England Invaded 1880 - War of the Worlds Campaign - Initial Deployments

With a number of players expressing an interest and others pressed ganged in to taking part.

Sunday night saw the opening moves of the Wyvern Wargamers - War of the Worlds campaign kick off, a full AAR of the opening salvo will follow shortly but first a short posting detailing the initial deployments.

First up the The Times early edition - 1st August 1880.

The landing sites and Crown deployments can be found below. Each Martian cylinder contains 500 points but may not include Tripods and Handling Machines in the first turn. Each Human garrison is restricted to 1 unit of Regulars and 2 Militia in each county.

Initial Martian and Mankind Deployments

England Invaded 1880 - A Wargames Campaign

It must be several years since I have run a proper campaign, over recent years linked scenarios have been the order of the day, but with some interest and a little bit of press ganging over at Wyvern Wargamers and inspiration in no small part from by Prima Lucam's excellent blog. , I thought I would give if another crack.

Back in 1998 Rage software brought out a real-time strategy game for the War of the Worlds, I must have spent many a late night hunched over the PC screen cursing those bloody tripods...

It came with a very nice campaign system similar in style to the Total War series of games, it reminded me of the Sport of Kings campaign element of - Warfare in the Age of Reason - Seven Years War Rules - The challenge was to tweak the campaign rules with the Rage software for table top gaming and a number campaign moves representing the supposed Martian invasion of Victorian England.

Campaign Rules

A player wins the game by holding the largest number of counties. Each county generates a number of points, Manpower for the Crown Forces, Blood Resources for the Martian Forces.

The full rules can be found Here. 

Initial moves and dispositions to follow shortly.

The Zulu's are coming.

Game Report 5

A little bit behind on posts, Last Sunday evening and another outing for Lt Henshaw in Zululand.

Reports had reached headquarters that a Zulu raiding party had crossed the Buffalo and were looking to raid the nearby farmsteads.

Capt Wiley called Henshaw to his office and was issued orders to take a couple of sections into the foot hills to disperse the natives, the plan was to lay in wait for the expected Zulu reconnaissance parties ambush them and retire inflicting maximum casualties on his foes at the minimum cost.

The scenario is from the SBH suppliment - Songs of Deeds and Glory - Breakthrough.

The British recieve 1 Victory Point per 20 points of Zulu's killed, , the Zulu's recieve 1 Victory point per 15 points who successfully exit the British table edge.

Van Ostlers Farm from the Zulu side of the table.

Lt Henshaw holds the centre ground awaiting the approach of the Zulu raiding party.

The Zulu's advance hoping to sweep both left and right, whilst the Brits send a screening force down the road to take the fight to the native hordes.

The pickets slot several of the Zulu's before the Zulu's pass a number of actions and the Zulu commanders rush several warriors forward.

The range markers go out.

Private Watkins is swamped by the Zulu tide, but his death slows the attacking warriors as they spend two bounds "washing their spears" - poor old Watkins.

Watkins death allowed the British regroup and fire several volley's into the Zulu's. This raiding party would not be breaking through......

A clear victory for the British, the Zulu's will need to re-think their next move....

Wargaming the Water Margin - The Nine Dozen Heroes.

The latest Chinese Village project led me to think of an alternative use for the RJW village.   

Being a child of the 70's their was only one thing on telly worth watching on BBC2 - The Water Margin..... 

For those too young to remember, this is a TV adaptation (set in China, made in Japan, dubbed into English) of a famous Chinese folk legend, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.  -- a kind of 'Robin Hood in China' -- hero-outlaws fight a corrupt government "in a world very different from our own", their were a minor fantasy elements.... but nothing to fantastical.

Gradually, over the 26 episodes, wicked Kao Chui the local government official forces each of the 'nine dozen heroes', into outlawry joining the rebel band living in the water margins of Liang Shan Po, forming a steadily growing force of opposition to Kao. 

Having painted up some of Black Hat miniatures range of Fantasy Chinese figures a few months back having played a number of Songs of Blades and Heroes games recently, I figured they were perfect for recreating the nine dozen heroes.

Lovely looking castings and they will certainly add some colour to future oriental outings. Six of the Nine Dozen Heroes, I shall add more as I need a break from other projects.

Lin Chung -- Panther Head

Lu Ta -- The Flower Priest

 Sung Chiang -- The Good Judge

Shih Chin -- Tattooed Dragon 

Chao Gai -- Pagoda-Shifting Heavenly King

Zhang San -- Street Crossing Rat

And remember.

^{"The ancient sages said, "do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon?". So may one just man become an army. Nearly a thousand years ago in ancient China, at the time of the Sung dynasty, there was a cruel and corrupt government. These men riding are outlaws - heroes - who have been driven to live in the Water Margins of Liang Shan Po, far to the south of the capital city. Each fights tyranny with a price on his head, in a world very different from our own. The story starts in legend even then - for our heroes, it was said, were perhaps the souls reborn of other, earlier knights..."}

Chinese Dragon - A sunday night takeaway....

Back in June we played a very enjoyable encounter over at the Wyvern Wargamers involving 4 players fighting over a cross roads in a nameless Chinese village...

You can read the full AAR here http://dusttears.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/songs-of-blades-and-heroes-four-way-aar.html

It must have been fun as it appears to have sparked interest in some of our various players who are now pulling together various oriental clans for the next outing.

Gav one of our valiant band very kindly gifted me this wonderful Chinese Dragon....

A fantastic sculpt and brillantly painted by Gav, he regularly takes commissions, I recommend you give him a look if like many of us you have more ideas for projects than you have brush time.

You can find more of his work here...

http://furphy1914.blogspot.co.uk/

Just need to pull together a scenario for this beauty......

Holiday reads and book shop finds....

I have been off the grid for a few days.... No internet or e-mail which can at first feel like losing a limb however it's always a great opportunity to catch up on the pile of books which have been slowly building up since Christmas. 

After polishing off a couple of half finished novels, I turned to a cracking read from Will Scully. 

Over the past few years I have read a fair amount about the history of Sierra Leone and the destruction of a once prosperous country as coup after coup strip the country of its wealth.

Set in May 1997 Will Scully is an ex-SAS soldier working in Sierra Leone. The country is thrown into anarchy and chaos after a terrorist coup and foreign nationals are being evacuated. Scully finds himself in the hotel Mammy Yoko in the capital, Freetown, where there are over one thousand refugees sheltering from the violence raging in the streets outside. The hotel is targeted by the Sobels (Soldiers and Rebels) of the RUF who have ravaging the city in a week long louting and killing spree.

With the lives of over one thousand men, women and children at stake, Scully takes control of security, Time after time the terrorists attacked the hotel and Scully fought them off, killing dozens of them while the refugees huddled together in the hotel awaited what many of them thought would be certain death.

 

It is written in a style which gives you a real feel for the chaos of a city under threat and the encounters and fire fights create endless possibilities for those seeking to game West Africa. 48 Hrs from start to finish gives you an idea of how good a read it was.....

 

By contrast I revisted the classic, War of the Worlds, the paint table of recent weeks has been full of the weird and wonderful contraptions ultimately leading me to a campaign of sorts. Much of my memory is coloured by the 70's album and the more modern takes on the novel, however, the original is full of minor snippets which give some great insight into how any games should be played.... or potential scenario's...

Mutineers on Torpedo Boats...
HE Automatic Mines...
Committee of Public Supply...
The Government moved to Birmingham...

Missed all of those the first time of reading....

Whilst wandering through a couple of small book shops I came across the following which will be perfect for adding a little history to the potential War of the Worlds Campaign..... 

To the outsider (ok the wife) this can appear very dry, first published in 1899 and written by LT - Col J M Greirson it contains a wealth of detail, formations, training and weaponary.... not exactly a page turner but a great reference point.

Now back to the brushes.....