The Further Adventures of Otto Von Flaschmann Tikkety Tak! Tikkety Tak! Tikkety Tak! What can that noise be? It takes you back to those happy days in your flat above the Viennese Academy for Apprentice Seamstresses. No, Otto it is not those sewing machines and neither is it Uncle Oskar's patent potatoe pulveriser. That can only leave ... KuK Locomotif 125, "Duchess du Aspern", aka "Von Flaschmann's Express". Yes, Kapitan Otton von Flaschmann, it is 1918 on the Galician front and you are in command of the only armoured train that flies the KuK Kreigsmarine ensign; three loud cheers and remember to check the pressure gauge. After your more or less heroic service in Palestine, the High Conunand have shunted you into obscurity; the wits have already started saying that this time Von Fleischmann's duchess is a real boiler.... All is not good for the Royal and Imperial kingdom of Austro-Hungary; the morale of the troops is crumbling and bolshevik agents are rumoured to be everywhere. You and your handpicked crew of naval criminals and malingerers (and that's just the Petty Officers) shunt back and fore running supplies, looking for coal to feed the Duchess and taking pot shots at passing Russian planes. They may be ours but your AA gunners aren't fussy. You have already had to defuse one bolshevik inspired incident; in fact you defused Petty Officer Stowici with a fireman's shovel. The Communist Party card in his reefer jacket is now in you possession. Toot! Toot! Engineer Second Class KC Johannes is on the footplate and he loves that steam whistle. Toot! Toot! As the morale on the Galician Front steadily gets worse, Von Fleischmann's express steams back and forth, belching smoke. Ideally the coming weeks hold a posting to Vienna, a lightning victory for our gallant armies or a new gasket head for No3. VON FLASCHMANN`S EXPRESS As per time honoured tradition, roll 1xd6 to see what turns up: T1 Shunting back and fore 1,2 The dear old Duchess puffs, the engineers complain, the gunners get bored and you wire Vienna for orders. None arrive so you all do it again. 3,4,5 You are out on patrol and something happens roll on T2 6 A Special Event - roll on T3 T2 - Out On Patrol 1,2 With a grinding of gears and a hiss of steam, the gasket on the overhead cam goes west. That or the potato vodka still has leaked again. Anyway, you break down. Roll 1xd6; on a 456 you do so in no mans land and a band of cossacks attack you. Fight them off using the rules at the end. 3 Nyarroooooom! You are visited by one of the Knights of the Sky. He opens fire; roll 1xd6, on a 6 he is shot down. On a 1 he is shot down but was a German. The ensuing diplomatic hooha wrecks your next chance of a posting in Vienna. 4,5 You run into a quaint little country station. Roll 1xd6 to see what you find: 1,2 It is deserted. 3,4 As your breaks hiss and clank to a halt, you spot Russian uniforms and lots of them! You have to fight you way out. Use the rules at the end. 5 Your arrival is very welcome to a small unit of Austrians holed up in the station, surrounded by vodka crazed cossacks. Shoot up the Russians and relieve the gallant lads. Allow for two groups of 6 Austrians shooting from the building. 6 Standing alone on the platform is the mysterious spy, the glamorous Countess Ursula Undresski. Hotly pursued by Hungarian Separatist Anarchists, she orders you to take her, but first to Vienna, where she pulls strings and gets you a cushy job. 6 The line is torn up. You (well, the men) spend a day repairing it, roll 1xd6; on a 3,4 there is a mutiny out of boredom and blisters rather than bolshevism and on a 5,6 a Russian column attacks - fight them off because you can't go anywhere can you? T3 - Special Events 1 Mutiny. Aha, it's a deputation from the Marine Soviet No 125. They will fight no more for the Austrian Eagle (oppressor of nations, despoiler of the proletariat). You can face them down ("Return to your posts and I'll forget all about it") on a 4,5,6. If you fail to quell them, they decide to head east and join the struggle against the class oppressors of which you are one Herr Kapitan 'Lah di dah' Von Flaschmann. They are coming down the corridor even now. You open the window, slip the safety off your Mauser but they are too quick. But wait! In your pocket you have Stowici's Party Card, cunningly changed to your name. Good job you did that last night, eh? As newly elected comrade commander of Locomotive "Red Star" you head off east. Perhaps you'll find some caviar....... 2,3 A section of line runs parallel to a Russian stretch of track. You encounter a Russian train chuffing along. If you shoot it up, blow it up or generally smash it up, you earn the laurels of the press, a medal or two and a leave in Vienna. 4 Remember Fort Bombasticovic? (Issue no 10) It has been bomproofed, sand bagged and christened "the mighty rock of our Balkan Fortress" by the High Command. Somehow it is now under attack by a column of mutinous Croat ian Monarchist Secessionists incited by the notorious British agent Captain Richard Hannay. According to the Viennese Daily Post, if it falls "it will be the spark that lights the powder keg under our Balkan provinces". So Herr Major (aha!) von Fleischmann, you are ordered to break through the mutinous rabble and relieve the gallant loyalists. You have to fight a column of troops after five turns you are on the trenchlines of the fort and get covering fire from say 3 machine guns in the Fort. To relieve the fort you must drive off the enemy. If you succeed it is ho for Vienna, the gratitude of the Emperor, the promotion and the good life you have schemed so long for! 5 You are ordered to escort General Oberst Graf von Bogel and his wine collection to Vienna. All goes well unless on a 5,6 (on a 1xd6), one of the stokers drinks the '58 Chablis. If so you get the blame and are sent in disgrace to a unit of penal Czech pioneers in the Cracow garrison. 6 Where have all the Austrians gone ? And what do all those Red Flags mean? Well done, you have just steamed into the Russian Revolution. You thought that point change was all wrong . . . FULL STEAM AHEAD Trains move at 3 speeds, Chuff (infantry pace); Chuff-Chuff (Horse/slow vehicle); Chuff-Chuff-Chuff (fast vehicle). STEAM could start at say 10; the train can have 1xAD carriages. Each has 2 MGs and on a 5,6 a light gun in an armoured cupola. Allow 3 men per MG, 6 per gun and 5 riflemen in each carriage. Ignore the engine crew - they are too busy to fire and your troops can't do their job. The engines condition is covered by "Steam" - which is (surprise, surprise) a version of EDNA. Here it represents the damaae done, power lost and all those technical things that Casey Jones would understand but I don't. It also reflects physical damage and chipped paint on the armoured carriages etc. To fight another train, just use the rules below but keep a track of the enemy STEAM. At 0 STEAM the train grinds to a halt or explodes spectacularly - depending on circumstances and taste. Movement is the difference between 2xd6 and the "Steam". This can be in inches or mm if you are using a model. Chuff-Chuff and Chuff-Chuff-Chuff have a penalty of -2/-4 deducted from Steam for that roll. This reflects the fear that the "engines can't stand it, not with that dodgy cam on No2 piston". Shooting AT the Train The enemy roll 1xd6 for each 10 men or 1 MG, on a 6 there is damage, on a 5 a casualty is inflicted on the crew. Guns roll at +1. For each hit roll 1xd6 1 - Engine. -1 point lost from Steam 2 - Gun. A random gun or MG is hit, lose 1-3 men 3,4 - Damage to paintwork and windows, lose 1-3 men 5 - Footplate shot up -1 to steam for next roll while the engineer and fireman cower 6 - Uh oh, this looks like a critical hit Roll another 1xd6 1,2 - Hit on Engine -1xd6 from STEAM 3,4 - Direct hit on a random carriage, lose all guns therein and - 1xd6 STEAM and 1d6 crew 5 - Direct hit on a gun. Kaboom.-1xd6 STEAM as ammo goes up with it,1xd6 crew 6 - 123, Lose 2xd6 STEAM as the boiler goes kaboom; 4,5,6, derailed (all guns jammed not rifles or MGs on 4,5,6) If you derail, you lose 2xd6 crew and all guns are jammed bar MGs on 4,5,6. The enemy enjoy a turns free shooting as you sort yourselves out. Then roll 4,5,6 to get organised and fire back. Cossacks close into melee in three turns, foot in five. Shooting FROM the Train Keep a total of the number of troops in the train. They fire in groups of 5; each rolls 1xd6 (-3 if only 3 men strong); an MG rolls 2xd6 (allocate 2 men crew) - this is the number of casualties inflicted on the enemy. It is halved against sneaky chaps in cover but doubled against mounted cossacks. A light gun needs at least 3 crew and hits on a 5,6, +1 per turn firing against a stationary target (eg village, gun etc) providing that the train is stationary too - a hit scores 2d6 losses. Guns firing at Chuff-Chuff or faster need a 6 to hit anything. Thus you should inflict more losses, but you have fewer men to start with. At the end of each action roll 2d6, on a double it is useless. Each turn roll d100 - if you roll less than the casualties inflicted, the enemy break off the action. The Cossacks have + 15% on the roll. Attackers against a stationary or derailed train get d6 men inside per turn - these are deducted from the casualty total; they have to be finished off with the bayonet and detract men from their impromptu firing positions. To resolve a melee, fight out another turns shooting, if the enemy break, you have seen them off, if not you are overrun. You can be heroic and get stuck in with a broomhandle Mauser or fireman's shovel; if you do, add an extra 2d6 to the casualty total, but on a double 2 you are wounded, and disheartened the lads give up. On a double 6 you are also wounded but the lads fight on and your battered command is rescued by a detachment of Bosnian hussars, surrounded by dead enemy, spent cartridges and bits of locomotive. Stories develop that you blew up the train rather than let it fall into the hands of the enemy and you become a hero in the Viennese Salons. Hurrah! Related Von Flaschmann: Part I Von Flaschmann: Part II Von Flaschmann: Part III Von Flaschmann: Part IV Von Flaschmann: Part V Very Simple Gunboat Rules Back to The Gauntlet No. 16 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Craig Martelle Publications This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com