Secret weapons of The Crown - Part 1

The Martian invasion of 1880 caused the temporary abandonment of work on the London sewerage system as labour and capital were diverted to repair the extensive damage above ground. At the Queen’s request the sewerage systems designer and motivating force Joseph Bazalgette* was seconded instead to oversight of the enormous Vengeance Cannon project on Dartmoor. 

The shaft of the cannon, angled to fire at Mars and bored nearly a mile deep into the Devon granite was an enormous undertaking funded by public subscription but Bazalgette, now in his early sixties, soon grew disinterested in it and devoted an increasing amount of his time to mechanical rather than civil engineering.

Granted access to the intact Dollis Hill tripod he was the first to identify an electrical gyro stabilisation system which the Martians were using to provide balance during locomotion. His experimental reproduction of this system with inferior earth technology produced similar results on a three legged vehicle he named the Bazalgette Rambler.

The properties of gyroscopes had of course been known and observed since ancient times, but their apparent gravity defying effect always wore off when the gyro wound down. By supplying their gyroscope with a constant source of electrical power the Martians maintained its effect for as long as was needed. Trialled in a closed off section of Hyde Park the Rambler greatly excited Queen Victoria who immediately decided she wanted tripods of her own. Of course what Vicki wanted Vicki got, and after three years of secret development the first Bazalgette Armoured Steam Walker clanked out of its shed.

Powered by 1 x twin stack Cockcroft / Serpollet flash boiler producing 350 horsepower the “wobblers” as they became derisively known could manage a healthy 4 mph over a 5 mile radius but couldn’t really turn for toffee. High ground pressure on modestly sized feet meant operation on anything other than concrete was problematic and climbing even gentle slopes was always approached with enormous trepidation. On the plus side its high ground clearance meant most regular obstacles could be stepped over and its towering 40ft height gave a commanding view of the battlefield.

The crew of three included a stoker / engineer, a gunner / loader and a vehicle commander / driver - who due to the very restrictive interior of the hull was forced to permanently sit half in and half out of the top hatch. 

Armament consisted of 1 x 2.5 inch BL 7 pounder screw gun plus 1 x Gatling firing from a left and right sided sponson. Since only one of these weapons could be fired at any one time and ammunition storage was very limited, field conversions often deleted either the Gatlings or the screw gun.

Considering the Bazalgette to be a “dud” the Navy did not lobby hard for control of these Pocket Land Battleships and the Army, finding themselves a bit unsure about what to do with them as well, eventually created 2 new battery’s within a freshly raised brigade of the Royal Horse Artillery.

TTFN

*Special thanks are due to Colonel O’ Truth for highlighting Mr Bazalgette’s historic potential. His marvellous VSF blog is somewhere or other on the list to the right.

Secret weapons of the Kaiser - Part 1

Bismarck's overthrow of France in the 70’s had been a phenomenal success, the semi permanent state of revolution that followed, allowing the newly created German Empire to become the dominant force in Europe. This state of affairs would have been enough for Kaiser Wilhelm 1st but not it transpired for his eminence grise. Bismarck knew that in order to ensure continued German overseas expansion, a wounded Britain and its fractious empire would need to be brought to heel. Planning for an invasion began in earnest in 1883, spurred on by reports that HM Government had begun to experiment with technology recovered from their defeated Martian foe.

With a two year search for a way to circumvent the Royal Navy, (of which more later) coming to a dramatic conclusion in a Silesian coal mine, the Iron Chancellor presented an open mouthed Kaiser with a second device that he would use to overawe the British defences should Eagle Day be finally sanctioned.

And here she is…

Der Kleine Dampfpanzerwagen I

Weighing in at 30 tons she has a crew of 6 and is armed with a single 5.7cm Maxim - Nordenfelt cannon. Her naphtha fired 400 horsepower steam engine propels the vehicle at a blinding 6kmh across country though her heavy consumption of powdered coal limits the operational range to a mere 5 kilometres.

I’ll be using The Men Who Would be Kings for the upcoming games and since that rule set does not include armoured vehicles I’ve been having fun making my own dice to determine where any hits on such a vehicle might occur.

The faces shown here include optics, propulsion and the vehicles armour.

For those of a more historically serious disposition I shall eschew any further cod Victorian flights of fancy for a wee while and return to my ECW campaign - well when I’ve finished building my new 4Ground windmill that is. 

TTFN

The great summer sale - now on!

My new best friend Mr Crook has recently delighted and appalled me by ruthlessly culling his toy collection in order to create some space and in the process free up some loot for new projects.

Now I’m normally mister “never let it go” but room is getting a bit tight here at Broom Towers and I’ve begun to realise I’m holding on to a stash of all sorts of stuff that l’m not likely to ever use again.

Naturally I could just bung it on eBay or maybe into landfill but I thought I’d see if anyone who visits here wants to make me an offer on some of it first.

First up we have rule books:

Then we move onto my Baccus 6mm ECW lads. (I can no longer stand their reproachful stares when I open the cupboard). For Christ’s sake boys I’m all about 18mm these days - get over it!

As usual the photos on blogger refuse to appear in the order I wanted but basically they are all based on magnetised 2mm mdf in either 3x3cm or 6x3cm size. There are 10 regiments of foot, 1 pike heavy regiment of foot, 1x dismounted dragoons, 1x horse and holders for same, 2x forlorn hope, 2 x wagons / baggage train, 2x light cannon, 3 x saker, 2 x siege cannon, 8x four base, regiment of horse, 15x mounted officer bases, 20 plus wounded stands in 1x1 and 3x3cm.

Of course, the potential disposal of my entire 6mm force means I’ve little use for the following terrain items:

Can’t remember where the buildings are from but the hexes are Kalistra hexon slope tiles, unflocked but easily flockable... if you know what I mean. They are moderate slopes that are fine for 6mm but look a little too subtle for 15mm and above.

All reasonable offers (including postage) will be entertained. 

If you’re personally not interested but know someone that might be, get them to drop me a line.

Cheers

JBM

The shape of things to come

  

I’ve always had a love of science fiction, sparked initially by the likes of Wells and Verne, and it must have been at the back of my mind when I recently decided to branch out, wargaming wise, into the whole colonial thing.

Quite rightly it’s now considered bad taste to glorify the exploitation of other cultures or worse the annihilation of natives attempting self determination against a technologically superior opponent. Since I didn’t fancy gaming the morally dubious massacre of fuzzy wuzzies beneath the barrels of a maxim, the clash of similarly equipped if differently motivated empires in this period seemed to grant a more morally acceptable fight amongst equals. 

The Empires of Britain France and Germany had competing interests and borders at this time and friction between them could have erupted into more than one conflict given the jingoistic nature of their respective  politicians and population.

 

Setting my games in the mid 1880’s, before the science of industrialised warfare had really taken hold, would allow the possibility of the thin red line, and the attraction, were I to focus on Britain in particular, of felling Johnny Foreigner with the occasional well placed upper cut. Stirring boys own adventure stuff eh! Huzzah!

Given that I needed a point of departure from our real timeline I chose 1870 and had the Franco Prussian war leave a shattered bankrupt France in a semi permanent state of anarchy lasting for years. 

While the newly emboldened German Empire began to spread its influence overseas the British Empire was thrown into total disarray by the arrival of Mr Wells’ Martians in 1880 (rather than the late 1890’s as per the War of the Worlds). The Martian’s susceptibility to earthly germs remained unchanged but Britain’s confidence, economic dominance, and  political capital has been severely shaken.

So I’m pitching this whole shebang in 1885 and I’ll be fighting with British forces against a new Martian landing or a German invasion - (I’ve still to decide which, but have forces for both).

I’ll be trying to stick to the militarily possible rather than the overly fantastical.... however the use of steam as a motive source of power cannot really be avoided. 

The British army prior to 1880 had adopted tactics appropriate to the overseas policing of an enormous empire - tactics including forming square and volley fire that did them no favours when faced with the Martians black smoke or heat ray. Though the old ideas still had a part to play in suppressing recalcitrant tribesmen new tactics and equipment were clearly needed for combatting a sophisticated opponent in a European setting.

By 1885 most regular home service battalions (whose number had been increased threefold since 1880) would have looked a lot like these chaps from 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers.

British home service infantry. Miniatures by Fighting 15’s

Difficult to discern from the photographs are:*

The ’83 pattern Baker Monroe breath preserver which confers short term protection against Martian black smoke or the chemical and biological agents deployed by the French Corps de Miasmatique.

The Mk III “sticky” bomb (issued 2 per section / troop) which due to handling problems is usually affixed to the end of a lance or an adapted infantry bayonet. Intended to destroy the legs of Martian tripods they are greatly disliked (not least for the amount of time taken to remove the numerous layers of protective brown paper). Frequently the first thing to be discarded in the field they are no longer thought to have any practical use.

The Shackleton “Hallelujah” smoke pot. 1 issued per section. Difficult to ignite in damp conditions but then very hard to put out. It’s dense white smoke was discovered, by accident, to interfere with the vision of the Martian tripods, and thus offers a degree of cover to the user, even in open terrain.

Painting of all the relevant forces is now continuing apace, and I’ll document my progress here from time to time. I anticipate that battles will be small scale skirmish affairs and thematic rather than strictly chronological or part of a rigid campaign. 

Yes, that’s right, I’ll be winging it again.

Surprise surprise.

* Don’t bother looking on the internet - they’re all, as is my want, totally made up.

 

 

Fear and loathing in West Wales

I’ve never thought of myself as a scaredy cat, but it seems just recently the times they are a changin’. 

Lord knows over the years I’ve confronted a house full of beer fuelled rugby players at 3 in the morning because of the noise they were making, had a fist fight with a bloke because he pushed his way in front of me into a shopping queue, (on balance it was probably a draw.... but I like to think the point was made) watched more than my fair share of horror movies, and I’ve never had a moments qualm about walking around in the dark. In fact the only thing that, until last week, I can honestly say scared me was this fellow and his mates...

Yeah the common or garden house fly. They make my flesh creep and my toes curl in disgust at the mere thought of them. They’re so repugnant to me that I can’t even pick up a dead one and put it in the bin! Axe wielding maniac at the front door...not a problem I’ll send him packing. Zombie apocalypse in the town... I have my brain splitting ice pick ready with my bug out bag... common house fly buzzing around the light shade... I’m out of there.

True story. It’s 1981 and I’m riding on my scooter to Scarborough with a pack of mates. It’s a lovely sunny day and I’m at the front thinking I must look pretty damn cool....

When I spot a blob hurtling towards me through the air. I’d have classified it immediately as a fly if it hadn’t  been so ruddy big. I swear to god it was like a quarter pound beef burger. Anyway it hit me in the chops square on, which would have been bad enough, but worse was the fact that it then contrived to crawl right up my nose. Lol. The more I tried to snort it out, the further up it went, buzzing in angst. There was nothing I could do whilst riding apart from avoid crashing straight into the curb. The experience clearly scarred me for life!

Sorry just went off to puke for a moment. Where was I? Ah yes.... And that was it; my kryptonite as it were...until last week.

I’ve always had a love of the sea, which is probably some sort of reaction to having spent most of my life living as far away from it as nature could contrive. Now in splendid retirement by the coast I’ve had the opportunity to redress that and have taken to swimming off this local beach.

Of course it’s bloomin’ cold in there at the moment so I eventually kitted myself out in full wetsuit etc, the only downside being that I now bore more than a passing resemblance to this chap who has recently lost his bearings and ended up on the Pembrokeshire coast. 

I’m sure Wally the walrus is jolly nice but The Current Mrs Broom jokingly asked what I’d do if he came across me in the sea and became amorous. Would I be able to stop a 2,000Ib walrus from humping me? 

Good question!

Anywhoo... we had one day last week when it wasn’t lashing down with rain so I took the opportunity to nip out for a quick dip, undaunted by the prospect of being buggered by an over large sea mammal. The sea was crystal blue and very inviting until I got out by the end of the rocks. It was here that the clouds rolled in and the water turned icy grey. 

Doing the front crawl I occasionally lifted my head from the water to grab a breath and I noticed the change in the weather and something looking remarkably like this...

About 20ft away.

If I’d been towed by a speedboat I don’t think I’d have got back to the beach any faster. 

I mean, on reflection it had to be a dolphin didn’t it!

Didn’t it?

So...I guess the common house fly has just been pushed into second place. 

If anyone wants a cheap wetsuit, get in touch. 

Yeah...it was definitely a dolphin. 

Bound to be.

Medieval mayhem with B.O.B.

This post was meant to be the next step in my ECW campaign but sadly...we now have house guests. (I know, right). Guests who expect the spare bedroom to be turned over to them for sleeping in, of all things, and guests who insist on eating their meals at the dining room table...otherwise known at Broom Towers as gaming platform B.

Anywhoo...while they were all off getting cold and thoroughly miserable at the beach I resolved to spend the five minutes they weren’t sucking at the teat of my largesse to test out some recent tinkering with my home brew WOTR rules and more importantly my “absent opponent”. 

One of my nobles with his household troops in a large company.

For the majority of my gaming life I’ve played solo battles using the “do the best thing for both sides” approach but in the last year I’ve noticed a bit of “favourite unit bias” creeping in. You know the one - where a bad combat result wasn’t quite what you thought was reasonable for your newly painted / best looking / most highly ranked chaps and the temptation to ignore or change the outcome insidiously creeps into your mind. In January I started using a basic Absent Opponent to control the manoeuvrings of the “other side” but in truth I wasn’t sure I’d got it quite right and so I continued to explore how other people had approached the problem. 

Weeks spent on the internet looking at AI algorithms and slick card systems made me realise that I didn’t want to spend every turn consulting a rabbit warren like decision tree nor did I want to construct an elaborate set of action cards for the enemy to draw from. 

Having settled on what I didn’t want, I created B.O.B. 

B.O.B. is, (as you’d quite rightly expect from me) a highly contrived acronym standing for my Battlefield Orders and Behaviour system. 

Having had a hand in creating my own nemesis as it were I’ve become tempted to go the rest of the way and dress up a potato, or perhaps a melon, in homemade (but period specific) military attire so that I can position it opposite me during a game - giving BOB a physical presence. The Current Mrs Broom rolled her eyes and sighed in approval when I mentioned the idea, so I suspect the concept has merit!*

I probably ought to mention as well that my home brew WOTR rules have undergone a massive transformation since they were last played in January, chiefly through the theft of a unit activation mechanism from Mr Cordery’s excellent Clash of Empires rules, discovered entirely by chance while researching project x.

In case anybody’s mildly interested in how B.O.B works I’ve sketched it out for you below.

Battlefield Orders and Behaviour - BOB

The absent opponents posture or “stance” may be defined as aggressive or defensive, and may differ across the width of the AO’s command. A single card drawn (from a deck of twelve) at the start of a game will determine the AO’s initial stance. The card is divided into three to reflect the two flanks and the centre of the battlefield and has icons showing which sections must adopt which posture.

 

A B.O.B. card also indicating a flank attack will be made.

Reading from left to right, (from the human players perspective) the areas include any unit in the 4 hexes on either flank or 5 hexes in the centre of a standard C&C battlefield. If a unit moves from one zone to another during the game, in its next activation it adopts whatever posture is indicated for the zone it now occupies.

 

Red triangles indicate an aggressive posture and blue squares a defensive one.

 

Activation

 

The AO’s units will behave according to their type within the confines of an aggressive or defensive posture such that:

 

Aggressive

 

o Aggressive - Missile units should firstly - try to shoot at targets, but if none are in range they should move in order to bring the closest one into range.

 

o Aggressive - Foot units should always try to move to melee the closest visible enemy. If none are in range they should move towards an objective (WOTR – units containing enemy leaders).

 

o Aggressive – Mounted knights (in WOTR) should ride straight at the closest enemy leaders position in order to engage in melee. They may ride straight through hexes of opposing levy leaving a disorder marker on them in the process but may not engage in combat. Other mounted unit types may only move towards opponents of equal or lesser quality (retinue or levy) with a view to engaging in melee – albeit without a charge combat bonus.

 

Defensive

 

o Defensive - Missile units should move towards the nearest cover (including adhoc defences and in hexes behind foot units) and if in cover already, fire or make ready. Units that have made ready must fire at a target as soon as it becomes visible or moves into range.

 

o Defensive - Foot units move in order to be adjacent to another friendly unit and may defend themselves in combat only.

 

o Defensive - Mounted knights should move to where the defence is weakest and dismount to be treated as foot (WOTR - replace mounted with a men at arms stand).

 

Changing posture

 

o Two melee losses, two combat induced retreats, two failed activations or the loss of a leader in a battlefield sector (in one turn) causes an involuntary move from aggressive to a defensive posture there.

 

o Two defensive melee wins, all units activating in a battlefield sector (in one turn) or no enemy attacks or advances in the sector causes a shift from a defensive to an offensive posture. 

 

o Posture change occurs in the admin phase at the end of the turn. A card is taken from the pack (as an aide memoire) to replace the original and reflect the current posture stances across the battlefield.

The new game rules include fire arcs, zones of control, unit facing, ammo supply for archers, disorder due to terrain or combat, large units, class, and a bespoke set of combat dice in the manner of C&C (should they ever arrive from America).

The game in question never came to a conclusion since my soaked and sand encrusted “guests” returned bearing fish and chips sometime around turn 5. Though I was forced to surrender gaming platform B...the chips were pretty decent compensation. 

For what it’s worth my game tactics were to sit on the ridge line and lob arrows at his advancing units. His flanking force would arrive when a cumulative dice score (added to at the end of every turn) exceeded or equalled 21 and they would appear on the indicated flank, 3 hexes closer to my board edge than his most advanced unit. His crossbowmen had managed to get into the lee of the ridge without loss and their advanced position meant that when his flanking force arrived on turn 4 they came on behind my lines. Ouch. 

Bobs flanking unit came on behind my lines...ouch!

On my left I sent a group of men at arms into the woods where his archers had just arrived. Disordered by the terrain and the run downhill they never managed a crippling blow despite their expected combat superiority. 

Rumble in the jungle? Nah...more like lots of asthmatic wheezing as my men at arms legged it across the valley then clanked around in the undergrowth.

A quick view of the “at start” battlefield.

The tipping point came when the units forced to retire under my archery fire bunched up and were forced to flee through each other causing mass panic and unit disintegration. 

With numerous disordered markers accrued whilst retiring under archery fire, the units set off a cascade off disintegration when forced to flee through each other.

On their way to put the boot in...my Billmen set off after BOB’s fleeing long spears.

This happened just as his flanking force and the fish and chips arrived - so I’ll never know how things might have turned out.

Conclusion 

Overall I was very pleased with the new rules and how BOB worked. I couldn’t guarantee his behaviour in advance, but he didn’t do anything strange either. I only had one moment of “mmm, never thought of that” in which I decided that any unit with 3 disorder tokens has become so combat ineffective it should be removed as a loss, so I think I might actually print this lot out and use them again. It occurs to me that with a little added period flavour the mechanisms might work for the ECW as well.

If you’ve just worked your way through this lot then go and have a stiff drink. You’ve deserved it.

Ooh hold on. Before you go I thought I’d share this interesting fact with you. It’s something I came across when researching the Martini Henry for project x (I’m going to have to think of a better name than that soon). I’ll quote directly from my source - Mr Haythorthwaite’s seminal Colonial Wars Source Book...

“A bullet did not fly upon a level trajectory, but was affected by gravity during its flight, and the arcing trajectory which had to be used varied according to rifle, projectile and range. To hit a target at 700 yds, for example, firing over even ground, a Martini-Henry bullet had to describe an arc of which the highest point was more than TWENTY FEET above ground level.”

Cripes!

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Following a recent ill advised dalliance with fromage, post 10pm, I have been gifted with a prophetic dream / hallucinatory experience detailing the cause, if not the timing, of my eventual demise! 

I know! 

Handy or what! 

Anywhoo under “cause of death” on my death certificate (which is the only certificate I’ll ever have won by the way) will be the words...Greg’s Steak Bake. What’s weird about it (well apart from everything) is that I have no particular liking for pastry products in general or Greg’s in particular.  

The immediate fallout from this revelation is that I no longer feel able to travel to the end of Cardigan high street, where there is an actual Greg’s, (I mean would you chance it?) and I now anxiously scan the maps on my phone for other branches whenever TCMB and I dare to venture further afield. 

Such an unlikely ending shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when I think about it, because over the last few years there have been a number of occasions when I probably should have snuffed it by more conventional means and haven’t. For the purposes of brevity I shall gloss over the time I fell out of a tree onto my chainsaw and even the time I fell off this building… while trying to take down an unwanted satellite dish. (I did bring the dish down with me so not an entirely wasted effort).

Or even the time I nearly drowned in my own filth in this cellar due to a blocked septic tank pipe.

All that time spent contemplating my own mortality in A&E. All that precious wasted time. Doh. It seems possible that as long as I can continue to avoid these particular purveyors of hot and fatty comestibles I may in-fact live forever, an exciting enough prospect that when I discussed it with the current Mrs Broom she give a deep sigh of (I think) delight. 

So then unless I’m struck down in the street by a pasty wielding maniac, there’ll be no need for someone to engrave the words “Game over player 1. Insert coin to continue” on any tombstone of mine. 

Shame that.

Toodle ooh.