Holiday Wars

Holiday Wars

Many games claims to be 'Beer and Pretzels games', but with this theme I think this is a 'Chrismas brew and cookie game'

After doing the same scenario and setup several times this year to try out different free downloadable, easy wargame rules for regular army men, I felt it was time to do something else. Since the Holidays was coming up, I decided to to a 'Holiday-themed' game this time.

Creating armies for the game

A new theme, scenario and 'period' meant that new armies needed to be created.  I decided I wanted to make them to 'true 54mm scale'. To find suitable miniatures I searched on Thingiverse, where I actually found some free downloadable files that could be 3D-printed. I rescaled them so they cold be printed to exact 54mm-scale:

These figures are 3D-printed to exactly 54mm height

The paintjob didn't require much studies, except for in the Mrs' cookie jar, and the paint-sceme was pretty easy as well.

Classical gingerbread man

It takes at least 2 armies to create a battle, so I needed to find some suitable oposing forces for my new army. That wasn't very difficult either as there is a typical old Norwegian Christmas baking called 'Hvite Kakemenn' and translate into something like 'White Cookie Men'. They are made by wheat flour, butter, milk and sugar and deviate from Gingerbread men by being white or very light in color, usually with red 'trimmings'.

'Hvit kakemann' aka '(white) cookie man

And some 30+ hours later, I had 18 printed troopers, enough for two small armies; The Gingerbred Men Vs. The Cookie Men. Now I needed to paint them and decide a scenario and which rules to use.

The Gingerbread Army

The Cookie men army

The Rules

I've been playing a lot of different free wargame rules this year, and they all have different pros and cons. After playing Thor Sheil's OMOG - One Man, One Gun wargame, I concluded that this was probably a better ruleset for smaller gaming tables and scenarioes, for periods not including automatic weapons (and templates). One of the pros for this game was that Thor Sheil designed it for a lot of different periods, including ancient and medieval. I think OMOK - One Man, One Knight would be suitable for my tabletop Holiday Wars as my cookie-troopers are armed with swords, polearms and bows. Steve Snark has made a quick reference sheet to this game, which could be found in the file-section in the Facebook-group Shambattle and OMOG Toy Soldier Games.

The Battle

The Gingerbread-Army and The Cookie Men-Army both wants to be this year's favourite cookie, and the best way to do that is to take the cookie jar and fill it up with them self. On their way to the cookie jar, they meet the other cookie-army on the table. Only the victorious army will have the cookie jar...

The battlefield, and their aimed goals in the background

The Gingerbread army had arranged their different weapons in own units, while the cookie men had units with all the weapons in it. Which would be best in the first 'clash'?

The Gingerbread army made a successful polearm charge, and almost whiped out a cookie unit.
At the same time the Gingerbread archers almost managed to do the same by accurate fire.

...So in hand to hand combat the cookie man didn't have a chance against the 3 archers even being armed with a +1 pole

Despite having more armour with chainmail and a shield, the cookie man didn't have a chance against 2 from the Gingerbread army. The cookie-unit in the rear tried to come to his relief, but was too late...

...and got caught and surrounded in a melee they were quickly outnumbered in. The Outcome was given... 

After 6 turns and 30 minutes, 5 members from the Gingerbread army could claim the victory...

...and enter the cookie jar without competition of other cookie (-men).

The Conclusion

OMOK - One Man, One Knight by Thor Sheil works really well for such small battles with limited of ranged weapons and more melee. It looks like it is an advantage to arrange units with the same kind of weapons to gain more 'fire power', than to make a unit which contain some of all the weapons but in less numbers.

To all fellow wargamers out there; enjoy the rest of the Holidays and I wish you all a Happy New Year!!