Friday, January 9, 2026

Playing War Games with your Grandmother's Nativity Set

I worked on this over Christmas. It's a little late but perhaps you (like me) haven't quite cleaned up your tree yet.

I have limited exposure to war games. I have played WH40K only once in college. I am more familiar with smaller scale, more narrative games like Emily Allen's Dolorous Stroke and Tom Bloom's Maleghast. But anybody can understand that nativity sets are war game minifigs.

That is why I have written a new faction for Maleghast called The Creche. Now you can use your grandma's nativity sets to fight demon-possessed ghouls in the streets of Hell.

Fair warning: This is in terribly bad taste. It's downright blasphemous.

The Creche Fan Fiction Society

The violet devil Granny Godbless wrote a series of corpse-puppet passion plays called The Creche. The serialized plays depicted a ridiculous pseudo-mystery religion centered on a virgin giving birth to an aborted godhead. The divine child preaches the Fire Sermon to the laughing tears of a variety of comical onlookers. The plays were a huge success in Anzenmezzeron. Fans of the plays flocked to Granny Godbless, each eager to add to and expand the Creche expanded universe. They became known as the Creche Fan Fiction Society and have swollen in power as to be a faction in their own right. If they can reach the End of Death, they can manifest their passion plays as true prophecies.

Playstyle: Vampiric, hard to kill

Soundtrack:

Lingua Ignota: The Order of Spiritual Virgins

Ghost: Year Zero

Celtic Frost: Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh

Special mechanic:

Fervor: A unit with a fervor token may choose to discard one at the end of their turn to regain 1 hp. You cannot spend more than 1 fervor token per turn.

Special tags:
Faith: A unit with this trait gains a fervor token when they roll a 1 when ACTing.

You can check out the unit stats in this Google Sheet, here. For convenience, I've also posted screenshots of each below.

This hasn't been playtested (but let me know if you wanna play it with me!). Use at your own risk.