Christmas at White Mountain (2016)

Christmas at White Mountain is a small mini-game that shipped to customers who took part in Hollandspiele's 2016 holiday sale. It is also available for download via Wargame Vault for a nominal fee.

It is based on one of the early battles of the Thirty Years War, the Battle of White Mountain. One sheet of rules and one mapsheet is provided; you'll need to provide twelve dice and 50 tokens, coins, or cubes.

Each player has a pool of dice that he rolls each turn, and then he commits dice to a particular unit's box, according to the type and number of dice that can be placed in that box. For example, the Bohemian Right and his opponent's Catholic League Infantry both use sixes, but the latter can gain at most one die per turn. It's not that the Bohemians are more ferocious or better-led (they're not!), but rather that they are fighting (albeit poorly) from a strong defensive position, while mounting an attack on that position takes time and preparation. When a unit is activated, all the stored dice are removed, and losses are inflicted on the enemy depending on the number of dice.

Or not; one of the signal features of this particular design is the ability of cavalry and artillery to screen and discourage enemy attacks. If I have the right number of dice in my cavalry box when you attack an infantry unit under that cavalry's protection, I can expend those dice to cancel your attack. In fact, it's not just that I can do it, but that I'm required to, and so both the attacking unit and the screening unit have their dice cleared out. When I perform that Reaction, it robs me of the ability to make an Attack on my own turn immediately following. This means that there's a definite cat-and-mouse feel, with each side struggling for control of tempo. You don't want to just prevent your enemy from attacking, you also want to get the leverage you need to launch a successful attack yourself. You want to set up your cavalry so as to screen effectively, but if that's all you're doing, you won't have sufficient dice to press your advantage when it appears.

In general, the Imperial/Catholic League position is a more flexible one, representative of the superiority of their commanders and the bifurcated command structure. Not only may they place in two boxes per turn (one per army), but between them there's at least one box that can potentially utilize each die result. The Bohemian Player on the other hand places in only one box per turn, and any ones, twos, or threes are absolutely worthless. Because of his defensive position, he can place more dice for his infantry divisions - if you roll three sixes, you can place three sixes, while the enemy infantry places at most one at a time.

So, each side has its strengths and weaknesses, and while your decisions are driven by your dice, they are still meaningful decisions. The game typically plays out in less than thirty minutes, with the exact time depending on the aggressiveness of the players.