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. 

Castle Fier: The Graveyard

 A couple weeks ago, some members of our club started the Iron Keep campaign from The Silver Bayonet: The Carpathians: Castle Fier. I'm going to try to document the campaign here on the blog.

We currently have five players in the campaign. I am playing my French list, led by Brigadier Gerard. A relatively experienced list, led by the Brigadier. Of him, according to his creator, Arthur C. Doyle, "Napoléon on Gerard, “if he has the thickest head he also has the stoutest heart in my army.” The list has a junior officer, a sapper, an occultist, and the balance of the members are Dragoons (infantrymen). This list is the most experienced of the groups, having played through seven or eight of the missions in the main book already. 

Ren is playing Prussians, using the Northstar set (TSB006 - The Prussian Unit). Ken is playing an Austrian list, including a Dhampier and some Guards. Ken's list is comprised of spare figures, some kit-bashed, that I painted up to entice him to try the game. 😁 Rob is playing a British list, with some hussars. Eric is running a "deserter" list, utilizing figures from multiple nationalities and led, of course, by Sharpe's Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.

We played the first scenario, The Graveyard. With five players, we ended up playing the scenario three times. In the future, I would prefer that we play once, with all five players at once, I like the idea of that chaos... but if it fails maybe not. 

In all three games, the Tomb Wraith really intimidated the players, who generally found they had few weapons that could impact it. Also, an Undead Werewolf showed up in each game and did quite a bit of damage. The ghouls and revenants were mostly just obstacles, but the players were somewhat deadly to each other. 

Brigadier Gerard's group had the worst of it, the only leader to suffer a permanent wound - a leg wound. He has always been most effective on horseback, but since that isn't possible in future scenarios in this campaign it will be interesting to see how he does. 

Obadiah's deserters advance through the graveyard. For the first few games, we used a grass game mat which doesn't quite capture what the graveyard should look like. I wish I had put some castle walls around it.

The Tomb Wraith lurks near the central tomb, behind it you can see a clue marker, a discarded medieval helm.

A ghoul and an Undead Werewolf fight Rob's British force. 

The Tomb Wraith goes after the Prussian officer as he tries to escape the graveyard.

An Undead Werewolf circles Obadiah's beleaguered deserters.

Brigadier Gerard leads his dragoons in a dash from tombstone to tombstone as an 
undead werewolf attacks his occultist.

The French turn on the undead werewolf, saving the occultists even as the tomb wraith
and zombies come at them from all sides. 

The Prussians advance to sieze the spear, while Gerard an his men fight for their lives against
the undead werewolf, ghouls, and the Tomb Wraith. In this fight Gerard receives a permanent leg injury.

The scenario looks better on a stone courtyard, but still wish we had used some castle walls. Mounted this time (due to his leg), Brigadier Gerard and his dragoons face Ken's Austrians. 

Gerard and his men again face many undead foes as they try to fight their way to safety with the spear.
An undead werewolf to the left, a ghoul to the right, and the Tomb Wraith from their front, distracted from the nearer Austrian by a monster dice. 

I will to get some closeups of each warband and introduce them better in future posts. 

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.