Following his rescue after being captured by outlying Martian Beast Man tribes, Dr Montgomery Moreau has recovered quickly and has resumed his Crown activities.
Working for MI6 (headed by Mycroft Holmes) he once again approached Campion Bond, head of British Intelligence on Mars for aid in attempting to capture some Martian specimens for study.
Bond assigned another platoon of colonial troops and this time also supplied motorised vehicles including a Colossus traction engine and a Matilda-class steam tank. The party headed north into the tribal valleys in search of beast men to capture.
Unfortunately within a few hours of crossing into the wild lands beyond the outer British patrols Moreau once again found himself in trouble.
How did these Beast Men keep ambushing the British so successfully!?
Under Captain Bromhead the British colonial troops reacted quickly, levelling a volley at the bellowing mass of Martians felling a few. However the creatures moved fast and were soon upon the thin red line before the soldiers could reload their Martini-Henry’s.
A new horror was in their ranks also…something the British have not seen before. Strange iron men armed with terrifying weapons that spewed out great heat. As they swept the British line those poor unfortunate soldiers struck, burst instantly into flames and burned away like a shadow in the sun!!
The battle was short and brutal, with the British line overwhelmed quickly, and despite flashing the cold steel they could not stand against the brutal savagery of the beast men.
Coolly regarding the fate of the red coats, Dr Moreau together with his Masonic guards set about assaulting and shackling what beast men they could.
With the heat ray of the iron men having melted the wheels of the traction engine, its crew fled for their lives as the remnants of the British soldiers fell back as best they could.
The steam tank crew, struggling to clear a jam in their machine gun, swung their vehicle round and attempted to run down these hideous iron men. As it ploughed through and over them, the iron men simply stood back up, seeming unaffected by several tons of metal rolling over them!!
With only a single captive, and the steam tank remaining, Dr Moreau and the few survivors fled south once more; chased to the edge of the valley by an ever increasing angry tribe of Martians!
Aftermath – British
All told an immensely enjoyable game with a very hard task for the British to accomplish. They were always going to struggle to fight off the hordes, but did at one point have the required three beast men shackled! The final tally put the outcome at a draw as neither side accomplished their objectives.
This battle was fought using a pared down house-rule version of the Legends of the Old West massed battle rules (taken from the Alamo supplement). While we’re still developing them (mainly for use with ‘A Very British Civil War’) they do seem to work very well to give a nice, fast game where you spend pretty much all your time trying to achieve objectives and win the battle rather than fiddling about trying to figure out how the rules work.
Martian briefing
~~~ Martian Tribal Gen’Aufpha Force ~~~
Once more the Red Men have left their Place of Dwellings and come out into the Tlglha’ha Vadi.
Time has passed since they slaughtered the Khem; those brave Gen’Aufpha who had captured the Red Men for transport to the Cephalim Ziggurat at Ghur.
The Ghur Cephalim have sent a trinity of blessed Ghalemm with orders for your tribe to resist any further raiding by the Red Men. The Ghalemm, with their heat rays have also remained to aid in your war-fighting.
Your orders are simple;
‘Destroy all Red Men found in your territory’.
British briefing
~~~ British Martian Expeditionary Force ~~~
Following the successful rescue of Dr Moreau from the Martian Beast Men in the Magellan Valley north of Victoria, Dr Moreau has expressed the desire to return to the region.
Moreau’s scientific research into the Martian biology requires the capture (for study) of several specimens of the Beast Men.
Moreau and his agents have been assigned a Colonial Platoon for protection to conduct this expedition, with the very clear mission;
‘Advance into the Magellan Valley, find and capture several Beast Man specimens. Return with Dr Moreau to his laboratories at Victoria’.