Kas'trum Campaign Pre-season Game one - One of our Ruperts is missing.

The early morning Sun licked steaming humidity up from the marsh surrounding the canal hamlet of Roogie's Landing. The adjutant of the Earl of Hereford's Regiment of Foot (The Hedgehogs) was doing his best to shuffle papers in the marsh reed shack that served as the battalion office but the damp made the pages stick together in a most unsatisfying manner. There was a knock at the door - or rather a series of thumps on the door frame. "Enter"
"Morning sir," came the voice of one the captains as he pushed aside the the thin blanket that served as the door to the shack. "We've heard rumours that a shipment of contraband has just arrived and is being stored in some ruins just up the abandoned canal. It is probably nothing like all the previous rumours but I'd like to send a patrol to take a look."
"Who do you have?" "Well there's the new chap, Puller. Fresh from Sandhurst. He landed a couple of weeks ago and could use some seasoning." "Right give him a couple of good NCOs and send him out. The usual reminder about no heroics of course." "Right you are sir, I'll put him on it." The captain stepped out through the door and the adjutant turned his attention back to the petty administrative tasks that even the most g-d forsaken outpost of the Empire required - At least it wasn't Venus. "Mister Puller", the Captain said in a voice that while quiet, seemed to permeate every corner of the Officer's quarters. "Sir" replied a young thin voice. "I have a job for you. You will be taking out a patrol today, nothing too strenuous. You'll be assisted by Sergeant ----- and Corporal Jones. Two good men. Follow their advice and you won't go wrong. No heroics mind. Out, a quick look around and straight back to report." "Yes Sir!" replied Puller. "Get your kit together and I'll see you outside in a couple of minutes to brief the men. The sergeant has them well in hand."
After the Captain turned and left another voice piped up "I say, Toffee! Off to have a go at the natives wot?  Good show!"
"Right you are Pomfret, I"ll give them one of the old school tie!"
As his batman Puller wasn't quite so sure, but he daren't let anyone see his nervousness. Stiff upper lip and all that....

---

I wanted to run a quick pre-campaign game to refamiliarize myself with the Soldier's Companion rules. I have a set of revised SoC rules by Bob Giglio that I will be trying out later in the campaign.

I decided to go with a British platoon versus a full warband of Hill Martians. In theory this should be roughly balanced, but I wasn't too worried about a perfect match.  

The Patrol sets out

The British head out in column for rapid movement. The notional objective was a set of ruins on a hill at the back of the table.

What's that on the ridge?

Eyes hidden in the boulders.

End of the trail - or is it?

The Martians reasonably placed pickets out while the main mass started concealed. This bends SoC a little but makes sense.

Red and barren vistas.

Looking up the table. The terrain is simple but I think effective.

Look sir! Up there!

The British spot one picket and are in turn spotted. The classic desert problem of no cover.

Reporting back.

Winning the initiative, the picket moves off the hill and behind the ridge to report. I ruled that the main Martian body would not move until they knew what was going on.

Advance with resolution! 

The British shake out into line to maximize firepower.

The conference.

The Martians decide what to do.

Moving up the valley

While the British, seeing no opposition, move up the valley to the protective boulder field at table centre.

Secure the centre!

Under the rules as written, the British (or European regulars) will win the initiative more often than Matian/Native armies composed of irregulars. This can give them several moves in a row.  This has been a bone of contention with some SoC players.  Bob Giglio's rules change this up to allow a reduced number of actions for the non-initiative player.

Open order and into the rough

Moving forward, the British take a half move to open order so they can move into the rough. Knowing when to use mass or open formations is essential when playing Soldier's Companion.

Take firing positions men!

Into the rough and taking cover.

The cunning natives plan.

Finally getting another initiative, the Martians shake out into two separate groups.

In position.

Under the rules, the British could just stay in line and all would be good, Spreading them however, just looks better.

One band heads up the hill.

One band headed up the hill.

The other heads west behind the ridge.

The other heads behind the ridge.

The rough ground holds things up.

There were some bad movement rolls that delayed the flanking force.

Hold your fire - They're too far away lad!

I measured the distance to see what the ranges were and figured I should show that on the table.

Up, and over!

Up on the hill, the second band heads toward the broken ground on the hill top. The rules say that a low wall does not impede cavalry so I went with an action shot.

Shaking out behind the ridge.

The flanking group tries to get into position. Low rolls and infrequent initiatives make this difficult. Again Bob's revised rules will make this go a lot faster.

The natives head into the rough.....

The Martians disappear into concealing terrain. Not really allowed under the rules as written but it fits the theme.

And disappear - the cowards!

Into line.

The flank force moves into line - not a legal formation for irregulars but of no consequence in the long term.

And the earthers wait under the blazing sun.

A long series of initiative rolls was made here. When the British won, they didn't want to leave cover in the face of possible cavalry. In turn, the Martians weren't going to charge light cavalry against infantry in cover.

Orders are orders, move out!

I ruled that the British would eventually think nothing was going on so would proceed the mission.

But the hills have eyes.

The Martians chose to wait.

A quick look then back to barracks.

The British move forward in open order - not the best for defending against cavalry but better when facing snipers.

Forming mass to charge.

Mass or open - those are the choices for irregulars and charging in open order is a bad idea. By declaring a charge by a hidden unit, the Martians take the initiative.

Why have the dice gods forsaken me?

The charge goes in - Not! The roll gets halved for charging over the hill. But still that's a crap roll.

Re-checking the rules didn't help. 

And yes it is - charging cavalry gets 8 dice not 4 but the extra 4 dice still come up garbage.

Over the hill!

The charge comes up just short. Frustrating.

But come up short, ending in disorder....

Puller takes a shot!

I let Puller take a shot with his Webley but to no effect.

Fire!

And the whole line opens up.

Casualties on the hill...

The left wing firing on a second charge coming down the hill dropping one rider.

Form triangle!

The British win the next initiative, allowing them to form triangle - a very period formation.

The riders fire!

Mass formation limits the number of figures that can fire and muzzle loaders halve that rate resulting in an anemic effort.

As do the band coming down the hill.

The other band takes a shot.

Like Earther like Martian - the only thing taking hits is dirt.

Also forgetting to check ranges first. This does highlight the difference between muzzle loading and cartridge firing weapon ranges.

From disorder to line to lay down fire.

The charge having failed, the band shakes out into an open line to maximize firepower and defence.

The hill band charges!

The hill band makes an excellent charge roll.

Puller's men fire at the skirmish line taking one down.

In the defensive phase, the British fire.

As the second charge is about to hit, the triangle fire! 

Inflicting hits.

Two more hits!

But no effect!

But no kills.

Hits on the second charge.

The charging band does not fare as well...

Taking hits...

And Martians drop....

And taking kills. But the Martians make their morale check and the charge goes in.

But not all...

The melee is relatively ineffective with the Martians being mounted, coming out a bit better.

The reluctant warriors steel themselves and charge again!

Allowing the Martians on the ridge to charge in. The morale roll to charge in open order passed with a squeek.

The mass of melee

With the melee joined and the British surrounded, this was the deciding moment.

And the British fall under the knives of the Martians.

But the British could not hold leaving some men left to be captured.

---

Num'da looked at the fallen earth men. "Take all their arms and ammunition - we can use that later. Share out any cloth and metal and be sure to set aside the widow's portion."
"And the bodies War Leader?"
"We don't know their burial practices - lay them out in rows. We're not barbarians."
"The roogies will get them...."
"They might, yes - but let the red mens' ghosts bother the roogies and not us. And move the goods out of the ruins - they know we're here now."

---

The Captain watched as a full company scoured the site of Puller's last stand. His men were busy dragging the scarlet clad bodies to a waiting cart, handkerchiefs wrapped around their faces to keep out the stink and the flies.
A sergeant approached "Guns, ammunition, leather, cloth and metal all gone. It looks like they were stripped and then cut to pieces. It might have been animals... From what we can find it looks like two are missing from the patrol. We can't tell who yet."
"Animals indeed!" snapped the Captain, "The most vicious animal on this ball of dust walks on two legs. Get them on the cart, and for God's sake find a tarpaulin to cover them before we take them into camp. A patrol wiped out is bad enough without showing the results to the new arrivals."
There would be a price to pay.

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.

Unexpected Reinforcements

In late October of 2016, a package arrived on my doorstep. It was a cookie tin, the classical war gamer storage container of choice. In that cookie tin was "some colonials you might be able to use with your VSF" an unexpected and very generous gift from one Mad Padre. I had a quick look and with winter temperatures closing in on the Man Cave, I put them away for warmer days.  This last week, I took a good look at them.

The pictures below do not do them justice. They are beautifully painted to a standard I will likely never achieve.

Artillery

Two units of Egyptians

Pathans with skirmishers 

Highlanders in trews

British Infantry

I cannot say enough how nice these figures are. Apart from VSF, they will be used for The Anglo Egyptian war and plans are afoot to acquire more Pathans for the North West Frontier.

Thank you again Michael!

Housekeeping:

6x6 - B-17 is back on the list as I am now flying the Circle A with the 509th out of Italy see 509th (H) B-17 Virtual Bomber Group for details.  No Pasaran!

After much faffing around the blog appears to be presentable again. One post was gumming up the works so has been removed.

2017 6x6 Challenge - My List, First 2017 Post, and a house keeping note.

So 2016 has finally gone, while it had some very good parts, like our trip to Malta, it had it seems more than its share of pretty crappy parts as well; walking out of Rogue One only to find out that Carrie Fisher's passing had been made public while we were in the theatre, being one of them.

 Now on to: 

My 6x6 Challenge List: 

Ace of Aces Handy Rotary edition

 A WWI air combat game that combines a flip book for graphics with a choose your own adventure style mechanic for movement and combat. A true analogue flight sim. 6 games complete against eldest's boyfriend over New Years, 4 losses, two draws - the boy is good.

B-17

An Avalon Hill board game of WWII air combat. Derided by some for minimal player input, this solo game does capture the looming predestination felt by bomber crews trying to hit the magical 25 mission mark.

I am dropping B-17 from the list. The reasons behind my initial enthusiasm have not proven strong enough to last.  What the replacement will be is yet to be determined.

Chain of Command

 My go to WWII platoon level combat game. Santa provided a pub in my stocking so expect to see the home guard out in force defending this important strategic asset in the coming months. I want to get my 20mm stuff out on the table as well.

 D&D OSR. 

If I can stop myself from being sidetracked by interesting campaign details, I hope to be running several short sessions for friends with lives and little time.

Gruntz 

15mm Scifi. I have multiple armies now and it is a fun little game.

Soldier's Companion, Space 1889 

I have the toys, the table, and the terrain - now I just have to play with them. :)

BONUS GAMES 

Air Force
Another Avalon Hill board game of WWII air combat. Fairly detailed with some interesting mechanics.

Luftwaffe

Yet another AH board game of WWII air combat, this time at a more strategic level. I have not actually played this one at all.

Car Wars

3x post apocalypse with converted matchbox cars because Furiosa.

 So there we are. Now you may notice a lot of air combat games in there - I have the germ on an idea in my head for a game design and want to do some research in that vein.

A Housekeeping Note:

Those of you following IrrWb(F) for any length with notice that the blog template has changed to a modern interactive variation. This is not due to a desire on my part to make it "fresh and exciting" but simply because the old template became corrupted and I am still deciding how and if to rebuild it.

November 11

Blighters

The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; “We’re sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!” I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls, Lurching to rag-time tunes, or “Home, sweet Home,” And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. Siegfried Sassoon

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.