Sunday, June 14, 2009

Teddy Bear Wars: Battle of the Biscuits


Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe directs her Pink Bear Army. Click all pictures to enlarge the view.

Saturday afternoon Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe and Lord Paddington Bear decided that it would be the civilized thing to hold a wargame to see who would get to eat all of the Oreo Biscuits (i.e. Cookies, in Americanese). The winner would take all, so Lord Paddington had no intention of throwing the game - he was hungry and wanted those tasty biscuits. On such things are wars commenced sometimes.


Lady Emma and Lord Paddington mug for the photographers before the commencement of the match. The Pink Bear Army has just entered the table on the road.

The Battle of the Biscuits was loosely based on the Charles Grant "Ambush" scenario. Lady Emma's Pink Bear Army was traveling down the road heading for the safety of the Honey Pot Inn. Lord Paddington Bear's Blue Army was waiting in ambush to attack the Pink Army and take away any biscuits that Lady Emma's foraging party had collected along the way. Mini Oreos were scattered about the tabletop. A bear figure had to move to the biscuit for a turn, and then carry it back to the supply wagon that was coming down the road.

Lord Paddington Bear's Blue army was divided into two groups: there was an ambush group that was waiting in the Ten Acre Woods atop the large ridge that you can see in these pictures. A second party of Blue Bears was assembling in the road at the opposite end of the table, in front of the Honey Pot Inn. They had built up a nice collection of Oreos that they were storing. A third group of Blue Bears were coming back from a foraging expedition near the Inn and would hopefully arrive in time to lend a hand to the defense of the Inn.


The Pink Army begins its advance down the road.


The Pink Army is halfway down the road, sending flankers out to scout the ridge to their left, while another flanking party secures a biscuit near the clump of trees. The first company of Blue Bears advances up the road to contest the grabbing of the biscuits.


The rear-guard of the Pink Bear Army guards the supply wagon, which will soon be loaded full of biscuits.


The battle lines are drawn and the firing begins. You can see one downed blue bear in the foreground and one pink bear is also down for the count. A die roll of a "1" or bullseye resulted in a "hit", but this proved to be too hard to hit anything. So Lady Emma decided to resort to the tactic of "melee" instead of using firepower.



Here is the big melee, which produced quicker results than musketry.


The Pink Bears win the melee quite handily as one lone Blue Bear survives the onslaught and flees back to the Honey Pot Inn.


The Pink Bears capture the Honey Pot Inn, collect all of the biscuits and set up a rear-guard to fend off the company of Blue Bears who descended the ridge too late to ambush the Pink Bears. In the distance, you can see the third company of Blue Bears arriving too late to affect the outcome. Lady Emma won the nice snack and her Daddy went hungry that evening.

The game ended with Lady Emma knocking down all of the defending Blue Bears in the road and pursuing the sole survivor back to the Honey Pot Inn. There the Pink Bears captured all of the supplies that the Blue Bears had collected. A party of Blue Bears arrived to late to defend the Inn.

As usual, we used the Eureka Teddy Bear figures in our game and we sort of made the rules up on the go. A unit could walk (throw two D6) or run (3 D6) while the wagon could move at 4 D6.

Shooting required that each figure throw a D6 and score a hit on a bullseye ("1") and save on a natural 6. Melees were fought with each bear facing off one on one and rolling D6 to fight. The highest die wins the melee. We allowed bears to gang up on one bear, up to three bears maximum. The single bear had to defeat all three bears with separate die rolls in this instance.


23 comments:

  1. Your teddy bear wars games always give me a smile. :-) (and tempt me to get some of those minis and see if Iet my nieces to play...lol)

    They also make me want to go back and reread the Anderson/Dickson Hoka stories.

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  2. What!?! Do you mean to tell us that Lady Emma didn't give her Daddy a single biscuit?

    I say cut her out of the will! Oh she's a heartless one (even if she does have a great smile).

    I always enjoy the battles of the bears.


    -- Jeff

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  3. Love the hats!

    I enjoy the bear battles and am very impressed with how you involved your daughter in your hobby.

    Well done!

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  4. Nice job on the bears ...
    and the daughter's grin is lovely too...

    A "rules" comment ... on firing.
    If you're going to allow "saves" then playability requires that hit chances outclass the save rolls. So I'd "hit" on a one or a two, and permit a save on six (perhaps you could say that a two hit might have a chance to crawl away after the battle and be recovered? A six obviously meaning that the cork hit a button and bounced).

    :)
    A
    PS them kids and their dice rolls!

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  5. What a delightful and charming battle report to look at on a drizzly Monday morning! Many thanks.

    Steve Gill

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  6. Now there's something to raise a smile.

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  7. Marvellous ! cerianly no picnic for the blue bears

    -- Allan

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  8. What a delightful scene and what a lovely big smile your daughter has. She obviously gets immense pleasure from sharing in her dads hobby in this way.

    I came over to see if you had started any serious painting of your Cuirassiers yet, but how can I be disappointed after seeing this :-)

    Good for you Jim!

    All the best,

    Frank

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  9. Dear Alte,

    SUPERB headgear on display!

    Theo

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  10. The bear necssecities wil come to you...
    Fantastic
    Alan

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  11. Best battle report I have read for a long, long time!

    P.S. How could the blue bears ever think they could win against a smile like that?

    Matt

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  12. Well that raised a smile! Very good!

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  13. Very enjoyable read and love the headgear!

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  14. I have been asked to send sincere best wishes and the following:
    Bill

    "Well done Lady Emma!"
    Your Servant,
    Diana Pettygree

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  15. Thanks for sharing. I'm sure a good time was had by all. And of course it's not wise to engage a bear in melee! (Or is that paw-to-paw?)

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  16. What a great AAR!

    Thanks for sharing it with us.

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  17. Looks like her ladyship has an advanced understanding of anti-ambush tactics! Her victory was well-earned here here!

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  18. The pictures say it all.
    Thank you.

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  19. Those great pics even have my little guy wanting some!...so my painting backlog gets a little deeper!

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  20. Rather late and the biscuit party's over but yes, a delightful and very well-illustrated account of a fun event! :-)

    David
    http://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/

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  21. Beautiful!

    What a great way to express your connection with each other.

    TIME together and sharing the results with all of us.

    Thank you.

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