Tales of the Wardens: The Cambridge Affair, Wherein the Wardens uncover a Fiendishly Fenian Plot!

     Last night was my first game of In Her Majesty's Name and I have to say I love the ruleset! It's fast paced, easy to play, and very much a storyteller's game rather than a rule lawyer's which I like even better. I didn't take enough pictures unfortunately as the game was pretty fast paced and we were learning the rules still. But for a game where I only read through the rulebook once before playing it's very easy to figure out which made my first playthrough enjoyable. (Not usually a trademark of most of my "first" games.)

     It was the summer of 1865, reports had arrived to the directors of the RIS that a mole among their ranks had been spying for the Fenians, the underground Irish separatist movement. Valuable information regarding the specs of the DOORs ended up in the hands of the Irish rebels, possibly for the purpose of rewriting Irish history, and strangling the British Empire in its infancy. Dr. Adamstone immediately set up an expedition to Egypt, where the Irish mole had been tracked to. There among the ruins of the ancient pharaohs, the Fenians had uncovered (the mole had apparently gotten into Dr. Adamstone's private study and found a certain book...) an ancient stone portal that possibly operated similarly to a DOOR. 

     With a flash of brilliant blue light, a rift was torn in the fabric of reality and through it stepped the Wardens onto the Egyptian sands a dozen miles from Cairo. Their mission, close shut the pharaoh's gate and capture the Irishman...

 

The ruins of the lost City of Thoth, known to the Arabs as Al Gebra. Across the branch of the Nile lies the ruined crusader fortress of Krak des Templars.

Entrance to the temple of Thoth. Wherein the Irishman has opened the gate via arcane rituals and called forth his ancestors...

 

 The DOOR opens and through it steps the soldiers of the Queen!

 

Dr. Adamstone assesses the situation as Lord Lundy marshals the troops for a general advance across the river.

 

A band of wild pagan Irishmen from the ancient past led by their Druid take up positions in the desert to ambush the Wardens.

 

Lord Lundy imprudently leads the men across the bridge eager to get to grips with the wily Irish.

 

The Irish remain cleverly hidden among the rocks and bulrushes of the desert.

 

 

A lone chieftain hides near the Well of Wisdom

 

The Irish Druid has cast a spell of protection over the men, bullets are like raindrops against the rocks... For three turns anyway...

 

Across the Nile and into the open, a volley is fired by the Highlanders at movement in the distance while "Mad" Jack and Cain fire their rocket guns (I made them sappers for this game to fit in points wise). All miss as the Irish have "lined jackets".

 

The Irish emerge from hiding!

 

They charge towards the Wardens shouting their Gaelic war cries.

 

A lone Gael charges Lord Lundy, his sword drawn ready to meet the warrior, shouting back at him in Scots Gaelic.

Another ineffectual volley is fired at the advancing horde. (So hard to hit with all the negative modifiers for movement and armor!)

 

A bit later in the battle, "Mad" Jack and a Highlander turned to charge some flanking warriors while the rest of the company met the foe head on, bayonets fixed.

 

"Mad" Jack manages to inflict a hit but it does nothing, this warrior's Pluck was much better than the Sergeant's.

 

In a couple of short, sharp turns the Druid had stepped in and killed Lord Lundy in one fell blow and the Highlanders succumbed rather too quickly. Lt. Cain met his end with a blow to the back of the head by one of the warriors who then made short work of the Doctor. (Adamstone had no armor and only a pistol. I used the Scientist stats from the Explorers Club list for him)

 

The Irish had the last poor fellow surrounded, the Druid offered the young Scot terms which were gratefully accepted. Back through the DOOR he went to tell the tale of the fate of the expedition....

 

So that was my first of hopefully many more games of IHMN. I loved it. Fast paced and very user friendly rules that made it easy for two players to set up their army lists quickly and get to playing. Special thanks to my friend Alvaro for providing his wonderfully painted SAGA Irishmen for a very tough opponent (enhanced as they were by using the Black Dragon Tong list!) ;)

Next time though I intend on having a real DOOR for the Wardens to charge through, something like this: 

 

 

 

In Her Majesty's Name! A blog series on the Exploits of the RIS Wardens

     Last night I played my first game of Osprey's In Her Majesty's Name. A wonderfully fast paced and thrilling game that Mr. Craig Cartmell has written and quickly becoming my favorite skirmish ruleset. Before I get to the thrilling story (in a follow up post) that is my first game of IHMN, I feel I should provide a background on the principal characters that make up the Wardens of the Royal Interdimensional Society.

      On a hot summer evening in 1858 in Inverness, Scotland, a man opened a portal to another universe and the world was changed forever. The man was Robert Davies, and his invention of the DOOR, also known as the Direct Observational Operations Router, would lead to the discovery and mapping of a new realm for the British Empire, the Multiverse. After several trials wherein he stepped through the DOOR and explored several various worlds, he presented his invention and his findings to the Royal Society the following year. So sensational was his discovery that Parliament voted more funding towards the maintenance of the DOOR and the Queen herself honoured Davies with both a knighthood and a lordship. The Royal Society opened a new branch titled the Royal Interdimensional Society, or RIS.

     As the discovery of more and more universes, each one having a Britain which developed along different lines historically (and some almost completely evolutionally!) the RIS felt it necessary to ask Parliament and the Queen to meet the ever growing number of Kings, Princes, Lord Protectors, and other such dignitaries and to convene a permanent Council of Sovereigns. A "round table" council of leaders of the multitude of various Britains from each universe, constituting essentially a Commonwealth of the British Multiverse. The RIS with Parliament funding has created a specialist team of veteran soldiers, sailors, and scientists of the Queen's armies to "police" the British Multiverse. Known as the Wardens, their mission is to aid the various Britains when threats of an extreme nature beyond the technological or military power of that Britain are unable to deal with it. The Wardens also perform covert missions on behalf of the Soveriegns when necessary and scientific expeditions as well. After all the RIS is a scientific institution first and an empire builder second.

     With Lord Lundy's (Sir Robert Davie's title) DOORs the Wardens have done much to build and protect the British Multiverse throughout the 1860's and well into the 1870's. In addition to Parliament's funding of the RIS, they also receive input from Isambard Kingdom Brunel, now Lord Brunel after his contributions to the Empire via massive war machines that have aided the Queen's armies in their wars in Afghanistan and the Sudan. He regularly contributes ideas, inventions and even goes one some of the missions himself to test his latest devices in the field. He is often seen striding through a DOOR in his "steam electric armoured suit", a wonderous device that lets off large jolts of electricity to burn foes to ash. Lord Brunel has also recently improved upon the DOOR by creating the GATE (Greater Algorithmic Teleportation Emitter) which is large enough to bring some of Brunel's war machines through to the other worlds. 

 

     Among the members of the RIS Wardens that take part in regular missions are:

Lord Lundy: Sir Robert Davies, inventor of the DOOR also a former veteran of the 42nd Highland Regiment, the  Black Watch, he is Commander of the Wardens and overall leader of their operations. It was at his request that Parliament permanently assigned a company of the 42nd to the Wardens.

Dr. Henry Adamstone: Professor of Arcane Studies at Bracton College, Cambrige University. His knowledge of obscure and dead languages, such as Pictish, and his expansive library of arcane books and artifacts at Bracton have made him one of the top leaders of the RIS as his knowledge is indispensable when encountering some of the "non- English" and more mysterious Britains. He is also Gatekeeper of Merlin's Well, on the grounds of Bracton. Merlin's Well is very ancient and it is said that the famous wizard lies beneath it slumbering through the ages. Whatever the case, drinking or even sitting near the well (which is gated off in the middle of a thick wood on the campus grounds) leaves the visitor with inspiration to create, and sometimes even induces visions or dreams of an exceptional nature.

     Captain John Stevenson: Captain of the 33rd East Essex Regiment of Foot, he is second in command of the Wardens, most of whom are fellow soldiers of the 33rd. He is a master of defense and often works with the Royal Engineers assigned the Wardens to set up traps for various missions.

     Leftenant Jeremy Cain: the right hand man of Capt. Stevenson, Cain is the son of a noble family and even though he maintains a slight aloofness to the rest of the men he still gets the job done and is very reliable.

     Sergeant "Mad" Jack Ransom: a gruff old soldier of the Queen's armies in every sense of the word. "Mad" Jack has a bawdy sense of humour and keeps the men's spirits up and the new recruits in line. No mission is too dangerous or suicidal for him to volunteer for and he often points out the flaws in a plan in a very blunt, common sense manner that rankles fellow officers sometimes. He recently received a sash of the Order of St. Edmund for outstanding valour from King Harold XII of Britain 54. Although he is an NCO of the 33rd, the nature of his expertise leads the Warden commanders to leave him free reign to get his missions done as he sees fit.

 

Dr. Adamstone flanked by Capt. Stevenson (with pistol) and Lt. Cain

 

Lord Lundy (with dirk drawn) standing with the men of the Black Watch alongside Sgt. Ransom, "Mad" Jack, sporting his purple sash of the Order of St. Edmund.

 

Brunel's "Steam Eectric Armour" complete with shock halberd, which emits 50,000 volts of static electricity on the first strike.

 

Next post: The Cambrige Affair