A Mars A Day

The last meeting of July saw another outing of my ‘Space:1889 – Cloudships of Mars’ game.

For those who don’t know it, it’s a game based on a 1988 Frank Chadwick design for GDW, set in an alternative ‘Steampunk’ late Victorian timeline on which Earther scientists have discovered a war to get to the planets using the ‘ether waves’ of space (this was actually a theory for a long time!). When the explorers arrive, they discover that the inner planets already have their own civilisations, at different stages of development.

In the case of Mars, the ancient society has stagnated (or deteriorated) back to the level of our own late Renaissance of Italy or India, with rival City-States using gunpowder weapons – along with the odd ‘ancient device’ like a La-serr…. By the 1889 of the title, several Earther nations have established both colonies, trading and mining facilities on Mars, sometimes with a City State as an ally, sometimes as enemies, exactly mirroring the colonial experience on Earth of 1850-1900.

And whilst ground-based forces certainly play their part, as on Earth it is the naval dimension with projects power across the vast, hostile wastes – using flying ‘Cloudships’ which rely on a rare anti-gravity liftwood to allow them to float. The Martians tend to rely on larger, wooden galleys, propelled by sail or giant flywheels; but the Earthers have been quick to develop their own strange craft, powered – of course – by steam engines, producing some very different designs rather akin to the ACW. In 3D… Anyways, there is a large body of RPG, tabletop and boardgame reference material (see links at the end), plus some ‘reimaginings’ of the various planetary sourcebooks.

The Set-Up

For this outing, I decided to have all the actual players as a combined ‘Earth Fleet’, with the Martians run by yours truly as umpire using the ‘fast play’ system developed for when we ran this at several Open Days a couple of years ago. This is always a fun way to arrange things, as I can vary the enemy ‘teeth’ according to how players are doing (as well as how many turn up on the day), and they can have a lot of fun simply trying to co-ordinate the actions of these sub-units via another human, not a dice or card system.

With one player per ship and a, ah, wide choice available, the fleet consisted of:

• Jon – Royal Navy, HMS Tempest (1890 Improved Typhoon Class destroyer, with quick-firing main guns [2x shots instead of one per turn])
• Tony – Imperial Russian Navy, HIRMS Volga (River Class strike bomber)
• Eric – Imperial Austrian Navy, SMS Prinz Eugen (Hero Class light cruiser; only one built…)
• Stephen – Imperial Japanese Navy, IJN Akagi (unclassified multi-role cruiser, refuses to discuss how many being built, where, when…)
• Alan – French Navy, FS Massena (new Maréchal’s Class destroyer; like the RN Tempest – but more panache…)

Game 1 – The Bridge At Rik-I-To

The scenario here was that war was brewing with two of the Martian City States who had put aside their normal differences and were about to combine forces to sweep the accursed Earthers from the face of Holy Mars. Or something. Anyways, as their plan hinged on having one force cross the giant canal network, the combined Earther response was to pool their Cloudship forces to strike at the key bridge at Rik-I-To. If that could be destroyed, it would take weeks or months to effect a temporary repair. Of course, as it was an important spot, the Martians would be guarding it, not just with part of their fleet on standing patrol, but also with large deadly ground-based rockets…

[And yes, the plot was another semi-historical ‘steal’ of the main action in the Korean War film ‘The Bridges At Toko-Ri’. Great film of F9 Panthers, if you’re into that sort of thing…]

Now, being a simple soul, I rather expected the smaller ships to zoom in and take-out the rocket batteries before helping to distract the slower Martian ships? Yeah…. Anyways, plan B seemed to be that Jon, Eric and Alan engage in a general melee with all the Martians they could possibly reach, while Stephen and Tony ploughed in low and slow to maximize their bombing accuracy, with occasional pot-shots at any Martian who happened to get in the way!

So, with rockets and gunfire going in all directions and at different heights, the fight split into two sectors:

• The ‘top cover’ proceeded to knock large chunks out of the three Martian ships, Jon using his bigger guns to deliver deadly jabs from a series of fast, slashing runs whilst Alan deftly manoeuvered to rake one guard ship which effectively dis-masted it! Eric meanwhile was in the thick of it trading broadsides between two enemy ships but seemingly unable to hit with any big guns! He was revenged however when finally ramming one of the larger galleys which Jon’s close rake with a rocket broadside had brought to a halt!
• The ‘bomber’ boys meanwhile braved both rocket flak and the attentions of a, ah, ‘spare’(?) Martian ship to bore-in, line ahead along the canal. Stephen on Akagi led the charge, shrugging off a number of critical hits to boiler, crew and gun position hits to deliver his two sticks bang on target, with no deductions for speed:height differences. His score with eight d6 was a very respectable 24 points – but the bridge still stood teetering! However, close behind was the majestic Volga with even more majestic (=sloshed) Kapitan Tony, who proceeded, slowly, to ignore all the incoming hits and demolish the remaining structure, closely followed by the tailing even more irate Martian which the others now noticed! So that’s what those signals from Akagi meant…….

In all the dust, explosions and rocket trails, there was some confusion on the Allied side about who should get the most credit in the Official History for destroying the bridge (you know, the objective thingy…). So, I thought the easiest – not to say funniest – method of adjudication would be to ask the so-called ‘neutral’ captains. To a man, they had no hesitation in awarding the lion’s share of the credit to Tony and the Russians, with no national bias at all (except that Alan did waver in thinking the French should vote the other way to whatever the British did!). I thought Stephen as the Japanese took it very well, considering. All the talk of sabotage and revenge was just banter……

Game 2 – Get Marshal Mo-To-Ya

The second thinly-disguised scenario was based on the amazing operation in 1943, when the Americans sent very long range P38s (a fab a/c) to intercept Japanese strategic genius Admiral Yamamoto, who had planned and executed the Pearl Harbour attack (which only really failed because they delegated command to an old school ‘battleship’ admiral; but I digress…).

So, our 1889 version had the Japanese player (Stephen) brief the others that they had broken the Martian codes, and that the brilliant leader Grand Marshal Mo-To-Ya would be reviewing the various fleet detachments before hurling their combined strength blah, blah, blah. The key thing is, they knew where and when he would be at a certain city. Normally, this would be beyond effective range of Earther Cloudships, but the Royal Navy (Jon) then revealed that, apart from building the enormous HMS Thunderbird, they had also been quietly developing long-range re-coaling systems, a series of liftwood barges which could be towed then ‘parked’ at high altitude for later collection – like WW2 drop-tanks! I also took the opportunity to allow each ship 1x ‘elite’ gun crew – only a +1 to hit, but it soon became apparent how even a small adjustment to probabilities affected tactics!

The Allied flotilla thus set-off and arrived just as the Martian fleet hove into view through the clouds. The rather larger than expected fleet…. Ah. Yes, what confronted our intrepid floating heroes was not one Martian ‘Skylord’, one of the biggest Cloudship classes ever built, but two. As even one Skylord was estimated to carry the firepower of more half the Allied Flotilla, this was seen by the more tactically astute players as “…bloody serious…”!

Not only that, but the Grand Marshal also had three of the newer Martian ‘hybrid’ cruisers as escort, Martian built but incorporating Earther technology supplied by less scrupulous nations: big breech-loading guns and steam-power rams (although the latter were in fact clapped-out US train engines, refurbished and resold). Nevertheless, such an opportunity to cripple the enemy war effort before it got fully started was too good to miss, so as the Martians headed for the exit (off the far end of the table), the Allies resolved to sell their lives dearly (or lease them dearly, in the case of the French. Well, you get more return that way, and….).

• As the giant Skylords were primarily sail-powered, Jon and Tony were among the first to point out that – at some point – these lumbering giants would have to tack (zig-zag), which meant there was more time to get them.
• Learning from the first scenario, the players all kept saying to each other that the Grand Marshal was the objective, nothing else – so slip past the escorts if possible and pound the two Skylords with everything to hand!

Overall, the plan went quite well – Alan ‘stalked’ one of the escorts using cloud cover to get close before taking any return fire, while Tony and Stephen seemed to be competing for how much explosives they could throw at one ship! Meanwhile, as Eric took on the other Skylord with his now elite Skoda howitzer, Jon was perfecting his ‘left jab’, using his speed and longer, harder reach to knock seven bells out of an escort which was blocking his view (and in the process eliminating much of the bridge crew, thus making control much harder – not that they knew this immediately).

Stephen at one point sailed straight through the middle of the Martian Fleet, partly as his ship had good firepower in the armoured forward arc, but little else – except….. Yes, although he exchanged some withering fire with one Skylord and an escort, his master plan was revealed when he launched the rear-facing torpedo straight into the escort which was turning onto his tail! At that range – just outside the safety zone – the hit was inevitable, and the Martian visibly shuddered and began to lose height (that’s not all it lost, but again full damage was secret).

One great aspect for me with such games is how players learn to ‘read’ a battle, deducing both strengths and weaknesses from observable data. Such was now the case as the battle entered its critical phase, when first Alan then Eric mentioned that one of the Skylords, although damaged for sure, was not firing anywhere near as much as the other – which might mean that it was a transport, not the ‘battleship’ version?

Quickly deciding that the Grand Marshal would use the most powerful ship, the Allies now concentrated their fire. Jon now took quite serious personnel casualties from cannister rakes when closing to deliver a point-blank rocket barrage into the side of the enormous ship, while Eric also pounded it from the other side, starting numerous fires – bad news for a wooden ship! As Tony narrowly avoided a deadly ramming attack from the only functioning escort (sadly, the one with almost no directional control!), Alan and and badly-damaged Stephen sent the transport and the other escort into uncontrolled descents (the escort could probably crash-land ok, but the transport was not so lucky). As the Allies regrouped, they could see that only the smaller escort still had enough height (and control) to escape, but their initial fears about the other Skylord joining it were finally settled as the giant vessel, wracked with multiple fires and with key commanders dead on the bridge, made a long, lumbering dive just outside the city, in the manner of the Hindenburg………

So that was that. Another excellent outing for a genre which deserves a helluva lot more exposure, whether it be the RPG system, pseudo-colonial ground games, or this fabulous ‘Cloudships’ offshoot. It’s not the ‘flying WW1’ of Iron Skies, nor the Aeronef and Dystopian Wars – although the latter two did provide a lot of scratch-building materials! But if you like the idea of ‘3D ACW’, with the ability to construct your own range of peculiar vessels, then this is for you.

My thanks as ever to my long-suffering friends at Maidstone Wargame Society for playing, and The Werelords for resurrecting a brilliant game.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a few shots of the action.

Tactical aside – the Wrong Side of Technology?

There was a lot of discussion afterwards about the merits of the different ship designs – were the fast, sleek British and French (with only a handful of big guns, smaller hulls and crews), better than the rugged, somewhat slower Russian and Austro-Hungarians, with a lot more but smaller weapons? And what of Akagi, with an armoured nose housing all of its big ship-smashers in fixed forward firing casemates, akin to an Me110, but little else?

This all reminded me very much of similar historical arguments along similar lines both in the Victorian period (when turrets first came along), and then later about battlecruisers. In the latter case, they were great when used in their original role, chasing-down and destroying enemy cruisers, but were a disaster when used to bulk-out the main battleship lines “…because they look like them…”?!

In the end, both historically and with Cloudships, there was no ‘correct’ answer. The beauty of the system is that you can let your imaginations rip and, within the spirit of the game (the main rules have a sub-section devoted to ship design, with weight and armour affecting speed – and cost), create your own range of ships and models.

References & Links:

• Background to ‘Space:1889’ on Wikipedia
• More about the various games and RPG systems via Boardgamegeek
• Several of the Cloudships books are on eBay, and some are now old enough to appear on some cheap download sites as PDFs!
• The first outing of this – in 25mm no less – is still viewable here on the Werelords site.
• Superb 1/1000th scale scenery (and lobbying to print some 3D Cloudships?) via Tony at Brigade Models. Go on, you know you want to….

Scratch-building 6mm Cloudships

A lunatics’ guide to building your own fleets…

HULLS & MAIN BODIES

1. Brigade Models – their rightly-famous ‘Imperial Skies’ range has some useful hulls and other pieces. And even though they are technically 1/1200th, you just have to look beyond that to possible uses… Recently, I have also used several of their vast range of very nice spaceships to provide the basis for things like ‘assault ships’, carriers, even resupply barges and landing-craft!
2. Peter Pig 1/600th ACW Naval range – A great source of whole or partial hull elements. By using ‘N’ gauge wooden planking as a main deck, you can use various waterline models as the upper and lower hulls. Also, some of the Union monitors come with metal decks, and these make for great ‘advanced’ Earther ships like the medium/heavy British ‘Macefield’.
3. DeAgostini ‘Star Wars’ die-cast models – given the wacky nature of several Martian ships, with a small degree of effort several of these models can be used to great effect. And as die-cast, they’re (a) good to take glue, and (b) damn-near indestructible!
a. I started with the various ‘bikes’, just used upside-down to help disguise their origin! The ‘prongs’ on the front of many of them look great as rams!
b. I also cannot recommend highly enough the ‘Jabba Barge’ (makes a great heavy Martian ‘Hullcutter’ type) and the equally fab ‘Desert Skiff’ (again, makes for a wonderful range of medium vessels)
c. But do check out the MTT transport and some of the other AT* tanks. The ‘Turbo Tank’ makes for a great ironclad (minus the wheels, naturally!). And the ‘chicken walker’ main body is a perfect Martian ‘leading chin’ design.
4. Eaglemoss ‘Star Trek’ die-cast models – not quite so many useful hulls here but still worth checking. For example, the early USS Antares, used inverted, makes for a fabulous small Earther French ironclad, in the same class as the RN workhorse ‘Aphid’. And some of the alien shuttles or freighters can make a good basis for more Martians.
5. Mechwarrior – the various tanks from the miniatures game (minus their tracks) have provided several very handy hull extensions.
6. Star Wars Starship Miniatures – no, not ‘X-Wing’ (unless you have a private income); I mean from the original game. These have provided a lot of the ‘tail controls’ for various ships, the Boda Slave 1 and Sith Infiltrator being particular favourites.
7. Galoob Micro-Machines have a very good Star Wars Jabba Sail Barge, which has provided, umm, ‘quite a few’ Martian landing craft, torpedo boats and even – cut in half – useful prows or flying bridges for larger ships.
8. Heroics & Ros 1/300th – Their WW2 armoured trains are a great source of cabins, armoured hull-extensions and side sponsons. Likewise, their Crusades range of siege equipment and superb armoured Hussite wagons provide great ready-made wing/sponsons for the Martians.
9. Irregular Miniatures – do a great couple of ACW ships actually in this scale, especially ‘Monitor’, which formed the primary hull for the RN ships.
10. ‘Dystopian Wars’ – again, nominally a different scale they have several ships which I have used for hulls or engine pods.

WEAPONS

Mainly dear old Heroics & Ros. Not only are they immensely friendly and helpful, but they have a vast range of kit which is spot-on for what you need:

• WW1 guns (German 77mm etc)
• WW2 guns (British 25lbr, German 88mm, 17ldr – all suitably ‘trimmed’)
• ‘Oddities’ like the WW2 German Nebelwerfer; makes a great ‘Martian mortar’
• WW2 Armoured trains (AA guns etc)
• ECW, SYW and Napoleonic (French) guns, with the double-trail
• ACW and FPW Gatlings, Mitrailleuse MGs
• Colonial Landing Party Nordenfelts

FIGURES

As for crews, I have used the following H&R packs:

• Colonial types and Franco-Prussian for Earther regulars, Boers & Confederates for armed civvies and ‘security personnel’
• Gun crew figures (from the ECW & medieval)
• SYW ‘Iroquis’ Indians (the light clothing and ‘Mohican’ hair-do is just right for Martians)
• Ancient Greeks (again, the helmet + crest is spot-on for Martians)

There are some wonderful little vignettes in these packs – I love the guy with a wheelbarrow loaded with cannon-balls! And even the colonial gun-teams have a pair of riders who remind me of a couple of gunners on their break…
I did see some other interesting ranges in the USA – some ‘post-apocalypse’ types make for great Martians. Likewise, if anyone knows of any LOTR ‘elves’, they too would be good.

DETAILING

If even a klutz like me can do this, please give it a try – just adding a few crew figures and the odd pile of coal sacks really brings even these small ships to life.
Model railways have (especially in ‘N’ gauge):

• packs of coal sacks, bales (cargo) etc.
• some great ‘signal gantries’ which provided not only some great wing/sponsons, but also (cut down to half height) the ‘brass railings’ for the posher Earther ships.
• Packs of wooden fences, which make for cheap railings on Earther or Martian ships

Mechwarrior
Not only hulls but most of the rocket pods came from these (the tanks are VERY well-equiped!). I also used some of the smaller weapon turrets as rail-launchers for Martian fire bombs or anti-personnel spikes.
DeAgostini die-cast models
Things like the Ewok ‘hang-glider’ and various solar-sailors provide a variety of strong, ready-made plastic sails for Martian kites, some with rigging!