British Empire on Mars

[Last Hussar]

Toying with the idea of Victorians v Martians. 

1) The Colonial ranges - are they pretty similar.  I'm looking for Pith Helmet and Red Coats.

2) Aeroships - think gunboats in the sky (cf Space 1889), couple of 2 pdrs and maxims.  How big would you make the model, as I'll have to scratch build.

3) Rules.  Dont want skirmish - want to be able to have land dreadnaughts and the tripods as well as the Aeroships, and quite a few bases of infantry (prob 30mm bases, with men in lines).  I've seen teh 1889 companion 'Soldiers Handbook' mentioned, but think this might be too skirmish-y.

Ideas, chaps.

[Steve J]

I've seen Future War Commander used, but that was some time back. Not sure of anything else that would fit as really not my 'period'.

[Raider4]

Martian Empires

Well worth a tenner of your money.

Cheers, Martyn
--

[Last Hussar]

Looks interesting but not a lot of info on the site.  Can you give me some idea of the game?

[Genom]

There was one called timeline 300 if I remember right, was based on a steampunk style from what I remember. Not sure if it had martians or not, but it was for bigger battles than skirmish.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hello LH

For rules you could look at Fistful of Tripods http://fft3.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Tripods.pdf

It's more about Martian invasion of earth but might be handy.

Edit:-

Rummaging through archives, two others that would work would be:-

http://staineswargamers.org/Webrules/RulesImperialMars.htm

http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/gw_vsf_ice.html

Don't know how you feel about card models but this site has some 15mm sky galleons that you could re-scale:-

http://onemonk.com/squirmydad-dl.html

Card walkers and buildings here:-

http://www.sprawl.papermakeit.com/models.html

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[sunjester]

You could look at using The Men Who Would be Kings with some tweaking.

Nice, simple mechanisms, with lots of options for upgrades in the rules. Then port across some of the fantastical abilities from Dragon Rampant, burrowing, flying etc.

I have been toying with the idea of using 10mm for play bigger battles with TMWWBK, using stands of 2/3 figures to replace 1 28mm figure.

Simples!

[Raider4]

Looks interesting but not a lot of info on the site.  Can you give me some idea of the game?

Re: Martian Empires:

Apparently based on a set of Napoleonic rules called Huzzah!. Never seen these, but the army building process reminds me very much of Warmaster.

Units are usually made up of 4 stands. 4x2 cm is the standard as per Warmaster. Irregular infantry units may have 6 stands. Artillery is only 2 stands.

The main rulebook includes lists for the British at home, and the initial Martian invasion (Wells).

Then there are lists for British, French & Prussian expeditionary forces. These include walkers, steam tanks, flyers etc.

On Mars there are lists for Imperial & Tribal Martians (Burroughs' reds & greens, I believe) and cephalods (Wells).

There is a free expansion - The Venus Expedition - which you can download to get a flavour of the rules.

Cheers, Martyn
--

[Bunny]

Martian Empires is a great game I took part in a participation game last year, I've been a fan for years.

The martian figures made by Black Hat are lovely and the size of the figures means you could use any historical colonial range.

Check out a blog http://martianwarlords.blogspot.com/ it is very good and inspirational!

[Terry37]

I have given thought to such if I decide to go into VSF. In any event, I can suggest reading "The Queens martian Rifles" by Brines, as it may give you some ideas. And I found it a pretty good read.

Terry