Fistful of Lead

The Marshal finally captured the notorious rustler and bandit, Johnny One Leg. Now its a simple matter of holding him til the cavalry arrives to take him away to federal prison.

Problem is, nothing's simple in Lesterville. Word is, Johnny's gang is out to spring him. Not because of any loyalty, but because Johnny knows where the gang's loot is buried.

Then there's the Dirty Dixon Gang. Oh, how they hate Johnny. They just want him dead.

And then there's El Guappo and his bunch from South o' the border. Seems Johnny got a bit "familiar" with El Guappo's sister. Now the Mexican bandit is out to make Johnny an honest man.

The Marshal's got his work cut out for him.

The mean streets of Lesterville

The Marshal could have locked Johnny in the jail, but that was too obvious, instead, he had him hidden somewhere in town. Manning the rooftops, the deputies had clean shots at most of the incoming groups. Johnny's gang took the first hit. Once the guns start going off, the people of Lesterville get a might spooked. They shoot at anything, that sticks there head in their businesses. (I borrowed this idea from one of the Yahoo Group. As soon as the first shot is fired, anyone entering an unexplored building, unless it's the Marshal's men, gets a shotgun blast at them. This keeps people from using the "hold up in a building all day" plan. It also helped the Marshal's men on the roofs. Anyone trying to get up at them was going to have run the gauntlet.)

"What're you lookin' at?!"

The Dixon's smelled blood and went after Johnny's gang. There was fierce shoot out in on of the alleys. Almost all of my games end up with what we call "Blood Alley". Don't know why it happens, but it does. In one section of town, the bodies just pile up.

After much gunfire, El Guappo's gang figured out Johnny was hold up in the Saloon. He managed to get one of his men in, but he went down to a deputy.

That's when the cavalry arrived. For a while they cut a swathe through town, but the concentrated gunfire from what was left if the combined gangs brought most of them down. In the end, only one cavalry trooper survived, but he got Johnny. And for once, Marshal Bill survived.

The infamous bandit El Guappo dies

Highlights of the game included one of Johnny's game fighting El Guappo's men in what amounted to a prolonged slap fight. Hand to Hand in Fistful of lead is notoriously brutal. Someone almost always dies. Not this time. One would knock the other down. Then next turn, the downed player would get up and do the same.

Also, one of the Dixon gang blasted away 4 times with a shotgun at one of Johnny's gang pinned on the ground . The poor guy missed every time. The downed player soon got the nickname "Lucky", only to bolt from town the next turn on a failed morale roll.

On a side note, I've had a jump in members to the Fistful of Lead Yahoo Group. We are a small but loyal group. Welcome to Lestervile!

Play tests

Thursday's game featured a playtest of Fistful of Lead: Wasteland Warriors. Full report over at Lead Addict.

This was prep game, not only for the rules, but for RECRUITS mid September. If you are anywhere near the KC area, make this convention. It's worth it. I have to work on preparation for my own game using the oft mentioned caverns. I'm leaning towards a Pirate or Viking game right now. As much as I'd like to do a retro SciFi game, I don't have the figs right now, or the money to get them.

Sunday I tried out the "in the Emperor's Name (or ITEN) 40k, non-sanctioed skirmish rules with the Boy. ITEN's been getting a a lot of good press and I had some old 40k figs laying around. It's about as simple as you can get, but still fun. Best of all they're free!

Individual pieces of the rules aren't new ideas, but they've been put together in new ways. We had a Chaos contingent vs some Space Marines. I need to try some other troops because its almost impossible for these boys to miss, and really hard for them not to save. So some turns there was a lot of dice rolling and no results. We played it twice, switching sides. The Boy won both. 

The legion in Mexico

I've been tinkering with taking my Fistful of Lead rules into new realms. One of those areas is pre-gunpowder eras. So, the hand-to-hand rules, which are simple and brutal, will have to be adjusted to give more flavor to a more HTH-centric world. To test some ideas, I used the regular rules, this time with the Legion on the offensive in Maximillian Mexico.

The Legion had the numbers for once. The Rebels got to set up first, but had to hold out against superior numbers until a relief column showed up to get the stolen gold the Rebels were guarding.

The locals don't look friendly

The Legion advances under heavy fire

I encouraged the Legionnaires to hold their fire and not take useless long range shots at the Rebels in cover. Instead, we should use our moves to cover ground quickly. But, the 5th and 6th grade Legionnaires didn't want to listen. They made good targets for Rebel snipers as they stopped in the open to reload.

First casualty of the day

I told them not to stop and reload

One of the Rebels teams had only machetes. They wisely stayed hidden throughout most of the game, waiting to ambush. Unfortunately, most were cut down after their long wait, before they could get in a hack.

Wounds mount

When the relief column did arrive, it was one officer and a wagon. The Legion had failed to find the gold, and with the night getting on, I called it for the Rebels. we did, however, play a extra turn. This turned the tide. The Rebels were virtually wiped out in a turn of great rolling by the Legion. But, as I said, I had already called it. Viva la Mexico!

The fight for the gold becomes fierce

Mortimer's Cross - sort of

After all the crazy-ness of Comic-Con, I guess I needed the comfort of a good game of historicals. I dug my most favorite-est Medieval rules, Flower of Chivalry, and ran the War of the Roses battle of Mortimer's Cross. 

Edward (York) is trying to keep Lancastrian forces from uniting and heads them off at the River Lugg at the town of Mortimer's Cross. More people showed up than planned (Hey, look, its Roger!) and I had to add some fictional troops from what figs I had left. Thus, in the pics you'll see some mythical pikemen.

Lancastrian forces cross the river

Yorkist forces started to the west of the river, Lancastrians to the east. Victory points for holding the town, and even more holding the bridge.

The battle was a close one (as usual). Highlights included a lowly band of archers holding out against three heavier units (including pikemen) until the end. In the end, it was a marginal Yorkist victory. Huzzah!

I've had these boys for 20+ years. They have seen many battles.

My brave little archers

Super Thursday

Being in the middle of a week long heat advisory, I thought it appropriate to do a desert themed game. In previous issues, Emperor Ape had stolen the sarcophagus of the Black Pharaoh. So after he was able to build his Simian Ray that turned most of the Earth's population into monkeys. The few remaining heroes, led by Doc Titan have surmised the link between the two. Emperor Ape used the strange black material the pharaoh's tomb was made of to fuel his ray. A few deposits of the substance still pepper the area the tomb was discovered. Now our heroes race to grab some more of this X-matter to undo the effects of the Simian Ray.

From the start, our Heroes got ponded. As soon as A.J.A.X. took to the air, he was blasted out of the sky by Killshot and his henchmen.

Killshot did this most of the game. Gunning down heroes.

Behemoth super-leaped to the tomb and grabbed some x-matter before the heroes could react, while Eggsterminator scrambled the brains of several of the heroes.

Eggsterminator stalks the ruins in search of prey

AJAX, Mr Wonderful, the Crimson Cowl and Herakles approach the ruins

 Mr. Wonderful and Herakles tried valiantly to stem the villainous tide, but to no avail.

Hero Sandwich managed to escape with one measelly scrap of x-matter. Hope that's enough?

Mechagor uses a statue as a super-club

Behemoth and Herakles square off. An equal match

Next issue: Assault on Emperor Ape's Satellite!

Behemoth is an homage to one of my favorites from Villains and Vigilantes. I hope to some day recreate all my heroes and villains from this 80s RPG into SS2.

Thursday by GASLIGHT

I decided to take a break from play testing and do an old favorite, GASLIGHT. I dusted off the contraptions, through down some terrain, and put the Germans on the defensive for once.

French forces approach.

Germans wait

The Empress's Own Elite Lady Hussars defend the town

Regulars and Zouaves move forward protected by armor

Professor Nightshade's "klanks" have trouble with the stream

Only two lonely French regulars make it across the river

GASLIgHT is always fun, and this was no exception. I should have given the Anglo-French attacking forces more troops, as this was a defensive game. But, oh well.

B&B playtest 2

The strong willed daughter of the High Priestess of the Solarian Sisterhood, a matriarchal warrior cult, has been kidnapped by the evil Krool. The High Priestess has dispatched a strike force to get her back.

That was the set up for last Thursday's game of Blasters and Bulkheads. The Krool forces were allowed to set up first, being the defenders. They had 5 warriors and a warbot.

Solarian Strike force set up

Krool encampment

The "Good Guys" , as the attackers got a little more firepower with 6 warriors and a vehicle carrying missiles and heavy blasters.

The Deathball stares down his target

The Krool decided to position their heavy gunner on a watch tower, where he proceeded to drop lead on the oncoming  strike team. But, it was actually the smaller Krool (space goblins) that pounded the good guys. 

One warrior in particular, planted himself behind an outhouse, and was able to not only take down 3 attackers, but survive fire from the "Deathball" for most of the game. It was only when the Kroll finally became outflanked that the attackers in the last round, were able to knab the girl.

A well fought game. Some issues came up, but I have corresponded to Scott about. This is why you playtest!