Mars by GASLIGHT

Buck Surdu and Chris Palmer put on "Mars by GASLIGHT" for Saturday morning at Historicon 2012. Twenty-one players, and generally each player got two infantry units plus a vehicle, gun or special unit. There were a variety of factions, each with different (and sometimes conflicting) objections; as best I could determine, the factions included:

• Sand warriors with cannon (my faction)
• Redcoats and Sikhs with steam-powered spider tanks
• Prussian female hussars with helicopters and a machine gun
• Russians with steam tank and cavalry
• Nameless Ones with armored pennyfarthings
• Red Martians with air skiffs and champion
• Green Martians with thoat-riding champion
• Navy landing parties with ironclad monitor in the canal and a steam tank
• War of the Worlds cephalopod Martians with tripod
• Rockmen with champion
• Lizardmen with gun
• And probably a couple others that I missed

The table was set up as a long battlefield with a canal running down one edge; halfway down the length there was a bridge which led through some buildings to a fort. The Sand Warriors started on the battlefield side of the canal; our objective was to rescue our captive chieftain from the fort, which was held by Red Martians.

The bridge was a bottleneck; we elected to move into position at the mouth of the bridge and then wait, letting the Russians cross the bridge and go past us, particularly since they led with their tank. As we waited, my partner spotted a pack of Green Martians coming along with Dejah Thoris as captive. We quickly negotiated a deal with the men of Helium: "we'll attack the Green Martians, capture the princess, and then trade her for our chieftain."

The Green Martians were already being attacked by rock men, so it was an opportune moment. One of my units destroyed the remnants of a Green unit, while my other unit took down the Jeddak in a glorious and honorable moment of "attacking someone from behind while he was fully engaged on the other side", and so we captured Dejah Thoris. Around about this point we realized the rock men also wanted D.T. We'd been planning to carry the princess up to the fort and trade her there for our chieftain, so as to leave the least opportunity for treachery; however, as the rock men advanced, that plan started to look a little risky. We hastily called a conference with the Red Martians and told him to send his air skiffs to pick up the princess, while my remaining units held off the rockmen; if he'd give us his word as a Prince of Helium, we'd trust him to deliver our chieftain. And so it was. One of my units was destroyed by the rockmen, but held on long enough for the Red Martians to deploy and avenge us; the other unit put Dejah Thoris safely aboard an air skiff and then turned and--with the help of our gun crews, who had finally figured out what this whole "aiming" thing was about--broke the pursuing rockmen.

GASLIGHT is a pretty simple game, not too worried about realism--when it's Martian tripods vs Sikh steam spiders vs 1880's Prussian helicopters, you can't be too worried about realism--and consequently the game moved pretty quickly even though there were 21 players and about 60 units on the board. Lots of color, lots of fun.

See also Buck Surdu's write up and Chris Palmer's write up

Historicon

Best quote: (in reply to a question about converting rules from 10mm to 28mm)

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing in three scales"

--Buck Surdu

GASLIGHT

I'm planning to play in a couple of GASLIGHT games at Historicon next weekend, so I tried out a small skirmish just to get some familiarity with it.

First I wrote up a Quick Reference Sheet, a good way to get familiar with the rules. This is not a complex game; everything I needed easily fit on one side of an 8.5 x 11 sheet (although I left out vehicles and artillery).

I contemplated having an evenly balanced game--each side getting one Main Character, one Unit and one Vehicle--but where's the fun in that? Our heroes, Major Garnet Wooley (Hero, stats 14/14/14, only one card in the turn order because I forgot he should have two) of the Albionic Army and his reasonably faithful companions Beau Brummidge and Clytemnestra Crumpet (Adventurers, 12/12/12), are exploring a ruined city on the lost continent of Mu. They hear the tramping of goblin boots approaching, and hastily take cover behind a broken wall. The goblins, all greencoats of the Guz 16th ("Blood Moon") Regiment, are a sergeant and two squads. The sergeant (Leader, 10/10/10) has a brace of pistols and a cleaver; each squad has seven infantry (Extras, 8/6) armed with flintlocks. They are patrolling the road that runs past the wall where our heroes are hiding. The first squad marches on, unaware, but as Beau peeks out to keep an eye on them, a goblin spots him. Action!

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Turn 1:

Goblin Squad 1 is abreast of the explorers, marching in column past them. Most of the squad turns to get ready to charge, but three have line of sight and fire. The hapless Brummidge is hit and falls.

Goblin Sergeant Thurk fires one barrel of his pistol; the ball whizzes over Wooley but misses.

Blood Moon Squad 2 charges through a gap in the wall; their charge is not very enthusiastic (d6 for extra charge distance = 1) and only two of them make it into contact with the adventurers. The Major draws his saber and meets them with a menacing "Baa!", the battle cry of the Wooley clan. He cuts one down, and fends off the other. He calls over his shoulder, "Doctor, may I suggest that you gather up Brummidge and make an expeditious withdrawal?"

Clytemnestra decides that this might be one of the rare occasions when she should pay attention to the Major's instrctions. She scoops up Brummidge, flings him over her shoulder and scrambles away over fallen stones to take cover behind a small structure; she tentatively identifies it as a wellhouse. The carvings are fascinating.

Wooley circles left a little, and beats down his opponent's guard; a moment later, he beats down his opponent as well.

Turn 2

The five remaining Guz soldiers of Squad 2 are undismayed by the fate of their two fallen fellows, and press in. Three of them surround Wooley, incidentally blocking the line of fire from Squad 1 (although goblins have been known to fire through their own units, to get at the enemy...). One of them even pinks Wooley with his bayonet, although the Major manages, barely, to twist away from the point without serious harm (made his Save by one). Wooley lays about with the saber and a third goblin falls.

Sergeant Thurk circles to his right, intending either to flank the explorers, or to keep Squad 2 between himself and the deadly Albionic steel.

Squad 1 fires at Clytemnestra, but she (and Brummidge, who is limp but jabbering in Old Haptic) are protected by the stone wellhouse. One round does come uncomfortably close, snipping off a plume from her hat. Dashed ungentlemanly of them, to fire at a woman!

Cly returns the favor with her Lady's Patent Galvanic Death Ray. She remembers to aim low. The goblins are on the other side of the broken wall that the adventurers had been hiding behind; the galvanic bolt scorches the stone. She makes a mental note to aim a little less low, next time.

Wooley withdraws a few steps, and then lunges to strike down an overeager pursuer. Four goblins now lie victim to his blade.

Turn 3

Wooley retreats to the wellhouse.

Squad 2 breaks and the three surviving goblins scamper away.

Sergeant Thurk had been intending to clamber over the wall and take Wooley in flank, but without Squad 2, this is no longer looking prudent. He fires the second barrel of his first pistol at Wooley, putting a hole through his coat but not injuring him. Wooley, thinking of the distance to the nearest acceptable tailor, expresses himself with a few soldierly words.

Clytemnestra had qualms about leaving Wooley to fend off the goblins on his own, but he seems to be doing quite well. She calls out "I'm away, heading South! John, do be careful!" Wooley spares enough attention from his swordwork to say "It's Garnet!" but by then Clytemnestra has sped away, with the babbling Brummidge still over her shoulder.

Greencoat Squad 1 has no target, so they advance in skirmish line over the broken wall.

Turn 4

Clytemnestra continues her retreat.

Sergeant Thurk draws his second pistol, fires at Wooley again, and misses.

Wooley yanks out his Nemesis Liberator Mk III Hand Cannon and returns fire lefthanded. It's a poor shot, but the round crashes into the wall and sprays stone chips into the Sergeant's torso. The goblin falls, feet drumming on the stones.

Squad 1 could charge Wooley, but they are aware that didn't work so well for Squad 2. They have no line of sight to either of the adventurers, and upon reflection, decide that they're quite content to leave it that way. They withdraw, "awaiting reinforcements".

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Simple and straightforward. The goblins would have done better to stand and shoot; in melee, only the ones in contact (maximum of three) could attack, and Wooley got to counter attack. Their Shoot number was better than their Scuffle, so in theory that would be another reason to fire; however Wooley also didn't get the benefit of cover, so that was a wash.

One key point, mentioned by Dr Vesuvius of the Axis of Naughtiness, is that colour is all-important.

"Whatever the setting of your GASLIGHT game, whether it's lacepunk pyrates or Darkest Africa, try to give everything colourful names. If you start feeling obliged to put on a silly accent then you're probably doing it right."

Battle of Guadalcanal

One of our former Tidewater Area Naval Gamers was visiting from Okinawa, so Ryan hosted a multiplayer game of Ironbottom Sound. I was selected to be Japanese admiral, while Dan K was the American admiral. The briefing we received was that the scenario was happening at night, with limited visibility. Our Imperial Japanese ships, including two battle cruisers, a light cruiser, and eleven destroyers, were entering the map from the northwest, intending to pass south of an island and exit off the east edge of the map, 50 hexes away. One of our scout planes had reported an American force south of the island, which would put them 30-40 hexes away. Our ships move 5-6 hexes a turn, so we had plenty of time till contact; Ryan had us write in advance our movement orders for the first three turns.

And then he put all our ships on the map, and lo, there were the American ships, at a range of about 5 hexes instead of 40. Oops.

The scenario, it turned out, was the First Battle of Guadalcanal, Nov 13, 1942. The Americans were in a tightly spaced line heading north. Our leading ships saw them in time to respond and turned aside, but the ones behind didn't see the Americans in time and sped into close range. In the second turn, the Japanese forces broke into three loose groups--by happenstance rather than planning--with one going left, one right, and one plunging ahead. A couple of our center ships ran through the American line. Naguno rammed Atlanta, crippling her, and in two other places, American ships collided. One of the Japanese heavies, Kirishima, hammered Juneau but was set on fire; the Heie was behind Kirishima and didn't have a clear line of fire. Torpedoes ran in all directions, but the only victim was Naguno, sunk by a Japanese torpedo intended for Atlanta.

Third turn, the Americans continued circling around, which left half their forces too far away to fire. The Japanese right was also too far away from the end of the American line to shoot; the destroyers on the left were dancing around at extreme range from San Francisco. Our destroyers in the center were mostly crippled or sunk, but the two heavy cruisers continued dishing out damage, mostly shrugging off return fire. Another round of torpedoes had some nail biting near misses; San Francisco was hit, but to our great disappointment, the torp was a dud--must have been using an American detonator.

It was a Japanese tactical victory, due largely to two American mistakes: they stayed in a tight line, which lead to several collisions; and they wasted a lot of fire on the heavily armored battlecruisers. Overall, with the admirals unable to exercise much control and the individual captains doing the best they could, it was a crazy swirling knife fight of a battle, and a very intense game. Lots of fun.

Prosperity: Death Aboard

11 Ruthern: It being the afternoon Watch, Captain Grayson, being of a mind to test my Mettle, did invite me to the forecastle where we crossed swords. He being a very dedicated swordsman, he bested me, albeit not so easily as he had Thought, nor with his own doublet untouched. He finished the bout with a very handsome Disarm which I hope to learn, although at the time, I more feared that my Weapon should fall in the sea.

The contest being done, Lord Ventir presented himself as a challenger, and I his opponent. I privately thought it ill to duel with such a man, judging him not like to take Defeat with good humor, but he insisted. He has a very pretty Blade but not the eye to go with it. I scored one touch and thence kept my thrusts short, feigning that I missed because of his Skill rather than mine. After a time he tired of this, and turned to Grayson, who was not amused but Ventir would challenge him regardless. They went through several Passes, each taking and giving Touches and each growing vexed. Grayson finished with a stroke not to the Body but rather to the Hilt. This seemed to do no harm, yet Lord Ventir seemed troubled, and retired from the match and so to his cabin, blaming the roll of the ship. Hazlett went with him and they spake vociferously although I, being in the foremast rigging, know not what was said.

In truth the waves are rougher today than yesterday, and the Landsmen suffer thereby, particularly Fra Veritan. It is nothing to trouble a sailor, although I judge there is Weather ahead.

Went to the Great Cabin for a task which the Captain had set me, transcribing certain Figures. The Cabin holds not one binnacle but two, the Second being closed. A strange quiet tapping came from inside it, which made me think of twigs, but I do not know what what manner of Creature was inside it; I thought it ill-advised to open the Case, it being the Captain's. Whilst engaged in transcribing the figures, the gallery Lights being open, I Heard Mr Hazlett, who being much distraught, spake with Grayson at the taffrail, that Lord Ventir might take the Ship. I do not understand why he thought so, as Lord Ventir is already part owner of the ship.

The Captain also provided a list of Ma'ri words and their translation, as a start to the ethno-linguistic investigation of the Ma'ri, a business in which Fra Veritan and I have joined. The list is scant, but is a beginning; and a few of the common sailors are eager to tell of certain words of the Ma're vocabulary, which may be of use to me although they make Fra Veritan blush.

Was ordered to report to Lady Inai, who examined the magic Item given to me by the Sanremi man.

After support, played the mandolin in the Wardroom until Lord Ventir called through his cabin door for quiet, after which, to the deck and an more appreciative Audience. And so to bed.

12 Ruthern

Lady Inai returned the magic Item, pronouncing it of no danger, being a charm for swift running. The forenoon Watch passed quietly albeit the sea rougher. Merchantmen sighted but not Silver Rose, a good sign.

Joined the officers at the quarterdeck for the noon Sight. As we worked our calculations, the weather being fine and the ship steady, a topman gave a loud Cry and fell from the mainsail yard. Mr Hazlett flung himself over the side after the man, and rescued him, climbing the line up the ship's side with great Speed and Certainty although burdened with the sailor under his arm.

I saw that the Sailors in the main top were much disturbed, and proceeding there, inquired amongst them, viz, for what reason had the man fallen? They all said that there had been a Ghost, or misty Figure, skeletal in visage and chartreuse or pear in color, and the Topman, being startled, had fallen. Returned to the deck and reported to the Captain.

As we discussed this and Lady Inai ministered to the sailor--Fra Veritan being below decks, and slow to respond to the summons--lo, the Apparition appeared again, this time on the deck at the weather rail. This being opposite the aft hatch from me, only a few steps away, and thinking it best to show the Men by example that Courage would serve them better than Fear, I immediately took Sword in hand and attacked the thing. My blade passed through with no resistance, as did I as well, feeling no Chill or other Ill Effects, and perceiving that my blows had no effect on the spirit neither. I then put my dagger, the which is Silver, to the thing, and it vanished, whether because of my stroke, or Inai's prayers, or of its own volition, I know not. The men were nervous afterwards, but Fra Veritan and I spoke with them, cheering them and strengthening their Courage. In the wardroom, I was hailed as Ghostbane.

Lady Inai examined me Privately and found no ill effects from my encounter with the Ghost, although this did provide the opportunity for jesting, as she is the only Woman aboard.

One of the wardroom Goblets is missing, and it is thought that Jamie Quay, the junior midshipmen, albeit no Reason was advanced as to why he might. Discussion in the wardroom, with the thought that the goblet might be used in spell casting; as Quay is no Wizard (all were amused by the thought), this made it seem likely that some Other might have taken the goblet, the mystery being, Who and Why? Grayson advanced the idea that Lord Ventir might have hidden it in Quay's belongings as a cruel Joke to shame the boy; that however being a side of Lord Ventir's Character that I myself have not seen. For reasons not explained, Hazlett and Grayson called for Lord Ventir, and him not responding to their Shouts, they determined to enter his Cabin. I opened the Door, tickling open the Lock by use of certain Tinker's skills which learned from my dear old Da. The two Men stepped forward, and exclaimed that Lord Ventir was dead.

Aboard Prosperity

First morning aboard Prosperity. Much merriment in the Wardroom at the expense of the newcomers, including myself--to wit, "Here be our new Dragon Slayers!" and so in the same vein. Reported to the Captain who assigned me as Supernumerary Landsman--not consonant with my years of Experience, but he is content with his Officers as they are. I shall assist the Boatswain and as lookout.

The ship's Company includes:

• Captain Garrity: an experienced and thoughtful commander, educated in elfen History as well as naval and professional matters. I have spoken with him regarding certain matters and believe I have impressed him favorably with my Judgement.
• Hazlett, first lieutenant: a driven man and without Humor, but competent. Methinks he is Fearful but of what, I know not.
• Mellon, second lieutenant: an elf of few words.
• Hazelwood: purser. "A thin Purser is an honest one."
• Greyson: captain of Marines, pleasant of Manner, skilled with Pen as well as Sword. We engaged in Sword play for amusement, wherein he Bested me, but not without Effort. He has been to Port Fortune (as have many aboard, though not All) and I have hopes that he will be more forthcoming as to what Awaits us than were the Company agents ashore.
• Moffrey: senior midshipman, a post I would have expected for a boy rather than a man of his years
• Raelan: midshipman
• Hythe: boatswain
• Fra Veritan: a cleric, easily Quailed by talk of slaying and such. I do not know why he is aboard.
• Lady Inai: Healer, I believe, or so it seems from words she spake to Laithoren. She has not spoken to anyone else that I know of; she seems curiously unaware of the pleasures of social Intercourse. She has a Familiar, the which is a silver otter. Perhaps she is a Druid or of such ilk, I do not know.
• Lord Ventir: part owner of the ship and member of the Board of the West Seas company. He has a very fine Appearance. As I am not a longstanding member of the Crew, he asked me for an independent Opinion of the design and handling of the Ship, the which I honestly gave. He seem pleased with my forthrightness and I have hopes of Advancement, though in truth my service was no great or daring thing.

The food aboard is of full measure and good quality, and we are daily provided with Garrity's Gulp, a cup of the juice of some fruit from the Western isles, sweet and very pleasant to the Palate.

Two days out, we sighted Silver Rose, a Sanremi vessel out of Waterdeep, and she followed us when we changed course to the Southwest. Prosperity has the heels of her, though, and sailed her under the horizon.

Setting Sail

Kestrel Langstaff's personal journal, written aboard the Prosperity, sailing to the Western Seas.

The last day ashore was very busy.

On 8th Ruthern, in the small hours of the Morning, I was accosted in an alleyway by two Thugs, hired to do violence over the matter of a Woman, or rather, Two Women. I conversed with them on the Brevity of Life, and, having a sharper wit, put to them certain Points to which they had no Rebuttal. I left them in the alley and proceeded to the house of the ladies in question, to wit, Lady M____ and G____, and dallied there with them a while.

At noon, to the West Sea Trading Company's offices, where I was invited to join the complement of the Prosperity, sailing that very next morning. Spent much of the afternoon gathering Supplies for such a voyage.

A man came to my room at the inn, claiming to be from Sanremi House and having a Proposition. He offered certain monetary incentives for me to provide Sanremi with a navigational Journal and such strategical observations as would be of Worth to a Merchant House. I balked, whereupon he added more money and an unsavoury magic Item, and I felt it best to appear to acquiesce with vague promises, with the which he did seem satisfied. Leaving the inn, I said my goodbyes to my Friends, and particularly to lemans Ravahana and Alihana, offering such Consolation as I could before my Departure. After midnight turning to 9th Ruthern, I took my leave of them and made my way to the Docks, and thus aboard.

I share my berth with an Elf, by name Laithoren Mistrellen, who speaks but little and whose Accent is rustic. He says he is an archer and a Hunter, although he does not explain why he joined our Company. He seems never to have seen a Ship before.

It being the third hour of the morning, and high tide, Prosperity cast off and made sail. In retrospect a momentous Occasion; but my presence not required on deck, and the day before having been most Strenuous, I was in my berth and slept through it.