Queen Victoria's Robot Wars: the Not Salute Report

A Robot Royal in Peril!


Empress V, Queen Victoria's personal automaton envoy has been shot down by the Nefarious Baron Bomburust and his Cytherian (the Victorian word for Venusian) hordes.  Can the Royal Robot Brigades rescue her in time?

Empress V and her robo Corgi

the lady from every angle! Yay Woodens! 

As there was no Salute this year (along with so many other things in the world) I wanted to show off some of the "actors" that would have featured in the game I was going to run this year. The main focus of the game was a rescue of the Empress crashed in the center of the 10 x 12 foot floor top game table, and using my Wooden Wars rules- which of course means bouncing real rubber balls into your opponent's troops to knock them over. (See my Wooden Wars links to the right for more).

Captain Schilling, formerly of the Rapa-nui Regulars, rescues the Empress

The Baddies

Baron Bomburst's troops consist of his own robotic inventions, and a horde of the indiginous Cytherian hordes- giants all!

V.O.G.'s or Venusian Otherworldly Gentlemen lead the robots

The Heroes! 

And lastly, some of the Queen's own troops. Stalwart lads all with proper regulation mustachios.

Summing Up! 

Although I am bummed that I've not had the chance to run a a game of Wooden Wars for you all at Salute this year,there are much more important things to worry about and be thankful for, like my currently healthy friends and family.   I'll get to to run this next year, which gives me time to make it even shinier- and hope to see you all there!

Cheers! Stay safe and be well.

Wooden Wars: Kublacon- The Second battle for Quark’s Rivet

 

"Rivethead: Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishman of you yet!
Adendorff: No, thanks. I'm a Cytherian. Bomburst and his robots are the enemies of my blood. What are you doing here? “

~ Captain Rivethead , OSD

The sun was high in the sky (and too bright for a Sunday morning) when the great robot and human army of the evil baron Bomburst was poised to clank menacingly forward. Steeling myself with tea and a bagel, I awaited the 10 players to show up. Luckily for me, the kids were just as sleepy headed as yours truly, so a slow start was the perfect pace. 

This quickly changed to a bit of frenzy as I was informed that 23 people had signed up to play, and hordes of gamers, and parents of young gamer’s descended upon the battlefield to play or spectate or wager (maybe not the last bit…).  Units were adjusted to add a couple more players, some kids “tag teamed” units and off we went.

Young officers review the Automatons users guide before battle

 

Quark’s Rivet Reprise

With the previous day’s game under my belt, I made two adjustments to the set up. I brought the Krall on the British right flank in towards the building by one move distance, and added another Tesla gun to the battery, for a total of 3.  These were done as the Krall was too easily overrun in the first game (it is still set up as a sacrifice) and, while it is active, should have the chance to really thin out the ranks of Bomburst’s troops before they could hit the defenses.

Some officers devised the "foot guard" method of protecting thier units from harm...

Clampers advance on the Krall

Tesla gun battery fires upon the giant clamper robot
 

Direct hit!

 

Revenge on the guns!

 

Game Changing Bits

Usually in Wooden Wars each unit gets one activation per turn, where they can move, fire, or in the case of cavalry, move once and fire or move twice.  Since the British are so outnumbered and activation is based upon what numbered token you got dealt (which I did pad during game play to make things more exciting) I gave the main British infantry unit two activations per turn. The reasoning behind this I told everyone, was that they were crack troops and well trained.  Each turn, I made sure that they were in the first 4 activations, and then would place the next activation for them in the higher numbers.  This worked out rather well, as it allowed for them to fire twice, or fire, reposition, or in the case of this battle, reposition and then charge.  Yay for when things work!

Steel Dragoons once again charge the square of Elite "old Brassers" robots

Only the officer survived the onslaught. Even his dog bot went down

A Heavy Pounding!

The gunners on this go around were older kids and had both better aim, and large enough hands to hold the barrage of Tesla cannon balls. Just as important, they were successful in their die rolls to overcharge the Tesla cannons, and were able to double and even triple up on the balls thrown!  Some of their crew were not successful in making saving throws from the over charged guns, and were crisped up on the spot. What price, wooden glory…

 The invading army had to march through a storm of bouncy balls, which tore through rank after rank! Even the mighty giant clamper robot went down a couple of times.

 

Tesla cannonade rips through two units!

 

Obligatory path of destruction shot!

Movie Quality Ending!!!

The Baron’s troops quickly moved in on each flank as expected, but with heroic results on the British side really stealing the show. The old Brassers” guard robot unit formed square and after a couple of heated dice throws, were completely knocked over (wooden soldiers don’t die, they just get knocked over). In their sacrifice, they also took down the steel dragoons. Only their officer was standing, and he promptly beat feet to the cover of the guns!

Bomburst's troops advance on three fronts

The commander of the giant clamper asked me, " can I bust down the wall?"YES!

British fall back to the hospital for better defense

Eventually the robot army closed in on three different sides, but by this time the British infantry had movex into the hospital building and defended against the clanky assult like true movie heroes. When the steam cleared, the only ones left standing among the heaps of knocked over robots and humans were the Commanding officer, the foot officer of the infantry, and the standard bearer! As I was taking photos of the aftermath, I realized that I couldn’t have posed the shot better than how it all came to pass.  Needless to say, the British commanders were awarded medals, and this time not posthumously.

Brutal melee ensues!

And the giant Clamper falls!

Captain Rivethead still stands.

The Flag still stands!

What’s that you say? There were still lots of units left on Bomburst’s side? True, but the game time was coming to be up, and I just told everyone that they could hear the pipers in the distance of British reinforcements, and that the automatons were running out of steam.  Yay for a quick story ending!

After Action Report!

This time around not only did I have seasoned veterans from the day’s previous battle, but the average age of the kids was about 9 years, which made a great difference in tactics and eye hand coordination.  The changes to the scenario worked out better and, all the kids seemed engaged for the 2 hour battle.

Once again I’d like to thank the Kublacon staff for their support in helping me with my Wooden Wars games. I can’t recommend this convention highly enough, especially as a family friendly con. 

 Until next time, which won't be robots...Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wooden Wars: Kublacon- first battle for Quark’s Rivet

"If 1200 men couldn’t hold a defensive position this morning, what chance has 40 men and some automatons? Well, we’ve got two things they didn’t- Telsa guns and more Tesla guns!"

~ Major P. Bromhead Quark, OSD, posthumous

Major Quark on his V-Rex, steadies the lads. That's a lot of Robots out there!

 

As the sun rose over the British encampment known as Quark’s Rivet, a cloud of orange dust rolled its way in from the great Venusian plains. Along it came a cacophonous clanking that could only mean one thing. Baron Bomburst and his army have come!

Defending the Rivet

Phineas Bromhead Quark called out for everyone to fall in at the wall!” Lieutenant Grady, spool up the Tesla guns! Sargent Siggins- Take the Old Brassards and hold the left flank. By god and queen Victoria- make every shot count, lads!”

Quark’s Rivet

At Kublacon this year I ran 3 large Wooden Wars battles, two of which featured my Queen Victoria’s Robot Wars models.  These battles, based very (very!) loosely on Rorke’s Drift, featured the stalwart British forces and their robots  greatly outnumbered in an attack by the evil ruler of Vulgaria, Baron Bomburst, and his army of automatons. 

Baron Bomburst's Crack human infantry- painted by Peter Grose
 

Clampers and Zappers and Leviathans- oh my!

Featured in this battle were the two more popular robotic troop types- the Clampers (two arms with claws) and the Zappers, who have a tesla gun built into one arm.

A unit of dreadful clampers- with Zappers behind

Clamper robots don’t fire at all, but do two attacks/knock overs in melee, which is brutal! That means that if just 10 of them get to your unit of 20 guys, they cut them down!

Zappers are your more traditional automatomic infantry with the ability to fire like regular soldiers.

British Elite Guard, the "ol Brassards" zapper robots.

Baron Bomburst’s Kriegerbotorwerks engineers have created Leviathan class robots- giants that can take a beating and keep coming. The Leviathan clamper did 6 + d6 attacks in melee, and the zapper carried a Tesla cannon for an arm, which meant it could spool it up to fire more than one ball per turn.  Each Leviathan had 4 knock over points ( lives) represented by skull and crown tokens placed on the base of the model.  Players had the choice in the game to “burn” coins for extra movement actions on the clamper, or to fire more balls per turn on the zapper.  This made for some interesting tactical choices for the players, and also made the Leviathans targets of choice (or panic) for the defenders!

Leviathan like Clamper robot towers over infantry.

 

A battle hard fought!

After a slow start at hitting anything of import, and losing 3 gunners to an over spooled up tesla cannon, the British finally got a few good shots in as the robots closed in. The right flank was over run by clampers, who made it to the wall of the defenses only to be counter charged by the British infantry and destroyed



Tesla cannon score a hit, while clamper robots cut down gun crews in the Krall.

On the right flank, Bomburst’s Steel dragoons charged the Elite guard robots, the “old Brassards” but not before they managed to form square. Things did not go as planned for the dragoons who were cut down, but not before inflicting heavy casualties on the Brassards.

While this was going on, a concentrated fire was pouring into the defensive works and house, knocking things about. A stray shot hit the commander, Major Quark- who was not able to recover.  This lead an opening for Bomburst's infantry who stormed the wall, followed up by a unit of clampers. They took the rest of the Tesla guns, and at this point (and about time for the game to wind down) the remaining British officer struck his colors.

how many dice can a 4 year old hold! Charging the square

Taking heavy casualties the square holds! Huzzah for the Brassards!

utter concentration!

Our youngest commander replies with total confidance

British rejoice at "finally" getting their guns to hit



Clampers are repulsed a the wall by a pithy (helmed) charge

 

Storming the wall

The guns are taken and the commander down, the British ask for terms.

 

After action Report !

When designing this scenario, I set up the play space such that certain things would hopefully happen. I wanted the cavalry to charge the guard robots, and  on the British right flank, placed the tesla gun battery in the Krall  to make a tempting first target for the Giant clamper and smaller clampers.  In both battles these things came to pass, which provided great narrative to the story, and had good entertainment value. (Would that all my scenario designs should work out so well!)

What I did not expect to happen was that many of the players who controlled the tesla gun batteries ( which if lucky could toss 9 balls per turn!)  couldn’t hit a wooden soldier if it were nailed to a barn door!  This mean that the Baron’s troops were in much better state and could make it to the wall nearly unmolested.   War, especially wooden war, is heck!

That’s all for now- Next time, more shots of the second battle of Quark’s rift.

Cheers!

Many Order of the Steel Dragoon were given, posthumously...