GDW Space: 1889 Soldier's Companion

Back in the eighties, before I'd started wargaming but was very keen on role-playing games, I had a bit of an interest in the Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) game, Space:1889.  I loved the setting, but never quite got a campaign off the ground.  Nonetheless, I collected many of the sourcebooks, including the Soldier's Companion (SC), which was a set of miniatures rules for the game.  Not being a wargamer at the time, I mostly used it as a reference (lots of lovely lists and information about the military forces of various empires and other powers on Earth, Mars and Venus in the fictional 1889).  

Recently, however, I have come across a few gamers listing SC as their preferred set of rules for colonial wargaming.  Indeed, Frank Chadwick's designer's notes in the back of the book state that his goal was to start with a good set of colonial rules to which the VSF elements could be attached. With this in mind, I invited Doug over for a trial of Soldier's Companion.

We played one of the sample scenarios from the book, in which a platoon of 9 British regulars (Gordon Highlanders) set out on an expedition to arrest a rabble-rousing native religious leader, who aims to raise the tribes against the Crown.  This character leads a warband of 19 warriors, half with rifle-muskets (or jezzails, I suppose) and half with melee weapons.  The only difference is that the native leader was now an Afghan, rather than a Hill Martian!

The Highlanders advance along the road, as a group of Afghan snipers open up on them.

Meanwhile, a Highlander sergeant stepped out to inspect a ruined building beside the road, and triggered an ambush by the Afghan melee troops!

He managed to not only hold off the ambushers, but actually pushed them back!

Following on the sergeant's success, half of the platoon (under the leadership of the Lieutenant) followed up to chase off the remaining Afghans.

And after a dramatic chase and melee, they routed the Afghan warriors and captured their leader.

Meanwhile, the other half of the Highlander platoon occupied the building to engage the Afghan sharpshooters.  By the way, Queen Victoria was simply observing, no effect on the game :)

We had a short chat about the game afterwards.  The game was fun and fast playing.  It was good with the number of figures we had on the table, but I could see it getting a bit tedious if played with a larger number of units.  A couple of things we noted:

- Move distances are quite large.  Light cavalry have a charge range of 48", which allows them to cross almost any table in one hop, and is twice as far as rifle range!

- Melee combat involves pairing off figures and dicing off one pair at a time.  In a big fight, this could take a while.  If we keep playing this game, I'd want to replace this with a way to combine all the rolls, maybe a modification of The Men Who Would Be Kings approach.

On the discussion boards, some gamers commented on the initiative system, which could potentially allow one side to gain and keep the initiative for several terms in a row.  This is significant as the non-initiative player doesn't get to move, only to shoot (if there are any eligible targets) and defend in melee. Doug and I didn't have a problem with this; we appreciated the intent as one side will get to keep pushing until something significant happens to disrupt the flow.  I can see how it could be frustrating to be on the receiving end of several turns of only reacting.  

I'll be happy to try SC again but will look to add some house rules as discussed above.