battalions of the Coldstream Guards. The 44th East Essex uniforms with their yellow collars and cuffs are featured heavily in the Sharpe's Rifles series.

1st and 2nd Battalions of the Coldstream Guards, being led by Major-General Tremorden Reddering. These are Warlord figures. Adding guard infantry to my Brits makes them much more competitive against the French.

Army Spotlight: La Grande Division Fictive

 This army came about in an interesting manner, at least to me. I never really wanted to build a Napoleonic army, especially 28mm. Too much work, and I wasn't keen on the obsessive uniform study. And it wasn't a period or war I particularly favored. But my son was in his late teens and interested enough that he bought the Waterloo - Black Powder 2nd Edition Starter Set and insisted I take over the French so he would have an opponent. If you are a father you know that you cannot pass up the chance to wargame with your son!

I am not normally a fan of the French, but I knew I had to find a way to make a French army intriguing to me. And that was when I recalled Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard. I immediately began rereading the series and hunting for the stories I hadn't yet read. This foolish French officer gave me the spark I needed. I decided my French army would be "fictitious", it would be commanded only by French commanders taken from literature. Further, it would primarily be cavalry, especially light cavalry. I knew they would mostly perform poorly on the battlefield, but they should be fairly fun to have charge about - quick to advance and quick to withdraw, but always filled with élan!

I soon became as obsessed with uniform details as I had feared! Of course, my figures are far from museum quality, and I didn't get all the details right. I tried to set a good impression viewed from 2-4 feet away. It took me several years as I am a slow painter, but here is La Grande Division Fictive, fresh from their first (marginal) victory!

The generals first. Aside from Gerard, I didn't try to match General figures to their appearances - too difficult. The commander of the division is General Calvet, from Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe series. 

I got these figures cheap at the Historicon flea market, they were a bit dented and bent. They looked familiar and some research revealed they were probably inspired by a painting of Marshal Joachim Murat - see the image below. I painted the figure to the left to match Murat as much as I could. The central figure on the black steed is based on another painting (see below) and the third I painted from imagination. Generally, during play, the brown horse represents Calvet, the black represents Feraud, and the white represents Chabert.

The Equestrian Portrait of Joachim Murat, King of Naples
by Antoine-Jean Gros likely inspired the sculptor
of the figures I use for some of my generals.

Death of Prince Poniatowski on October 19th. 1813 by Horace Vernet
I chose to model the colors for another of the general figures above. 
Since one of my infantry lines is Polish (see below) I chose a Polish Marshal who
fought for Napoleon to base the paint job on But usually the figures represents Brigadier Feraud. 

I tend to run the division with five small brigades now. first Brigadier Gerard's Brigade. 

I have painted Brigadier Gerard as an officer in 2nd Hussars – the Hussars of Chamborant.

He commands a squadron of hussars and a squadron of chasseurs à cheval.

 2nd Hussars led by Brigadier Gerard.

9th Chasseurs à Cheval

Next, another cavalry brigade. This one is commanded by Brigadier Gabriel Feraud from the movie The Duelists. He commands my heavy brigade, with a squadron of dragoons and another of chevaux leger lancer.

6th  Chevaux Leger Lancers

French Dragoons

The final cavalry brigade comprises two squadrons of chasseurs à cheval (see above for their stat card).

It is commanded by Brigadier Armand d'Hubert, also from the movie The Duelists.

15th Chasseurs à Cheval

2nd Chasseurs à Cheval

I wanted to emulate Napoleon's Grande Batterie tactic, so I created an artillery brigade of 3 horse artillery batteries. It is commanded by Colonel Hyacinthe Chabert from Honoré de Balzac's novella of the same name. 

Horse Artillery.

The final brigade is the only infantry brigade. It is commanded by Brigadier Guy Loup, also from from Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe series. He has a battalion of Light Line Infantry, and two line Battalions.

Brigadier Loup in front of some of his men. 

To differentiate between them, I use all grey greatcoats for the regular line infantry,
though I know the coats were more varied in reality. 

I use brown great coats for the Light Line infantry, seen here passing behind a cavalry screen.

One of my Line battalions are the Polish Vistula Legion.

So, that is La Grande Division Fictive!