Ruthless

With a set of gunfighters all ready to use Catherine and I used them in a game last night. Although the current plan at the wargames club is to use 'What A Cowboy', last night we had a got with 'Ruthless', a free two-page set of rules that are available HERE.

I threw down some terrain to break up movement and lines of sight. I do have a Western town, but it's in 15mm. However a couple of the buildings worked OK as small shacks. The scenario was a classic treasure hunt. Next to the four items towards the centre of the table are yellow counters. Each represents the place where a bag of gold might be hidden. A figure has to move adjacent to a counter and then spend an action to search it. On a D10 roll of 7+ it's the bag of gold. Otherwise it's a dummy. Once you find the gold it takes an action to dig it up, and then a side wins by getting it off their home edge. The other counters are considered to be dummies.

Distances in Ruthless are in inches. Because our table is a bit smaller than what I suspect is a viable playing area I scaled them down slightly by doubling them and converting them to cm.

Each of has had a gang of three figures, two armed with a revolver each and one with a rifle. In Ruthless figures have a Toughness score, which affects their ability to react to adversity. Low numbers are best. we could assign Toughness values of 4, 5 and 6 to the figures.

I went with my Godless character pair of Martha and Webster, now both operating as Pinkertons. Martha had a Toughness of 4, and Webster 5. They were backed up by hired gun Gerard, with a Toughness of 6.

Catherine had the bad guys (and didn't deny it). Scar's gang consisted (left to right) of Susie (Toughness 4), Isabella (Toughness 6) and Scar himself (Toughness 5). 

In Ruthless both players get a hand of five playing cards, which are used to determine initiative at the start of a turn, but can also be spent to engage in fisticuffs or attempt to get a fast-draw jump on enemy gunfighters. Running out of cards during a turn can be bad (and, I suspect, if you have enough figures on a side, it's a real possibility if you opponent plays ... ruthlessly). When a side acts each of its figures gets two actions, with actions being such things as move or shoot. You can do a particular action more than once. Some cards give bonuses when played for initiative. An Ace or 4 allows unconscious characters to recover, for example, whilst a 7 allows one character to take three actions. So sometimes playing the highest card is not always the best idea.

I worked Martha round to the right. The plan was for her to try and cut off Scar's gang from their baseline in case they found the gold first. She ran into Scar and Susie (you can see her just behind the rock outcrop). Scar and Martha exchanged shots to no effect. At some point Susie popped out and fired, but Martha got the jump on her and sent her scurrying back and forced to recover from the fright.

It looked like it was going to be a short game. Isabella found the gold almost immediately. And Catherine was getting very lucky with initiative; I needed to beat her over the next couple of turns to stand a chance of catching Isabella before she got off the board. 

Webster had come on in the centre; he was my treasure-hunter. He got into an exchange of fire with Scar, and was forced to duck for cover.

I hadn't taken a picture of Gerard moving out to the left. With his rifle I thought he'd be perfect to cover the centre and take shots and any member of Scar's gang who was hunting for the gold. As Isabella ran for home, he fired a shot that caused a lucky hit, knocking her unconscious. The gold was up for grabs!

I took a gamble and ran Martha past Scar and Susie. If I could win initiative next turn I could keep going before they could react and maybe stood a chance of grabbing the gold.

I didn't win initiative. Scar shot Martha down, then went in with a knife to finish her off.

The only active figure I really had now was Gerard. He rushed towards the unconscious Isabella, firing a couple of shots at Susie as he did so.

Webster emerged from cover and lined up a shot on Susie who spun round ...

... and shot him, knocking him out.

So I really was down to just Gerard now. Scar and Susie closed in on him, guns blazing. He took a couple of minor wounds.

A view of the table as we entered what I thought would be the last turn.

Gerard grabbed the gold from the unconscious Isabella. Susie moved in and there was a brief brawl which saw Gerard injured but still fighting.

Limping Gerard moved for home. At that point Webster recovered consciousness, as did Isabella. The fight was still on! Gerard and Webster fired at Scar and Susie and caused both of them to go lily-livered and seek cover. Under certain circumstances you have to test against your Toughness. fail and you are forced to seek cover and stay there until you can Get Your Courage Up - this is an action that allow you to test against your Toughness again. Scar and Susie both failed tests against the odds.

Susie went for the cover of some scrub. She then fired a wild shot at Webster ... and killed him!

Gerard was slowly moving for home, hampered by a leg wound that meant he could only take one move action a turn. He was forced to duck into cover by a barrage of fire from the three members of Scar's gang, who were now all back in action and closing in.

He scored a light wound on Susie. If I could get initiative maybe an escape was still possible.

I didn't get initiative. Scar closed up and shot Gerard down.

So Catherine got the gold. And had all of her three gunfighters standing at the end, albeit with a few wounds here and there.

Gerard had a good go at winning it, and was definitely the hero of the hour. But I couldn't survive against Catherine's consistent good card draws; she played Kings for initiative three turns in a row. That means that she not only goes first but it also makes it harder to fire pre-emptive shots when targeted. To be fair had I survived one more turn both Scar and Susie would have emptied their guns, and I would have gained a turn's grace whilst they reloaded. And, had she closed for fisticuffs, I had a couple of cards that would have given me fight-winning low-blows.

Ruthless was an interesting set of rules and we'll probably give it another go. As with any set that's only two sides of A4 there are a few areas that are a bit fuzzy, and I can see a couple of small additions I'd make. For example, the Severe Wound knocks a character unconscious (and a second one kills them) but once they recover consciousness there's no lasting effect, which we found odd. All other wounds prevent you doing something once you take once. Weirdly it's not possible to kill someone outright with one shot. Also we weren't sure what happened if you failed a Toughness test whilst already lily-livered. We're inclined to adding a house rule that they stack, and each subsequent lily-livered makes it harder to recover. But the sequence of play was fun and forced some interesting decisions, especially with how and when to spend additional cards to do things.

Anyway, I got my new toys out on the table, and that's always good.