Valentine's Mobile Steam Artillery UPDATE 1

[thejammedgatling]

I'm getting ready to post some pics of the steam artillery but I started writing a background for them which I though I'd share!. There will be a seperate battle report coming soon to show how they went on the table. For those War of the Worlds fans bear in mind that our version is a little different. The war in fact went on (in our timeline) for almost a year during 1894/5 before the Martians finally succumbed to the flu (and not the few weeks in the books). And so read on!

 


The story of Valentine’s mobile steam artillery is legendary. As a young 22 year old lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery he was the only surviving officer in his regiment by the end of the first weeks fighting during the Martian invasion of 1894. He organised the masterful retreat from the terrible slaughter of the Battle of Derby which saw most of the British Army in the north of England wiped out. With barely 50 men and scant equipment he managed to reach the devastated landscape of the industrial Midlands and it was there near the town of Wordsley that he first met the young engineer Jonas Arkwright. Legend goes that he and his men had been driven into a tight corner by a walker which was bearing down on them when suddenly they heard someone shout ‘heads up lads…’ and there was a loud bang. A strange device shot out of the ground directly below the walker and impacted upon the base of the module, where, instead of exploding it shot out what looked like lengths of chain which began to wrap around the legs and pull taught. The walker lurched and toppled, exploding as it hit the ground in great gouts of steam and flame. A stick thin man in a tall hat walked out of one of the buildings with a note pad in his hands and started jotting things down as the stunned artillerymen picked themselves up. This was the 26 year old Awkwrights first successful trial of the ‘Arkwright Welly Flail’.

Valentine was impressed with the young mans courage and ingenuity to seemingly be able to conjure up his inventions from scrap parts in a matter of days. Cut off from central command and with no communication to army units elsewhere, Valentine began to formulate plans with Arkwright for how they could better defend themselves from the Martians. Welly flails were followed by explosive tripwires, pit traps and web cannons, as well as fusil mines and phosphor blinding bombs. On Christmas Day 1894, they brought down their 3rd walker. The Martians began to travel in their area in larger groups and the story of Valentine and his men soon spread around the countryside. At first there was a dribble of volunteers, then dozens, and soon hundreds. Men, women and children who had been sheltering in rubble and cellars for months were drawn to the one story of hope they had heard. Valentine can lead us… Valentine will save us… Men who had been boiler fitters, riveters, pattern makers, foundry works, carpenters, labourers….there was no shortage of skills. Soon, establishing themselves in the large underground limestone quarries near Dudley the first Jonas Arkwright factory was built and concealed with elaborate measures.
Life though was very tough in the winter of 1894. Scavenging parties were sent out to find food, medicines and supplies for a steadily growing band of people sheltered in the caves. One group of particularly effective scavengers were known as the ‘daft boys’. These lads (and lasses) were mainly from the poor houses, orphanages and mills of the area and became very adept at flitting undetected amongst the piles of rubble. At times they became ‘human bait’ to lead the walkers in traps set up by Valentines men. The best were able to plant charges on the legs of the walkers and flee. Many died.

Captured sections of the walkers were taken to the research labs for Arkwright to try to perform tests on. However, after six months of trials he had found no known material able to penetrate through the armour. He had tried heat, cold, acid, explosives and even Mrs Figgins preserved black pudding (by accident although initial tests showed promise). It was one frosty February night in 1885 that an explosion in his lab caused a section of wiring from his electro – galvanic lighting system to become detached from the roof and fall onto the armoured scrap on his workbench. When his assistants were able to enter the smoking room (they wore protective clothes as they were used to this) they found Arkwright without eyebrows and hair standing on end holding a candle and chuckling softly. He was looking at a hole the size of a fist that had been punched through the shell of the armour. And so the discovery was made. Electrical current made the armour temporarily brittle and no stronger than tin.

For the next 100 days the workshops roared. Valentines men, supported by the thousands of workers were able to collect cannon and mount them onto a variety of vehicles from traction engines to horse drawn carts. Some were fitted with normal projectiles, others with the new electrical pulse firers. On April 12th, 1895 the offensive began. A human collection party of Martians were ambushed and completely destroyed in the Severn Valley near to the town of Bewdley. Valentine and Arkwright were involved in more than 15 skirmishes and 2 major battles during the next three months, coming away from most of these victoriously. Arkwright’s factories spread. Working drawings of the new inventions spread to resistance centres in London, Cardiff and York. Resistance was stiffening. The Martians were forced by July to fall back to their major strongholds.

It was during an offensive to release the captives of the human pens in Birmingham that (now Major) Valentine was wounded by a heat ray which burned half his face and one arm irreparably. It was a week later, while in hospital that he heard of the great disease that was spreading amongst the Martians and which would soon wipe them out.

Now Brigadier General Valentine of the newly formed Royal Steam Artillery, he remains the youngest officer to ever hold this rank in the British Army and was knighted by the queen, along with Jonas Arkwright in 1896 during the great re-building. It was Arkwright who fashioned for his friend the mask that now covers half of his face, and the mechanical hand which he now uses. They are fashioned from Duranium, the armour material used by the Martian walkers. An artilleryman without peer, he is both a national hero and icon and has been pivotal with Arkwright in the newly formed Research Defence Laboratories in designing and testing a variety of weapons so that Britain will never again fall foul to an invader, whether human or alien.

End of part 1

Pics shortly!
TJG

[Chairface]

Great write up! Can't wait to see the pics

[Rabbitz]

Congratualtions on another good piece to add to our growing History.   I think we will have to seriously write up our time line in more detail to include all these extra bits.

Thanks for the game last night and I for one cant wait to see the pictures and read the battle report.

[Malamute]

Superb, without doubt one of the best posts on the forum ever! Can't wait to see the pics.
Right I'm off to pack my toys. Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

[commissarmoody]

Top notch story telling. I like it.

[Rabbitz]

Superb, without doubt one of the best posts on the forum ever! Can't wait to see the pics.
Right I'm off to pack my toys. Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

 

We're in Australia

[Malamute]

Superb, without doubt one of the best posts on the forum ever! Can't wait to see the pics.
Right I'm off to pack my toys. Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

 

We're in Australia

Sorry my mistake, so its Australia instead, even better 

[Geudens]

Man, what a story!  Are you sure you're the "jammed" "gatling"...  You show no sign of it...  

Now, after firing words: do fire pics, please.

BTW, a great background story is IMHO essential to the presentation of a new invention.

Congrats,

Rudi

[earthdog]

Wonderful background story, very inspiritional.

The only thing stopping me from joining the british resistance is that i'm still organising the dutch forces (I'm sure the martians would not settle for just one island)
Please keep the stories and pics coming

[Thunderchicken]

Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

He never listens properly when it's pillow talk. 

Great write up and very inspirational. Looking forward to the pics.

[archangel1]

Superb, without doubt one of the best posts on the forum ever! Can't wait to see the pics.
Right I'm off to pack my toys. Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

 

We're in Australia

I guess to you at home in Blighty, all us Colonials look alike! 

[Malamute]

Superb, without doubt one of the best posts on the forum ever! Can't wait to see the pics.
Right I'm off to pack my toys. Thunderchicken has told me all about you guys. I'm boarding the next flight to Canada!

 

We're in Australia

I guess to you at home in Blighty, all us Colonials look alike! 

Well, you have me there.

I'll just put this one down to over excitement at the content of the post, tiredness after a late night of curry and beer and my inability to accurately distinguish between former colonies in the northern and southern hemispheres.

[thejammedgatling]

I'll just put this one down to over excitement at the content of the post, tiredness after a late night of curry and beer and my inability to accurately distinguish between former colonies in the northern and southern hemispheres.

Ah, then you'll be wanting the Jonas Arkwright curry fuelled ether communication device, with inbuilt GPS (global popadum selector), though be careful of using Vindaloo as it has a tendency to backfire.
 

Thanks for the friendly words of encouragement. I enjoy the story as much as the game.

Sorry not to have more pics up but I'm not too happy with those I've taken so far and am going to pinch a better camera to take some more tommorrow. I'll also update with a battle preamble...the clock is set ten years later in a dusty mining town on Mars.

In the meantime here's a picture from our game last night (before all hell broke loose).


 Rabbitz did a superb job on the terrain and scratchbuilt all the bits in a few weeks. Only the terrain boards were mine. Those Martian style houses were based on a picture of some we saw from Tunisia. Can anyone guess what bits the steam tank is made from?

More to follow soon..

[Geudens]

Sorry not to have more pics up but I'm not too happy with those I've taken so far and am going to pinch a better camera to take some more tommorrow.

Well, it's only 1 pic, but it already looks great.  We look forward to reading how the gun was made...

Rudi

[Malamute]

Wow, awesome photos, looking fantastic, can't wait to read the report.