2023 Christmas Game

Christmas Eve, 1942

The Germans have a vise-like grip on Europe with little signs of cracks in their defenses. They’ve made holiday present delivery nearly impossible with anti-aircraft guns firing at anything in the night sky. For obvious reasons, we can’t risk The Jolly Fat Man.

Our battalion is tasked with delivering presents to some isolated but occupied mountain villages. The children have had a terrible year under German occupation and we’re going to bring them a small spark of joy.  And by “bringing them a small spark of joy” we mean toys and killing Nazis.

Your platoon will be dropped South of Le Village Au-delà Des Pommes de Terre (a village in the alps between Italy and France)

Your mission:

• Eliminate and Infiltrate German defenses south of the village..
• Deliver the right present to the right recipient.
• Blow up the railway.
• Escape to the Extraction Zone.

If you miss the extraction flight, head south over the alps until you reach Italy. There you can make contact with Agent Dominick. The Reindeer cannot climb the hills of Italy, as you know.

You will each be given two spheres of Christmas Magic to assist you. Use them wisely. 

Good luck, and we’ll see you in the canteen for eggnog, post-mission.

Maj. Gen. Blitzen

Such was the set up for this year's Christmas day game for family and friends.

Players would each play a member of Santa's Animal Nighttime Tactical Assault Force (the acclaimed S.A.N.T.A. Force) - each worth 100 points in One Page Rules terms for Grimdark Future Firefight.

Of the three cats present, only Theoria was interested in helping.

The table layout. A tripod MG-42 team has the central hill, the others are held by bipod-mounted MGs.

Sam the Snowman is a North Pole operative deep undercover. Players can rendezvous with him for additional Christmas Magic.

By this point the PCs had handily eliminated the MG teams. Rat King (missing an ear) orders his Swarms forward

Rat Swarms engage a German infantry squad.

Rat King (foreground) makes contact with Sam the Snowman. Penguin thinks twice about standing in the road with a mobile MG barreling down towards it. 

One of the presents that had to be delivered.

Penguin trying to avoid the kublewagen's MG.

German reinforcements start to arrive.

Penguin takes out the driver and the kublewagen crashes and explodes,

Hedgehog is carrying the beacon and starts heading for the hill.

Owl targeted the NCO.

Beaver would single handedly destroy this tank. His chompers have a bite of AP4 and he tore it up like it was a tin can.

Hedgehog lit up the extraction beacon. The smoking SDK was thanks to team effort with Beaver delivering the final blow.

S.A.N.T.A. Force members made their way to the hill. The vehicle takes two turns to arrive.

Owl finished up some business first.

Extraction unit arrives and the party begins to climb in.

The pilot takes off under a hail of MG and rifle fire (the party's minis don't all physically fit, but in-game they had all boarded)

A completely successful mission!

****

For the third year running, I have run a game on Christmas for our family and friends. It is safe to say at this point that we have a tradition. And there is talk of someone else picking up the reigns for a Thanksgiving game next year (I run a game for our Family Fall Festival and Christmas, I need the break in between).

This year I wanted to make use of things I already had, rather than making or buying anything new - it seems a waste to make these things for a single game, never to see the light of day again. So, you may have recognized some of these things from previous games.

To add variety, I looked to the missions.

There were five presents, each to go to a different house. The present was an image representing the title of a Christmas song. Each building contained a piece of paper with the name of a song. The present had to be given to the house that matched. The song for each house could onl be revealted by a delivery attempt.

The images weren't difficult to decipher but some were just enough of a challenge to be entertaining. It also provided a challenge for the players, as quite often the player with a needed present was nowhere near the right house. Players could pass presents to other characters(owl for instance took one ,as he was faster and unhindered by terrain) but no animal could carry more than two presents, or one present and the extraction beacon.

One really game-y rule I put in place was that all player figures had to be beyond 18 inches from their baseline before any presents, but other than that, the players were free to handle the objectives in any order they desired.

To blow up the train tracks, the player had to roll a die, with the chance that it might not go off, or worse, it might be far bigger than expected. In the event, it only blew up what it was supposed to!

The first reinforcement (a single squad) arrived one turn after shooting started. No other reinforcements were set to arrive util turn 8. That gave the party 8 turns to take out three MG teams and a squad, and deliver presents, before the bulk of the German force arrived. 

Players were not required to contact Sam the Snowman, but if a player did, then Sam would give them a Christmas riddle to solve - a couple of them were math based, some were brain teasers. I let the whole party participate but only the player who met with Sam got the reward (two more Christmas Magic beads)

To avoid any kind of unfairness, I involved the players in the German reenforcement placement.

I indicated six spawn points on the table. On turn nine, Germans would arrive from two spawn points, for each of the next three rounds, but they could only arrive from a given spawn point one time. 

The players were asked to indicate which points were used for which turn, but they didn't know what would arrive. In the meantime, I had a list of order in which the reinforcements would arrive but no idea where each would come from. 

This worked out better than expected, with the party splitting up to deal with different threats before they decided on a plan for the extraction. 

Oh, one last thing, Christmas Magic. The player received two silver beads. They could be turned in for either:

• +2 to the current roll (even after the result was known)
• 1d3 wounds healed
• Force the enemy to re-roll

I wanted them to have interesting choices to make rather than specifying a particular effect. This is not dissimilar to Hero Points in FUBAR.

The game ran for a little over 3 hours of play time, with a break for dinner around the two-hour mark (We were supposed to be done BEFORE dinner, but there was some confusion and some people didn't arrive for two hours later than initially indicated). It seemed like everyone had a good time and with the exception of my son who was very tired by the end, everyone was engaged until the final flight back to the North Pole.

PSA: One Page Rules Patreon

When I was first trying to come up with a scenario for the annual Christmas game (this year is the third year!), I realized that I really needed to know what rules I was going to use, or I wouldn't be able to plan things outside of broad strokes.

Scene from tonight's playtest. Yes, that hedgehog did blow up that kubelwagen, with grenades and spells (it's a psykker/caster). 

We had a good bit of fun at this year's Family Fall Festival with One Page Rules Grim Dark Future: Firefight 

Everyone picked up the rules quickly and they could engage in some RPG-lite, have spotlight moments when their abilities made something cool happen, and they enjoyed discussing the tactics and how best to utilize special abilities to benefit the rest of the party.

So, it was a no-brainer really.

While I am happy to use the free force builders, and reskin things as needed, I learned that if you join the OPR patreon, you get access to the web app that you can use to build custom army lists. 

It is absolutely worth the price of admission ($5 USD/month and you can cancel anytime). There are other benefits too, like free copies of the full rulebooks (1 per month - which are available for sale on Wargamevault otherwise).

Each of the player character figures for the Christmas game is now stated out in a manner that makes them unique and reflects the type of animal they are.

You can even create your own custom weapons. For example, the beaver has "tail slap" as a close combat weapon. Much more evocative than "CCW" (close combat weapon).

I highly recommend joining the patreon if you enjoy the free OPR rules already and your toys aren't GW sci-fi or fantasy standards.

Completed: Nurgle's Rotters!

Over the weekend, I finished my Nurgle bloaters and pestigor, thus completing my Nurgle's Rotters team for Blitz Bowl. 

This time I was extra heavy on the dry brushing and very little additional highlighting was needed post-Strong Tone.

They still look dirty/grime-y as opposed to shadowy, but it fits their theme.

I'm rather pleased with the bruising.

And here is the complete team:

With only 6 figures, Blitz Bowl teams are a nice bite-sized project to take on. It's satisfying knowing the team is DONE. There are no more figures to add, no options to paint up (although I still have six on the sprue if I want to make a complete Blood Bowl team, but I don't. Yet.)

Two Sets of Rules, One Scenario.

I have been thinking a lot about 2024 "plans" and one of them is to do a very simple campaign set in the Lost World (formerly Venus, now Antarctica. The land itself really needs its own name used by the residents), featuring only on the fantasy/Ancients armies.

While I figure I will probably use One Hour Wargames (a mix of Ancients, Dark Ages, and Medieval troop types or the Fantasy Variant on Facebook), I do like The Portable Wargame Ancients rules and wanted to give them a go again.

The scenario is "An Unfortunate Oversight" from OHW. 

Both sides deployed by die roll. I would be rooting for the Bokrug Confederacy.

24" square playing area, 4" squares. Classic rulebook in the picture shot. Imagine there is a bridge across the river on the left.

Unfortunately, following the rules-as-written meant that, if I understood them correctly, crossing the ford would take two turns per unit. This created a massive bottleneck in a way the ford does not when using OHW. I mean, sure, it's a bottleneck, but not to the extent that it is in PW. Now, I could have attacked via the bridge (which was drying as I had made an impromptu bridge from popsicle sticks), but that doesn't mean that this isn't a problem.

If I were to use PW for this again, I'd either allow stacking in a space or remove the rule about stopping when crossing a river. The latter is most definitely the less impactful.

As it was, it was extremely difficult to get more than one unit across the river before the previous units had been eliminated. 

Not impossible mind you ...

But nothing was achieved in the event.

At the game's end, the lizards had been soundly defeated and were basically halted south of the river. Fine from a narrative perspective as it may be, it was frustrating to play.

Thankfully it was quick.

So, with glue on the new bridge mostly dry, I moved back to One Hour Wargames.

Playing area is 24" square. The grid is not being used except to denote the boundary of the playing area.

Deployment was similar but not identical - determined again by the roll of the die.

Once again rooting for the lizards, this time I decided to make a diversionary attack via the bridge.
 

That worked to at least tie up both my infantry unit and the Tanitian infantry holding the town.

On the right, unlike in the previous game, my army penetrated deep into the Tanitian territory. Although it had cost me a unit of skirmishers, my cavalry and a unit of infantry threatened the hill. 

I should note, I played my cavalry extremely cautiously. I didn't want them stuck in but rather to deliver the coup de grace. This may in fact be an obvious tactic to most anyone who reads this blog, but was news to me.

Crossing the bridge was NOT going well, but more units crossed via the ford and some effective skirmisher javelins and archers had helped whittle down the defenders.

Eventually the lizards were across on both sides, but lacked anything with any punch - only two archers and a skirmish unit remained, while the Tanitians had two infantry(one near elimination) and a skirmish unit (near elimination).

Momentum (turns) was running out but there was still a slim chance the Gokrug Confederacy could pull off a win.

Unfortunately (poor die rolling on my part), although they had managed to capture the town, the hill was still contested when their momentum ran out and the attack had to be called off.

Of course, being a wargamer, I played one more turn to see what would happen and the result was the lizards lost their skirmishers and were left with two units of archers. I stopped at that point - I was satisfied that the game had played out as it had and it had come to the last few turns.

One last note, I more-and-more like the way units become stuck in hand to hand, at least for Ancients and Medieval.

I know a lot of people don't like it, but I enjoy the way it makes the choice of when to engage meaningful. Admittedly a case could be made for a rout or morale check at least to break off, but since the strength points represent morale as well as casualties, I'm content to accept that everyone routs after 15 damage. Better or worse units can have more or fewer points to start as needed. 

Not pictured, I have also done some experiments with mixing Medieval units and Ancients units and the result has been most satisfactory. Expect to see Solis Nox make an appearance soon despite not having been included in my bins for my experiment.

Nurgle's Rotters Linemen

Earlier in the year I picked up a box of Nurgle's Rotters for Blitz Bowl - the box was damaged, so the price was well below retail and I couldn't pass it up. The figures inside were fine.

I made a mental commitment to get all of my Blitz Bowl teams assembled and painted this year (the two from the boxed game, and the Rotters). 

With time left in 2023 running out, the Nurgle linemen are ready to take the field

Their skin looks a little dirty as opposed to highlights/shadows but I am not going to correct it at this point. I tried a technique that was new to me (found on youtube) and it was a learning experience. Frankly, they look comparable to the ones I painted "the Citadel way" previously, with about 2/3rds the effort.

The technique, such as it is, involves using fairly bright colors for your base coats,then heavily dry brushing with an even brighter version of the color, before washing with a dark wash. The idea is that the wash will bring the bright colors down to a shade in the recesses, a middle tone in the middle areas, and the super bright highlights will wash down to a normal highlight color.

Indeed, it does work.

However, in many spots I did not dry brush heavily enough (that's the lesson learned), and so many of my highlights ended up too muted. I did touch the figures up and spot washed those areas i felt needed a highlight, but I'm not gong to redo the flesh to be less grimy looking. They're Nurgle's Rotters after all (even if you don't know who Nurgle is, Rotter tells you all you need to know).

I have three more Rotters to paint (two Bloaters and a Pestigor) and I'll probably use the same technique just for a consistent look for the team.

The bright green pools on the bases are supposed to be slime/nuclear waste-type stuff. It's just PVA mixed with some Moot Green (Citadel) and Lime Sherbert (Apple Barrel). It was then gloss varnished to give it a wet look. It looks a little more like spilled paint than I'd like but my son thought it was really cool, so that's good enough for me!

Some Things for Under the Christmas Tree

Despite having yet to plan the Christmas game for this year, I've been gathering up a plan for 2024!

While thinking over my collection and what kind of games I most enjoy playing, it dawned on me that  "games my son will play with me" top the list. Historical games have some appeal to him, especially if they involves tanks (Panzer Kids Deluxe for the win!), but it is sci-fi and fantasy that really capture his attention and enthusiasm.

I can't say I blame him - I was the same way at his age.

Last year, he did a book report on  Skavenslayer, and this year he did a report on Trollslayer. We've been playing Age of Fantasy: Skirmish lately - he's running an orc warband (Reaper Bones miniatures) through a very loose campaign  of the best-of-five variety. And, as I may have mentioned previously, we've been playing a b/x / 1e D&D mega-dungeon campaign since July - sometimes playing three or four times a week. He is also in a 5e D&D campaign as part of an after school club he is in, and in our family & friends 5e campaigns.

As much as he enjoys all of the fantasy settings and creatures, 40K lore has more or less taken over his life (thanks, YouTube). 

While he plays some of the video games, and has mods for other games that add 40K skins, he has not been particularly driven to play anything on the tabletop. Possibly in large part because I have nothing to entice him with - although we have on occasion raided his toy bins for Star Wars figures to use with Grim Dark Future : Firefight.

I have, then, after much deliberation, decided that 2024 will be the Year of Grimdark.

Although I got him a starter paint box with three Infernus space marines for his birthday, if I can get him to paint those three, it may be a miracle. So, it's safest to assume that all of the painting will fall to me.

In that case, I might as well acquire and paint figures I want to paint. 

However, I couldn't justify buying figures for myself - austerity measures and all that - EXCEPT, I realized if these are Christmas presents for myself and I cannot do anything with them until Christmas Day, AND i'm travel immediately after until New Year's Eve, they are really just 2024 purchases that arrived early.

"The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma." - Patrick Star

Here then are much of what will be 2024's painting queue and what will be waiting under the tree for me this year.

First up, Plague Marines / Death Guard:

My son loves Nurgle. I don't know why. I guess slime, snot, and disease are fun? 

In any case, I find the Plague Marine/ Death Guard compelling as figures - sort of Lovecraftian abominations.

These were acquired fully assembled and primed from Frontline Gaming - the neoprene mat people. They also, I have learned, do a brisk business in second-hand figures. The price was quite reasonable - less than the cost of a single box of the same figures shrink wrapped on the sprue and it saves me from having to decide on options which I couldn't care less about.

Next, Space Marine: The Board Game:

This is a Target exclusive. 

You get 22 Tyranids and a single space marine character, and some other stuff that might be handy(like the play mat) plus the game itself, for $39.99 usd.

The character figure will bulk out  my son's three Infernus (the ones he has yet to paint) to a 200+ point Grimdark Future : Firefight force. The 22 Tyranids will give us a similar point force, using about 15 of the models! 

My son tells me no one non-ironically likes Tyranids, but I do. I think they're cute. Especially in light of the Tiny Tyranid shorts on YouTube.

Finally, while there is a three Intercessor and paint starter box (which would bring the space marines up to 7 total figures), there is a better deal to be had with a used copy of Fireteam which also includes enough Necrons for yet another Grimdark Future: Firefight force, in addition to a whole separate board game that looks intriguing.

That order was just placed so it's on the way and I was too impatient to wait for it before I posted. 

Speaking of board games (how was that for a slick transition?) I also picked up Der Welterkrieg: The Italian Front. My son won't play this with me most likely, but that's fine - I bought it to play solitaire:

Picture from BoardGameGeek because I'm too lazy to walk to the back of the apartment to take a picture of my copy.

I haven't been this excited for my own Christmas presents in awhile!

One Hour Wargames: Static Defence, Somewhere in Italy, Spring 1917

Two battalions of Austrians supported by a field gun battery advanced on an Italian sector in the foothills of the Isonzo mountains. Ordered to hold both the hill and the town, the Italian commander split his force - an understrength battalion to hold the village, while two companies reenforced by a own field gun battery, would hold the hill. He opted to hold a rifle company and a squadron of Lancieri in reserve in the center.

The Austrians committed to taking the hill but advanced one column under cover of the woods which had somehow survived shelling. The Italian reserve rifles advanced to meet them, supported by a company from the village. Fierce fighting followed.

Meanwhile, the attack on the hill began to disintegrate under fire from the Italian battery and machine guns.

The Italians held their own in the woods, leaving the second wave of Austrian companies to dislodge them, while on their right, their fellows still comfortably held the hill.

The Lancieri waited patiently for their moment and then struck out in a thunderous charge!

Meanwhile the Austrians in the wood were crumbling engaged on two sides by Italain troops in close combat.

The Italians held the woods, the Lancieri drove off their opponents, but the Italian defenders on the hill had suffered under the relentless pressing surge of Austrians. 

With their attack dwindling, Austrian rifles entered and crossed through the trench to dislodge the field gun battery in a final mopping up operation. The Italain commander sent the Lancieri to support the town, in case of Austrian reinforcements, while a unit of Italian infantry made for the hill to aid in the fight for the trench.

To the surprise of all, the artillery crews drove off their attackers. With nothing left, the Austrians retreated behind their starting positions.

****

Rules were One Hour Wargames "Machine Age", with my modifications. Eight units per side didn't really extend the playing time but felt more substantial as a game than the usual six.

The playing area was 3' x 2' and never felt cramped nor too large for the size of the forces involved.

The Austrian plan was determined by die roll and the Italian distribution of troops was similarly randomized.

My rules modifications are working well, but I haven't tried playing any games set in the later years of the war, where Arditi and strumtruppen might appear. I'll have to give them a go soon to see if my modifications make them overpowered.

Battle of the Alps Squared

June 1940, the Italian army, ordered by the outsized ego of Il Duce - who was desperate to have a piece of France before Hitler had captured it all for himself -  trundled across the northern alpine border into France.

The stalwart defenders of ennui and champagne had expected as much and were dug in and ready.

The Italians used the woods to cover the left wing of their advance.

The French infantry were well dug-in and extricating them proved more difficult than discretely hiding ten pounds of good salami into your rucksack.

Calling a meeting of L3s with the FT17s a "tank duel" or a "clash of armor" stretches credulity. Let us say, they fired shots at each other while snacking on loaves of bread and drinking bottles of wine, with the wine merchants being the real winners, judging by the ineffectiveness of both sides.

Eventually the French armor, despite damage incurred from the Italian battery - drove back their Italian opposites - can you blame those poor Italian pilots? They only learned to drive the L3 a few days ago. 

It was all for naught, as they were just in time to find the Italian infantry had successfully captured the village. A halfhearted attempted to dislodge the Italians met with no success.

The French had run out of time and would have to fall back. Here is the battlefield at the end:

The scenario was "Late Arrivals", a favorite of mine from One Hour Wargames. It works equally well for Austrians streaming into Italy as it does for Italians invading France. The game lasted the OHW standard 15 turns. 

The rules were improvised, based on my own squad-per-base rules - a mash of Crossfire, Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit, and The Portable Wargame - but moved up a few levels of organization and no stacking allowed. I also used ideas borrowed from Ross Mac's Fast and Furious Fifties

Initially I thought of the units as companies of infantry, platoons of tanks, three or so guns, etc. 

However, while writing my narrative it didn't really seem to matter and I could just as easily think of them as battalions. I hear Memoir '44 is a bit like that - where the nominal scale changes based on the scenario? I don't know, I've never played it, but that's my understanding.

It seemed to work here at least.