Snowball Fight Rules

 Snowball Fight Rules according to my scenario and interpreted by ChatGPT 

This is one of the (war-) game I had no idea I was going to play this year. When I ended up playing it so early on this year after all, it was because Alan at Duchy of Tradgardland played this game at New Year and urged others to try it out over the 'New Year'. I thought at least I could take a look at the rules as they're free, but actually nothing more as I didn't have any snowball-fighters for such a game. Alan suggested that I could make some by using ChatGPT to generate some images for some useful paper-miniatures. Another alternative for me could simply be to 3D-print some off course, as I'm already 3D-printing some few new miniatures for some other coming wargaming projects. First of all I went over to Mark at the Man of Tin-blog to have a look at the actual rules for this game. They seems very fast to learn and easy to play and I didn't need more than about 4 miniatures each side, so I decided to see this as another challenge and 'give them a go'.

Preparing the game

I've played with the idea to do a 'non-lethal' wargame with Army Men ever since I discussed 'non lethal wargaming' in the comment-section with Mark. And if I was to try it I considered to arrange this as a classic 'snowball fight'. So firstly I needed to get some snowball-fighters, as I didn't have any.  I see that Mark at Man of Tinblog have used hand-grenade throwers in his 'Snowball Fights'. I think the hand-grenade thrower from my Matchbox knock-offs army men are one of the most useless poses for wargaming purposes as he has no rifle or sidearm (I think North Koreans were the only ones going to battle only armed with hand grenades), and think this pose will be very suitable for a snowball-throwing soldier. When looking through my stocks of available Army Men I didn't find many 'grenade-throwers' left as I've used most of them for creating Fog of war Ghost units or medics.

This photo is not mine, but it shows that's others too consider this pose as usable for a 'army men medic'

I found a free STL-file that could be 3D-printed on Thingiverse of a low resolution/crude 'Grenade Snowball-thrower' of a similar type:

Courtesy of Thingiverse and the creator. This figure is made to 54mm in the file.

To 3D-print and paint 8 54mm scale figures would be time-consuming, so I considered to re-scale the miniatures and print them to a smaller scale. Another thing that would take a lot of time was to make a suitable winter scenery and a suitable 'battleground' for a snowball-fight, It would be nice to play this game outside in the snow too, but the snow are disappearing rapidly now so playing it outside was not an option anymore. I made some suitable winter-spruces earlier this winter (actually designed for wargaming), but these were already glued down on my 'Christmas Layout'. Earlier this winter Michael at Wargaming with 54mm Toy Soldiers blog asked in the comment section in one of my blog-posts if I had sought for a method for combining my wargaming hobby with my model railway hobby, and suggested that the mentioned threes were multi-scaled and perhaps a starter (?).  -Well, What a splendid idea!! I could arrange a snowball fight with the 'Snowball Fight rules on my 'Christmas Layout' in 1:87 scale (H0e - narrow gauge).

I 3D-printed the originally 54mm scale grenade/snowball-thrower to 1:87 (H0) scale (19mm tall) to see if it was possible to reduce the file so much, and if so, see if was possible to print it on my filament-printer and get a decent result as well.

The slightly 'smaller than 54mm' Matchbox knock-off as a comparison next to my 1:87 scale one

His details are a little 'blurry' as the STL-file he's printed from is so too. It's clearly what pose this is and what he's doing. -Besides in this small scale it won't be too notable anyway as soon as it's painted. 

I think the result was good enough, so I decided to 3D-print 8 such army men in H0-scale. To get some slight variation to them I printed 4 regular ones, and 4 mirror-imaged. I guess those are the 'links shooters'. 

I added some new bases to them as well. Snow on the bases and snowballs are made with thick 'snow paint' from the craft shop which are on sale now

I also printed a couple of M29 Weasels which could serve as a 'HQ' for each side according to the rules.

The Christmas, Pizza Layout which I intended to use as a battleground for this wargame, is actually arranged like an Advent Wreath with 4 candles. They would look out of place now, so I made up and 3D-printed some trees that could replace the candles. It also makes the model railway look more like a layout.

Since everything was scaled down, I replaced the 'lollystick' measurer in the rules with a match. -Which I had several leftovers after emptying a matchbox to join the 'Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge', so the ranges would match (no pun intended) the size of battlefield/scenery and scale.

The scenario

This 'Snowball-fight' take places in 1960 during the Norwegian winter exercise "Blefjell-60". A reconnaissance patrol from "Team Red" are about to enter the small junction of "Svingen" from east with their M29 Weasel, at  the very same time as a reconnaissance patrol from "Team Blue" arrives "Svingen" from west (also in a Weasel):

There are no "battle referees" present to "judge" the highly unofficial battle in this small clash, so both patrols sees an opportunity; After a week of exercising their boxes of MREs are out of 'exotic meals' so both patrols decides to raid the "enemy's" Weasel and steal their rations of MREs to see if they have more exciting rations left. Since guns with "blanks" won't do in this battle, perhaps snowballs will.

Snowball-fighters hit twice must return to their vehicles where they have their medical kit to patch up for 2 turns. The optional rule for frozen fingers are not an issue, as these soldiers are equipped for Arctic warfare.

Forces:

• Team Blue (are usually just "unmarked"):

The 4 team members of Team Blue, their M29 Weasel "HQ", the cardboard box with MREs and the big snowballs are only activation tokens

• Team Red:

The 4 members of Team Red, their M29 Weasel "HQ", the cardboard box with MREs and 4 giant snowballs as activation tokens

Mission:

• Both teams will try to get by another and get to the 'enemy's' M29 Weasel and steal their box of MREs and bring it back to their own.
• Team Red will let 2 members advance along 2 flanks each.
• Team Blue will let one member defend their M29 Weasel, and let 3 members advance along 2 flanks; 2 in front of the station and 1 behind.

The Game

Time:    2 hours and 15 minutes

Turns:   33 (!)

Result:  We might call this a Draw

The mini-dice I used for 'hit stats' wasn't very 'mini' anymore compared to my H0 miniatures (the track gauge is 9mm). The Blue got the initiative first, and started to advance towards 'Reds':

The Read team couldn't see any from the Blue team yet, and started their advance along 2 flanks:

When reaching the station building at "Svingen" the Blue team could see that the 'Reds' were approaching, and took cover behind the corners and some nearby vegetation:

The Blues tried to surprise the advancing Reds with an ambush. The range was a little too long to give the really moment of surprise as the Blue team missed:

The Reds returned 'fire', and soon there was a heavy snowball fight going on:

And it looks like the Reds were a little bit better "throwers" than Blue:

Throwing more accurate and longer gave the Reds the initiative in the snowball fight:

Which let the Reds keep pushing the Blues back:

Hit! The Blue team-member must return to his Weasel to get the first aid kit:

The Reds team keeps pushing the Blues back...

...But Blue team does not easily gives up their base and cardbox of MREs:

And a fierce snowball fight take place just outside the 'Blue base':

Having a team-member to defend their base was clever. He managed to avoid letting members from the Red team enter their base:

And soon both the Red team members are driven on retreat:

The Blue team decides to use the Red retreat to regain the initiative in the battle and make an assault on the 'Red base':

The Blues meets a single Red in the woods...

...but the Red is chanceless and soon he's retreating as well:

Now the battle had developed to "a Race" to reach the Red base first:

And it looks like members from the Blue team is about to win this "Race":

The single Red soldier at the Red base has just patched up, and are taken by surprise by 2 Blue team-members, and their snowball assault is massive:

This enables one of the Blue team-members to make a run for it and enter the 'Red base' and grab that cardboard box of MREs:

By this time I had to fight his way out of the base too:

But he succeeds and keep on running with the box:

Can this become a 'Home Run' for the Blues? The Reds hurries up to patch up and go into battle again:

And they shoots the Blue team-member with the box in the back and he drops it:

Now the Reds are in the initiative again:

And they tries to use the Blues failed assault to race back to the Blue base:

But the Blue Team are putting up a defense line...

...and are ready to fight for their box of cardboard:

A heavy snowball fight evolves...

...and soon it's an inferno of hailing snowballs:

The Blue team manage to stop the Red offensive...

...and make the Read team retreat a second time:

This snowball fight just seems to wage back and forth, so while driven the 'Reds' off and holding their ground, The Blue team decides to embark their vehicle and leave:

Pros

• The rules are free.
• The rules are very fast to learn and easy to play.
• It's a non-lethal wargame.

Cons

• This cons is not really a cons on the rules them selves. I just didn't find any information about the turn sequence in link to the rules initially provided by Alan. I found it when I searched in older blogger-posts by Mark on Man of Tin blog, and through the development of these rules though: Turn sequence is to roll for initiative, side A moves, side B moves, side A throws snowballs and then side B throws.

Conclusion

While I've been working on this project with making miniatures, terrain, painting them, and struggling to get ChatGPT to make the images I'm asking for, Mark at Tinblog have also been working on a soldier themed snowball fight. It's been very interesting and motivating to follow his work with his WW1 snowball fight with classic toy soldiers. Any similarities are not intentional from my side (as I've been working on this project for about a month now).

To have them readily available and make it easier to play, I copied the rules from Mark's blog, pasted them into a 'Word document' and printed them. Here is a link to the rules I printed.

This 'challenge' led me into combining 2 of my hobbies; model railways and wargaming. It also led me into wargaming in H0 scale (1:87), and I think this must be a seldom combination, if ever done before (?). So small miniatures in small fragile fixed terrain was an fiddly experience. I won't exclude the idea that I'll do it again, and will add another label for this.

Thanks to Mark for the idea of 'non lethal' wargaming and the rules, and to Alan for suggesting to play them this year. It kinda felt more relaxing to do a 'non lethal' wargame for a change. So I'll second Alan on this: "Go on give them a go".

Frost and Fire - Intersection of Chaos

I suppose if this narrative wargame was told as a 'cartoon' this is what the magazine cover probably would look like. It gives a slight 'Commando' resemblance to it. We had a similar magazine in Norway called 'Kamp Serien' and I think it was identical just translated. I'll try out similar 'covers' that also gives an idea of what kind of post it is in some coming blogger-posts. Please tell me in the comment-section what you think of them. The image is created with help from ChatGPT, which also suggested a catching name of the game.

As you can see in my previous post, we have some snow in Norway at the moment. But a few days with rain and mild weather drastically reduces the quantity of it. So if I wanted to do some more activities in the snow I was in a hurry.  Last year I brought some miniatures outside for a lit Mike and his day out tle wargame in the snow. It was a great day out and it actually was so successful that I wanted to repeat it this year as well as I got very inspired by Mike and his day out. - But with another scenario though. These days it's 80 year since the 'Battle of the Bulge' ended, so I've made a scenario for a little skirmish in the Ardennes January '45. 

The Rules

Since it's been a while since I've played One Man, One Gun (OMOG) rules by the late Thor Sheil, I initially wanted to use these rules for this little skirmish. Especially since the quick reference sheets created by Steve Snark (which can be downloaded from the OMOG Facebook group's files section) would be easy and quick to use outside. But, since OMOG rules uses templates for automatic weapons and heavy support weapons I would have to cut these templates out of paper, which again will not work very well in the wet snow. So I decided to use another set of free wargame rules for small infantry wargames which is very similar to the OMOG in many ways (except for SMGs); 1BC (Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules by Pete Kautz. I often keeps returning to these rules as their one of my favorites. I've made a new one page QRS of them, so it would be easier to bring them outside. Here is a direct link to them if you're interested to try them out your self:

The Scenario

An american rifle squad of 8 are holding and securing a small road cross some few kilometers North East of Diekirch. The road cross is important for the Allies for the planned and coming counter attack. The Germans are still trying to push westwards in their ongoing offensive and need to take the road cross to secure access for German forces to take Diekirch. A German SS squad of 9 are given the mission to take and hold the crossroad.

Forces:

• US: The American Infantry squad have 8 members and fight as 2 fireteams of 4 each. One of the fireteams has a stationary HMG on their M29 Weasel. I know the 1BC rules doesn't include vehicles, but in this game they only serve as cover and a mount for the HMG. The Americans are partially dug into foxholes.

• German: The SS squad fight as 2 fireteams; a Rifleteam of 6 and LMG-team of 3. They will fight hand to hand combat as 'Elite'. The German squad was based upon graphics from Battle Order (which is a good website for references when building your army squad by squad).

Mission:

• US: To hold the crossroad.
• German: To take the crossroad

The Game

Time:    35 minutes

Turns:   8

Result:  American victory

The German LMG team makes  a go for it and run across the road to advance through the wood on the other side of the road and eventually give fire support for the rifle team. Even if they moves fast, they're spotted by an american guard overwatching the road-cross with a HMG. The G.I. immediately opens fire and alarms the rest of his squad. He hits and kills the team-leader, but the rest of the LMG team managed to get across and into the cover of the woods (and out of sight for now):

The rest of the American squad gets out of their tents and run into their foxholes or behind cover of their vehicles. They cant't see any Germans at the moment, so they're overwatching the situation:

The German rifle team advance through the wood, as the German LMG-team advance through the wood on the other side of the road:

When the German LMG-team gets into position they prepare to give fire-support for the advancing rifle-team and opens fire. -So does the American .50 Cal, and a heavy firefight evolves.

When the German rifle-team hears that their LMG-team is opening fire, they leaps into cover and open fire on the Americans:

Maybe the Germans was a little too hasty into the situation, because they didn't hit much. The Americans returned fire now as they got their opponents in sight at the edge of the wood:

And it looks like the Americans are more accurate, and their firepower temporarily puts a couple of Germans out of battle:

The gunner gives his 'Ma Deuce' 'full throttle' and finish of the German LMG-team on the other side of the road. Now he turns his M2 to the left to the woods where the German rifle-team is:

Without their LMG-team to give fire-support this does not look good for the German team, and their advance comes to a halt and they're stopping up to exchange fire with the American forces for several turns. Even if they manage to hit and kill one of them, they don't get the initiative in the battle or manage to poke a hole in the American lines for an assault:

The American HMG are pounding the German positions...

...and so are the American rifle-team. It's starting to take a toll on the German rifle-team, and they suffer heavy casualties. To take this road cross seems no longer to be possible for them:

When finally there is only one German rifleman and the squad-leder left, an American bullet hits the squad-leader and injures him:

The last German rifleman standing decides to help his Feldwbel and evacuate him out of the battle zone.

With only one casualty, this was a victory for the American squad as they manage to stop the German attack and making them retreat. Still holding this road cross will make it possible for the coming Allied offensive to drive the remaining German forces out of the Ardennes Forrest.

Conclusion

This was another great day out in the snow (while we still has it). This was also an opportunity to use my 'mini' foldable dice-tower (which I made for wargaming outside):

Even if the snow is disappearing it's still 'cold' outside, so I decided to warm myself and celebrate the 'victory' with a cup of 'Glühwein'.

Murphy's Law strikes again; The day after my wargame we had a suddenly return of the winter here in Norway and my "Ardennes Forrest" looking like this:

A couple of sites of interest I recommend you to visit

When you're browsing around the internet you sometimes finds new sites or blogs of interest. I recently found a couple of 'new' blogs, or they are actually not new, but they were new to me and I would like to share them with you.

Sidetracked

If not into both hobbies I've at least got an impression of a number of wargamers are also shows some interests in model railways too. Some even writes a blog on their different interests and not all 'mix them together' in one blog as me. Some are tidier and keeps separate blogs for each subject, and one such blog I recently found was by Mark of the well known 'Man of Tin blog', He also have a blog called Sidetracked, and it surely got me sidetracked for a while. It focuses on the overlap between wargaming and the word of model railways. It also feature old articles from magazines from the time before everything got glossed pages showing layouts usually just built from professionals. I recommend you to visit Mark at Sidetracked:

Kev's Hobby Site

I actually found Kevin's blog through Mark's Sidetracked blog, as it contained information about model railways and wargames. It seems like some of the model railway content is removed (due to inactive links), but he regularly updates on on wargaming on games with West End Games Star Wars Miniatures. Pay him a visit and look at his blog; Kev's Hobby Site. He's developed own rules for his West End Star Wars':

I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I did.

Season’s First Run in the Garden: Embracing Winter’s Chill and the Fascination of Military Trains in Snow

It's never too early to kick off the 'Garden Railway season', besides it's fascinating to watch trains run in snow. One of the members in our  model railway club recently invited to the first running-session for 2025 in his garden. It was about -8°C so the tracks was a little icey, so due to weight and inclines on the line no long rakes were running. I brought a short WW2 German Heeresfeldbahn train with a winter theme. Here are some impressions from our first and a little cold day out in the snow:

Heine had already cleared the line for snow, so my new snow plow was just for 'decoration'. 

A friend's Br 80 'Standard Gauge' German steam locomotive

My military Narrow Gauge (NG) train pass the Standard Gauge train in the loop. They share the same gauge of 45mm in model, so their scale is different. The Narrow Gauge model is 1:19 and the Standard Gauge about 1:29

Another friend scratch built this maintenance of way trolley. It has a lot of functions and is a masterpiece!

It was heavy traffic on the line, so the passing loops became handy

Both models from Rätische Bahn in Switzerland.

Same type of Diesel as above but this time in a German DB livery. 

There was even one live steam locomotive in action today. It has a vertical boiler and is a peculiar thing.

An Austrian locomotive ready to hit the snow.

My NG Heeresfeldbahn with a short rake

It was cold and it was nice to stand by the brazier when the trains were running by (you can't almost even see it). 

"Hot dog" and "Hot dogs". Tyra also liked to stay close to the brazier... (I wonder why)

My "train" is loaded with...

About a year ago I made some winter themed loads for my German Heeresfeldbahn. I added a couple of reindeers in one load to pull the sleight in another load (as such eqipages were used by German forces on the Eastern Front during WW2). I bought the reindeers in a toy shop as they looked good. When putting them in a rail car it didn't look right. -They were too big. In compassion they were about the size of a moose, and in reality reindeers are a lot smaller. Later I found another reindeer from Schleich in another toy store and it looked smaller, and I replaced it with my 'giants'. - Only to find out that despite being a little bit smaller, it was still too big for a reindeer ræthis scale. So this year I 3D-printed a reindeer about the right size for my trains:

The original 'reindeer-mooses' top left, was replaced with the one at top right. It looked a little better, but it was still too large. The one I 3D-printed is actually a Christmas decoration, but I think it looks better than it's larger counterparts.

I've read somewhere that Jägermeister was popular and common among German soldiers on the Eastern Front due to not only being alcoholic off course, but also for it's herbs (which were supposed to be good for health). Last year I made some crates which could hold small bottles of Jägermeister, as it would kind of fit the theme of my German WW2 winter-train. I usually gives my friend a gift for letting us running trains on his garden railway (27 meetings just last year). -So today my train finally, after som circuits on his garden railway, arrived the destination with this valuable load to it's recipient: 

Thank you for inviting us to run trains on your garden railway and for your hospitality, Heine!!