Sunday, February 19, 2017

Take That! You Martian!

     The humans have begun to make a proper response to the Martian Invasion. Having carefully examined the Martian technology Earth  scientists have determined that Martian sensors detect visible light only rather poorly and depend on electromagnetic sensors for a great deal of information. minor field testing has confirmed this thesis.
     A massive undertaking has produced two test vehicles that are equipped with new technology that blocks these sensors, leaving the Martians nearly blind in the intense Terran sunshine. These have been carefully disguised to handle the Martian's  limited sight in daylight and brought to the battlefield just in time to confront a significant Martian assault.
 
the Martian horde appears out of the dawn light


and finds their path blocked by carefully dug in
 Canadian and U.S. infantry backed up with some mobile artillery

more of a bother than a real obstacle to a Martian force of this size

the Earthlings prepared to sell their lioves dearly in defense of their home lands
and the Martians had brought their pet horrors along as well, 
lobotomized humans that they forced to fight an behalf of Mars

the ground trembled beneath the weight of the Martian hordes

frightened by a few ineffective  hits the Martians 
concentrated their fire against the artillery and drew first blood

unable to hurt the walkers the artillery turned its attention to the unfortunate 
wretches that had been mutilated by the Martian fiends and out some out the their hellish misery

the ground might have trembled under the weight of Martian metal
 but the stout hearts of the infantry remained unmoved

once in range the Martians began to conduct the "Martian Mamba"
dancing into range to fire only to creep cowardly away to avoid the Earthlings return fire

then the wonder of modern science made itself known, a giant land-monitor 
 moved out from its camouflaged position and opened fire at the nearest walker

the first salvo caused little damage but threw the Martians into chaos

suddenly it seemed that the Martians didn't have time for the slow grind of a long range fire fight

the monitor destroyed one walker but took damage from the host of units firing at it

a lucky hit penetrated a chink in the armor and detonated the power core

if Martians were capable of emotion they would have given forth a collective 
sigh of relief as they turned their attention back to the P.B.I.

bored and frustrated with the slow work of the long range shooting 
they commenced a close -in attack



they took some casualties in the assault but soon had virtually cleared the trenches

then terror struck, 
the earthlings revealed an even larger land-battleship 
one that was absolutely festooned with guns
powerful guns

it was supported by hordes of light tanks and motorcyclists 
and began dealing out punishment right away

surrounded, outnumbered, outgunned 
the Canadians died to a man fighting the Martians 
a new Thermopylae


     Honestly, as a long-time human player, it was a relief to see the shoe on the other foot for once with the Martians finding out just how hard it was to score a hit on something with an armor value of 12 or so. The MASSIVE (probably ten ponds of resin) land battleship is an eye-popping model and painted in US Naval livery it really stands out on the table.

     Jolly fun for all thanks to the Housemartin (or is that houseMARTIAN????)

5 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Great report! Are the two large armored vehicles made by AQMF, or were they scratch-built? (Or made by someone else?)

    Thanks,

    Chris Johnson

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  2. As far as I know AGFM made the land battleship, IIRC the land monitor is actually a 28mm product from Brigade Games. I will have to check with the Housemartin to be sure.

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  3. The larger Landship is the "Destroyer" from the AQMF range (I have no idea what "AGFM" is, but the original parent company was Alien Dungeon). It is basically complete (the guy I bought it from glued one piece on backwards in the super structure, but it can not be seen in the pictures), and not quite fully painted, but I am working up a con scenario idea so brought it out "as is". I got the beast when Alien Dungeon folded and someone panicked and dumped their collection on Ebay, landing the beast for less than half price.

    I have an EVEN LARGER one that Anton is helping me with. Someone bought TWO of the Landships and then chopped them up and re-glued the hulls together making what I guess they intended to be a "Cruiser". The tracks were a mess the hull is good, but the super structure a tragedy. It is also missing some turrets so I will have to sort all of that out. Anton sorted out the tracks and is going to fix the superstructure (magic card trick). Eventually this beast will also be painted in "Great White Fleet" colors. All-in-all I am happy with it for a $50 investment.

    The smaller vehicle is a Merrimack Miniatures Ericsson Land Monitor in theory in 28mm. However, any 28mm or 25mm figure inside prevents the top from fitting. And even some 20 mm figures can present problems inside. At best an 18mm figure is all that could really 'work' inside the beast. I used to use it in the old Daftrican campaign, but it had recently just been sitting around gathering dust. The AQMF game includes two giant tanks for the Americans, but the company never produced the smaller "Goliath" so in reading over the rules I realized that this thing would work and repainted it to match the real Landship in American "Great White Fleet" colors.

    Overall, I plan to create a little 'flotilla' and see how they work against the Martians.

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  4. Mike, have checked out this forum for AQMF? http://aqmf.freeforums.net/

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  5. Also you can buy AQMF here.
    http://quietmartianfront.com/shop/

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