Hey all,
Well, after a year and a bit of painting, I finally managed to get in a game with my VSF/Colonial figures. Please excuse the dodgy camera work in many of the shots, both the lighting and the cameraman (me) were awful...
It is the 3rd of August, 1884. The despicable and mysterious German agent 'Von Evil' has fled to a remote African village deep inside French Tinkiwinkidipsylalapoland, with his personal bodyguard of steam tanks and Automatons. He has managed to contact Berlin, and a Zeppelin has been sent to pick him up, along with a variety of important documents he has secreted about his person, which could prove vital for the German war effort.
Hot on his heels is a combined British and French force, led by two top agents under the codenames of 'Kipling' and 'Wilde'. The must seize Von Evil before he can escape back to Germany. In order to prevent such a result, the dastardly Hun has procured the help of a nearby Warlord, with promises of gold, tanks and freedom from the colonial oppressors.
The starting setup. The British and French can be seen in the foreground, whilst the Natives stream from the Village in the top left. The German armour is deployed to the top right. A RN steamer approaches from the middle left;
The French Fort;
‘Kipling’ (left) and ‘Wilde’ discuss their next move;
The village. Von Evil can be seen in the centre, next to his steam tractor;
The fiendish Hun himself;
What now follows is an assortment of photos from the game. They are in a rough chronological order. Basically, everything that could do so broke down as soon as the opportunity arose to do so, resulting in the immobilisation of all the German armour and the British steam carriage crashing into a house, followed closely by the steamer, which had been disabled by a group of German divers. The French stormed the village, with the loss of all their armour, but arrived only to see Von Evil carried away by the Zeppelin, which arrived in the nick of time. The British lost virtually all their infantry to the German tanks and a heroic group of Native horse. Both ‘Kipling’ and ‘Wilde’ survived the game.
There were 183 figures on the table, all but three of them painted by me (the other three were painted by ‘Mr. Marx’). The Natives were slightly outnumbered, so their units were sporadically recycled throughout the game. The rules started off as a slightly converted set of WHH’s ‘Great War’, but ended the game as something rather different indeed, what with the amount of things we made up on the spot to cover such units as helicopters and steam robots...
The figures themselves are from Perry, Eureka, Foundry, Irregular, Essex, Dixon, Copplestone, Ironclad, Games Workshop and a couple more that slip my mind...
27 March 2008, 09:49:01 AM
