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!!

Big 'small military trains' in the snow yesterday - Small 'big military trains' in the snow today

Yesterday I visited a friend and his garden for his annual 'Chistmas run-in', and for the occasion I had prepared my military trains for winter service.

As people starts to prepare for Christmas these days heritage Railways often invites to different "Christmas Trains"  and "Santa Specials". Today a heritage industrial narrow gauge railway , which collects different 600mm rollingstock from all over Norway, invited to such a "Santa Special", and I decided to take my youngest son there as he loves both trains and Christmas.

The narrow gauge railway is called Lommedalsbanen, and they have not only collected stock from pure industrial railways, but from different Norwegian military narrow gauge lines as well. Some of them were running today.

This locomotive was in service with the Norwegian Navy at a an armament depot just across the fjord from where I live. It was probably brought to Norway by German forces during WWII.

A locomotive of the same type has been in service on a coastal fortress in the southern region of Norway.

This is a postwar locomotive which were in service on the same naval armament depot as the one above. I think it was in service until about 1990.

In the shed at a distance I got a brief glimse of this one; A German WWII narrow gauge locomotive which was used on another naval armament depot in the middle region of Norway.

That armament depot is long gone, but I visited it last summer during a motorcycle-tour in the district, and found some few traces of the railway there

At Lommedalsbanen they hava also collected some naval rollingstock with propper loads as torpedoes and mines. It's not very easy to see them now when they're covered in snow.

The 'Up' meets the 'Down'

Another locomotive of the same type used on the naval armament depot mentioned above.

And off course; No "Santa Special" without a Santa:

Making supply-trains for winter warfare

There hasn't been so much time for hobbies like wargaming and model railways as I'd like to lately, and therefore it's been 'all quiet on the blogger-front' for a while. When I was invited by friend and his wife to join their annual 'winter/season/Christmas drive-in running session' in their garden, I decided to use my modelling time to prepare my military garden trains for winter warfare and giving them a season-theme due to the occasion.

The driver in the Heeresfeldbahn locomotive by LGB was given a winter-camouflage uniform. They're seldom completely bright white due to use and making them dirty on purpose for better camouflage effect. He is a 'mirrored' model of the driver in 'Feldgau' I usually use.

Firstly I just planned a kind of 'Santa theme' with red sleigh and reindeer. Then I found that Finnish and Soviet troops used reindeers to pull simple sleighs. I've also found some few photos of reindeers in German service. I found these reindeers in a toyshop.

Since it was not going to be a traditional 'Santa sleigh' after all, I needed to find some more realistic one. This one I found for free at Thingeverse, intended for some 28mm tabletop gaming. I resized it to the maximum my 3D-printer could do. I also added some sacks of potatoes and a barrel of herring for the troops at the front. Being traditional christmasfood some places, I'hope we don't get that to eat during our 'run-in session'. 

Not only bringing food to the troops at the front, I wanted to give them a Christmas-tree/Weinachtsbaum for the upcoming season as well. The hostess remarked that it might look like the tree Norway gives United Kingdom every year as gratefulness for help during WWII; Looking good on only one side....

The soldiers handling the sleigh and reindeers were given (again 3D-printed) braizer. I used a flickering tea led-light for the fire, just about fitting into the barrel. The smoke is some stuffing from one of our dogs toys...

I kind of get of "Where Eagles Dare"-feeling of those soldiers.

Keeping it serious with the German Heeresfeldbahn train, I decided to not take it to seriously with the W^D train. Due to the mechanism there is not so good place in in fitting a driver, so I found one slim enough. Besides he'sin 'Christmas-mode'...

On the wagon behind it that's not a 19:1 scale model of Glühwein for the troops. Thats a gift for the host and hostess opening their beautiful garden for letting us run our trains on their railway.

Here are some impressions of my military trains in action during their winter-service:

Here are some other impressions from the garden and other trains. And yes, there was a lot more crowded than the photos show though.

The HF110C belongs to a friend and the original is also of military origin:

Last year our MRC went to Germany and rode on the original in Harz:

And even som further years ago our MRC went to Switzerland and took a ride with the Glacier-Express:

If you want to read more about our MRC, Gleng Modelljernbane Klubb, please visit our website

Looks like there were no 'potatoes and herring', just hot dogs, gingerbread cookies, waffles, Glühwein and coffee. It don't get more Christmas than this(!)

We were running until it started to get dark (which is kind of early in Norway during the winter)

Looks like my lansers are keeping warm on the braizer as well

Finally it was so dark that some seemed to be afraid of it...

...so then there was time to finish up, and pack everything together. The weather was perfect for a winter running-session. Thank you Astrid and Heine for your hospitality, great time and letting us run trains in your beautiful garden.

The 38th Internationale Modellbahn Ausstellung and Märklin days in Göppingen 2023 - Not just only trains

The model railway club I'm a member of in Norway usually goes on an annual trip abroad to visit some of the big model railway exhibitions on the Continent. This year we went to the hometown of Märklin, Göppingen in Germany to visit the combined 38th Internationale Modellbahn Ausstellung and the 13th Märklin days. As the name suggests it's mostly trains. - So perhaps not so much for wargamers, but slightly more for military modellers. Here are some impressions. 

First some from the mandatory stop at the World's largest model railway layout at Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg. These models are made to 1:87th scale.

It's difficult to get an overview and impression of the total layout due to it's enormous size, but here are some photos of a H0 scaled 'model of the model' of one of the floors:

Here are some non railway impressions from Göppingen (click on images for larger pictures):

The bridge over River Kwai was made to Z-scale/ 1:220

These wagon-loads were made to G-scale in approx 1:29th scale, and FDM 3D-printed 

Model railroaders are not exactly without humor or not updated on the current situation either:

Off course I bought some stuff at the exhibition as well, which will keep me busy throughout the winter. Perhaps some of these projects reach this blog with a  blogpost as well. 

I'm grateful for the friendly members of my MRC and the wonderful  travell companions they are.

Connecting military units of opposing forces

As some of you may already have noticed I've converted some LGB rolling stock into a Heeresfeldbahn rake. All these LGB-wagons are fitted with the original LGB couplings.

I'm also a proud owner of a British Roundhouse 16mm scale Livesteam locomotive in a military W^D livery (a 50 year gift from my beloved wife and kids),  which also runs on 45mm gauge track. It's fitted with it's original chain-link-couplings, and I want to keep it that way. I plan to build own rollingstock to this from kits, but at the same time I want to be able to connect it to my military LGB wagons (with the LGB couplings), so some modification was needed. 

I had a very plastic, brownish and toy-looking LGB wagon which I converted with different couplings in each ends; LGB coupling in one end, and a chain-link-coupling in the other. With this I would be able to connect the 'LGB rake' to my Livesteam locomotive if I wanted to.

The LGB-loop to the right work as a buffer to the lower buffer on the 16mm locomotive. It means it will be able to couple it to other LGB-stuff in both ends as well if desired.

The wagon it self had large DR (Deutsche Reichbahn) markings and looked very plastic and bright as well. To run behind both British and German locomotives I think it needed a more general look to it, so I simply sprayed it with grey car primer, picked out some few boards in another color and gave it a heavy black-wash.

Since it's open it would be nice to load it with some cargo. I had some very bright colored toylike LGB oil barrels (don't trow anything away) I simply repainted and removed the stickers. I also put in a couple of 3D-printed crates I've used for painting samples. 

From a LGB Starter Set to a 16mm-scale Heeresfeldbahn

It's been summer in Norway and not much time for wargaming or other indoor activities. The summers usually are quite short here so the time is mostly spent outside. Fortunately some aspects of military modelling are made for outdoor purposes. Some years ago I was in a model railway shop in the city where parents live, and I was at that time not into big-scale modelling or G-scale trains. -But in that shop I saw a very nice Starter Set from LGB in IIm/1:22,5/ G scale which depict a island train from the Frisian island of Wangerooge. It was a price worthy and high quality starter set and not the 'toy like' and 'sub quality' often found in such sets. The benefits of buying a Starter Set is that you get everything you need to be up and running for a reasonable price. What really caught my attention about it was the locomotive which was of the very same type which was originally built for the German Army during WWII to improve their logistics on the Eastern Front. The locomotive was a Heeresfeldbahn HF130C, which about 350 was built. After WWII many of these locomotives was decommissioned and saw mixed service on different civilian narrow gauge railways in several countries. Obviously also on the railway at Wangerooge. -And suddenly I was the happy owner of a new Starter Set and into large scale garden railway modelling.

LGB has never built a model of the HF130C-locomotive in it's original military livery, and an idea was born to revert it into it's original livery and use. In the Starter Set there were also 3 goods-wagons; a tanker-, a flatbed- and a boxcar. All of them would be very credible as German military wagons in a 'Heeresfeldbahn'-train with a new paintjob. I was also inspired to do a model of a German military narrow gauge as there was a such nearby where I live during WWII. -It served a small airfield with gravel, and probably also munitions and fuel. An old idea was about to come into fruition. The good thing with writing a blog, is that it helps pushing old modelling projects.

It's surprisingly few photos of this locomotive during it's military service due to some 350 was built

I discovered that the locomotive is made to 1:19th scale despite of LGB's general 1:22,5-scale. This really makes the locomotive to 16mm scale and not the ordinary LGB IIm scale. This makes it run well togheter with my 16mm Roundhouse Billy in WD-livery. The wagons in the starter set are closer to 1:22,5 scale though. 

Besides a new paintjobs, I decided to further detail the rollingstock by adding some load and details to them. First I wanted to add typical military loads like tanks and big cannons, but keeping in mind this is a narrow gauge railway I don't think they could carry so big or heavy loads. I could 'downgrade' the loads to armored vehicles and such, but think they might still be too heavy for such light rails. Besides I have not seen any photos of such carloads on any Heeresfeldbahn either in books or in WWII footage. What I've seen in photos it seems like such narrow gauge railways mostly carry general cargo and supplies and sometimes troops. I also wanted my military loads to have a slightly more 'general' appearance so the wagons would't look too completely out of place if I wanted to run them behind my British 16mm scale W^D livesteam locomotive every now and then. I discovered that there weren't many WWII German objects in 1:19th scale to be found, except for some very expensive ones in 1:18 scale. I searched Thingiverse for propper items and resized them to 1:19 scale and 3D-printed them on my aged FlashForge Finder (I think it's time to upgrade my 3D-printer soon). I've found the online Scale Converter by Scale Modelers World very useful in this matter. Even though converting different STL-files to exact 1:19 scale, they don't seems to be in same 'scale' sometimes (even if they are by measures). 

I haven't seen very many photos of these locomotives in military service, and certainly not in colors. I've seen some few color-photos of preserved ones in different military gray liveries, but as they are slightly different regarding colors and which part was colored which. I imagine that all these locomotives were not painted exactly to the same color codes. I've also read somewhere that German steamlocomotives operating near the front were painted in a very dark grey color during WWII. I went for a standard German color; Panzer Grey. I also replaced the under-scaled LGB-engine-driver with a 3D-printed one to the same scale as the locomotive; 1:19. While working on the loco I decided to go fancy here and add radio-control by Piko to it as well (as a lot of the other members in my MRC does). I think this must be the easiest and perhaps most inexpensive way to add RC to a garden train. 

This was the easiest wagon 'militarize', as it only got a new coat of paint, and new plates simply made by self-adhesive label stickers which can be printed from an ordinary inkjet:

Not much to repainting was needed on this wagon. My oldest son recently served 2 years in our naval forces in the Coast Guard, where he also operated fast patrol crafts. I wanted to make a homage to him and his service. As I suppose there were not many 'naval loads' on a Heeresfeldbahn (deep inland on the Easternfront), I had to look for some maritime items which were army related. I found the answer in the Sturmboot 39, and added some suitable loads to the 3 Sturm-boats as well; I guess the outboards are in the large crates and their machineguns are located in the smaller crates. I read somewhere that they carried 20L of fuel each , and added some Jerry cans as well:

Besides repainting and adding self adhesive label stickers, I replaced the disc-wheels with spoked ones to this wagon to make an appearance of an 'older' origin. I also improved the roof by adding 'tar paper' made with 'sport tape'. I'm not sure what kind of cargo the car is currently carry as it could be anything, so to add some interest to it I added some few military riders and their 'mascot' to it. The latter being a Jack Russell Terrier and a second homage in this train; This time to our beloved Linus.

After fitting the locomotive with RC reciver and battery, there wasn't much space left in it for other things in it. To add a little further interests to the train I placed a battery operated sound capsule with diesel sound from Train-Tech to the boxcar. The sound is not so loud, and not so annoying that sound equipped locos often are (to all others but the one driving them).

This is how  the starterset from LGB turned out after a 'revision', and how it could have looked like from the beginning. They have the models for making it, so I hope they will use them for making some sort of a military train in the future. There are several military modellers and wargamers who also are into model railways, and this would be a good entry.

It looks like it's approved by Linus too

I've converted the Starter Set into a very basic German 'military train', and to further expand my Heeresfeldbahn I have collected some more goodswagons from LGB, and due to they are very colorfull and toylike they will need some repainting and perhaps detailing.

3 other members in my Model Railway Club also has LGB models which has a military origin from WWII German Heeresfeldbahns, namely the steamlocomotive HF110C. They're not to LGB's general 1:22,5 scale either, as they actually are closer to 1:20 scale and 16mm than IIm. 2 of them are in civilian liveries, but one is in a freelanced German military livery. I'm looking forward to my MRC's coming running sessions, which we arranges at each other's garden railways through the whole year. It seems like they will have some military presence now...

My LGB starterset used to fit in my 30L panniers, which was practical when visiting friends. With somewhat more fragile models I think I need a bigger pannier (even if I have a Honda NC750X with a frunk).

Dedicated to Jørgen and Linus