30 years ago, Steampunk came to Germany, in the guise of Space:1889. I still remember spending hours in the local library, to find out how forced draught actually worked (spoiler: it’s a turbocharger for the firebox), because the rulebook was vague about it.
With this book, while it is for Hive, Queen and Country, you get decent information about all the newfangled gadgets available at the end of the 19th century. The fact, that Space:1889 takes place 15 years earlier is perfect, since all the technical changes taking place during that period are covered. A boon for long campaigns that take technical development into account.
The world of HQC (Hive, Queen and Country) is different from ours, computers (Babbage's analytical engine) have arrived and change many aspects of daily life.
The enemies are not the High Martians or the dastardly Russians, but bugs, big bugs, the Hive in the name of the game.
To combat them a plethora of vehicles on the ground and in the air have been designed, this special book covers nearly 80 different ground vehicles, not even counting subtypes. They are organized by country and by type and most vehicles come with illustrations, depicting views from the front, back, sides and top.
In addition the technical data contains everything from the dimensions, weight, weapons, armor, speed, range, and even fording, obstacle crossing and Trench crossing capability. This is more “Jane’s All the worlds fighting vehicles” than a basic RPG supplement. The 256 pages contain a plethora of information and background data.
IMHO a beautiful addition for any Steampunk game, and a worthy addition to the other HQC publications.
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