England Invaded 1880 - Campaign Turn 1 - The Battle for Derbyshire.

Colonel's Dane and Furphy emerged from their command tent shortly after 10.00am they had arrived late last night and had been up since dawn reviewing maps of the local area.

They had been ordered to muster following reports of a falling star and had been given orders by Whitehall to cordon off the area before advancing to the crash site to investigate this strange phenomena.

The plan was a simple one Colonel Dane would take the Sherwood Foresters and advance from the East and rendezvous with Colonel Furphy and the Cheshire Regiment on the high ground over looking the crash site.

Furphy's Brigade adavnce to the high ground in the centre of the table, both human players had identical forces of two battalions of militia and one regular battalion.

On the right the 1st Volunteer Battalion (1st Cheshire), In the centre 1st Batt 22nd (Cheshire) Foot and on the left 2nd Volunteer Battalion - 2nd Cheshire (Earl of Chester)

As the men of Nottinghamshire crest the hill they are subjected to a barrage of rockets from the direction of the crash site, canisters land amongst the lead section and these cannisters release an inkey black vapour from which there is no safety but death or instant flight. 

The 45th Foot suffer the worse losing a quarter of their number as they stumble backwards in some disorder.

As the Nottinghamshire Regiment regain their composure to their right and across the railway line wonderous contraptions come into sight, what can best be described as boiler suits on legs scuttle there way towards the faltering infantry.

From the tree line on the far left ugly brutes emerge firing into the Crown forces, whilst other Octopus like creatures fire a beam of heat that sweeps the British lines like a Warships search light.

Yet more black smoke shrouds the battlefield and blocks out the mid morning sun, yet the valiant men of Cheshire and Nottinghamshire not only hang on but begin to regain their composure, massing their fire and driving the squid type creatures from the tree line and destroying one of the spider like machines with concentrated volley fire, whilst another is surrounded and brought to the ground.

Whilst battered and scorched members of the 3rd Battalion Volunteers (Robin Hood) rush the pit and drag from it one of the oilly brown brutes and put it to the sword, this heroic action appears to sap the fight from these strange creatures and their contraptions who abondon the fight and back away from the victorious militia.

So first victory to Mankind.

I took the decision to combine two battle encounters into one to amke the encounters more playable, 1000 points apiece, humanity could only draw upon militia and regulars with no addtional support weapons, whilst the Martian invaders could only use light walkers and infantry.

Humanity lost 200 points and the Martians 400, the Martians retreated from the field and are unsupported in the next encounter.

Played through in under 3 hours using Martian Empires from Blackhat Miniatures.