Cheers Nik.

Aye it was a hard battle for both sides.  the Prussians struggled early on, getting across the terrain in good enough order to force their way through the British line.  But once they did break through and restore their order, it became almost impossible for the British to recover.

As i said, the players had no forewarning or foreknowledge of the book, but they deployed and formed battle plans that were almost identical to how George Chesney describes things happening!

Maybe he played Kreigspiel!!   

The British were hamstrung by poor commanders, which wasn't too bad while their original positions held, but once they needed to redeploy, the confusion that reigned meant they just couldn't bring enough reserves in.

Also, being raw troops against the trained Prussians (using Baccus' Polemos rules), once the Prussians got into close quarters, the British simply couldn't stand...as it should be?!

Overall, i'm happy that the project came off as i'd planned.  Now to use the figures for other things...just receives the French army from Leon, so i'll be painting that up for a bit of Franco-Prussian War action, and that'll give me three full colonial forces for my VSF strand...now to sort out the Martian forces.   

I must say a nice set up write ups Luddite . I'm a great fan of 'what if?' type conflicts as it's a good way of using troops you like that often didn't get to fight each other. Also good that they will form the core of your VSF forces. What will you use for the Martians?

Well i've already got a core of 'beast man' type Martians (supported by Minotaurs and spiders).  These i've seen as spawn slaves of the 'cephalim overlords' (and their machines).

On my VSF Mars there are three main races;

1.  The beastmen

Figures used:  Fantasy beasment / minotaurs / spiders.

2.  The cephalim (in their decadent and failing ziggurat cities connected by ancient canals).  They are puser-intelligent and build the tripods and other machines, as well as using the beastmen as slave labour.

Figures used:  Unsure yet.  Possibly the Dungeon monsters rangs -DN6 Evil trapper, or DN11 Floating squid (Leon, any chance of HG Wells MArtian figures?   ).  Not sure what i'll do for the 'metal men' (robots and tripods yet.  I know Pendraken do Tripods but they're based on Jeff Wayne-era images and i want something closer to what HG Wells describes.  I may have to look at scratch-builds.

3.  'Red Men' Nomadic sand dwellers that roam the dying deserts and wastes looking for technology from the 'old times' (before Mars started to die).

Figures used:  I'm planning to use a mix of Afghan tribesmen from the 'Colonial 1890's North West Frontier' range, perhaps with some bits and bobs mixed in from other ranges.  Inotice there's a range of 'Giant Sand Worms', so i might include these in a bit of 'Fremen' type action.  Any chance of some pictures of these worms Leon?

The plan is to have Germany, France and Britain in a 'scramble fo Mars' colonial campaign, resisted by a coalition of the various Martian factions, forced to cooperate by the Earthman invasions.  Of course the cephalim have rockets with which to launch a counter invasion!  

Quote from: Luddite on 29 March 2011, 10:50:27 AM
I know Pendraken do Tripods but they're based on Jeff Wayne-era images and i want something closer to what HG Wells describes.  I may have to look at scratch-builds.

That's not what the 'Estate of HG Wells' thought...   

Quote from: Luddite on 29 March 2011, 10:50:27 AM
I notice there's a range of 'Giant Sand Worms', so i might include these in a bit of 'Fremen' type action.  Any chance of some pictures of these worms Leon?

There's a couple here which BlackEd entered in the Painting Comp:

Excellent write up all the way through, Luddite!  I enjoyed that a lot!  Not sure if the Prussians were already called the Bosch back then though 

Quote from: Pruneau on 29 March 2011, 01:22:07 PM
Not sure if the Prussians were already called the Bosch back then though 

Agreed.  Boche wasn't used until WWI.  Hun was around since about 1900 i think.  I suppose at the time it would have been 'Dutch'? 

Quote from: Luddite on 29 March 2011, 01:52:23 PM
Hun was around since about 1900 i think.   

Woops - finger trouble. Meant to say that the term Hun comes from 1914, George V I think, described the German army as a horde of ravening huns,m or somthing similar.

IanS

Quote from: ianrs54 on 29 March 2011, 04:31:19 PM
Woops - finger trouble. Meant to say that the term Hun comes from 1914, George V I think, described the German army as a horde of ravening huns,m or somthing similar.

IanS

Really?

I thought it came from Kaiser Willhelm II's 'Hun' speech in 1900.

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=755  


@Leon

Cheers for the worm pic mate.  Lovely!

Well, a truly marvellous game - something unexpected...

I was British Commander in Chief for my sins...our brief was to hold the line, and to ensure that Dorking did not fall. We deployed across the width of the table, and secured Dorking itself with our elite Highland unit.

Unfortunately, our scouting wasn't what it should be, and we deployed a good chunk of our force to defend a river which turned out to be uncross-able. Our in-efficient command structure meant redeploying wasn't a viable option, a nightmare scenario....eventually our brave volunteers fell to the might of the Prussian Military Machine!

An excellent game overall, using the Polemos rules from Baccus. Rules are interesting, with a lot of really good ideas, though I can't help but think they are perhaps a little clunky in places - perhaps it's my age, but i don't really enjoy a mathematics when working out combat results!

That's only a minor point though, and an excellent game was had by all!

Tonight we're giving the GHQ Microarmour rules another bash after a successful first attempt - we're playing a rather large Battle of the Bulge scenario, using Pendraken figs of course....!!!!

Very nice indeed, what artillery did the British field, also what was the rifle?

At the risk of getting whistled off I would like to ... gulp ... criticise your initial dispositions. IMHO you should have put a battalion into the woods on Leith hill, it slows them down and keeps that dreaded artillery at arms length just a bit longer; also your R flank had no reserve! Apart from that it was fine!

Well that was quite something! It's also given me food for thought for my upcoming 10" square terrain modules.
DP