Games Group Christmas Shenanigans

The Hamilton Road Games Group held its Christmas/Holiday party this past Saturday. Martin was flying home for Christmas later this week and we wanted to have our usual unusual games before he left. The festivities also included hot chocolate, cup cakes, cookies, and the like.

If I can dare call it a "tradition", we up held the tradition of the Wings of War Christmas Flight. All the players ran one WWI aircraft and the first player out returned as Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel. The Red Baron then makes an appearance and they go 'round and 'round. Santa arrives in his sleigh with a special twist. If you shoot and damage Santa's sleigh, YOU get the damage since you're now on the "Naughty List." This is always fun.

Ralph loaned us his "official" fly-over maps which added to the look of the game.

A bit further back - this shows that two battle mats were used so we could cover a whole table.

In her first outing, my daughter's friend Nia took to the air.
I don't know if she was victorious or not.

My daughter Katie uses the firing template to take a shot at Santa.
(Don't do it! It's too close to Christmas!)

All sort of aerial action.

The second game set up was a pulp fiction game (having nothing to do with the movie of the same name.) Here the Krampus and his associates have kidnapped Santa at the North Pole in order to destroy Christmas. The horror! A number of teams of adventurers responded to the call to help and rushed to the North Pole to free Kris Kringle and his work force. (Including Bernard the head elf, a few elves, Chris-moose [it is Canada after all], Chris-mouse [die Weihnachtsmaus who is to blame for anything and everything that might go wrong at Christmas], and Dominic the Christmas Donkey.)

The adventurer teams included:
                     Martin's Anti-Cthulhu academic and his soldier followers
                     Katie's SSR lead by Agent Peggy Carter
                     Nia's Star Wars crew
                     Kevin's team starring The Shadow
                     Bear's Sci-fi Highlanders
                     Derek's US Rocket Corps
                     The RCMP led by a new-comer whose name I never really got.
Opposing them;
                     Beth's Krampus with Chicago-style gangsters
                     Mark's team of 1920's brown-shirt stormtroopes led by Ebeneezer Scrooge
                     Matt's team of white-armoured stormtroopes led by the Grinch
The board was loaded with surprises. We used a variant of the 5-Core pulp adventure rules and they worked pretty well. Kevin knew the rules quite well and I relied on him to interpret many of the points of order. I recommend these rules and 5-Core has rules for just about every time period. (Five Men At Kursk, Five Men At Normandy, Chevauchee, On Samhain's Eve [fantasy skirmish})

I brought out my ancient and beloved castle model. Originally Rich was going to lend us his Wild West
Town houses, but the weather kept on his snow clearance job. His wife and daughters did come and they
helped captain at least one group.

Yes, it IS the North Pole.

Martin,, Katie, and Nia look something up on Katie's phone.

The game in progress with Nessie in play attacking the Anti-Cthulhu squad.

Bear's Sci-Fi Highlanders approach the Mystic Stone Circle with its stand of palm trees.
(Everything doesn't have to make sense, y'know.)

Kevin's Shadow team including Margo Lane, Moe Schrebnitz, The Thug, the Waiter, and the useless Physicist
move on after having chased away the Hippo You Want for Christmas.
The playing cards indicated the movement order. I had a deck and shuffled it each turn.

The US Rocket Corps look on as the Anti-Cthulhu team faces Nessie, the T-Rex
hidden in the mystical snows outside of Santa's castle.
Small coloured and numbered blocks indicate an encounter with the unknown
when the team came within 4 inches of the block.

Peggy Carter and Dum-Dum Dugan move toward the castle roadblock once
R2D2 roused them from unconsciousness and a stun that resulted from Mark
dropping grenades from the tower above them.

The Anti-Cthulhu squad took down Nessie with well place Lee-Enfield fire.

The Highlanders encountered the Toyland Fencibles and were troubled by the four-armed
ape who the Highlanders had chased off. They also discovered a hidden Zeppelin and used
it to get over the castle walls.

The US Rocket Corps successfully flew over the wall (whenever they flew, there was a chance
they'd blow up in mid-air) and skulk around trying to find the place where Santa was hidden.

Surprise! The Krampus' robot companion/bodyguard, Big Bob BSR faces down the Shadow.
Big Bob was immune to the Shadow's mysterious laugh, but not the Shadow's twin 45's.
That is, once the Shadow recovered from the surprise.
Oh, BSR means "Big Stompy Robot."

Peggy and Dum-Dum entered the castle and turned their Tommy Guns on Big Bob,

The RCMP led by Sgt. Preston and his dog King moved to the last encounter marker
and met with Dr. Who and his TARDIS who agreed to deliver them anywhere on
the board. They piled in and piled out to attack Big Bob.
The Commissioner - a beaver in uniform - wasn't really there.

A different view of the RCMP and their TARDIS ride.

Big Bob collapses under the fire of the SSR, the Shadow, and the Anti-Cthutlu squad.

The group between moves.

I know your favourite character is Nessie, so here's another view of the T-Rex
as he dukes it out with the Anti-Cthulhu squad.

Earlier in the game, the four-armed ape attacks the Sci-Fi Highlanders and the
Toyland Fencibles. Anything can happen in this sort of game.

In the end, time ran out before the adventurers could get Santa and his guys off the board although with one more turn of the cards, Santa would've been freed. As it was, the Star War's Crew did free Chris-moose, Chris-mouse, and Dominic the Donkey.

That was the bulk of the adventures this past weekend. A good way to prepare ourselves for the Christmas holiday. The library closes early on the next two Saturdays for Christmas and New Year's. If time permits, I may get some gaming and some blogging in.

I hope all you who take time to read this have an enjoyable Christmas and New Year holiday.