Home Counties 1897 - War of The worlds

At Salute last year I saw a game called Tripods and Triplanes and it made me think about the book War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells (1897)

I decided I'd like to have a go at setting up a game based on the book, with the Victorian army facing off against the Tripods.

Whilst still dithering over which rules to use would it be, Black Powder, Future War Commander, my own (to be written) rules or a hodge podge of the first two. I decided to ignore such niceties and see what models were on the market, this could determine the ruleset, it would certainly determine the scale.

I have a predilection for doing big games in smaller scales and so began at 6mm.

If it were 6mm the the army choice was simple Baccus' but which army. The British army of that time was using a Spiked helmet at home and a Pith helmet in various parts of Africa and India

Home Service Helmet

Pith Helmet

The home Service counties helmet and Pith helmet aren't that different.
In battle the helemt was often covered

The origins of such a helmet and who might have used it first is presented here at Straight to the Point: The History of the Spiked Helmet  but Russian or Indian in origin they all seem to hail from early Mongolian headgear.

I  digress, at 6mm the two are the same and who needs a spike anyway? So I decided on British Colonial Zulu wars, with a few Germans from the Franco Prussian war for the limbers. 

The scale however still depended on the Martian Tripods, a few questions on various FB pages and GWs Spindel Drones are suggested to me.

They do look the part.

However not enough I want them stepping over buildings.

In the above image I've positioned them behind 6 mm Baccus archers and 10 mm Pendraken ones, 6 mm works better, but there's a little voice saying,  "These are not the drones you're looking for."

Then some genius says have you looked at the Tripods on Pendraken's site, well I thought I had, obviously not. I looked but as I wanted to be sure of their size I sent a question to Pendraken on a Sunday, Leon's immediate response was

Image from Pendraken's site

Thanks for the message, the height of the tripods is:

Small = 40mm high
Large = 60mm high

I'll check on the crab walker when I get to work on Monday, I think it's around 30mm or thereabouts.

And that on a Sunday, brilliant service, I bought, they arrived swiftly and they are big, even better they are exactly as I think thy should be, courtesy of  Jeff Wayne's album cover.

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