Need ideas for holiday scenarios

[sespe]

It has become a family tradition to have a wargame built around the upcoming holiday.  Halloween is simple, just throw zombies into a game.  This year it was Countess Dracula trying to rescue her husband from a wild west sideshow.

For Thanksgiving I'll probably go with a turkey hunt, colonials versus natives.

But I'm stumped for Christmas.  First off, I have no figures, so will have to raid the shops.  And I'd like a scenario that is slightly different.

So I'm looking for ideas for skirmish-level 3-4 player scenarios.  We use Songs of Blades mostly, but I only need ideas, I can make the rules match the scenario. 

I'm American based, of course,  but would love to mix in ideas from holidays in other countries.  When we lived in Germany, they whispered about "Krampus", for example...

[von Lucky]

First point of call is this thread:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=75657.0

There's a few other threads - search "santa" or "Krampus" and you'll get a few hits. Any scenario or period can be "christmasfied". Look forward to seeing what you turn up with.

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Check out Orcs in the Webbe - there are always loads of gaming ideas and scenarios on the Advent Calendar pages. For details go to this link;
http://www.orcsinthewebbe.co.uk/index.php/advent-calendars

I also know that Craig is planning another Advent for this December.

Tony

[Rhoderic]

I rather like the idea of christmas-themed scenarios for this time of year, but with the major reservation that I don't much care for the Americanised "Santa Claus" and everything that comes with it; the little helper elves, gingerbread men, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all the rest of that (here in Fennoscandia, reindeers are for eating - I just had reindeer the other day).

Rather, my idea of "christmas magic" is more like the sort of thing you get in The Nutcracker: the wispy old-timey oriental themes, the Sugar Plum Fairy, blokes in archaic, "pomp-and-circumstance-y" soldier's uniforms, and so on. I also kind of associate Harry Potter-style themes with christmas in a positive way. I don't really mean the Harry Potter franchise specifically, but that general theme of wizards in magic castles and stuff along those general lines. The Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials (my favourite of the bunch) are also sources of inspiration in the same vein, vaguely speaking. Perhaps even The Hobbit (but not so much The Lord of the Rings, which is too epic and not "warm and cozy" enough). It all has some hard-to-define sense of christmas magic to me.

In issue 2 of Wargames Journal (10 years old by now, but still available as a free PDF from the publisher, here) there's a fun scenario titled "Santa's Slay" which conveys some of what I'm talking about, especially with the idea of goblins and elves in a christmas context. I especially like the figure of the goblin king painted in very colourful clothing - very christmasy, the way I think of christmas.

For the past week, I've also really had a hankering to start painting some Frostgrave miniatures, because there are some aspects of that game/setting which also have a vague christmas atmosphere the way I perceive it. In particular, the figures for the Summoner and his apprentice have that atmosphere about them. It's that old-fashioned sense of christmas somehow having something to do with "orientalism" that does it (not sure why, exactly - probably some combination of the Nativity story, Aladdin pantos, the Arabian dancers from the Nutcracker and the general fact that sweets and other items from the Middle East used to be luxury christmas presents in bygone times).

Anyway, I'm just rambling, but you might want to take a gander at that christmas scenario from Wargames Journal.

EDIT: Wrote "Illusionist" when I meant "Summoner", fixed now.

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Thanks for the link to Santa's Slay.

I'd forgotten about this scenario.

Tony

[Rhoderic]

Just don't ask me what ruleset the scenario is for - I have no clue and the article doesn't seem to say

[has.been]

I have taken part in:-
 a 'Night at the Museum' game where the exhibits came alive, it was great fun;
a Viking winter Solstice game (white cloth & fir trees) gridded up into 12" squares. The umpire had the master map on which the 12" squares were mixed up. When you left a square the umpire told you which square you next entered & by which side, e.g. Leaving tile 2 by the east side might result in arriving on tile 9 by the south side. We could see the Sacred Fir Tree (target) but had great difficulty getting to it (much like a real forest). By the time we got it we thought we had it sussed, just follow the stream back to the feasting hall. The umpire was smarter than us, he had several maps & swapped to another one. We were lost again. You can have several teams chasing the sacred solstice tree when figures from the same team are not on the same tile the owner picked which one went into a sin bin. You could swap magical items found along the way to try & get them back, or stop opposition ones ever returning.
N.B. I have used this tile game for many games e.g.US patrols in the Viet-Nam jungle/ French resistance in WW2 trying to lay explosives at the railway bridge at night etc.etc.

[Rhoderic]

On the subject of Krampus and pagan solstice-related stuff, we Finns have conflated Santa Claus with the Yule Goat. Our name for Santa Claus is actually "the Yule Goat" ("Joulupukki"). With that in mind, imagine the reaction if you were to put a goat-headed beastman on the table and tell the players it's Santa

[sespe]

Wow, a ton of great ideas here.  I am going to be busy now.

...and a Yule Goat...

[shandy]

Great ideas, perhaps I also have to prepare a Christmas game…

There as a fun looking Christmas ghost story scenario by Conrad Kinch in Miniature Wargames 369, have a look here: http://henrys-wargaming.co.uk/?p=1542

[DS615]

We ran a game last year where hoards of NPC Teddy Grahams were trying to stop Santa's launch.
Highly trained, and heavily armed, squads of Elves were defending and trying to activate the "twelve beacons of Christmas" before the time ran out.

We had 200+ Teddy Grahams, on chocolate bases.  The Elves were made with clothes pins, and the village was 2 liter bottles cut in half and painted.

A few more pictures, I didn't take too many for some reason. http://fandangoalphaone.blogspot.com/2015/11/12-beacons-of-christmas.html
It was fun, and it was cheap!

[von Lucky]

Hah! Looks like it was a lot of fun.

[fastolfrus]

One of the magazines had the battle between the toy soldiers and the rat king from the Nutcracker ballet a couple of months ago.

[dadlamassu]

On our website is a WW1 adventure for Biggles based on one of the short stories

http://www.morvalearth.co.uk/Biggles_Xmas07/Big_Xmas_intro.htm

and a pulp adventure

http://www.morvalearth.co.uk/Morvalonesia/Chrismas%20Game/Mnsia_treasure_hunt.htm

[sespe]

We ran a game last year where hoards of NPC Teddy Grahams were trying to stop Santa's launch.
Highly trained, and heavily armed, squads of Elves were defending and trying to activate the "twelve beacons of Christmas" before the time ran out.

We had 200+ Teddy Grahams, on chocolate bases.  The Elves were made with clothes pins, and the village was 2 liter bottles cut in half and painted.

A few more pictures, I didn't take too many for some reason. http://fandangoalphaone.blogspot.com/2015/11/12-beacons-of-christmas.html
It was fun, and it was cheap!

That looked fun!  When you said clothes pins and cheap, I did not expect the level of detail shown.  Those are great.