(12 Days) #4 Battle for a Slice of the North Pole

Ah, Saturday!  Yet another snowstorm hits the Northeast, and I was stuck at home with the girls.   Good thing I had something ready for them.

In the world of Gnome Wars, not only is Santa a jolly old elf who delivers presents to boys and girls all over the world, but he's also a world class arms dealer with advanced manufacturing facilities scattered across the North Pole.  It comes as no surprise that the Germans would be interesting in acquiring some of this technology, even if it risked putting them on the Naughty List.

Welcome to KIDD 506B-2 (Kringle Industrial Dormitory of Death).

I owe my soul to the company... pizzeria?

Not much to look at.  The "elves" live on the second floor of the workshop (top left), but they do have access to one of Santa's favorite pizza joints (center), as well as a baby elephant petting zoo (lower left) on their three days off a year.

German Gnomes
*Hans Blumenprinz - Commanding Officer - Pretty much the girls wanted the Prince on the table.  He had a d10 melee dice, but otherwise was as ineffective as a nobleman holding a bouquet of roses would be.
*German Infantry (2 units) - Seize the workshop
*German Cavalry (1 unit)  - Seize the workshop
*German Marines (1 unit) - Stop into Tony's Pizza without getting routed.   The Marines primary mission was to get the other units to the battle.  They were told to go back to their ship,  but first they wanted to snag a slice of pizza for the road.

The German Infantry and Hans Blumenprinz begin their assault. 

The North Pole Defense forces are essentially Swiss Gnome "Elves", complete with a few nurses wielding flagons of healing egg nog.  Basic security of the outer facilities is usually conducted by the Teddy Bear Infantry (Toy Soldiers freeze up in the ice and snow).  

North Pole Defense Force (NPDF)
*North Pole Security Force, full strength - (1 unit)
*North Pole Security Force, half strength  (somebody has to keep making the "toys") - (1 unit)
*Teddy Bear Mercenaries - (2 units)   Their pop-guns only have a range of 18 inches.

Also on the battlefield were the Baby Elephant Petting Zoo Staff, escorting a recently escaped baby elephant across the board and back to its barn.   The mouslings were escorted by Bruce Carmezind, The Most Interesting Gnome in the World.

Bruce and his Pachyderm-loving friends

The Germans began with their Bunny Cav charging across the open, unfazed by the short range of the Teddy Bear Infantry. The Baby Elephant caravan then moved, blocking line of sight for the rest of the Defense Force!

The German Infantry began it's slow march over the bridge....

"Daddy, these are a lot of gnomes!"

To accommodate the bottle neck on the bridge, my eldest, Maja, ran to the playroom and came back with a ramp for some playset  and placed it on the river, on the other side of the barn.

Great, my daughter just developed rules for a pontoon bridge.

The Generals ponder if the bunnies should retreat to the dollhouse.

The baby elephant caravan snuck off into the woods to avoid getting involved in the altercation.

The German Bunny Cav ran roughshod over the first unit of Teddy Bear Infantry, leaving only it's officer and one soldier in the wake of it's charge.  The other Teddy Bears jumped out from the cover of the barn and pounced on the bunnies in a furry savagery unseen since the great Battle of Build-A-Bear on Black Friday, 2002. 

The German Bunny Cav get stuffed by the Teddy Bears.

Let's talk about the baby elephant in the room

The fighting was so intense that both the bunnies and the bears eventually routed each other. 

The center of the battlefield was opened up for the German infantry to march right in.  The black helmeted Germans tried to split their forces and half attempted a direct assault of the workshop, but they were pushed back in shambles. 

The Germans were still poised for a tremendous assault on the NPDF line, but Hans Blumenprinz's high profile appearance attracted the attention of Bruce Carmezind, and two quick shots of his pistol fell the officer.  Rumors of Hans' survival have been unsubstantiated.

The black Germans turned their attention on the tree hugging mice hippies and their violent friend, but initiative was in the favor of the rodents.   The baby elephant's ancestors must have fought alongside the Sikhs....

Everyone's favorite new song... "Baby Elephant Stomp"

The carnage certainly weakened the Germans.

Peanuts?  Where?

With two players under five getting antsy, I decided to wrap it up.  The NPDF successfully defended the workshop, even though the Marines had skulked along the table edge and entered the building!  The Marines were less than a turn away from making it to pizzeria and achieving their objective.