The Christmas Game in Pictures

Moments after the message was received, North Pole commando teams contacted Allied HQ. A coordinated force consisting of units from the Pole, England and the Soviet Union parachuted in, north of the village.

The Allied and North Pole orders of battle:

• King Moonracer, Charlie (in the box), and the Cowboy on an Ostrich
• Rudolph, Coach, and Clarice
• Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble
• A team of British paratroopers led by a time traveling party goer (one of the players had brought a Lego figure of themselves thinking this was another brick game like I ran in October. It was not, but I saw no reason to squash his enthusiasm)
• A Soviet heavy-weapons team consisting of ATR and mortar.

Their objectives:

1. Blow up the sleigh so it doesn't fall into German hands
2. Find Santa
3. Find the Reindeer
4. Find the presents

Unfortunately, we were all too caught up in the action to get a proper set of pictures. You'll get the gist of things I think:

Note the MG team in the purple church. The black square is a patrol but the players don't know that - they just know something is moving around in the darkness and snow.

I did not anticipate the players taking control of the 88mm. I decided to allow it in the spirit of awesome and they had a blast. Pun intended.

Moonracer takes on the Stug and suffers a wound.
He fell off the table early in the game and that left his wings in this closed up look (see below for the full glory of his wings). He started life as a very plain Dollar Tree lion.

This was one of the few times the players looked in trouble. The Germans caught Rudolph in the open but were unable to wound him, only add shock tokens.

The sleigh is destroyed, and the village is in British hands. But they don't have time to stop. There's Germans to fight!

The Soviet ATR team racing to the bridge to get a shot at the now immobilized StuG.

Reinforcements finally arrive for the Germans - the dreaded SS - but they repeatedly failed to activate.

If you look middle-left, you'll see Rudolph being attacked by evil snowmen.

Snowmen are immune to everything except rocks and such. So, the player had to engage them via this target game. Every 20 points took out 1 snowman.

The ATR team arrived huffing and puffing and completely whiffed on the shot! No worries. The TNT was planted. And Yukon rescued Santa! Of course, by leaving the Bumple behind, the beast went into a rampage and attacked Charlie! (he escaped unharmed)

I just like this shot of the wounded Moonracer. (the red bead is a wound marker)

End game. The bridge blown, the StuG destroyed, Santa, the reindeer and the gifts accounted for.
It was running very late. The player who brought his Lego figure spent all of his hero points to cast a blast of Christmas Magic and convert the last objective marker into GOOD snowmen to attack the SS! It was brilliant and I was not about to say no.

The SS managed to defeat a few of the snow golems but were soon overwhelmed. 

Christmas was saved!

It was a resounding victory for the forces of good.

*******

The rules amalgamation worked OK but I think next time I'd just stick with one set or another.  That said, I played fast and loose within the constraints of the rules to allow the players to try to do whatever appealed to them. After all it was far from a serious game for serious wargamers.

I had other factions that didn't get picked - I was prepared to handle up to 8 players as you never know who might drop in. 

In the event, no one chose Sam the Snowman and I admit I was disappointed. No disrespect to Burl Ives, but his squad was way cooler. It consisted of some air dry clay rabbits and an air dry clay beaver that I made. The beaver's skills were that he could harvest trees and build defensive structures. Expect to see him appear in a game of my own because I think he's just awesome.

Moonracer in his glory, with the rabbits and the beaver.

Here is Moonracer in the early stages:

I had already started painting his mane at this point.

Had someone taken the elves, they could have planted tree turrets:

It was a lot of fun - and a lot of work to bring together and run (I had 6 players running 5 squads). All of the effort was absolutely worth it though, and I hope to make a Christmas game an annual tradition.