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Post by phgamer on Feb 20, 2018 14:29:44 GMT
I agree that 750 points for the Land Ironclad is small. I wrote a program to cycle thorough battles in batches of 10,000, allowing me to adjust the number of tripods. Allowing for damage and morale. But not range or terrain. The even up break point was between 7 and 8 tripods. Where the LIC would win most of its battles against 7 tripods, and lose most of it's battles against 8. So my house rules put it as valued at 1,500 points.
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Post by phgamer on Feb 13, 2018 16:06:57 GMT
The Dog Days of January A battle report of All Quiet on the Martian Front. philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2015/01/Captain Palen surveyed the fields in front of him. The village of Spruce Grove lay before him. It was a harsh winter, and the red weed hadn't taken root yet since the Martian offensive last fall. At last, we are on the offensive. Kicked out in 1912 but with the Yanks delivering hundreds of their steam tanks, this time we are back and here to stay. Unfortunately we are the bleeding edge of the sword this time. Our objective is not so much the ground to take, but how much noise we can make, and draw attention away from the massive American buildup southwest of here.
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Post by phgamer on Jan 27, 2018 13:32:34 GMT
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Post by phgamer on Jan 27, 2018 13:31:33 GMT
I created those. They have a picture of a Tripod and a number suitably large enough for our aging eyes. They are double sided, so 1 flips to 2, and Weaponry flips to Maneuverability hit. On the human site, which we didn't use in this game is a small tree and a number to represent stealthy movement.
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Post by phgamer on Jan 21, 2018 14:14:58 GMT
A lone Martian Tripod has accidentally found an abandoned and flooded mine-shaft and sank up to the helmet. Water quickly shorted out the systems and his last known position was largely unknown to the Martians. He is discovered by the humans first and the race is on for an opportunity to either gather Martian tech or rescue a comrade. This battle report is a rerun from the early days with All Quiet on the Martian Front, but I seem to have many more readers now, so I am offering it up this week for your enjoyment. philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-edmonton-tripod-salvage-operation.html
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Post by phgamer on Jan 17, 2018 12:07:54 GMT
Thank you. I wrote most of that immediately after the last battle for Sheboygan in August. As real writers would say, it wrote itself. I was just waiting for an evening with our group to play it out. I am very happy with Scotty, he was a lot of fun ... "I am afeered that we may have to call off pursuit sirs. The over pressured boilers can only take so much cronachadh, and the wee bairns are beginning to fail running the scunners down. Now there are several of the bastards that are acting glaekit, skyting like they are on ice, we should skelp them before they recover. And there is another one on the ground, those crazy men on their motorized push-bikes have it wrapped up like fly in a spiders web. I think a crowbar is order there, to pry the peely beastie from it's houl so we can ken its googlies."
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Post by phgamer on Jan 16, 2018 12:03:05 GMT
The next chapter is up. Here is another excerpt on the preamble: A younger naval officer stepped forward, “Lieutenant Scott, sir, I run the Boilermen school. We were very interested in your wee steam tanks when they started arriving a few days ago, and it was soon obvious there were points where they could be improved, if only for a little while. We found, with a bit of reinforcement around the bell housings, that we could take the pressure up to about 600.” “That’s about three times the normal pressure”, snapped Captain Patton! “Oh, aye, it is, and to be suurre, it’s totally ruining the life expectancy of the boiler, the transmission, and the tracks. But we were looking at it this way, after you clamped onto one of the tripods legs, good an tight, were you really expecting your little tank back in a usable shape” replied the Lieutenant? “This away, they will dig themselves out of those holes we dug for them, shooting forward at maybe 15 miles an hour! The Martian’s will barely have time to note they are there before the clamps grab on. And now for the best part. Since these tanks are only going one way, and only a little way at that, it would be a waste of fine West Virginia coal to fully load them up, so we didn’t. And used all that space saved for the storage of two tons of DuPont’s finest gunpowder.” “So by either a lit fuse from a fleeing crewmen, or a by heat ray attempting to remove the clamp, or by 800 degrees from an exploding boiler, I don’t think that Martian Tripod will be bothering us much anymore, but that will be the last you will see of you tank I’m afraid.” There was silence as the Scotsman finished his heavily brogue laden explanation. George started a laugh that infected the group. He slapped the Lieutenant hard on the back, and looked at his General, “I can listen to this man all day. With that outrageous accent and his ideas, this man is a marvel.” philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2018/01/baited-trap-waukegan-illinois.html
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Post by phgamer on Jan 16, 2018 3:02:44 GMT
The Americans have been defeated at Sheboygan. General McIntyre and Captain Patton have managed the keep the retreating American forces from turning into a total rout by force of will, and by exuding hope and assiduity of a final victory against the invaders. A battle report from the universe of All Quiet on the Martian Front. Baited Trap, the Battle for Waukegan, Illinois philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2018/01/baited-trap-waukegan-illinois.htmlenjoy
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Post by phgamer on Jan 10, 2018 15:25:05 GMT
We are finally playing the next game in the series tonight,titled Baited Trap, Waukegan, Illinois Here is just a piece of the preamble:
..... The muttering in the crowed started to develop an angry tone. Patton, in full monologue mode, either didn't notice, or chose not to notice.
"We are sure they'll bypass Kenosha the same way. Every 15 miles or so, we have been leaving presents for them. A smoking Mk II here, a manned gun position there. Enough to anger and entice. They have to slow down to black dust areas providing cover, but also are finding broken vehicles in our wake. What they are not doing is regrouping! We are leading them gentlemen, leading them here!"
"So what is important about Waukegan? Why do they want it so? They'll want it, because we will be there."
There was an intake of breath.
"And we will be there because the ground is already being prepared to destroy the enemy. At Waukegan, is the Great Lakes Naval Training Center."
There was a myriad of puzzled looks from the crowd.
"Yes, I know what you are thinking, why does the Navy have a base 900 miles from the nearest ocean. It's not like we are going to fight Canada again."
Chuckles.
General McIntyre made a mental note, "George can sure play a crowd."
"With that Navy base is a great surplus of manpower, manpower that is currently sculpting the field, setting traps, berms, trenches. Also, the Navy is not likely to abandon us our gunfire support when it's their base on the line."
Polite Laughter.
"Now, those men are not soldiers, far from it, most of them, until a few months ago, were farmers and townsfolk. But they will bolster our manpower for non-combat roles. In addition to cooks, they'll provide us ammunition runners for our machine guns. Even now, they are helping unload the trainloads of reinforcements arriving daily from Detroit. They are already getting accustomed to the vagaries and voodoo required to drive the steam tanks."
"They will be in the tanks with us, in the trenches with us, they are going to die with us."
The room went quiet, and if possible, dropped a few degrees.
Patton let that sink in, then continued. He strutted in front of the crowd, assessing the mix of fear and anger. Now it was time to give them hope.
"Let me tell you what is there. Waukegan is where the Navy trains their engineers. The Navy runs on coal and steam like our tanks. Our tanks are offering them a great opportunities for hands on training, with experienced engineers supervising. Our tanks will be in tip top shape when the Martians get there. We have a shortage of men trained in manning the tanks, but the Navy will at least be able to fill the gap with mechanics."
"And another thing, this is where their Fire Control and Gunnery Schools are. More trained men to draw upon. Men who know how to handle artillery."
"And lastly, they have a Land Ironclad!"
The room exploded. ....
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Post by phgamer on Aug 5, 2017 16:04:49 GMT
Encounter at Myrian Gulch. An All Quiet on the Martian Front battle report As the Martians continue to dominate the center of the United States, natural barriers must be leveraged to force the invaders to unfavorable exchanges. The largest barriers are the Rockies, the Sierras, and the Mississippi River. With the fall of Mullan pass, the Rockies have been breached. A number of other passes still hold, but the Sierra line must now be seriously fortified. The 10th Armored Battalion, of the 8th Armored Brigade, Major General Frederick Funston, MoH, commanding, has been assigned to defend Myrian Gulch in Washington State. philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2017/08/encounter-at-myrian-gulch.htmlEnjoy
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Post by phgamer on May 27, 2017 14:01:25 GMT
Thanks for posting. Can you provide a close up of the rough riders? Interested in the paint scheme. Sorry "mikedski", this is a rather long explanation. Regarding my Rough Riders, they are probably not the best scheme for anyone else to use. My army is actually painted to be Canadian. I call the unit "Monty’s Pythons", the 2nd Squadron, 12th "Three Rivers” Regiment, 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade. Why? Because when I was writing Battle Reports for Flames of War, I fell into using Canadians, as they have American Equipment, and good national special abilities. I picked a unit that did exist, then somewhere along the line, started naming my commanders as actors from Monty Pythons. For AQMF, I have a new audience, so I am getting a bit of reuse out of those FOW battle reports. And AQMF gets the advantage of a fairly mature writing style and format from the start. Unfortunately, due to either incompetence of the Canadian Players, or competence of the Martians, or possibly a skewing of the points system in favor of the Martians, my Canadian environment, "Fort Edmonton" has fallen, leading to the fall of all western Canada, except Vancouver. So my Monty's Pythons are now expats, supporting the American war effort, and trying not to die. That being said, my "Rough Riders" are painted as Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Images of which you can down load from google. My paint job is really not worthy of close up shots.
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Post by phgamer on May 26, 2017 11:17:04 GMT
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Post by phgamer on May 26, 2017 11:16:36 GMT
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Post by phgamer on May 23, 2017 11:39:12 GMT
As always, another excellent game, write-up, and picture series. Looking forward to the next installment. FYI, we finish the game tomorrow night, write up to follow.
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Post by phgamer on May 23, 2017 11:38:12 GMT
"the photos phgamer. They really add to the AARs." The photos actually make these AAR's possible. I have been doing AAR's before I owned a camera that could take adequate pictures of the field. And a two page report would take 8 hours. I know, I timed them. Trying to describe the situation without a picture was murder. Here is an example of one of my better ones. An Ancients fight, Anglo-Normans vs Islamic Persians. philonancients.blogspot.com/2011/10/aar-warrior-anglo-normans-vs-islamic.html . With the camera, the time is about 30 minutes to lay out the pictures. Though that is going up as I am doing some post processing there now, 2 hours for the prose, and about 30 minutes to run the link out to all the forums and Facebook. I started blogging (in priority order) to see about what it takes to drive traffic to a web site, a useful skill in this day and age. To practice writing, in case this DBA gig doesn't pan out, and to talk about my hobby. Before I started AAR's on the Martian Front I was doing Ancients, then Flames of War. You got the benefit of that, as my "Fit and Finish" was already polished, and I started the concept of naming the units, and characters of the participants. Mainly "Monty’s Pythons", the 2nd Squadron, 22nd Regiment "Canadian Grenadier Guards", 4th Canadian Armored Division, which I stole whole cloth from my Flames of War series of fights. See The Battle of St. Zoot the Naughty philonworldwartwo.blogspot.com/2012/01/aar-battle-of-st-zoot-naughty.html
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