Foot notes and a brief hiatus....

Despite the horrific dice rolling in the last game, I was very happy with the results. As a way to explore the rules, it was a success and I thought that the gatling did exactly what it was supposed to do. However, I now have to pack everything away for a while because we are moving house.  We have been planning on downsizing for a couple of years now and after a brief conversation with relatives, we decided to put the house on the market and see what would happened. In short, within the course of a very busy week, we had sold our old house and purchased a new one with that holy grail for all likely readers of this blog - a dedicated wargaming space.

While the move means no more games until at least the end of October, it near guarantees that I will be able to play more often and post more often. Where my current space requires a lot of faffing around in the garage, the new space will allow me to leave the table set up free from interference from camping trailers or cats.

More to follow

Kas'trum Campaign details, details, details.

So having a broad goal in mind, let's put some structure around it. Drawing inspiration from the Too Fat Lardies At the Sharp End campaign supplement for Chain of Command, as well as earlier ideas of how Kas'trum fits in to the broader fluff of Space 1889, I came up with a rough ladder campaign as shown below. Each number refers to the "rung" hex two rows down. Each hex is notionally 20 miles across representing one day's march under normal conditions though this scale will be stretched or compressed as required. Movement for earth forces along the canal will not be too difficult as there is easy access to water. Moving deeper into the desert will create severe transportation problems as the amount of water needed by pack and draft animals rapidly outstrips their ability to carry it.  Martian forces will be much less constrained.

The "Ladder"

At the left on the main  north-south canal we start with Roogie's Landing, a minor backwater of a hamlet surviving quietly under Human occupation. Unfortunately, the earthers have discovered that the inhabitants have been carrying on a bustling trade in black market goods of Crocean origin. What was not immediately clear is how the goods were being smuggled in, that is until it was revealed that Roogie's Landing was not just a simple village in the wetlands but that it was the endpoint of a heretofore unknown canal going to who knows where.

To the east of the landing is campaign location 1, a stretch of Martian desert with not major features. Location 2 features some ruins, or perhaps not depending on how much terrain I want to make. Three will have some sort of temple or monolith. Four is more desert leading to five, an as yet unnamed small village providing respite for smugglers as well as farming for trade. Six, seven and eight are all variations of endless sand and stone. Nine is a border village between swamp an sand. Ten is swamp, allowing for possible naval action bringing us at last to Kas'trum proper.

I sat down with an rand() function and the Soldier's Companion book and came up with the table below:

Proposed specs for Kas’trum - randomly generated

Population	10 = 100,000 inhabitants
Government	Weak Prince   Strong Merchants
Corruption	Honest
Economy	Mixed
Economic Vitality	Wealthy
Army Quality	Good
Mercenary Quality	One level better so Excellent
Army Size	9
Fleet Quality	Trained
Fleet Size	10
Fleet Value	400K
Attitude	Very Friendly

Not bad and about what I wanted but Kas'trum should be a minor power and not a major city state.

So let's tweak it a little. In actual lead, I have six bands of Kas'trum foot with another of mounted, possibly borrowed from Crocea. In addition, I have a company each of Hill Martian foot and mounted, a smattering of artillery and of course Antevaax' flying hordes. By the book, each population number provides two bands infantry, one of mounted and two guns. Wealthy cities  have one additional band each of mercenary cavalry and infantry and an additional two guns per number.

I'm ok with recycling units to a degree but that's usually reserved for the barbarian hordes so let's drop the numbers a little. I also don't think Oh'ktava'an, I mean the merchant's guild or should that be the Prince would really be "very friendly" to the locals let alone off world invaders, so let's tone that down too.

Revised specs for Kas’trum - Final

Population	4 = 40,000 inhabitants
Government	Weak Prince Strong Merchants
Corruption	Honest
Economy	Mixed
Economic Vitality	Wealthy
Army Quality	Good
Mercenary Quality	One level better so Excellent
Army Size	3
Fleet Quality	Trained
Fleet Size	3
Fleet Value	140K
Attitude	Indifferent

So there we have it. Now I just need to re-stat my existing units and we are good to go.

City Troops:

Oh'ktava'n's Experimental Company - The Stalwarts: Regular E0
Kas'trum Fencibles: Irregular X0

First Kas'trum Marines: Regular V1S

Loyal Kas'trum Company: Irregular T2
Kas'trum Civic Guard: Irregular X2

Red Caps and Blue Bonnets: Irregular V1s

Foreign troops and Mercenaries:

Num'da's Raiders: Irregular V2

Kas'trum Scouts: Irregular V2

Second Oenotrian Lancers - The Canal Terrors: TBD

British stats will be pulled from one of the stock units.

Lots more to come.

Kas'trum Campaign

Kas'trum

One aspect of history and war gaming that has always interested me has been the underdogs, the ordinary, the forgettable and the forgotten. It's easy to get excited about the heroic, the dashing, the elite troops with all the kit as well as the skills and attitude to go with it. But I was never into the easy.

Space 1889, and its mass battle rules The Soldier's Companion, is  human and European focused. There is nothing wrong with this but to me at least, it is unsatisfying. Martian culture is supposed to be very old - older than that of Humanity in fact, yet it is presented as a culture in decay. The Martians, even when allies of Earth, are plot points or antagonists with the odd NPC thrown in for interest. Where are the stories from the Martian perspective? Why must they be two dimensional?  From the classical colonial perspective this makes some sort of sense, The Canal Martians stand in for the Raj with the Hill and High Martians taking on the roles of Steppe Tribes / Plains Indians and slightly exotic barbarians respectively.

Over hundreds of years of inter city conflict we are expected to believe that the Martians lack any technical finesse, any sense of strategy. At the very least, flying ships are something they know intimately while the Earth empires are just trying to figure them out.

It is also somewhat unsatisfying to see that in the fluff the British campaigns are held up not because of any skill on the part of the Martians but due to human incompetence. The Zulus and afghans got more respect than this.

I need to change this narrative so I give you the Kas'trum Campaign. this will be a series of battles fought using a ladder structure rather conveniently based on a British expeditionary force moving up the canal. The British force will be somewhat automated. It will receive support as its fortunes ebb and flow. The Kas'trum forces will be more fixed, with compromise required to get assistance from the hill tribes or High Martians as well as the larger city states in the area.  The aim of the game for Kas'trum will be to maintain its independence while driving back the invading Earth forces. This could be through a negotiated peace with the Earthers or causing them enough casualties to make them withdraw.

More to follow in the coming days.

More Boat Stuff

I recently read somewhere about making a type of decal using clear packing tape. The process is to laser print your image, apply a piece of clear packing tape over it then soak the whole lot in water. When you rub away the wet paper, the ink remains on the tape and you can use it much like you would a transfer.

 I liked this idea but when I built the riverboat, there was a seam between the two pieces of wood I used to make the superstructure that I want to cover up.  I very quickly drew some hatches and portholes in GIMP and added some rust streaks because why not? The printed sheet was mounted on card with spray adhesive and the individual sides cut out.

Printed mounted and about to be cut.

With the pieces cut out, I still applied the packing as a protective layer and trimmed.

Cut taped, trimmed and resized

I found that I had mis-measured the length of the forward cabin, so I had to do a little recutting to extend two of the panels. If needed, the vertical join will be concealed by a length of drinking straw painted up as some sort of pipe - the corners will need a bit of prettying up too.

Here's the finished product:

Waiting for the for'rd port side panel

Aft deck house.

For'rd panel cut and installed.

Overall I am very pleased with the effect. With a bit more time and effort at the design stage, there is potential to add a lot more detail.  Now to build up those gunwales.....

 

Mechanical Men Revisited

Last weekend I ran a couple of test games using the rules from my last post. The basic scenario used a company in line against a single medium mechanical man - mech from here on in. The mech was armed with a gatling ranged 24"/48" and the riflemen were armed with breech loaders later magazine rifles.  the games started with the mech just moving into maximum Gatling range (48") The mechs orders were:

If you fired last turn, move forward 9" otherwise, if you are over half range fire with 3 dice or if you are at half range or less fire with 5 dice. 

 Using the standard Soldier's Companion initiative and turn sequence, this created some unusual situations.  In the most basic case, the mech would slowly move forward firing most often in the defensive phase 3. The defensive fire phase ensured that the Gatling could fire every turn there was no movement. Even at 3 dice the sheer number of shots had an effect on the company and in one or two trials it broke before it got a shot off. When the mech did get within rifle range, the sheer number of shots put out by the company ensured there was at least one golden BB to assure its destruction. Changing to magazine rifles only sped up the process a bit.  Oddly the best tactic for the defending company was to advance as quickly as possible into range and overwhelm the mech with fire power - not really the result I was looking for.

Simple probability means that two volleys from breech loaders will pretty much guarantee a kill even with 6+ to hit and a natural 6 to fail the save.

Next up, I am going to try a standard defensive bonus of +4 for mechanical men but use hitpoints for the four types of mech:

Small: 1
Flying: 2
Medium: 3
Large: 5

We'll see if this feels any better. We'll also put the company behind some cover.

Mechanical Men for Space 1889 Soldier's Companion

A friend recently gave me a number of spare Heroscape miniatures, most of which will get re-purposed in one way or another.  The RPG side of Space 1889 features mechanical men as an item of technology that can be developed using the science rules. Sadly, they do not appear in the Soldier's Companion, so I  developed some draft rules to use them on the battlefield.

Mechanical Men

Mechanical Men - Flyers

Mechanical Men for Space 1889 Soldier's Companion

Mechanical Men are un-piloted autonomous mechanical devices of varying sizes and configurations - including some decidedly un-manlike. They come in three sizes small, medium and large plus flyers. This isn't canon, but allows a range of after market figures to be used. I thought about going larger to represent  mecha style big stompy robots but I think a variation on the tripod rules would better suit that concept.

Small 

Small mechanical men are roughly the size of an average dog and weight several hundred pounds.
They receive a defensive +3 modifier to hit in fire combat to represent their light armour.
They move 12" per turn.
They are equipped with small arms or a machine gun and  an effective close combat weapon.

Medium

Medium mechanical men are roughly human sized and weigh around 1000 pounds.
They receive a defensive +4 modifier to hit to reflect their moderate armour.

They move 9" per turn.
They are armed with any small arms, a machine gun or any artillery piece with a weight of less than 5 tons on the conveyance table. They are also equipped with a close combat weapon.

Flyers

Flying mechanical men are winged devices of small or medium size only.

They receive the +1 flying bonus when airborne but have no armour.
They move 6" on the ground and 12" when airborne.
They are equipped with a carbine or smaller ranged weapon and a close combat weapon.

For my thoughts on flying in Soldier's Companion see: Space 1889 Soldier's Companion High Martian draft house rules

Large

Large mechanical men are gorilla sized and weigh around 2200 pounds.
They receive a defensive modifier of +5 modifier to hit to reflect their heavy armour.

They move  6" per turn.
They are armed with any small arms, a machine gun or any artillery piece with a weight of less than 10 tons on the conveyance table. They are also equipped with a close combat weapon.

Orders

These rules are a direct crib from the old Striker rules for Traveller. Mechanical men must be given orders - preferably written down and interpreted by the referee.
There are three parts to any order all of which are optional:

Movement

The movement order must specify a location or a direction and speed. "Move at full speed toward the Top of hill one and stop." It can also be a distance or position relative to another unit. "Stay in line with the Second Fusiliers 6" from their left flank."

Fire

Fire orders must specify an enemy or range. "Fire at any enemy cavalry unit within 12 inches" or supporting fire "Fire at any enemy charging the Second Fusiliers" 

Rally

Rally orders specify a fall back location and may contain a simple conditional statement. "If unit casualties are over 50%, fall back behind the farmhouse."

Ad Hoc Orders

Ad hoc orders are issued by an authorized sentient being - typically a human commander. Because they are not fully programmed before the battle, these ad hoc orders can only have one of the three components. "Move to hill two." To fire on the way, the unit must be given an order to stop in one turn, then an order to fire on the next and finally a new order to continue to move toward hill two.

Fire Combat

Fire combat is conducted as normal though using the modifiers above. It may be desirable for mechanical men armed with more than small arms to have a limited number of shots per game to reflect that they are not conveyances with normal ammunition stowage capacity. This is at the discretion of the players or referee.

Melee Combat

Ground based mechanical men are slow but very strong. Opponents receive +1 in Melee Combat when facing mechanical men to reflect this slowness. However, on a higher score that is not double, mechanical men kill opponents rather than force them back. If mentioned in their orders or specifically ordered to, mechanical will fight to wound. Casualties are then assessed at the fire combat rate of 2/3 wounded, 1/3 killed. This behaviour is often used in crowd control situations.

Flyers kill or drive back opponents as normal in close combat. They are also considered weak opponents.

Morale

Mechanical men do not suffer from or benefit from morale effects and no morale checks need be made. They will carry out their orders until destroyed or told to stand down.

I built a boat.

It was a rough start to the month, but one of the ways to keep the black dog at bay, is to keep doing things that make you happy. Gaming does that for me.   I determined that, apart from snuggling up with my wonderful wife this weekend,  I would build something - but what I wasn't sure. 

Then Malc Johnston over on The Wargames Website, posted the second part to his Trouble on the river Liu River 1900 series, and there was one of the simplest little gunboats I have ever seen.  Even I could do that! So off to the man cave I went.

HMS Demetrius

The Story of the Demetrius

The HMS Demetrius was originally the SS Demetrius the result of a failed private commercial venture to modernize grain shipping on the canals of Mars. One Thomas Pincham, of the automated loom threader Pinchams, fancied himself an off-world Brunel and invested his fortune in transporting a small single screw steamship to Mars. A devotee of ancient Greek culture, he christened his endeavour Demetrius or The Servant of Demeter, goddess of grain. Pincham had visions of his ship sailing up and down the canals, unfettered by wind or flood, delivering the harvest of the fields to the cities of Mars and of course their British advisers. Where trade lead, the Empire followed! Accomplishing this first required many trips and naturally massive transportation charges as each etherliner had limited space for mercantile cargo and that was at a premium price. The parts of the SS Demetrius arrived in fits and starts. Each shipment was placed in what was supposed to be a secure storage yard until assembly could begin.  

...or is it Detritus? 

Sadly this was not to be. Due to varying capacity on the etherliners then in service, parts were shipped according to their size and weight rather than their ability to be joined up in any coherent fashion with the components already landed.  Over time, the costs mounted siphoning away the Pincham fortune into the ether eddies of too many interplanetary voyages.  Finally though, the last item on the last manifest was checked off and using the dregs of his bank account, and rather too many loans, Pincham could get to work.

Only, the storage yard was not as secure as might be hoped and some of the local workers found the temptation of so much refined iron irresistible.   Several major and many minor components had disappeared over the back fence only to resurface as unrecognizable tools, jewellery and trinkets in the local bazaar. Pincham was devastated.  But fate was not done with him yet and the final blow fell - the customs man arrived with a very large and very unpaid bill for duties owing on Steamship (1) parts and accessories. With financial ruin certain, Pincham could not also face the social opprobrium of debtor's prison.

Fortunately for Pincham, if not for Mars and the Empire, it was at this moment that Oenotria decided to flex her muscles and attempt to force the Earthers out.  Steam vessels of any variety were desperately needed. The boilers and machinery of the Demetrius were not suitable for airship use but the vessel itself could be useful for control of the canals. Pincham magnanimously and patriotically, offered the Demetrius to the Government for the price of his customs bill with a bit left over to support him in at least comfort, if not the luxury he had once been accustomed too. His one requirement being that the ship retain her name as a symbol of "A great British mercantile dream now lost to the savage winds of war!" This was agreed to and the ship or her parts at least, were signed over to the Imperial authorities. Pounds in hand, and reputation mostly intact, Pincham left the planet without delay and disappeared into middle class obscurity.

It was now that the Royal Navy, her engineers and their civilian counterparts arrive to take stock of what they had bought. One less polite senior engineering rating remarked:
"It's not a ship! It's a f______ pile of c__p!  I've scraped things better able to float off the bottom of me boot! HMS Demetrius eh? More like HMS Detritus I say!"

The name stuck. It took many months and much improvisation but the HMS Demetrius was finally launched and placed into service. Her work on the canals was initially uneventful but recent attacks from the shore and air and have required that the original wooden wheel house be replaced with an armoured one. Because of  the lack of armour plating, Martian concreted armour was used instead giving the structure the look of a pillbox.

Build Notes

The Demetrius is quite literally made up of bits of scrap wood and MDF from the workshop. Malc's build  showed me that you can get a good result from simple materials. The smoke stack top and base are parts of a small decorative wooden apple drilled out to take a length of dowel I already had on hand. The galley chimney is spent .40 brass I picked up at a range years ago. The superstructure is glued and screwed and set back from the deck edge to allow a single rank of figures on either beam and a standard artillery base fore and aft. The armoured wheelhouse is a Type 22 pillbox that didn't print as well as I would have liked. I located it off centre to add a little visual interest even though an off centre weight his high up is generally not a good idea.  All it needs now is a coat of paint and some deck cargo for cover, and it's off for action on the Martian canals.

Dinos on the Dance Floor!

I had a lot of fun with the dino-hunt back in May so I thought I should paint up some more victims for future such games.  I wanted to avoid the usual green lizard patterns so I just went with whatever I fancied. The sharp eyed will spot one influence, the real cammo nerds - another.

For the final spray I was unable to find any matte varnish so made do with satin. It works ok for dinos but not vehicles or or human figures.

Triceratops in a daring print

Mega-velociraptor Maltesi

Steggie - No change other than a wash and spray

A pack of  small carnivores

Mid to late war Tyrannosaur

Test Game - Martian Messiah

After getting all my toys out I decided to run a test game of Soldier's Companion. I chose scenario 1 from the book: Martian Messiah. This is a fairly classic search and destroy mission with a platoon of British sweeping the area of a Martian village looking for a native ne'er do well: Sootaman the Impressive.

Sootaman and a small band of followers have been wreaking havoc on the monorail line. A small force must be sent to flush him out. Sootaman has other ideas - he hopes to eliminate the impudent earthers and score an important moral victory.

British Forces:

Lieutenant Atkinson, Sergeant Meriwether and their platoon of hearty souls. 

The British get one platoon of infantry or ten men total rated regular V1. Now the scenario didn't specify exactly what weapons the platoon was carrying so since they had Lee-Metfords molded on that is what I gave them. This will have implications later on.

Martian Forces:

Sootaman and his bodyguards - the Spine Forest Freedom Fighters

The Martians get a full war band of 19 split as usual between cutters and shooters.  The shooters have rifle muskets.  Sootaman on the right is considered to be musket armed as well and the entire force is rated X3.

Victory Conditions:

The British must capture or kill Sootaman and successfully return him to base. The Martians must wipe out the British, and keep Sootaman free.

The Game:

Since I was playing solo, markers were laid out in the main areas of cover. One of these was marked to show the location of Sootaman. As each marker was flipped, a simple randomizing table was used to determine what forces were there. The Sootaman counter would always have at least one half company with him.  

Initial setup:

In the starter's blocks

The British  began in column ready to head out on the hunt. The Martians begin concealed.

Turns -1 to 0

Martian win the initiative roll twice even with the British getting a +1 due to being regular.  The Martians hold, The British brew up. 

Turn 1

Tally Ho!

Finally the dice roll in favour of the Empire and the platoon heads up the road moving 18" in column.

Turn 2

Form Line!

Prepare for contact!

Again gaining the initiative, the platoon takes a half move into line and heads 6" towards the first marker. Being V1, they can only see 5" into concealing terrain so are a few inches short and can't Flip it.

Turn 3

Beat the bushes lads!

Another initiative to the British. They move to contact....

There he is!

And flush out Sootaman....

Kill the Red Men!

And some of his friends! The Martians deploy en masse around their fearless leader and musket fire rattles through the spine trees. Nine figures in the unit but mass formation means only the front 5 fire and since they are firing muskets, those five are halved to 2.5 and rounded up to 3. They roll no hits and the Red Men easily pass the morale test

Turn 4

The dice gods are with the British, they keep initiative....

So many dice....

And fire into the brush.  Atkison knows his pistol won't reach so instead shouts at his men to Fire! Nine men with magazine rifles firing at short range is 18 dice and they give six hits. The Martians would get +1 for light cover but they also get -1 for being in mass so no saving throws required. (Bad formation choice. The Martian commander needs to go back to junior leader school I think.)

Bloody carnage.....

Six Martians fall including Sootaman and the commanding bannerman. Now here I made an important error or two. When regulars take casualties, half come from NCOs not so for irregulars. For both regulars and irregulars, officer casualties are rolled for (over the number of casualties taken to save, a moot point here) with officer casualties replacing an NCO or regular casualty. Either way, Sootaman or the bannerman should have survived.

True Martian Bravery!

With six hits taken, the Martians must roll 3 or less or they break and run but they pass! They fire back but with only two dice there is no effect. Since their leadership has (wrongfully) been destroyed, they surrender to the British not wanting to run and be shot down like sand weasels.

Turn 4

Into ignominious captivity

The victorious forces of the empire police up their captives and prepare to return home.

Too far to help...

To see if the other half company could have intervened, I rolled to see where they would show up.

Just beyond charge range....

As it turned out, they were just out of reach. With no ranged weapons, a running fight was a pointless waste of life and the remaining bannerman decided to melt back into the temple ruins.

RTB victorious.

End game.

As a game to refamiliarize myself with the rules it was a good one. Obviously the magazine rifles were too much, in the fluff only Guards have them. More thought should have been given to the Martian deployment and formation. A better and more intelligent automated solo play system will have to be worked on.

Game 2 

A different result

Just as I was packing everything away, my friend Marc showed up so we reset the table. and ran the same scenario again. This time, the British were hit with close combat but managed to break off just enough to shoot the cutters off the field. The shooters sadly were just out of range so could not immediately contribute. Stout souls that they were they charged in anyway but were eventually shot apart. In the end Sootaman and the remaining band officer tried to flee only to fall under a hail of lead. But Mars had struck a blow killing nearly half of the invaders. At the end of a very long supply line, Britain cannot afford Pyrrhic victories like this one.

Martian Muster

This past weekend, I set up my games table in the garage and got all my Space 1889 bits out to photograph and inventory. A fair bit of this has appeared before in different configurations but everything is now mustered into more or less fixed units, and colour coordinated too! Taking the inventory also allowed me to figure out what pieces needed to be repaired and based up and where I needed to add some rank indicators to bring the units in line with the morale rules.

Oh'ktava'n's Experimental Company - The Stalwarts

All armoured with shield gunners in the first half company, cutters in the rear. Regular V0 or E0

Kas'trum Fencibles

An armoured front half company with a mix of cutters and shield guns backed by an unarmoured half company of cutters. Regular T0 or V0.

First Kas'trum Marines

A regular pure shooter company, under strength but equipped with rifled muskets. Regular V1S 

Loyal Kas'trum Company

A very conventional city state unit with shooters and cutters. Irregular T2

Kas'trum Civic Guard

An irregular unit with mixed shooters and cutters in the front and pure cutters in the rear. Irregular T2 or G2 seem most likely. Though they might get a boost for their fancy black uniforms. 

Pier Worm Roaster's Guild Social Club and Civil Defence Force "The Red Caps". (Left)
The Gentleman's League of Redweed Harvesters and Patriotic Rifle Corp "The Blue Bonnets" (Right)
His August Eminence and Grand Master of Secret Societies (Centre)

The Red Caps have been described elsewhere.   The Blue Bonnets are new comers who claim their constant battles against the armoured mud-crab make them far better shots than mere slug poachers. The Grand Master has his fingers in most occult goings on including the Ground Cleansers and possibly even the Cult of the Worm.   X3S or V3S. Rifled muskets.

Second Oenotrian Lancers - The Canal Terrors

After the dragoons were rotated out, a stronger contingent of lancers was sent in as replacements. Armoured and (obviously) equipped with lances, the Terrors are regular V0H so lots of close combat bonuses.

Num'da's Raiders

Boosted by brothers sisters and cousins in search of booty, the slightly under strength Raiders are Irregular T2.

Kas'trum Scouts

Again seeing an influx of mercenaries from the hills, the scouts have a half company of shooters and another of bow. Irregular T2.

The Horde of Antevaxx

The Ochre Horde of Antevaxx Rules for their use have been laid out in an earlier post. Irregular V1 or E1 for King's Guards

Mixed artillery

As mentioned in a previous post, the canal Martian gunners are used to mark when field pieces are on the Martian side manned by Askari crews. New additions are two howitzers, four RAFM Greek fire projectors re-purposed as light guns and two ancient ballistae - stats for which I have not yet settled on.

Moeris Lacus Dragoons

A new unit of light cavalry with musket and sword, the Dragoons are Regular X2. Alternatively they can act as Light Horse or mounted infantry.

Moeris Lacus Trucial Company "The Prince's Own"

Recruitment efforts have boosted the Prince's Own to a full company. As before they can also play on the Martian side as Askari deserters. Or they can act as Dragoon dismounts. Regular X2

Gerneral Sir Not Appearing in this Film

Ok he was still in the box when I had the rest of the Earth forces out to photograph.

Royal Marine Light Infantry

Still in need of an officer. These can, in a pinch, sub in as some sort of foreign European force. Regular V1.

3rd Civil Service Rifles - "The Paper Clip Boys"

A slightly over strength company of riflemen from the Dominion of Canada. Regular X2S.

The Queen's Own Something or Others

Good old regular line infantry. The blue facings suggest Guards but these can be used for any British unit as required. Regular V1

Gatling gun and Pack Options

Just a Gatling gun and a couple of types of pack animals to lug it around. Charging at the elephants gets a +1 down hill bonus - these are big castings.

Tri-wheel Draisine

An armoured rail vehicle to patrol my monorail.

Ewing System rolling stock

A quickly put together locomotive and rolling stock for my monorail. On the flatcar is  another tri-wheel that remarkably survived a fall to the garage floor. It is going into the shop for a re-glue and re-paint.

The To Do pile

From left to right, repair, rank and re-base.

All The Toys

All the toys on the table. It is 4' by 7'. I think I have enough for now....