I've been working on setting up a Colonial Adventures campaign lately -- to wit, I've been painting the Parroom Station lead pile that I amassed several years ago. I've based and painted a unit of city-dweller Martians, royal guard Martians and Hill Martians (which are actually the old Space 1889 RAFM miniatues) and even some evil minions.
I'll be using Two Hour Wargames'
Colonial Adventures - 2nd Edition for the ruleset along with Too Fat Lardies'
Platoon Forward to run the campaign. After a first playtest, I'm VERY pleased by how these rules and the campaign framework provided by Platoon Forward work together.
(There's an excellent
review of Platoon Forward here -- it's what convinced me to buy it.)
Inspired by
this post over at Elaine Patterson's website, I decided to write my own "letter to home" to kick off the campaign. After all, since I'm running this as a solo campaign half of the fun is going to be seeing what happens to the characters of the 42nd Infantry Company. Essentially, I'm writing their story using the rules to determine events.
August 1, 1889
Father,
I am in receipt of your letter dated the 24th. It was in the last despatch of letters we received before leaving Earth and I write this reply while in transit to Parroom Station.
As you might imagine, on the day we left Portsmouth there was a considerable crowd gathered. I thought that this purely because of our launch, with aether travel still being a relative novelty. Apparently, however, to the proles of Portsmouth aether travel is quite "old hat"! And I was astonished to learn that the actual reason for the great crowd was not the novelty of our aether ship but rather the novelty of the launch of the Pinafore on which sails none other than
Cousin Caroline! Truly this is an age of wonder!
Sailing aboard an aether vessel is both like and unlike sailing in the water navy. Conditions are crowded, of course - we are here to serve, not to lollygag! And the vessels creak and moan upon the aether waves just as they do the ocean. The principal difference is that everything is dry -- and you know from your days in the Army what a blessing a dry ship is to a poor bloody infantryman!
Please wish Mother all my love and let her know that her son will shirk no danger while in the Queen's service. I wish to bring only honor to the family in my service and someday, Father, hope to follow your footsteps to Parliament itself. Wish your son well and know that I shall come home "with my shield or on it."
Your son,
Lieutenant Richard Collingsworth
Most esteemed gentlemen (and Rich),
I realize that I may technically be too late as I am submitting from across the pond where there is 1 hour and 15 minutes until July 1. But no matter -- it was worthwhile getting these done. And I would have had it done sooner if not for those weedy coves at Shapeways.com.You see, my plan for this vignette was to use only items which I had built myself -- including, if needed, building models in a 3d program and having them 3d printed. The ammunition boxes and barrels were done by this method and they arrived at my home today -- in fact only 6 hours ago -- rather than on June 27 as the aforementioned weedy coves had promised. Alas, the Martini-Henry rifles which I created seemed a bit anemic when placed in the vignette and I fell back to using some spare Wargames Factory bits. (I will have another go at the rifles -- it's not uncommon to have to print a couple times to get the dimensions exactly right, especially for miniature items)
I plan on using these for my own Imagi-Nations colonial gaming and Victorian Science Fiction gaming. Without further ado, let me present the deployment points of Victoria's Own Barsoomian Rifles, featuring ammunition boxes based on images from Ian Knight's website, the ubiquitous Martini-Henry rifle and a water barrel for those dry nights on Mars or wherever on Earth they are called to serve.Just for interest I am also including a picture of the 3d printed ammo box fresh out of the box at 4pm this afternoon.
