"I've Come Fur Ma Ma!"

Matriarch of the notorious Carfax family, Ma Carfax, has been apprehended by the law! Sheriff Collins and his loyal deputy Donal McTeague are taking her back to town for trial. She call for help!

Her children rush to her aid. From left to right they are Wilson Carfax, Ella Carfax and Joe Carfax. The siblings have also recruited gun-for-hire The Orinoco Kid.

After Thursday's game I wanted to try one of the scenarios with an objective, and picked The Rescue. In this one there is an object or person near the centre of the table to be grabbed or rescued. Once side defends it and the other is out to grab it and escape.

I also thought it would be interesting to try forces that weren't equal in number; quality vs quantity.

The law had two figures:

Sheriff Collins - Gunslinger - Shotgun, Revolver
Donal McTeague - Shootist - 2 x Revolvers

The Carfax Family consisted of:

Ella Carfax - Shootist - Revolver
Wilson Carfax - Shootist - Rifle, Revolver
Joe Carfax - Greenhorn - Revolver
The Orinoco Kid - Shootist - Revolver

Sheriff Collins started on table with Ma Carfax. He stashed her in a cabin then moved nearby to defend against the approaching villains.

The Carfax family would be approaching from the left. McTeague would appear from the right. Until then the Sheriff was on his own. He hid behind a rock and waited.

The Carfax family arrived. Ella moved to the cover of a rock ...

... and fired. Her shot wounded the sheriff. Not a great start for the law.

Wilson Carfax took a shot with his rifle and the sheriff was hit again.

(At this stage I was thinking I should cut my losses and set it up again, but I kept playing).

Sheriff Collins vacated the dubious cover of his rock and Ducked behind the cabin. But he was still in danger of being outflanked and would have to hold out until McTeague could get across the table.

McTeague was moving fast to his rescue. He aimed for the cover to the south of the cabin, but on the way took aim at Wilson Carfax who was lurking behind the second building and seriously wounded him with a gut-shot.

Ella Carfax also moved to the south and took a shot at McTeague. The two ducked into the cover of the undergrowth around them as they exchanged shots.

Ella came out the other side and made for the Sheriff, but he was too fast for her ...

... One shot from his shotgun took her down, stone dead.

Now things were looking better for the law. One Carfax was dead and another seriously wounded to the point that he would be of little use in the rest of the action.

Joe Carfax now came up to the cabin, protected by covering fire from The Orinoco Kid. Collins was forced to duck inside the building.

McTeague was wary of running across teh open ground to the cabin whilst Joe was there, and sought to drive him off. He emptied his revolver in Joe's direction and managed to miss with every shot!

Sensibly Joe took cover though. I added a small floor plan to show the inside of the cabin.

McTeague kept up his fire, and still couldn't hit anything.

Collins peeped out of the door and forced Joe back into cover with a second shot from his shotgun. 

The Orinoco Kid sneaked up to the window at the back of the cabin and took the Sheriff under fire from there. Collins was now rather trapped and not in a good state.

McTeague had fired off almost all of his shots and was frantically reloading.

Joe Carfax ducked into the cabin, fired twice ...

... and the Sheriff was down!

The Orinoco Kid climbed in through the window and rescued Ma Carfax, dragging her back out of the window to make the run for home.

But with Sheriff Collins down, McTeague decided to call it a day and bolted to the south.

So the Carfax family had won! Wilson was very badly wounded, and Ella was dead, though. So it wasn't as decisive a win as it had originally looked.

I'd probably not allow a rescue via the window in another game. Get in? Yes. But taking the prize out through the door would be a requirement. 

With hindsight setting up Sheriff Collins that close to the enemy arrival edge was a silly thing to do, as the activation sequence meant that he had to stand there and take several shots before he could act. A position that covered the door to the cabin would have been better. McTeague started well, taking out a Carfax very early (and the dangerous one with the rifle at that). But afterwards he couldn't hit a thing. He scored two hits with twelve shots during the game.

Still, this game showed that an objective is the way to go in order to get a decisive fight.

Shootout At Gongville

We played our first club game of What A Cowboy (WaC) last night. We tried to keep it simple and limit the number of players; we went with four people each running two gunfighters.

We'd been concerned about what terrain we had, but the loan of some suitable buildings from Darren, plus bits of terrain from Caesar's Bolt Action setup helped a lot and we had plenty of cover on the table.

Caesar and Graeme had the Outlaws:

Creed 'Scarecrow' Morrison - Gunslinger - 2 x Revolvers
Dorothy 'The Widow' Carson - Shootist - Sawn-Off Shotgun, Revolver
Lewis 'Scar' Simpson - Shootist - Revolver
The Orinoco Kid - Greenhorn - Revolver

June and I had the Law / Townsfolk:

Martha Bischoff - Gunslinger - 2 x Revolvers
Nan Goth - Shootist - Shotgun, Revolver
Agent Webster - Shootist - Revolver
Byron Goth - Greenhorn - Revolver

June rolled this spectacular set of action dice for Nan Goths first move; she was going places fast, but would be unable to do anything when she got there.

The buildings with flat roofs proved tempting. Byron Goth got himself a good position on one. As a greenhorn he wasn't very effective from up there, but he was able to keep up enough fire to occupy the outlaws' attention for a chunk of the game.

Nan joined him, although the effects of a shotgun meant that he took some peripheral damage from a miss when Nan fired.

Martha (out of shot on the main street) scored the first blood of the game with a well-aimed shot that wounded 'The Widow'.

From that point on everyone very much stayed in cover. We set up a straight fight for the scenario but, of course, that has the problem that whilst the aim is to take out the opposing side, keeping your own side safe and sound also becomes an objective. Both sides pretty much hunkered down in cover for a lot of the time. 

Creed took a rooftop position and took on Webster, the Pinkerton man.

Martha moved up to assist Webster.

And 'The Widow' came up to support Creed. She fired off both barrels of her sawn-off at Webster who dodged what would otherwise have been a nasty wound.

Despite being a complete novice, The Orinoco Kid made a flanking move and kept Nan and Byron Goth busy, even scoring a couple of hits.

After lots of firing but little in the way of damage we decided to call the current turn the last. This mean the everyone went a little wild. I sent Martha in a blood run across the street (using a Bonanza! token to get an extra turn) and gave Scar another scar or two with some enthusiastic close-range shooting as she went past.

(Yes, the grey buildings disappeared at this point - Darren, who had lent them to us, had to go home and took them, so we replaced them with more Middle-Eastern dwellings).

Final positions. 'The Widow' had got up close to Webster and added to some injury he had taken from Creed. Webster was badly hit and was down to his last action dice. A couple of others has lost a dice to wounds and a few to shock but overall the fight was inconclusive.

I think part of the issue with the lack of a decisive result was given above; neither side had much incentive to leave the safety of cover and in WaC cover is very useful; it makes you harder to spot and gives you a good chance of 'saving' against any shot directed at you, no matter how well aimed it is. It strikes me that scenarios where one, or both, sides are on the move are definitely the way to go.

That's not to say that the game wasn't fun. We got the rules pretty well-sorted, and that was really the aim of the game.

One rules query we had was to do with the sawn-off shotgun. The firing table gives it and a pistol a +1 at up to 4" range. But under weapons it's listed as having the Sawn-Off trait, which gives it a +1 at up to 4" range. We weren't sure if the firing chart modifier is simply stating that, or if the Sawn-Off trait is in addition to it. It seems irrelevant to have a modifier on the firing table that stacks with the trait; you may as well make the trait a +2 at 4" range if that's the intent. We decided that it just gets a +1 (it gets another +1 for being a shotgun at up to effective range anyway).

Overall we liked What A Cowboy.

What A Cowboy - First Game

Our club is trying out What A Cowboy (WaC) this week, so I thought I'd get ahead of the game by giving them a try at home. So yesterday evening I set up a simple game with Mrs Kobold.

We had two figures each, one a shootist (the average category) and one a gunslinger (who is good, but not the best). Each had a single revolver. We started in opposite corners and it was a simple shootout; last pair (or survivor of the pair) standing would win.

Here we are ready to go. I had Martha (gunslinger) and Webster (shootist) at the bottom left, whilst Catherine had Scar (gunslinger) and Sack-Face (shootist) top left.

Webster moving into position. WaC uses an action dice pool system. each figure starts with six dice which they roll when activated. Each roll allows a particular type of action; ones allow movement, for example. Sixes are wild and some types can change dice to other scores to give them some flexibility. As a shootist Webster just had to work with what he rolled. He got plenty of movement rolls but movement is also random, and he consistently rolled low for distance. This is why he is plodding slowly across open ground. Beyond him you can see Martha adopting a more cautious approach. As a gunslinger, she could change one of her dice to any roll she liked.

On Catherine's side the outlaws were moving more quickly. Sack-Face was already in cover and Scar was moving confidently towards some.

Martha got the opportunity to move, spot Sack-face, shoot and then move to cover. She took it. But Sack-Face managed to duck out of sight before she could fire by using up his Bonanza token. These allow you to interrupt someone's action, but you only get a limited supply of them; one for a shootist like Sack-Face. Martha missed her chance, but Sack-face wouldn't be pulling the same trick again.

Martha moved across the board to the cover of some rocks. She had a clear shot at Scar, but he still had tokens to play and I suspected that Catherine would use them, so I had Martha go for Sack-Face again, who was lurking in the scrub behind him. She hit, and forced him to go to ground. A hit is assumed to be a shot in the general area of the target, who may possibly dodge it. If they fail then they take a damage effect. If they pass the shot has no effect but forces the target to duck into cover and go pinned. Pinned characters are restricted on their next move.

Sack-Face quickly recovered from being pinned and got a great set of moves allowing him to get the jump on Webster. Fortunately Webster was only hit for shock; this forces a character to temporarily lose action dice (wounds cause a permanent loss of dice).

And that's what happened to Martha; Scar fired a fusilade of shots inflicting both shock and an arm wound. Martha's dice pool was looking very puny.

Webster finally got his act together and blazed away at Sack-Face, forcing him to duck for cover with his dice-pool depleted as well.

Sack-Face went for revenge, and rushed into fisticuffs, partially because Catherine wanted to try the rules. Webster actually had a significant advantage, mostly through having a full dice-pool, but the fight ended in a frustrating draw, and both parties pulled back exhausted.

Too exhausted for Sack-face. The fight left his dice-pool empty. When that happens a figure either runs for it or is too wounded to keep fighting. In Sack-face's case he skedaddled.

This left Scar fighting alone. He stayed hidden whilst he reloaded.

Martha and Webster started to close in on Scar. Martha had played a Bonanza token to remove some shock and rolled well, ditching all of it and getting back to an almost full dice-pool (she was down one for the wound).

Scar came out fighting. Webster got in a useful volley of shots that left Scar floundering, allowing Martha to come in from behind and finish the job. Scar fled for the hills, his dice-pool deleted, albeit that he was only lightly wounded.

Reading the rules after wards I found that we only made a couple of minor errors. The game flowed well, and I didn't have to much trouble looking up stuff as we needed it. True, we were playing with foot figures only, and simple weapons, but it was fun, with the dice-pool mechanism forcing some interesting decisions. Catherine struggled with the spotting rules a little, but they're pretty good. I think each character needs a small, unique, marker to place next to whoever they have eyes on, though.

Anyway, I feel a lot more prepared for this week's game.

Gunfighters - The Second Batch

The first ten gunfighters I did represented what's possible with one sprue each from the Great Escape Games' Gunfighters and Gunfighters II plastic multipose sets. I have now finished the first batch of figures from the second set of sprues. Each box has two identical sprues, so you get the same five legs and bodies, but obviously I tried to mix things up a little

Every group of gunfighters needs a sheriff. I went for an elderly gambler look with mine, and gave him a shotgun. I actually love the head with the top-hat and really wanted to use it. Making him a sheriff was an afterthought but he turned out a real character because of it.

Another figure with a shotgun. This lady looks like she doesn't take crap from anyone and, is indeed, based on my wife. The sprues contain a few objects to put on the bases; Gunfighters II gives you a couple of chickens, so I added one. The chicken is in honour of Bad Janet, an elderly member of our flock who died whilst I was putting this batch of figures together. She escaped from the pen several times, and once came back after being missing for several weeks. She was a true Wild West Hero.

I needed more figures with rifles, so did these two.

Finally there's this chap who, like the sheriff, was based around my desire to use one of the head options. They actually do a head with a sack over it as a mask. He could be a masked avenger or an outlaw. 

I actually sourced his legs from a Perry Napoleonic infantry figure. In the male gunfighters set one set of legs are in a kneeling pose and I just couldn't come up with a combination of things I wanted for it. So I found some alternate standing legs. In theory if I can model a Milliput body I can still use the kneeling legs - I have plenty of arms and heads left over to make a figure with.

Here's the fifteen figures I've done so far. Today I assembled the final five.