The Final Five

Here are the final batch of five gunfighters from the Great Escape Games Gunfighters and Gunfighters II multi-pose plastic figure boxes. I had two left from the male box and three from the female.

These two you saw in the recent gunfight report I posted here, representing Joe and Ella Carfax. 

On the left is a proper villain with a shotgun, whilst there's a nice lady to the right (or a well-dressed proper villain)

This is my favourite of the batch. When I'm putting these figures together I generally don't have a clear plan in mind, I just make quick decisions and try not to overthink what I'm doing. This figure's pose came out as one just using confidence and badassery. Halfway through painting her I promoted her to a sheriff or deputy because she deserved it.

So here's the final group shots. First up is Box II - the ladies:

And here's the gentlemen from the first box:

From each box I did six figures with one or more revolvers, two with shotguns and two with rifles. All bits are from the boxes themselves aside from one figure where I skipped the second pair of kneeling legs and used some spare legs from a Napoleonic infantryman instead.
 
(If I can make a nice body from Milliput then those kneeling legs will give me a 21st figure; I have heaps of arms and heads left over.)

Chaff

These figures featured in my latest Turnip 28 battle report, but I actually painted them last year. However I thought I'd do a post showing them off.

They are Chaff - a four figure skirmish unit.

The base figures are plastic Napoleonic British infantry. I'm not sure if they are Victrix or Perry; I just bought some random partial sprues from a friend at wargaming.

The heads are from figures in the Martians! expansion for the Zombies! boardgame. The hats are scratch-built from flat sequins and Hama beads plus a bit of Milliput.

Another unit is having paint slapped on it as we speak. I ran out of gunfighters (and, yes, there will be a post featuring the final five).

Update: I'm not sure what I want to do with the bases yet, which is why they are currently unfinished.

Mud, Turnips And Fog

Last night June and I played another game of Turnip 28. Again we mostly used her figures, but I did import my one completed unit of chaff (skirmishers).

We played a scenario where the two forces blunder into each other in lifting fog, so start deployed adjacent along the diagonal of the table. There are five objective markers scattered through the zone, and victory goes to the side that controls the majority of them at the end of four turns.

June used her pirate-themed mob, consisting of a cannon, some fodder and brutes armed with black-powder weapons, and a unit of melee brutes.

I used her goblins, with a unit of melee-weapon fodder and brutes. I also used a lump (a new unit type, equivalent to the HOTT behemoth) and my own unit of chaff armed with black-powder weapons.

Here's the murky initial setup.

Turnip 28 is a fairly back and forth game so it's quite hard to remember exactly what happened. My first move was to charge June's melee brutes with the lump. The lump wouldn't get into focus. Sorry.

Lumps are horribly destructive but become more vulnerable the more they fight.

Here's my chaff. I painted them last year, but this was their first outing. I'll do some better pictures of them in another post. They were on a flank, faced by June's cannon (which was immobile, but holding an objective).

The chaff exchanging fire with June's fodder. The fodder couldn't hit a thing, whilst the chaff competently picked off a couple of pirates.

With June's fodder weakened I sent in my sword-armed fodder to cut them up.

June's fodder retreated into the dangerous terrain behind them. In Turnip 28 the terrain can eat figures. And did.

Other stuff happened elsewhere. This was the position at the end of the first turn. In the foregound my melee brutes were engaged with June's black-powder brutes.

The sneaky pirates moved around my unit to grab the objective there and threaten my snob (leader figure)

The lump. Still out of focus but still fighting. The two figures next to it are all that was left of June's melee brutes.

My chaff engaging the cannon. I think we killed one of the crew. It returned fire and took out two of the chaff with a lucky shot. Chaff are quite hard to hit with shooting, but vulnerable if you do hit them.

Disaster! June's brutes bashed one of my snobs on the head with a musket. He did wound one with his pistol though. But it left me down a leader, which made my units harder to activate (and more vulnerable to command blunders).

My fodder formed up to defend one of the objectives. It's great fun beating each other up but objectives are what matters. Although you can also win by killing all of the enemy leaders too.

The lump held another objective in the centre.

June declared a charge on the lump which, thanks to a blunder earlier, now had a lot of accumulated panic. It ran off, and June took the objective.

June also declared a charge on my fodder, who also had lots of accumulated panic. Forgetting that their full strength status meant they were unlikely to run (they count as Fearless if they have 8 or more figures), we had them retreat. But they came back and still held the objective, despite having five panic tokens. 

 A bold, but calculated, move. If both sides control an objective it becomes contested and neither side gets it. I denied June the objective near her cannon by moving the chaff right up to it. I took the risk that their ability to avoid shooting attacks would protect them from the cannon's grape-shot.

It did.

June grabbed an objective.

But my fodder held one in the centre ..

... and the remains of my brutes grabbed on on the right.

In the end I controlled three of the five objectives and June controlled one. So the goblins and their allies won this one.

The game was full of wild swings of fortune and silliness, and was everything we hoped it would be. There's some interesting positional tactics to be taken into account; how you attack or position units can influence how the enemy retreats, and cause them all kinds of pain if you do it right.

We only forgot key rules a couple of times. We'll get better with more play.

"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 calls 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 right. McTeague would appear from the left. 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 the 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.