The Great Antipodean Adventure - Trouble at Mill, well in the Park Actually! Plus the Sarissa Searchlight Kit...

Men of the 7th Heavy Illumination Company under the leadership of Captain Edison with assistance from the Army and Constabulary deploy their Searchlight along MacQuarie Street near Government House...

May 24th and the NSW Governor Sir Phillip Game announced the formation of several new NSW Government Para Military units which included 10 Heavy Illumination Companies. These were Companies in name only with each one being allocated a single Searchlight and comprising 21 officers and ranks. In fact the 9th and 10th Companies would initially lack their searchlight, they were due to arrive in the City of Sydney in early June! These Heavy Illumination Companies were created to be deployed in open spaces where unruly groups were rampaging in the darkness, it was expected that lighting these areas overnight would cut down on such activities.

Friday May 27 1932 Captain Edison deployed his 7th Heavy Illumination Company along MacQuarie Street near Government House. The Royal Botanic Gardens had from day one of the civil unrest caused by the dismissal of the Lang Government been a hotbed of discontent. There had been clashes between State Government forces and Unionists flying Red Banners, while members of the All for Australia League and the New Guard had made their presence known in scuffles with anyone they didn't like the sight of! Captain Edison's brief was to bring peace back to the Gardens!

Sunset that night the Company's Searchlight glowed and within minutes it was flooding the Royal Botanic Gardens with light, night turned to day! For hour after hour the men toiled sweeping the area they were designated to cover and at daybreak they rejoiced as there had been not a single disturbance in the Gardens. Captain Edison stood down his men and they left their Searchlight under the care of the Constabulary they would stand to again that evening at 5:00pm to repeat their efforts.

Around the Rocks during Saturday the 28th Marxists spruiked their cause against the Capitalist State Government and rallied men and women to them with the aim of storming the Royal Botanic Gardens that night...their work was rewarded and they headed off to the Gardens at the head of an excited and armed mob!

As the sun began to set while Captain Edison and his men prepared their precious Searchlight for another night's work the roar of a mob was heard and a crowd was seen advancing down MacQuarie Street toward their position! Edison promptly used his shiny new field telephone to summon assistance! This was not going to be another quiet night...

The Sarissa Searchlight...

I picked up the Sarissa Searchlight flat pack at Little Wars a couple of years ago for a fiver and finally got around to assembling it. A searchlight has always been 'to build' list and having had good experiences with Sarissa's buildings I picked this up (it was so cheap!). It is a pretty simple affair and I built it as instructed and added a few hex nuts for details and cover some joins. BUT (in my opinion) building the cylinder out of multiple rings didn't work and did not give a good finish! I ended up dumping the kits light and scratch built my own...by the way I toyed with the idea of putting a working light into this but quickly came to the conclusion the effect wouldn't be worth the effort as it would always be used in fully lit games!

Picture from Sarissa Ltd Site

My completed kit...

The diorama set up...

We'll be getting this scenario slotted into our Monday schedule soon so standby for the OOB and AAR!

Tripods and Triplanes - First Play AAR

Posted for Al, our first try at Tripods and Triplanes!

A Desperate Defence!

Two aircraft were all that could be spared to defend the village of Zwiderhof and its vital munitions factory from the unstoppable Martian Tripods. A Fokker Dr1 and an ageing Albatross took to the skies in the early hours before dawn to seek out and, if nothing else, delay the alien invaders.

Armed with machine guns and these new French rockets, the two aircraft gained altitude in order to have the sun behind them as they approached their patrol zone. The pilots waved cheerfully to each other as they crossed the Oder River. Both knew what awaited them.

A plume of smoke rose from the Western horizon, and a glint of sunlight off a metal surface gave the pilots a clear idea where their targets were. They both increased the throttle and darted to the attack.

Two massive machines towered over the landscape, plodding in their unworldly three-legged gait towards the village. The closest was one of the type dubbed the 'Locust' and it definitely had an insect-like appearance. Leutnant Reim of der Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte banked his Fokker left to make an approach, guns blazing. The metal skin on the Martian machine seemed to sparkle as the bullets struck, doing no damage.

The fragile aircraft attacking the Martian Tripods!

The second Martian, a larger machine known as a 'Scarab', turned its attention towards the incoming aircraft. A sudden flare of light and the Dr 1 was engulfed in an intense blast of heat from the alien's forward projector.  Deft manoeuvring on the part of Lt Reim saw him fly through and carry on the fight, but he was severely wounded in the blast.

A Martian Tripod deploys 'Black Smoke'...

The Martians steadily destroyed their objectives, one by one, troubled little by the German flyers. Rockets and machine guns could not seem to penetrate the armour of these mechanical monsters. But then, a lucky shot by Hauptman Kremb in the Albatross caused an explosion in the power plant of the Locust and the Martian machine collapsed in a ball of flame.

Lt Kremb soars passed the remains of a Martian Fighting Machine...

Emboldened by this success, the German pilots renewed their attacks, but the wounds suffered by Lt Reim, together with a choking lung full of Black Smoke from the remaining Martian saw him spiral into the ground. Posthumously awarded the Iron Cross with oak leaves, Lt Reim was survived by his wife Greta and six children.

Never giving up the fight, Kremb struck again and again, but to no avail. The remaining Martian, despite once tumbling to the ground, destroyed all its objectives and marched relentlessly towards the German lines, pursued by the single remaining German aircraft.

Lt Kremb was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and a Wound Badge in recognition of his efforts at the time...

The game ends with the surviving Martian Tripod advances remorselessly...

This was our first foray into Tripods and Triplanes, the War of the Worlds expansion to Ares Games' Wings of Glory. Dave and Pete controlled the tripods and George defended humanity as the German player. Al acted as referee while we learned the rules. It was a fun game and we mostly played it correctly. Some confusion was had over how rockets work but our interpretation turned out to be correct. Next time, the game play will flow faster as we will be a bit more familiar with the new rules covering Martians

Certainly a worthwhile investment and a fun expansion to an already-excellent game