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so for the last few days i've been thinking of an idea for a wargame set in an alternative earth , where during the napoleanic period an alien space craft belonging to an extremely advanced race of aliens crash landed in southern europe , and has become a hub of fighting , between the aliens and human soilders.

The main tag of this game is that it combine high sci-fi with napoleonic war ellements , the game is set roughly 1814 ,but the emperor napoleon is dead and the french are currently led by Leon de flamme a hot headed war like man . the empire has advanced greatly by salvaging weapons and parts from the debris aided by an unkown group of aliens who are exploiting the situation.

The alien race on the other hand i am yet to name but they will have battle suit type equipment and fusion based weapons are divided into 3 groups , who have been know as the marteaux:the soilders of the alien race who man the heavey wepons and are the forefront of any advance ,
yeux:diminutive and cunning are the spies ,traders and dipolomats (quite similar to the tau water caste) who will brign down an enemy from the inside
penseurs:Are the leaders of the aliens never seen except when situations are incredibly dire they are the most intellligent and will often be seen dirceting Yeux lieutenatnts remotely it seems

so thats a rundown of the races and the basic fluff , what do people think if this had decent set of rules woul you play it , in model terms it would be a skirmish scale game focusing on games of around at max 30 models per side at a roughly 30mm scale

In terms of peoples opiniong would you play this if it had decent rules and was good value? also what do people think needs working on in fluff?

Thanks loads


'claw

I like what you've done with the names there, linking it to french whil they're against them. Very clever. Presuming it's intenional....

It seems a bit bizzare to me to be honest, guys from 1814 fighting a highly advanced alien race. Bayonets vs laser guns, i know who my money is on.

Still perhaps it could work with some tweaks.

Thats whats the mention of the other race is refering to , they are being helped by another race , who have helped with salavaign and reverse engineering , for example i had in mind was a cannon which had been accelerated so that the cannonballs traveled at near light speed so could puncture through multiple enemies,

Thanks for the advice more to come

'claw

blackclaw1 wrote:Thats whats the mention of the other race is refering to , they are being helped by another race , who have helped with salavaign and reverse engineering , for example i had in mind was a cannon which had been accelerated so that the cannonballs traveled at near light speed so could puncture through multiple enemies,

Not bad. Perhaps it could be that the ally alien race was pursuing the bad alien race to get something (stolen documents/artefact etc..) and they shot them down and they crashe don Earth and they landed in order to finsh them off and retrieve it?

Nice , hm, i'll revise that into the fluff

The octlaris Have been at war with the vendris confederation for milennia , the war had been one of attrition and vile cunning , neither side had the upperhand , with technology being the advantage for the vendris confederation , the octlaris had become adept scalvagers and craftsmen , often takign great risks in order to take control of superior firepower,
But the vendris confederation knew , that if the on'taris was ever lost the war would be over , and so would the universe as they knew it.

And it was decreed that it shal never be still it shall travl for eternity , and that it did it travelled for millelenia , as it bordered a system know as Ita -1 it was discovered by a octlaris armada , the defence fleet fought to defend the on'taris but there capital ship was crippled and in desperation they made a crash landing on a simple human world...

Any good?

Sounds good. Personally I don't really like the idea of some alliens allying with the humans (seems a bit long winded and out of place just to explain how they are able to fight evenly), although something needs to be done to level it out.

I would prefer it that some of the alien ships were destroyed (or malfunctioned) above earth so landed a few decades early, giving the humans the chance to learn their technology. However this is just my opinion, if you make there two aliens forces I reccomend going into detail on both so they feel like they belong there.

I would look into the game as the idea of people with sci fi technology using napoleonic war style tactics sounds cool.

They aren't allied in the sense of helping each other directly more liek the odd helping hand , but your idea sounds cool , atm its in the very early stages so thing can and will change , thanks for the feed back so far


'claw

To start off, i like the idea, I've always liked the Napoleonic era. The fluff seems interesting, its been said already but there has be some way to even out muskets and fusion rifles.

My only big problem with this is that you want it to be a skirmish game. As far as i know, the Napoleonic era was characterized by large blocks of regimental fighting, not small scale skirmish battles. So either each model would need to represent a large contingent or you would need a lot more models. As you said, the humans are adopting some of the alien technologies, so much of the 17th century warfare is going to be gone, except for the strategies they used.

Eldar Own wrote:

It seems a bit bizzare to me to be honest, guys from 1814 fighting a highly advanced alien race. Bayonets vs laser guns, i know who my money is on.

Your forgetting the "Ewok Phenomenon".

@Bleedge , the idea is that men are fighting in small scale firefights , and as such avoid large engagements , but as this is only a preliminary idea i might change how things work.

@Ct there will balancing issues but i think i've found a way to work them out

I know its not totally the same... but if you search google for "Victorian sci-fi wargames" you could find alot of referance material to aid you.

goodluck

The main problem, is that in the Victorian era, we were still so far behind even the understanding of Science we have today, and to be fair, we're still like children in that respect even today.

I think, even though its supposed to be a fun game, the problem will be how realistic the whole thing is. I mean, an alien race travels thousands or millions of light years just to come stomp a load of bayonett wielding primates?!? Its like me bookig a first class ticket on Virgin Airlines, to fly to Australis, simply to go tread on a really small ants nest in someones garden?!? Why would you bother?

So I think the fluff needs a believable hook, a reason why these aliens are making all this effort. If they do come all this way, then you need some explanation as to why they don't just phase us all out and take what ever they want....why are they bothering to fight street to street, why they have better tech? Also, in terms of the allied aliens, whats their hook? why do they need the middle man? (us) why not go toe to toe with their enemies and be done with it? I'm sure joining humanity is going to be more of a hindrance then a benefit given our level of understanding and tech.

I can think of a few hook lines you could use, that would help to explain some of the questions I've raised:

1. Maybe they are after human genetic material for (BLAH) this would explain the reason they have come all this way, and why they haven't simply destroyed us out of hand.

2. An alternative, is that Earth contains a special element that is only found here (kinda like the Spice Melange only being found on Arakis) again, theis would explain the effort and the softly softly approach, might also explain why the other aliens are helping us.

These are just two plot lines you could develop, if you wished!

one idea that popped into my head was to have 2 fairly distinct Human factions.

One being the Catholic Church (could be suitably renamed, or not).. I would think that all the technology and the mere existence of Alien life would be very contrary to their teachings, and so they would be quick to renounce, declare heresy and otherwise repress knowledge of these life forms...

the other being the faction who, at least recognizes alien life for what it is, and whether or not they embrace the aliens, are more amenable to "aid" from them. This faction could even be another European country (probably not a predominantly Catholic nation), such as Great Britain, or Prussia

Both factions would be using Alien tech, as the Church would claim it to be the work of their best and brightest minds. As War progressed back then, it accelerated the invention of new arms and armaments (the cartridge shot) so you could actually probably get away with having repeater carbines, and other later 1800s inventions (probably not the Gatling gun, unless you want the Americans somehow involved, presuming of course that the Earth faction(s) are actual nations from the period)

CT GAMER wrote:

Eldar Own wrote:

It seems a bit bizzare to me to be honest, guys from 1814 fighting a highly advanced alien race. Bayonets vs laser guns, i know who my money is on.

Your forgetting the "Ewok Phenomenon".

Good point. Go small teddy bears!

Talking of star wars, you could have a kind of 'a long long time ago thing' where this happened, thousands of years ago, but we were at napoleonic era tech level. When the aliens landed we swfitly grew to understand them, and their techonology, (thanks to [insert name of scientific specialist faction here]) and started using it for ourselves, with perhaps a few tweaks. However at the end of this era perhaps all human life was mind-wiped or something, but it went a bit wrong so humans de-evolved (if that's waht you call it) and became like cavemen. Then the process of development had to start all over again.

Thanks for everybodys feedback so far , and with the advice i've been given i am going to re-write some of the fluff , but the game is going to be set int he 1850's but under a french imperial rule , the Vendris consortium ship crashed in france in 1814 , and humanity were quick to salvage what debris they could , originaly they were unsuccesful until the ships data core was activted by interference by the other race , (the human's helpers) this gave mankind time to learn of the weapons if the vendris consortium. in timem the old tactics of block of infantry became fruitless as newer weapons could take the role of 100 men , and as such the french empire expanded , under the rule of a mysterious succesor who rose to power after the death of napoleon at the hands of a mysterious assasin ,

When the vendris consortium finally learnt of the situation on earth they begun to land troops and rescources in the few places that uncontrolled by the humans .

and as such they struck , a hammer blow against the french and as such , humanitys war for survival begun


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The game will feature two distinct factions

The french imperium :Rule by leon de flamme the emperor napoleon's succesor and as some belive assasain , the empire is incredibly loyal to its lord and lands and fights tooth and nail to defend them , The imperium relys heavily on its highly trained warriors whom are equipped with a combination of vendrisian tech and traditional weapons , they are masters of streetfighting and stealth often using guerilla tactics and sabotage aganst the brute might of the vendris confederation

The vendris confederation:as said before they rely on advanced tech and fusion based weapons which although powerful are unpredictable , each caste of society is distinct but the majority of the armies are made up of brute warriors equiped with massive fuser rifle and antimatter grenades , they are often the victims of ambushes and traps due to a low intellect unless accompanied by a penseur , the penseurs mke up the ruling class and as such never go to battle unless they have there elite body guard , the penseurs them selves can deliver crushign psychic blows and can turn men to dust with there thoguhts alone.

They are the two faction in i plan on writing rules for , but within the factions you will have a number of option for including adavnced weapons and other tech

'claw

Interesting idea. Seems like you really need to 'sell' the setting to make it plausible.

I think when people hear 'Napoleonic' they expect big blocks of troops moving around.

Hi all.
A young lad worked on lots of Napoleonic wargame rules for WRG.
He was asked to help with writing a fantasy rule set.He used his Napoleonic experiance to write a 'Napoleonic based fantasy wargame'.

Later he was asked to write a sci -fi version of his popular Napoleonic inspired fantasy wargame.

This may preove useful to you for reference.

The chap in question was Rick Preistly,and the games were Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40.000 Rouge Trader.

You may have herd of them?


TTFN

Lanrak wrote:The chap in question was Rick Preistly,and the games were Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40.000 Rouge Trader.

You may have herd of them?

That's fantastic, except that the OP is looking to do two things:
-Create something different from what those have evolved into, story-wise (keeping them fairly Earth-centered, in a much more nearby timeline, etc)
-Write some rules that are specific for his game

In neither case is simply saying "hey, just use Warhammer!" constructive in any sense. From what I'm looking at, nothing that he's describing is in any way connected to Priestly's original works.

What it sounds to me is that Blackclaw's going to end up with is a sort of different take on the classic Victorian / Steampunk Alternate History that often gets used when authors want to take the 1800's in a different direction. The Victorian sci-fi tradition is fantastic, and is rife with many wonderfully visualized examples of "the future" that modern authors have used to create sci-fi settings. It's definitely something that's not been fully explored in a wargaming sense (a couple have touched on it) and a game centered around it would probably work out really well.

#sighs# It seems the blushing 'Rouge' trader has surfaced again.... IMO the only interesting period to do alternate history of is world war 1. So much development and carnage. The war to end all wars..

Set it over in the States and it's Cowboys and Aliens!

All kidding aside, this sounds like a fun concept. The only problem I see is that Napoleonic troops would need cannons to take down the alien mech suits or what have you. You'd probably have to balance it to have the aliens be the smaller, elite army while the humans are a bit more of a horde. I've seen more unbalanced scenarios before, so you should be okay.

@MAgic8ball thats the exact thing i was lookign to do thanks
@brother srm thats what i was looking to do in that it would be that an alien army may take 10 -20 figures in a game where a napooleaon player takes 30.

Thanks guys

i'll be strarting blog soon to show rules progress

'claw

If you make the suits stronger and tougher, but slower. It would even it out a bit. In a packed environment the suits are going to be difficult to manouver. This gives the human player a chance to avoid fire easier and makes iot easier for them to surround suits.

4M2A wrote:If you make the suits stronger and tougher, but slower. It would even it out a bit. In a packed environment the suits are going to be difficult to manouver. This gives the human player a chance to avoid fire easier and makes iot easier for them to surround suits.

Well, if you give them the same move speed as human infantry, and no "Fleet" type rules, maybe even a "Slow and Purposeful" sort of rule (the GW rules names are in quotes because obviously this isnt the same game, and you'll wnat different names and slightly different mechanics for everything) things would even out.

perhaps you could use different die for different strengths.. ie, a Str. 4 "human infantryman" would roll a d4 for his CC damage. a Str. 10 "Alien Fusion Cannon Blaster" would roll a d10, etc.