Krieg der Welten-Garvaldian Style

 Wednesday 11th May.

A busy Unter den Linden.

The Aliens gather in the Tiergarten.

Martian Minions.

            Out to Garvald in what seems an age hoping for a game with a difference to blow the cobwebs off what seems an age of Wednesday working. I was confronted by the Brandenburg Gate in all its glory as it had been used for a Freikorps game the previous week.There were no shell holes or ruined buildings so I thought hmmm a Spy game-nope-an alien invasion of Berlin circa 1890.

El Presidente’s Specials.

The Clockwork boys complete with Wind-Up guy.

Hidden Death-Ray 

Ach well,that’ll do just as well.

The local police digging in.

Here they come.

Complete with Martian sail- boat.

Das Deutsche Sail-schiff.

     The table had been set out and it was infested by figures and machines which were eye openers.All of you who know El Presidente will know that this is the norm.We were joined by Commisar Bill Gilchristi who this evening took charge of the gallant earthling defenders albeit with a Teutonic flavour.As I previously stated our forces were kitted out with some exotic weaponry and methods of transport which would prove both practical and down right silly.We played this game years ago in the hacienda of the late Shug Wilson where even Black Angus Konstam came along to defend the German empire.

The German fly-boys assessing the situation.

A mere setback.

Dinky little penny farthings with attached Uhlans.

The Berlin Specials.

                I took charge of the Aliens and my plan was just to charge into Berlin lock,stock and walker and capture Berlin for the Martian Empire.We were using Bolt Action rules as we did the last time .We played with a few tweeks for ship to ship fighting for as well as fighting machines the Martian’s had their mindless slaves supporting them ah la John Carter and also a few crawling beasts which I named Squiddly Diddlys for want of a better term.

Finally!

A wee bit ship to ship.

               I thought on the alien principle that their minds wouldn’t be on the same wavelength as us puny humans so as I said I just headed straight for Unter den Linden hoping for a quick victory celebrated with Kaffee und Kuchen only to find that El Presidente had placed a death ray slap bang in the middle of the gate ready to bar the way,which it did by destroying the first of my Quadrapile  walkers leaving the Martians to drag away the entombed corpses.Revenge wasn’t long in coming as the first of my tripods metted out some death ray payback and the Thunderchild wasn’t even around.

Another Death-Ray.

Unused Panzer.

         My Martian sailing ship’s plan was to hover in the Strasse and deposit the landing party and watch them dispatch any opposition.Standing in my way like the Thunderchild was the S.M.S Lorelei ready to block my actions.We spent a couple of turns sparring with each other using some gunplay in order for me to close and send my landing party across to capture the Lorelei.Seemingly my ship was equipped with a one off rocket engine so I used this to come into grappling range of the Lorelei. I succeeded in grappling but that was as far as my success went as El Presidente stated that both crews had the same fighting skills and therefore it was just going to be down to luck which alas went Bill’s way-bummer!

The politzei are holding on.

My intruder bites the dust.

         My Mindless Martian infantry were dropping like Martian flies as firstly The local police were embedded behind sandbags and doing away with one of my squads and on the other side of the gate a tricycle armed with a machine gun backed up by another one armed with a big gun were doing away with my other squad of Martian minions.Once again revenge was shown by my death ray  courtesy of the tripods as the other Quadripod was being hindered by the Berlin’s finest. I started bringing up the support weapons to deal with the numerous gate guards who were supplemented by a squad of clockwork fliers who proceeded to leap over the gate in support of the police.One of Bill’s other death rays now came into the fight but apart from doing away with some of the gun crew didn’t amount to much apart from drawing attention from the Martian rockets which succeeded in decimating the death ray crew.

My so called reinforcements.

         Bill now brought forward his jet packed equipped rocket troops which did look a bit out of place with their Stalheim helmets and MP38 but what the hell,they looked good.My remaining tripod finally made its way through the Brandenburg Gate which was good as its partner in crime was legging it the other way courtesy of the German unit equipped with various experimental weapons which didn’t really look as though they would get passed the experimental stage.As for the squiddly diddlys,by the time they slithered their way forward they just became fodder for the Prussian weaponry.

A non-playingchappie.

             Bill’s defenders were being whittled down but so were my attackers for although my tripod finally made it into the Unter den Linden annihilating the clockwork fliers along the way they still came to a sticky end courtesy  of the rocket troops.El Presidente gave me some reinforcements in the shape of a crawling machine and some humanoid fanatics but the clock was still ticking rather fast and the final whistle was quickly approaching but I just thought of it as a respite for the defenders as I’m sure with a few more fighting machines Berlin would have been decimated as Mauser bullets were useless against them.    

A great game.

         Thanks to El-Presidente for putting the game on.All figs(& silly figs) provided by himself as well as all the scenery.Any questions can be addressed to him on LAV under the pseudonym of Sakura.

       See you all soon.