10 years of Christmas Battles!

Every year for the last 10 years, on the last gaming night of my local Wargames club, The Blades Of Destruction (some DBM origins are still discernible) I host a weird wargame. The components differ each year, but it is always a skirmish game with some weird bits, like UFOs, Asterix, dinosaurs or zombies. I sorted out the many pictures I have from them and it turns out I have pictures from all but one! I think after 10 years a little parade is in order, so here they are:

2003
The first one right after I had discovered the GASLIGHT ruleset started relatively sedate. Yunks filled with Chinese pirates attack an Asian coastal village defended by assorted Pulp heroes.

2004
Having raided the local toy store in 2004 a host of VSF characters unpacked their heavy-calibre guns and went a-Dinohunting in the Lost World.

2005
Several parties tried to salvage a crashed UFO and its secrets. There were werewolves, a mammoth and a piramid and for the life of me I can't remember why. After furious gunfights in which the aliens (if I remember correctly) convincingly outgunned everyone else, Marja tried reason and talked them into cooperation (and won the game). A unique victory by the way...

2006
The only year I lack pictures of the game. Teams of adventurers race to the rescue of Santa Claus who has been hit by a warpstorm. He and mrs Claus have been transformed in Christmas steroid mutants and all his reindeers and elves turned into zombies. The first time that a common enemy united all players who only started killing each other after the last zombie had been downed (2 seconds later, to be precise).

2007
Fairyland was invaded by Vikings that year. Eventually they made off with the Goose with the Golden eggs after having battled Snow White and the Seven Berseker Dwarves, Red Riding Hood and her Wolf pack, a giant, ogres and monks with Holy Hand Grenades.

2008
Bog-A-Ten. A classic. Steamboats, dinosaurs and heavy guns guarantee a good evening.

2009
Asterix and his tribesmen went to find holly for the magic potion, collecting boars and Roman helmets on the way.

2010
Innsmouth was raided by several armed forces in order to stop The Great Old One and capture the Golden Idol.

2011
Players competed to complete their missions in a zombie-infested city. Conflicting missions aided the zombies in creating a hilarious bloodbath. Eventually someone saved the schoolkids I think....

2012
Asterix once more stormed into the breach, this time to help his tirbesman the bard who went to follow the Love Of His Life into the Underworld (read too much Greek stuff....) and eventually confronted The Lord Below (see below) himself.

2013
This year players directed teams in more conflicting missions in an Alien and MiB infested countryside. It came from beyond the still indeed....

I don't know if and how long this traddition will persist, but these 10 years are good to look back upon!

Christmas Battle

Last friday evening I hosted the annual Christmas battle on the last gaming night of the year. It is also a tradition that it is not a normal wargame, but always something pulpy, campy and weird! This year I took a leaf from the creations of Goscinny ands Uderzo and played a Gallic version of a classic tale: Orpheus and Eurydice.

Assurancetourix, the village bard (names may vary with the country the Asterix albums are published in) fell hopelessly in love with beautiful Walhalla. Seconds after she answered his love, a falling menhir tragically took her life. But Assurancetourix, knowing his classics, would not relent. He would enter the underworld and persuade the Lord of the Underworld with his song and music to release his love to the world of the living! And off he went.

His tribesmen knew he was brave, but they were also pretty sure that he was no Orpheus... So they decided to help him! And armed with magic potions, smelly fish and menhirs they set out to aid him in his quest.

 Here they are lined up before battle. It was a homespun card-driven game with a very simple combat system and some character bound skills (like Kostunrix' battle fish would always negate two enemy defence dice on any enemy with a nose....)

Undead Romans and tentacled demons thwarted the players in their race for victory: reuniting Walhalla with Assurancetourix (and preventing him to sing for the Lord of the Underworld, as this would piss him off mightily!)

The Underwordly playing table was improvised from some classic ruins, lots of gravestones and lots of black....

And some Christmas theme in the Lord of the Underworld's garments and throne decorations...

A dragon. Never leave home without one and have him roast some Gauls. Asterix was quite singed at this point.

The final scuffle for Walhalla. A bunch of boars race by to distract the players, in vain this time.....

And the winners: Briton cousin Flegmatix on the left and Abraracourcix, our Leader on the right.

And the entire crew.....

A fine chaotic game in traditional roaring Christmas style and a fine finish on the gaming year 2012. Fortunately the Apocalyps turned out to be late  :)

It was the night before Christmas, and zombies were everywhere....

On December 23rd we played our traditional last gaming night at the club. 9 Players had joined to execute some last-minute missions in a zombie-infested Raccoon City before the military closed up the city completely. In the course of the game they found out why quarantaine was a good idea in the first place!

The players each had a secret mission, like rescuing a group of kids or tracking down a postman carrying the formula for the Zombie Virus in his bag. These mission targets were hidden on the table. The kids had hidden in an abandoned school bus and the postman was actually one of the zombies! To spice things up, most players had a conflicting mission with which to thwart at least one other player!

Gradually, as the players moved deeper into Raccoon City, the clues (and the conflicting missions) were unveiled with a bloody battle as a result with players shooting at each other, as if being chased by zombies wasn´t bad ebough by itself!

Eventually Bart´s last survivor guided the school kids off the table and was pronounced winner of the game, as well as Hero Of The Day!

The School Bus 

The Kids

As I was the GM, I only had time to snap a few pictures before the game demanded all my attention, but fortunately players took pictures as well so here is even more photographic material: