For those of you not in-the-know, AOEG is my Victorian Science Fiction D20 Game.
The Battle and the Adventure
The game was an escort by a small detachment of the French Foreign Legion, with orders to get a battery of three guns to General Beaudouin's division as quickly as possible. The Legion is building up strength for a renewed assault on the Dark Martians (HG Wells tentacle/tripod guys) and their slave warriors, in coordination with British and Confederate units which will occur in the Martian spring (some three weeks away).
The command consists of the guns, two wagons of ammunition and rations, their civilian drivers, and a ten-man squad of legionaires. In command was the brash, young Lieutenant Alexei Zaroff, supposedly a high-born Russian from a Boyar family who left the Czar's court under mysterious circumstances. His second was Sergeant Emile Junot, hated and feared by his men, this character is secretly a woman; daughter of a Spanish assassin… but we digress. Also along is an English Scientist, Professor Grayson Blaise-Futheringham, an observer for the Crown and the Royal Society, who is on Mars to study the battlefield effectiveness of certain new weapons given by Her Majesty to Napoleon III, and is thus journeting to General Beaudouin's position in the hopes of observing first hand.
The route will be through the Black Grove valley, technically in French hands, but still much raided by Dark Martian forces.
Things began rather well. The sky was clear (as almost always on the War God's Planet), and there had been no word of raiders for several days. It is perhaps for this reason, along with his zeal to serve the Legion and his Emperor, that Lt. Zaroff can -almost- be forgiven what turned out to be the fatal mistake of not sending out his men to scout the countryside, preferring to push on through the contested area with all speed possible.
It was twilight of the second day when the ambush was sprung. As the little command passed along the road, barely two hundred meters from one of the canal bridges, and between two groves of Martian Bulb Fungus, they heard, to their horror, the awful warbling battle cries of Venusian reptile-apemen as they sprang from the surrounding vegetation, moving forward with their horrifying eight foot leaps, their razor-sharp pinkish green claws ready to tear the legionaires limb from limb. For a moment, the Professor thought he saw one of the mysterious Mercurian mercenariess -probably in command of the fierce but rather dull-witted Venusians- but only for a moment. For if the Mercurian was their, he vanished with all the quickness of his kind, and was not again seen in the battle.
The ambush was well laid, for the tight space prevented the Legionaires from using their rifles to full advantage. Nonetheless, the Legion acquitted itself with its usual courage, standing fast and volley-firing under the command of its officer and non-com, who were themselves firing with their pistols.
The servants of the Dark Martians were cut down in droves by the steady fire of the FFL, but it was not enough, and soon the fighting was bayonet to claw. Even then, the French might have prevailed, as the Venusian horde seemed on the verge of breaking from the fearsome casulaties it had taken -and, in fact, some had already run-, when, off in the distance beyond the canal, one of the mighty Dark Martian Tripods appeared, its heat ray spraying fiery death on Venusians and Legionaires both.
Here Lt. Zaroff and Sgt. Junot acted creditably indeed. Grabbing one of the last two men of his command -the man already in a panic, and assisted by Blaise-Futheringham, they unlimbered and loaded one of the guns. The Lieutenant and Professor aimed while the Sergeant and Legionaire were litterally fighting at saber's edge with two of the remaining Venusians, and fired on the great war-machine.
Alas, it was not enough. They managed to strike the thing in the leg, damaging but not destroying it. The Martian turned its terrible heat ray on the gun, cutting it into molten slag and singing the crew rather badly. Lt. Zaroff, screaming with his uniform afire, fled into the brush. His fate remains unknown.
The remains of the small command also fled, running for the comparative safety of the swiftly flowing canal, and diving in as the terrible heat ray cut a burning swathe through the red grass behind them. Fortunately, they were unhindered by the Venusians, who had themselves taken flight as well. The Dark Martians in their Tripod were none too careful of the lives of their slave warriors -as was typical of their race- and had cut down a few of the remaining Venusians, causing the rest to flee as well.
Having reached the canal, the nearly drowned band of Earthmen found themselves washed up on the shore nearly a half kilometer away before the mouth of a small cave under an overhanging lee. A perfect place to hide from the Tripod! However, the cave was not unoccupied. Within was a Martian gem lizard, which came roaring at them as they killed it with the last of their ammo. Also within was a vein of valuable Malacandrium!
Thus, though the battle was a loss for the French -though only a very Pyrrhic victory for the aliens- There remains some hope for our hearty band, at least personally. If they can make it to the camp through the Martian hinterlands, with only their sabers and bayonets to defend them, and lacking food, they will be rich men indeed.
DM Stuff
This was a first level game designed to get the player characters into the spirit of VSF and give them some quick experience. I don't care for first level games, other than as openings to the campaign, and try to get the PCs to 4th level as quickly as possible, usually over three game sessions, after that things slow down, experience-wise.
To this day, D&D remains a reasonable skirmish system, at least at low levels. Keeping track of hit points was no problem, as I just placed red glass gaming beads (loosely representing drops of blood, I used green ones for the Venusians) around each figure, one for each hit point lost.
The ten FFL were first level warriors with bayonets and bolt action rifles. The three player-characters were also first level: A nobleman, soldier of fortune, and extraordinary gentleman (the Lieutenant, Sergeant, and Professor, respectively). The sixteen Venusian Reptile-Apemen were bugbears in all but appearance. Thus it seems like a fairly one-sided game, except that firearms do horrific damage in AOEG, which evened things out considerably. The tripod was a DM ex Machina. The players were not supposed to win this battle, though I would have counted it as a PC victory if they had beaten the Venusians before the Tripod showed up. The Mercurian is tracking them now, and will probably cause them some trouble before they reach the Legion's position, if indeed they ever do.
The only real potential problem was that D&D 3.5 has no morale system, and I did not want everybody fighting to the last man. So, I simply made each warrior take a Will test when his side dropped to half. The game started with sixteen Venusians. When they reached nine casualties about five turns into the battle, three of them ended up taking flight. The Legionaires took their test when only two of the original ten figures remained (they were down to six by the sixth turn, and lost four men at once in the hand-to-hand fighting). Both of them broke, though I allowed Lt. Zaroff to rally the one nearest him with a reaction roll.
I ran this thing as a side game for our D&D group, which has about thirteen players and thus runs at least two games in any given session. I was told to run the game for the newbie players, while the main DM ran a standard Forgotten realms game for the more experienced crowd.
The new player's faces fell somewhat when I told them they were going to be playing Victorian Science Fiction, but they brightened up again when they found out what they were fighting. A good time was had by all, and, as we finished after the main game, several players stuck around to watch us, and two asked if they could join in the next session.
Quite the successful Sunday afternoon!
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
