Another year begins for the GAmes Club

The GA Games club is about to get up and running, and what better way to ring in the new school year than an old-school shootout? The small size of the playing surface made it perfect for my new classroom, and the simple 'Fistful of Lead' rules are a perfect intro for new gamers.

Yee-haw. Yee-haw indeed.

From De nerdibus

From De nerdibus

Even cowgirls get the urge to shoot-em-up!

From De nerdibus

Smile when you say that, pardner.

From De nerdibus

Badgers? We got no badgers! We doan need no stinkin' badgers!

From De nerdibus

Fistful of Lead, a playtest

Well, I ran my first game of Fistful of lead. The scenario was pretty simple: two gangs shooting it out. Clint and the Airedale Gang going up against Duke and the Scruffy Bunch. It was not intended as an equal fight. Clint's boys numbered five against the Scruffy four, and they also had an advantage in long arms: a shotgun and a rifle against a shotgun. To cap it off, on the first turn, they drew really well with their movement cards, enabling them to take up defensive positions. Clint himself stayed in a building as insurance. Turned out to the be most decisive move of the battle.

one of Clint's gangs went up to the rooftops, but he was rapidly gunned down when he exposed himself to the fire of pretty much all of the Scruffy Bunch. First shot of the game resulted in a kill. Dang, I said to myself. These rules are lethal.

I did not use my house rule for overwatch. I wanted to test the system as written. That pretty much meant that once the Airedales had moved, the Scruffy bunch could move into the street and start blasting away. Some lucky shots had the Airedales diving for cover. Could they pull off an upset?

Not bloody likely. Clint and his buddy with the rifle both had full cover for most of the game as a result of their initial moves. That enabled them to blaze away without fear of reprisal. Insurance pays, apparently, and it would have been even more deadly with overwatch rules in place, as the the Airedales who ran into the street would have been sitting ducks. Anyhow, the Scruffy Bunch's advantage did not last long, as the Airedales who hit the dirt all popped up on the same turn and, with some lucky shots, took out two Scruffy boys. Another was wounded, and from that point on, the weight of numbers took their toll. Duke himself took four wounds before being dropped, and a valiant last shot wined one of his enemies. His story ended, though, face down in a dusty Western town.

From De nerdibus

From De nerdibus

This set of rules was as fun as I thought they would be. I played out this scenario in under 40 minutes from start to finish. The playing chard movement mechanism presented some interesting choices. There are enough special cards that the order in which one activates units makes a difference. Do you move units for maximum combat advantage, or do you use that Queen to remove a wounded condition on one of your fallen gunslingers? The simplicity of the rules might deter some. I have seen Gutshot, and I think it is an excellent simulation, but if what you're looking for is some fast furious action, FoL is a blast. Simple and elegant mean that rules lawyers might actually have to shut up and enjoy themselves.

Yippee Ki Yi Yay!

Well, I've been dropping hints for some months now that I'm working on an Old Western project. I've been wanting to do a 19th century skirmish wargame for a long time now. I considered the British colonial wars, especially the Zulu War, having fond memories of playing the Sword and the Flame a few decades ago. I thought maybe the American Civil War, the Boxer Rebellion, and even the Napoleonic era (there's a well-reviewed set of rules called Sharp Practice). But, shoot, I'm an American, and though I'm East Coast elite through and through, the Old West still looms large in my cultural imagination. I grew up watching The Magnificent Seven, High Noon, and Rio Bravo on UHF. So Old West it was going to be.

I looked at about a half dozen rules sets. "Gutshot" and "Cowboy Wars" both had a lot to recommend it. But I was looking for simple, fast, and bloody. Fortunately, I picked up a copy of "Fistful of Lead" at Historicon. The rules cover about four pages, they use a deck of playing cards, and they look like fun. Boom. All three of my criteria met. I'm thinking about some house rules (like holding an action and giving gunfighters different ratings for Shootin', Fightin' and Guts), but I don't want to lose too much of the elegant simplicity.

I found a sheet of insulating foam about 8'x2' in the trash of a construction site. Using a foam cutter I sculpted some hills, painted everything light brown, then scattered sand into the wet paint. Total cost so far, about $1 for craft store acrylic paint. The sand I got from my daughter's shoes. She brings home a fistful of sand after school every day. I've been saving it.

I picked up three resin buildings from the Old Glory booth at Historicon. With my 40% discount, all three wound up being $42. I then sculpted two more houses out of balsa wood, foam core, and Starbucks coffee stirrers. I also made some adobe huts out of foamcore ($1 a sheet at the Dollar Store) and bamboo skewers. Then, some cacti from Pegasus models and I'm ready to go. Total cost, under $50.

The figures are all Old Glory. The Mexicans are Zapataistas, but they can double for banditos when they're in a less revolutionary mood. The gunfighters are also from the Old Glory "American Experience" line. It took a little practice to get back into painting 28mm figures after doing 10mm for so long. I'm working on my techniques for painting eyes, shading, and sculpting bases. I've even begun adding tufts of tall grass to some bases.

As always, click to enlarge the photos.

First, two long shots of the table.



Here is El Gato Gordo and his band of ruffians in the adobe village. One shot used the flash, the other didn't.




Here's a wide shot of the town.



Here's Clint and the Airedale Gang. If you've ever met an Airedale Terrier, you just know they're tough.


The building in the right foreground and the grey one with blue trim are my scratch-built houses.

My kids think the outhouse is funny.

Finally, we have Duke and the Scruffy Bunch. If one gang was going to be named after a former dog, then the other would have to be named after a former cat.

Old West houses

The Old West skirmish games at Historicon were inspiring, so I got off my duff and started painting up my Old Glory gunfighters and banditos. While I was at Historicon, I picked up some great resin southwestern buildings. However, to have a proper town, I decided to scratch-build some houses out of balsa. Here are the results of my first efforts. The house on the left is actually painted a weathered grey, but the digital photo rendered it light blue. I'm pretty happy with the results, though I will never use craft acrylics for anything other than a kid's poster. It took five coats to paint these guys, and some serious bracing efforts to prevent to wood from warping (you can see the roof on the left house has taken on a barn-like shape). The total cost of materials was less than $5 per house, and total time was about two and a half hours each from planning to the final touches of paint.

Miniature Wargames: Free!

So, if you're a wargamer like me, you're particularly fond of two things: free stuff (I'm off to Starbucks today to pick up some coffee stirrers for use as 28mm planking), and sources of inspiration. The folks at Miniature Wargames magazine, in an effort to get you to look at their pages, have asked bloggers like me to offer a link to a free sample issue. It's worth supporting publications like these, either through patronizing their advertisers or through a direct subscription, because they help those of us in the hobby connect with each other and with the manufacturers and merchandisers we depend on.


So give them a click. The free issue is on the left.