Season Wars 2023 - Once Upon a time under the Christmastree in the north

It's less than a week until Christmas, so it's about time to fight the annual 'season war'. Last year the 'Season Wars' was played with Thor Sheil's OMOK - One Man, One Knight free wargame rules, and 'The Ginger Bread Army' won the battle. 

The 'Ginger Bread Army' has hold the ground since then, but this year the 'Cookie Men Army' (called Gøttekællær in Norwegian) returns, trying to reclaim territory. The 'Ginger Bread Army' occupies 'Yule Village' beneath the Christmas tree, which they defend trying to avoid the new Circular Railroad Company to enter and cross through their precious little town. 

The white 'Cookie Men Army' decides to help the Railroad Company by fight the tan 'Ginger Bread Army' trying to force them to retreat so the Railroad Company can complete their Railroad and  at the same time let the 'Cookie Men' hold the ground this year.

For the battle this year I've decided to use another free wargame rules which you can download and readily play with your own miniatures. This years Season Wars will be played by the FUBAR free wargame rules. As my holidays armies are armed with swords, spears and bows I'll use FUBAR Medieval 2nd Edition. For FUBAR order-counters please see my review of FUBAR 4th edition. 

Since both the armies probably were 'Green' last year and gained some experience since then, I'll let both armies fight as 'Seasoned' according to the rules this year. Another lesson the white army learned last year, was to create warbands with similar weapons in each and not spred them out on all units.

The Battle

The white cookie men army rapidly gained the initiative and rushed to the battle with 2 of it's warbands. I'm not sure if the 3rd white warband actually was 'seasoned' as they hesitated to leave the safe train for 2 turns:

It seems like the Gingerbread army was taken by total surprise and was stunned by the white cookie men's advancement, and they didn't manage to take any initiative for several turns:

This gave the white cookie army the upper hand and they kept pushing. Finally their last warband found it safe to leave the train and join their fellows:

Not only did the white cookie men army have the leading initiative and drive in the battle, but their archers also seemed more skilled than their Gingerbread counterpart, almost annihilating a Gingerbread warband:

This left the Gingerbread army under pressure and it seems like they had no any other options than to counterstrike into a melee:

The white cookie archers were very effective and managed to make the rest of a Gingerbread warband retreat while they took out another enemy archer at the same time. This made a clear way for the white cookie men spear warband  to enter the battle...

...and engage outnumbered Gingerbread warbands. 

This started to take a toll at the Gingerbread army, which were starting to get outnumbered on the battlefield. The Gingerbread warband in the melee managed quite well though. -As did the white cookie men:

Now the distance was so close that the Gingerbread archers finally started to hit something:

-But too late. Soon they were assaulted and in a melee they could not win:

The only Gingerbread warband making to hold ground at this stage, was the swordfighters in the melee. As the other white cookie warbands defeated one Gingerbread warband after the other, they also entered the melee to fight the last Gingerbread unit:

The last Gingerbread knights were very brave and managed to hold the superior forces off for 2 more turns:

Slowly the last Gingerbread warband was halved in size, and was totally surrounded having no chance to win:

This made the White Cookie Men army win the Seasonal War this year after 12 turns and about 2 hours. Now they could finally enter the Yule Village and the Circular Railroad Company could lay the last track through the village and complete their railroad around the Christmastree. -Which is good as I wonder what rest of the family would have said if we didn't have a complete circuit under the tree ths year. Luckily the train was loaded with a tanker of Christmas Ale, so some celebration seemed to be in place:

Conclusion:

I've been doing a lot of model railway and garden railway stuff this autumn and winter, and not so much wargaming. Even if this wargame and scenario wasn't too serious I think it felt good finally doing some wargaming again. -Which again reminds me about not waiting too long to do another game. 

This post is not an ordinary game review as I usually does on other wargame rules, but I've noticed something about FUBAR Medieval 2nd Edition worth mentioning:

• In the rules firing ranges are given in inches an centimeters, whatever you prefer. But for all ranges from 8" and below, there are not exact compassion in centimeters, giving the cm much shorter range than inches.
• In this version of FUBAR unsaved hits are not taken as suppression. I don't know why not, but I think suppression is a nice game mechanic slowing down or pinning units or punishing units leaving members behind. Perhaps its omitted due to medieval tactics and warfare? Were they more likely to leave wounded behind? If you have any thoughts of this please comment in the comment section below.

With this I wish all fellow wargamers and their families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!