Martian Empires

Last nights game was a set-to between Native Warriors and a plucky British Expeditionary Force on the dusty plains of the Sudan...erm...Mars!

Mike [of Black Hat Miniatures fame] had arranged a game for a couple of new club members which he was kind enough to let me gatecrash. The game was played using Martian Empires, a rather neat ruleset covering Wellsian Martian invasions and Burroughs-ian [not sure that's a thing] battles set on the Red Planet.

The British fielded a mix of regular infantry and Martian Askaris backed with Lizard riding cavalry, a couple of steam tanks and a very impressive Walker.

The Martian hordes were more basically armed with muskets and in some cases rather fearsome halberds and were supported by Giant Martians riding even more Giant Lizards and a large Cannon being dragged by what appeared to be a Triceratops.  They also had less Giant Cavalry and some Flying vehicles.

The rules themselves are from the Warmaster school of game design where units can attempt multiple actions which get increasingly difficult, but run the risk of whole commands becoming paralysed.

The game started as a cagey affair mainly because we all kept failing command rolls but eventually the Martian Askaris began to advance while my regulars faffed about on the left flank.

After a few turns of inactivity the Giant Martian Cavalry charged my Scout Tank and proceeded to spend the rest of the game hammering on the outside but not actually causing enough damage. 

My regulars continued to not do very much apart from one successful volley which wiped out a unit of enemy artillery.  Colin's natives and cavalry meanwhile had charged home crashing through successive units and causing the Martian left flank to collapse, winning us the day.

As a true Imperialist however I decided that the British Regulars had won the day and tried to take as much credit as possible!

I hadn't played Martian Empires for ages and had forgotten what a fun set of rules they are.  They'd also be easily adaptable for 'normal' colonial games.  I've never really got into the Burroughs stories but I'd be very tempted by them for a Wells inspired game [not that I'm going to because I don't need another project and I have willpower... yes I do...honest...!].  The rules and figures can be found here