Scenes from a Gaslight game

I had a chance to play Gaslight (Victorian science fiction rules) with the group a few weeks back. There were three factions descending on a British outpost in Africa, with a game master.

My faction was the Martians (or more correctly, Barsoomians), complete with radium rifles and big green heroes. It also included some Venusian parrot-men.

Then there were the Germans, with lots of mechanical soldiers and a couple of steam-powered vehicles.

Finally, we had the British, including their gorilla friend.

All three forces were converging on the trading post: The Brits to relieve it, and the other two to loot it.

The Imperials, including the Postal Rifles and some Sikhs, advanced in column, supported by their own steam tank.

Meanwhile, my Green Martian led a group of Red Martians up to the outpost, and climbed through a window.

Unfortunately, when you roll up a hero in Gaslight, you can get some disadvantages as well as advantages. My guy was clumsy, and fell over when he climbed through the window.

He attracted plenty of attention from the Englishmen in the courtyard.

The Reds pulled him out and climbed in, as the Tommies began shooting into their own building.

By this time, reinforcements had arrived, so the Martians were not doing so well. On the other side of the compound (not pictured), the robo-Germans were hauling away loot.

The parrotmen kept themselves busy with a German mech, but ultimately didn't stop the German war machine in general.

I'm not used to playing VSF, and the Gaslight rules were new to me, but I had a great time as we saw the narrative emerge from play.