Winter/Spring/Summer Miniatures Review: The Martian and the Marsh-Man

Since my last miniatures review I've finished painting two things. I've assembled, fixed, touched up or started painting a lot more, notably getting very close to finishing a certain big creature I discussed in my first ever post. But what can you do? Life gets in the way. I'm pretty pleased with these two. 

1: Samual van der Stultus, 5th Lord Macclemere 

So heavily kitbashed as to be totally without a singular identity... wire armature, green stuff, a head from Wargames Atlantic's French Partisans and a cane made from an old Tomb Kings spear. Lots of static grass and flock, including mixed in with the Green Stuff.

I have no explanation for this, really. Apart from watching the TTS team's narrative playthroughs, I have no particular interest in or desire to play Turnip28. I think it crosses the grimdark event horizon for me where I no longer see why anybody would get invested in any story you tell using it.

That said, this Victorian postcard is very funny.

So he's a blob-eyed slap-together job meant to assuage a momentary fascination. Doesn't even have a necktie - sad! Maybe he'll get one when I can be bothered to crimp green stuff. Despite the crappy blob eyes, he has quite a good haughty glare.

I don't think there's a lot of interest to stat here - but to do an OSR speed-statting:

• Stats as human noble. 
• Weapon: cane (or sword-cane). 
• Is a plant, not a human. 
• Can talk to other plants.
• Rootlike appendages can all be used as manipulators, and fit through spaces as small as 2" wide. 
• If killed and the body is not dessicated, burned, or dissolved, it sinks into any soil in which it rests within a day
• sprouts a new Lord Macclemere after 3 months.
  
• New version has same stats but an outlook more in line with the political zeitgeist.
• Motivated by money, power, and the normal games of the realm
• But his subjects are plants and his lands a swamp. 
• Might be quite useful to a monarch who desires really ABSOLUTE power.
• The genteel manners of a Victorian gentleman; lives on shit and slimy water. 
• Very keen on traditional holidays.

2: The Fighting-Machine 

RetrokiT martian tripod in the style of Alvim Correa

Silly model! Deeply silly model! I love it so much! 

WDYM 18cm tall lump of resin and metal balanced on legs made from two white metal rods superglued at the kneessssss??? This thing came apart so many times whilst I was making it it is not remotely funny. But of course it is funny, and awesome, much like Correa's tripod art, and because for some reason those tripods have both knee-joints and flexible legs, I was free to do as much bending as needed to make something that would ultimately stand upright. And frankly, no matter how hard it was to assemble, if the entire thing were made of Finecast resin, I'd still have bought this, so no actual complaints - just a warning for those less keen on spindly boi than me.

Would you believe I painted it using metals? The hood is slightly brassy per the book description, but for the most part it is a big flat surface with no reason to decorate it. 

Then it was just a matter of dying some mini bushes which I got from a model train store when I was about 6 red to make Red Weed, and including a burning tree for scale. Actually, the tree might be a bit too big-looking. If you look at the picture above, you really want to be playing this against 10-15mm minis, but ah well, I'm going to ignore that. It's on a square base because I'm...

Making Rules for it in Warhammer

 The chances of anything coming from Verdra
Were a million to one, they said;
The chances of anything coming from Verdra
Were a million to one...
Yet still they come

Whilst they're Sci-Fi, the Martians have an expiration date. They work best in a setting that can approximately parallel the technology of 'the last years of the nineteenth century', because the terrifying technology that they have was written in that context. Furthermore, I submit they do not really make much sense to use in a TTRPG that isn't based around them, because the ways they're presented in the text are as annihilating whole armies and toppling empires. Thus, wargame stats, and Warhammer: the Old World is a game I know reasonably well and which has a surprisingly high-tech main power (rockets! Machine guns! Steam engines in semi-regular use! Let's not even get started on the Skaven!) So let's do that.

It's a pretty core belief of mine (and seemingly a popular talking point at the moment) that the WHFB fanbase needs to keep its homebrew ethos in the TOW age. I also, less ardently, feel that it needs to retain the open silliness of some of its earlier materials, without giving up on being a fairly grim and dark setting at times. In the spirit of both of these, have some rules for playing as War of the Worlds' Martians Verdran invaders in your Old World games!

Universal Special Rules

Telepathic Union: The Command Range of models with this rule is infinite. However, the range at which allies being destroyed forces them to make a Panic test is also infinite.

The Verdrans Emerge: When a unit with this rule is destroyed in close combat, the unit that destroyed it suffers one Strength 3 hit per model in base contact with the destroyed unit.

Heat Ray: A Heat Ray is a special Verdran weapon. When it is fired, trace a line 60" across the table. Every model under the line suffers one hit, as if for a cannon bounce.
R   S   AP   Other Special Rules
60" 8   -3    Heat Ray firing (see above), Multiple Wounds (D3), Flaming Attacks, Cumbersome

Black Smoke: Launched from cylinders, black smoke is a toxic gas that lingers until cleared by a fighting-machine. It is initially fired as a stone thrower, with the following rules:
R    S             AP   Special Rules
36" N/A (4)  N/A  Horribly Toxic, Lingering Cloud, Stone Thrower (Large Round Template), Reliable Fire, Cumbersome
Horribly Toxic: Only make a normal wound roll against a model under the centre of the template. For every model under the template, make a Toughness test. On a failure, the model suffers a wound, with no armour or regeneration saves allowed.
Lingering Cloud: after the Black Smoke attack has been resolved, leave the template or a suitable marker on the table. It blocks line of sight. Additionally, any model that moves into the cloud or starts its turn there must make a Toughness test as per Horribly Toxic, above. In each Start of Turn phase, roll a d6 for each such cloud of smoke on the table. On a roll of 1-2, it is removed. It is automatically removed if it ever comes into contact with a Verdran model.
You may wish to allow magic which affects the winds to disperse the Black Smoke.
Reliable Fire: If a Misfire is rolled, the Black Smoke canister does not release the smoke. Resolve the attack only against the model under the central hole.

Red Viridian Weed: Viridian weed spreads in the wake of the Verdrans, clogging the landscape with thick, poisonous growth. It can rise to six feet high, dense and spiny. At the beginning of play, the Verdran player may place a free forest of up to 8x6" anywhere within their deployment zone. 

Units

Tactical-Machine (Hero)

Any Fighting-Machine may be a Tactical Machine for 300 pts. It becomes a (Character) in addition to its previous type, and its Leadership and Wounds become 10.

Fighting-Machine (Core) - 1200 pts

M  Ws  Bs  S  T  W  I  A  Ld
8"   4     6   8   9   9  4  6   9

Special Rules: Armoured Hide (2+), The Verdrans Emerge, Stomp Attacks (D3), Telepathic Union, Terror 
Equipment: Heat Ray, Black Smoke

Rules for Handling-Machines, Cylinders, Flying-Machines, and Digging-Machines maybe to come if I every get the passion for it again.

Verdran Invasion Force

Up to 100% Heroes, up to 100% Core. 
1 Tactical-Machine per 3000 pts
0-2 Fighting-Machines per 3000 pts 

Design Notes

The fighting machine needed to be tough enough to be non-trivial to bring down with artillery, as depicted in the book, so it's statted like a complete tank. No ward saves, though, because there's nothing that would suggest them in the source material. The Martians seem to be broadly sane a nd rational, so in theory they can be affected by morale.

Statwise, they're in very roughly the same line as a slightly less manoeuvrable Nurgle Chaos Lord on Dragon without the Lord's attacks, with half the stomp and no breath weapon but a limited damage-on-death effect. So the profile+special rules is about the price of a Chaos Dragomn plus half a Nurgle Lord - 285+105 (rounding to the nearest 5) = 390 pts. Then we add on the value of the Heat Ray and Black Smoke - which I'm estimating as follows:
Heat Ray: Stats like a regular cannon (swapping Armourbane 2 for a point more AP) without Move or Shoot or a misfire chance, and rather than hitting a 0-10" section along a 48" line it's the whole of a 60" line - so approximately 12x more potential hits, of which probably only half will be usable if the enemy is being careful. So say 6x more effective? Bearing in mind that it can't make you explode. Given that, it'd add about 600 pts. Which, sure, TOW isn't that deadly and this is! 

Black Smoke: Kind of similar vibe to a Plagueclaw Catapult, but it won't explode and has a shorter but more flexible range (36" rather than 12-72"). Plus it sticks about for roughly a turn, albeit this can block everybody's line of sight. Say roughly double a Plagueclaw? Toughness test ignoring regen is also nastier than a mere high-AP auto-wound-on-6 effect. So about 220 points.

This gives a value of 1210 pts for a basic martian. Then you can add a wound and effectively give everyone (presumably 1-2 others at most) +1 Ld for... how much is that worth? The roll-under likelihood of 10 vs 9 is about 11% more likely, whilst 9 vs 10 wounds adds abouyt 11% again. So price = 1210x1.11x1.11 = 1490.

Then let's round those out to make them a little more regular: a Tactical-Machine is 1500 pts, a regular War-Machine is 1200. This fits terribly into normal game sizes beyond 1500, but I'm sure you can convince somebody to play you at either 2400 or 2700, and 3900 is basically 4000.

It might also be wildly high. These things are a big stat check on loooong legs, and I don't have the intuitive grasp of the system to know how trivially any given army can pass it. (Scream VC definitely can but that's quite hard to balance around). In WHFB, these prices would have been absurd on their face, because Purple Sun or Pit of Shades would have minced these things as easily as anybody else, but now it's not obvious that that's the  case even within my TOW rules for magic. And it's always nicer to playtest something scary at a high handicap then lower it to be balanced than it is to invite your friends for a curbstomping session, even if that would be thematically appropriate.

What's the Imperial Knight Problem?

Bye,

Jago