Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Back of Beyond => Topic started by: Blackglengarry on 12 September 2011, 08:06:46 PM
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Has anyone read this? It is a great book by Patrick O'Brian, the author of Master and Commander. Anyways, I have been reading it and it made me realize that I have a bunch of copplestone back of beyond minis lying around... What would be a good campaign ruleset for an archaeological expedition through the steps complete with bandits, mongols, yetis and helicopters?
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I liked everything you wrote until you got to the helicopters bit!! ;)
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It's a 1930's "helicopter". To be honest, that one O'Brian novel that never did much for me--and it's as old as I am!
Allen
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not sure about helicopters but for that sort of game I would recommend Triumph&Tragedy. And I'm sure Björn would support you making some add.rules for helicopters or whatever :)
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I liked everything you wrote until you got to the helicopters bit!! ;)
an autogire(Fr) maybe?
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An autogyro! Developed in the '20s, so plausible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro)
It'd be cool to see one made in miniature...
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That Soviet autogyro A-7-3A
These military vehicles actually produced a small batch. It is known that participated in the Russo-Finnish War and WWII
(http://alternathistory.org.ua/files/users/user305/a_7_3.jpg)
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Wow, that's very interesting Cuprum! I had thought the Germans were the only nation to put helicopters into limited production during the Second World War.
As for your question OP, I'd say go for it and grab yourself the Triumph and Tragedy rulebook. It's a great system and the setting of Back and Beyond is a great one.
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An autogyro is distinct from an helicopter as the top rotor doesn't provide thrust, just lift. It's VTOL capacity is thus less but it can fly slowly, just like a helicopter.
*adjusts his glasses and sucks on his pipe*
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Does triumph and tragedy lend itself well to characters and campaign elements?
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Andrea Miniatures has a Model of an autogiro, though very expensive
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There are a few 1:72 and 1:48 scale model kits for autogyros available, or so my google-fu tells me. And fairly affordable too.
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Does triumph and tragedy lend itself well to characters and campaign elements?
Bless your little white cotton socks, they are the very thing for it! They've got a strong story telling element in'um.
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Excellent! My plan is to rope my wife and my brothers into a campaign based on the road to Samarkand. It will start in Peking. An expedition will form to find an ancient lamasery in tibet. Along the way the adventurers get attacked by bandits, stuck between two angry Chinese warlords, chased along the Old Silk Road by Mongols, face off with militant buddhist monks in tibet and finally meet the dreaded Yetis.
I have the copplestone archaeologist miniatures, the american adventurers and chinese assault troops. I think that with some chinese rifleman, mounted mongols, monks and yetis I could pull this off.
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That all sounds awesomely pulpy, with a good mix of figures for re-use in future adventures too!
Good luck, take lots of photos, and write us awesome after-action reports!
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Always nice to see an autogiro - suitably Pulp.
The French had 50 of them at the beginning of WWII which were intended for artillery spotting
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Yes, Triumph & Tragedy is very suitable for your project. If you have questions or need any help do not hesitate and contact me.
Cheers
Björn
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Having observed me read and love the Aubrey/Maturin cycle, my wife gave me 'Samarcand' for Christmas. I did enjoy it, and all the way through I kept thinking "Mmm, pulp-tastic!" The helicopter jolted me out of the era I thought it should be in, though, and felt a bit too clumsy a deus ex machina moment.
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I actually just finished the book a few days ago. And yes I found the "get to de choppa!" moment a bit cheesy and anachronistic. However, the great thing about the book is the fact that it is a fantastic adventure. So I could write it off as a big experimental autogyro or even some kind of weird airship in my mind. An interesting thing about the book is that if you read a synopsis online they will tell you that the yetis are just monks masquerading as monsters but in the book they never explicitly say that...
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Blackglengarry,
You might find Fitzroy MacLean's Easter Approaches an interesting read. The first part deals with his career in the British Foreign Service in Paris, London, and Moscow. When his colleagues would take their vacations back to England, Maclean would go to the local railroad station and buy a ticket to Samarkand or Tashkent or Bokhara. The local Intourist people had told him he was forbidden in those regions. Reasoning that the different sections of bureaucracy didn't talk to each other he simply bought his ticket and went. In the dead of winter on his last journey Maclean was sitting in a warm restaurant. He noticed his NKVD Tail outside in the cold and invited him and bought him dinner!
The bulk of the book deals with his experiences in North Africa and Yugoslavia with the SAS.