It’s been a while since my last post. Sometimes I feel like I just run out of worthwhile stuff to say. I’ve been busy. I’m probably playing 3-4 games a month. A fair amount of SAGA, some MEBSG (Lord of the Rings) and some Moro Wars using the One Hour Skirmish Wargame rules. More than anything I’m enjoying time with my friends. Oh, and preparing for Enfilade 2025 in May. Ack.

However, one day I decided to do something I’ve always wanted to do and that is write some rules for and run a game of The Great Daulton Snowball Fight of 1864. Just a quick historical synopsis. In 1864, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, disastrously ejected from Chattanooga at Missionary Ridge by U.S. Grant, was encamped at Daulton, Georgia in winter quarters preparing for the 1864 spring campaign. Under new leadership by veteran general Joseph E. Johnston, the soldiers awakened to a snowfall of 5-7 inches and snowball fights broke out across the encampment. Eventually, the skirmishes spread into company, regimental and even brigade level clashes. Generals Cleburne and Polk both appeared at the head of their troops as snowballs whizzed by. I learned of this fun-sounding clash while reading Steve Davis’ wonderful article (“The Great Snow Battle of 1864”) in the June 1976 issue of Civil War Times Illustrated many years ago.

Probably 25 years or so ago I tried to run a game using a published set of rules on this topic and it just didn’t go well. I’ve always had this in the back of my mind, and thought it would be fun–and different–so I cobbled the rules together over a couple of days and yesterday we tried them out.

I have a few ACW figures for Rebels and Patriots, six infantry for each side. These are twelve figure units. Not a lot of figure losses, though that changed a bit with our game play. I got together some willing friends on a Weekday Warriors Wednesday and we gave it a try. I’d like to say they were perfect out of the gate, but they weren’t. However there was a basis for constructive collaboration and I really appreciated that.

Each unit was allotted stamina points, because while snowball fights don’t cause casualties, they do wear out the participants with cold, wet and the odd bumps and bruises. Units could “huck” (throw snowballs) or they could “brawl” (melee). The rules as written really favored brawling, so we saw more of that than huckin’. Units expended their stamina points quickly in brawls which forced them to take time to recover their stamina before jumping back into the festivities. Each player also had an encampment building which needed some defending. Each turn was played in rounds with a die roll for initiative. Snowballs were restricted to supply and reloading. It was possible to have “dirty” snowballs, but they carried a required brawling response that was sort of like mutual assured destruction, so we didn’t see these used. We played 12 turns in about 2 1/2 hours

All agreed that the game was a fun idea and that there were lots of choices for players to make. Lots of sensible suggestions were made that standardized some game features, including figure losses (think of them as desertions as things got too cold, wet and rough.) I’ve already made changes to the rules and am anxious to try them again. I’ll get the chance on December 28th at the monthly Wizard’s Keep Saturday. Looking forward to it. A big thank you to Mark Waddington, Mark Wensnahan, Eric Donaldson, Gary Griess and Keith French for playtesting the rules. I had a lot of fun.