189-. News travels fast. Faster than an marooned Zeppelin in the jungles of Indochine at least..
The steam-electric Zeppelin L.X.
Hohenzollern, pride of the
Kaiserlich Ostindien Gesellschaft (Imperial East Indies Company) was travelling on a routine cargo/post mission from Tsingtao to German New Guinea when she encountered a typhoon. Cautions to avoid the destruction of the precious symbol of Prussian triumph,
Kaptainleutnant Herman Heidegger ordered the airship seek the shelter of the Mekong Valley.
Too late it was discovered that in the battering storm, one of the gas-bags had failed, leaking precious hydrogen! In the humid, monsoonal air, she began to sink. Jettisoning cargo and components in a desperate attempt to save the vessel, the crew finally stabilised her buoyancy, and ‘anchored’ her over the jungle - in a swampy area on a long, lazy curve of a river. Sending a telegram to the German Consul in Luang Prabang, the crew set out for help and supplies of hydrogen, leaving a skeleton guard behind. None know who if any of the guard or the rescue party survive.
The entire desperate escapade was observed by curious listeners across the region, and, rousing themselves into the languid heat, they come scuttling from their hideouts, setting out to plunder the jetsam strewn across a swathe of jungle…
Peaceful scenes?*******
Across a landscape choked with teaming jungle, across opaque muddy ponds, and underneath the sagging hull of the
Hohenzollern, eight small companies crept, not knowing which hazards and treasures lay around the next corner.
Swinging through a forest not unlike their own African home were Tarzan and Jane - beneath them, padding barefoot along barely visible trails were a detachment of faithful Zulu allies.
To their left, advancing with military precision, were a detachment of the Royal Marine’s famous Rocket Troops, their forward motion a textbook example of manœuvre and cover in teams.
Next to swagger onto the scene: a group of US Marshals - the cloying humidity as far from the dusty desert plains of the West as could be imagined, but whose wild dangers were perhaps not as unfamiliar.
Here come the US MarshalsSkulking along on their flank were a group of the sinister Mysterious Minions of Ki-Oskh, scuttling along from bole to tangled trunk in their lurid purple robes on a mission as dark as the forest shadows…
Here comes familiar party - for here is Lord Edward Ronan Curr, with ‘Mad’ Mick McFarlane and Curr’s faithful manservant Mohan Singh - he utters few words, preferring to let his steam-powered machine gun speak for him. Experience has taught them that this will be a deadly game, and people will die here today under the impassive gaze of ancient temple-gods…
At last we can tell we are in the Orient - for did we just glimpse a silent trio of the fearful Ninja - clad all in black - moving silently through the stagnant gloom as though the swift and deadly-sharp blade of a naginata in the night?
The ninja approachUnder the looming eclipse of the Zeppelin scurry more characters we’ve met before: there glides the Dragon Lady motioning her acolytes Wu-jen and his band of Tongs forward with an inscrutable flick of her silken fan.
Ah! There we espy Professor Abir, the meddling madman of the Cairo souk and his cryptic cast of cultists - moving forward into death and danger with the glittering of madness and treasure under their fevered frowns. Sairah sighs along with them, barely touching the ground, beyond her shambles a mummified priest clawing at the fœtid air that festers his stinking rags….
Old friends meeting againScattered here and there are signs of the Zeppelin’s last voyage - but are they treasures? Or traps? Be they hazards or be they harmless? Our Comp’nys are simply
dying to discover.
*****
Immediately Tarzan’s force descended on a hidden lump, covered already with weeds - could this be some trinket to be hidden away? NO! A giant crocodile rears up from it’s lazy slumber, splashing all with foul water! The Lord of the Apes wastes no time leaping onto its back - a fierce life-or-death wrestle ensues. He is victorious, clinging on a the great beast writhes and struggles in the brown mud.
Lord Greystoke gives a lesson in wildlife managementNearby, Abir’s company emerge into a clearing, to discover a wandering monk, meditating. In proximity to the crumbling temples, his force is powerful enough to smother the foul tomb-magic which are the noxious tools of the mad Cairene, and with a vengeful utterance he sets his minions upon the innocent hermit with bludgeon and blade.
Across our stage the Ki-Oskh minions swoop upon a discarded package, tearing off it’s leaden wrappings to reveal a German Codebook - no less than the Diplomatic Code 13040 with which the Kaiser communicates across his far-flung archipelago of colonies! A valuable treasure indeed - what foul purpose will they put it to?! The jungle crackles as they exchange gunfire with Curr’s men: there are those among the minions who’s bones fester in the jungle now…
A swarm of malaria carrying mosquitoes! A cloud of brightly coloured parrots! The screech of a monkey! The distant green crash of a falling jungle giant…. Some points of interest turn out to be the landscape speaking back - impassive and mostly harmless to the foreigners who creep across it.
Other encounters are more dangerous; here another tree falls, narrowly missing some of the Black Dragon Tong; over yonder four Zulus disappear into an ancient vault next to one of the temples, some manage to scrabble their way out, others are entombed forever; there a cultist of the dead Pharoah wrestles with an obscenely green and lethally fanged snake which drops from the creaking woodwork of the Hohenzollern’s gondola…
A US Marshal steps forward to discover a crate marked XIII: Zoologischer Garten Berlin. Roughly breaking it open, it disturbs the terrified cowering of a Gibichüng - a hideous weaponised hybrid of Gorilla and steam machine last encountered in far off Venice….it claws and swipes at the hapless marshal while he fires back at close range, desperate to silence three hundred writhing pounds of muscle, compressed steam and primitive outrage!
Soon the Ki-Oskh are fighting on two fronts - one of their number has taken shelter inside a stone head while Curr’s forces pepper away arc-rifle and hurl grenades. Mohan Singh goes down with a grunt, and the war of attrition sees Lord Curr and McFarlane defeated after a long exchange of grenades and gunfire. A few yards away another purple cowled minion is exchanging gunfire with the US Marshals.
Mohan Singh takes aim at a scurrying Ki-Oskh minionThe Gibichüng fights back at the Marshals, but in their struggle a safety valve has stuck closed, and with a boiling crash the creature explodes, killing his opponent. Worse still, the force of the blast has carved a crater beneath a nearby temple, which totters and then crashes to ground scattering vines and stones everywhere.
As if this it not enough mayhem, a tropical storm of the like few present have witnessed arrives on the scene, sending monsoonal showers of water onto everything, liquifying the ground and causing arc weapons to fizz and hiss.
Meanwhile the Royal Marines scoop up another volume - the
Benutzerhandbuch, the operating manual of the Zeppelin, rich with secrets for the Royal Navy’s own balloon force. With a grunt of satisfaction, they turn to close on the Zulu warriors who clamber out of the pit trap, swinging cutlasses like a boarding action. As the Zulus form a defensive circle The ninja sweep forward, one hurls a grenade into the fray, killing one of the Zulu warriors.
Tarzan and Jane swing through a thicket of bamboo to face the black-clad enemies, but out flash naginatas and Viscount Greystoke is no more….Jane puts up a short fight before she too falls to thousand-time-folded Japanese steel.
While the Royal Marines engage the Zulu, Jane makes her land stand against the NinjaThe Ki-Oskh have discovered a priceless canister of Unobtainium, mined from some secret cavern in Mongolia, and hurled in desperation from the foundering Zeppelin. Their gleeful cackles are cut short by the crackle of gunfire from the Marshals who have come to serve out their form of justice. A long drawn out firefight ensues - only ending when the last of the US Marshals sinks down, a bullet shot clean through his tin star…
With the Royal Marines and remaining Zulus fighting spear and cutlass, the ninja turn to fight the horde the Black Dragon who approach to entrap them. Their leader, the Jonin
Hase-gawa, hurls a grenade even as he dives into the bamboo. It explodes, unsettling the ancient stones of a giant stupa, which itself cracks and thunders to the damp soil, overwhelming a Boxer fighter in a tide of rubble.
The ninja turn back to fight the Royal Marines. Blades flash, the Marines' eyes cold and unyielding behind their steel helmets. This time cold Sheffield steel wins out, and the two ninja lay dying as the marines make a tactical withdrawal.
The ninja novice, left behind, is fighting a desperate struggle on his back - with the help of the Dragon Lady’s Dragon Breath, Master Wu-jen has knocked him flat but seems unable to deliver the killing blow. Finally the martial arts master crushes the ninja warrior’s skull, even as Abir’s cultists flap into view like a cloud of demented macaws. The Black DragonTong and the acolytes of Abir are left to fight over the scraps…
The Black Dragon Lady sweeps all before her with her Dragon BreathAs quickly as these fights began, the remnant forces withdraw from the field - picked clean of treasures and leaving the dead to be reclaimed by the silent forest. Above, silent and impassive, the incongruous bulk of the Zeppelin swings lazily in the quieted air.
The silent sentinels of the forest keep their secrets....*****
An epic multiplayer IHMN with 8 x 150 point mini-companies, down at the Perth Miniature Gamer’s Group. Tremendous fun as always - we had a few relatively experienced players and a few old hands in what was an elaborate treasure hunt.
It says something good about the game when the majority of those left standing at the end were among the least experienced! Everyone is in with a chance. In VP terms the Ki-Oskh took the cake, grabbing both the Unobtanium and the Diplomatic Code Book.
Thanks to all who joined in with the right spirit.
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December 10, 2008, 11:06:13 AM
