Historicon 2012 AAR: Mars by GASLIGHT Extravaganza

Saturday morning, Buck and I ran our big 21 player Mars by GASLIGHT Extravaganza.   This was a mash-up game of many different Mars backgrounds, and featured Green Martians, Red Martians, Cephalopod Martians, Rockmen of Mars, and even Rooman of Mars, plus a variety of Earthmen forces, including American, Russian, German, British, and Masked Minions of unknown origin.  We had a full compliment of players around our big 20 ft table, which was decked out with an assortment of terrain from both our collections.

Overview of the table.

Everyone had their own objective. These were such things as retrieving an ancient artifact, rescuing Dejah Thoris, securing a crate of medicine, capture one of each type of Martian, or obtaining Cephalopod tripod technology, for example.

Green Martians can be seen advancing in the foreground, and German Sea Battalion troopers move out in the back.

The figures used were an assortment of Bronze Age, Parroom Station, Tin Man, Pulp Figures, Hinterland, Ironclad, and a number of other manufacturers. Many of the vehicles were scratch built.

A view of the action near the canal bridge.  A real scrum developed here in the table's center.

In the end, several of the players achieved their objectives, and the players all seemed to enjoy the game. We as the GM's had a blast setting it up and running it. And we appreciated those folks who hung around and helped us clean up.

The Female Hussars advance with their gyrocopter support

Buck (in khaki shirt) helps some of the player work through a close combat melee

The big battle in the center.

The view from the far side of the canal.

A view of the table about midway though the game.

Another scene of battle. In the foreground is the Red Martian Thoat with a radium cannon mounted in the howdah, and the German Sea Battalion's walker. In the back can be seen the Russian tank (copper colored), and on the left can be seen Tars Tarkus riding his Thoat.

Russian cavalry battles a group of Green Martians

A lucky shot blows up the Russian tank, and a nearby Female Hussar gyrocopter is caught in the explosion and explodes itself, killing some of the Female Hussars on the ground.

Buck and I doing our tag-team card calling.  Both of us were constantly calling unit cards throughout the game to keep the action moving and nearly lost our voices by the end.