TRWNN - Dead Man's Hand!

Tonight George and I played another iteration of the 3-way shootout scenario that we I blogged about late last year. This time we had different third player, Paul, who brought his gang of ranch hands who we designated as the 'mercenary' crew. George played the corrupt lawmen, which left me with the dastardly outlaws. Therefore, my gang was gunning for Paul's ranchers (as they are the richest crew), Paul was gunning for the lawmen (as they want to take control of the town) and the George was gunning for me (as the rampaging outlaws are bad for business). The objective this time was a meek lawyer who is hiding in the outhouse of the hotel in the middle of the table. He has the will of a recently deceased land owner and the deeds to his land which is rumoured to have gold in it. So, each faction is out to snaffle the documents for themselves so they can seize the land. In the end, the Barons (my outlaws) manage to get their hands on the documents and also managed to gun down most of the ranchers for a resounding victory!

The town is deathly quiet as the combatants approach!

The major change in this game, though, and the focus of this post, was the card play VP layer. I decided to tweak this a little to make it a bit easier to collect cards, but also more worth spending them. The aim was to make it possible to win by cards alone, but have the objective still important enough that it could swing the result and introduce a bit more of a poker feel to the whole game. I think that this version of the meta game worked exceptionally well, so I'll present it as rules here:

You will need a deck of ordinary playing cards. Cards are worth victory points as follows:

• 2 to 6 = 1VP
• 7 to 10 = 2VP
• J to K = 3VP
• Aces = 4VP
• Jokers = 0VP, but are wild cards for making hands (see below)

Cards are awarded by wounding characters (for our 3 player game we played it you only get VPs from your 'hated' faction - so outlaws only get them from mercenaries, for example. This prevents ganging up.):

• A flesh wound earns 1 card
• A severe wound earns 2 cards
• An outright kill earns 3 cards

Cards can also be played for advantages during the game as well. To play your cards you must make a proper poker hand from them using Texas Hold 'Em style rules:

• At the start of the first turn shuffle the deck, including the jokers, and deal 2 VP cards face down to each player. 
• Then deal 3 cards from the deck face up onto the table. 
• At the start of each subsequent turn deal another card face up. 
• A hand can be made up from the face up cards on the table and your VP cards. A hand must contain cards from your VP cards.
• When playing a hand, the VP cards are immediately discarded into a discard pile. The cards on the table remain untouched.
• When playing a hand for an advantage, any opponent player can play a better hand to negate that effect (by better I mean higher ranked or the same hand with higher values - a pair of eights beats a pair of fours).
• The hands and their advantages are as follows:
• One Pair - allows you to force a re-roll of a single die. This can be yours or an opponents.
• Two Pair - allows two re-rolls or the prevention of an out of ammo/jam result.
• Three of a Kind - allows you to add 3 dice to the shooting dice pool.
• Straight - allows you to adjust either the location or effect of any hit against any character by 1.
• Flush - allows you to remove 2 flesh wounds or 1 severe wound from a character.
• Full House - allows you to automatically hit a target and adjust either the location or effect by 1.
• Four of a Kind - allows you to gain an extra activation for one character and also pick one of the previous effects.
• Straight Flush or Dead Man's Hand - you may bring a single dead character back to life!
• A hand may be played for its listed advantage or any advantage from a lower ranked hand (so a flush could be played to gain the advantage of a straight).

An example from our game played as follows - my outlaw Scooter Baron ran out of cover and blazed away at one of Paul's ranch hands. I rolled my dice and came up with two sixes and three ones! So Scooter misses and is out of ammo! But in my VP cards I had a pair of fours and a nine with another nine face up on the table, so I played a hand of two pairs, discarding the fours and nine (3VP worth of cards) for two re-rolls. I re-rolled two of the ones and came up with two twos. So now I had two sixes and only one one, so Scooter hit his target and wasn't out of ammo. He caused a serious wound and I immediately got two cards back.

The thing I really like about this system is that you have to seriously consider the benefits of burning VPs for the advantage gained. Also, whether it's wise to cancel out a hand. Another play in the game saw me playing a single pair of eights for a re-roll. Paul could have beaten my pair with a pair of Jacks, but he would be burning 6 VPs to cancel a re-roll that cost me 4VPs. Both Paul and George thought this VP system brought quite a bit to the game and we all had a lot of fun. I certainly saw a lot more playing of cards than last time, as the players tended to have more cards in their VP pile to play with and the advantages are certainly worth the playing at critical points in the game. 

Feel free to try it out, anyway, and I'd love to hear from anyone if they have improvements or just what they think of the system.

Beauregard Baron moves into cover and blazes away at the ranch hands.

The Ranchers take position where they can see the outhouse!

General Store in the Works

Another wee update on the World Works Games terrain. Here we have a General Store over two stories. As you can see, the second story just sits on the first so you can easily lift it off. The quality of the textures is first class and I'm really looking forward to getting more done. I have a dozen more floor tiles to finish and I'l probably concentrate on more tiles until I have at least 3 foot square.

Single story on the four tiles.

Roof off. The stairs look quite nice inside.

Built up to 2 stories. There will be a balcony on the front when finished.

The stairs are now outside. The edging is still to be done, too.

The roof is off. I like the rug on this tile.

As you can see, the stories just lift off.

All the above...yes, all of it...comes apart to just this little pile! 

Connectors, posts, anchors...oh my!

I did some more cutting, folding and gluing last night. It seemed like I was doing it for an eternity with little progress, but I realised that I was actually doing the most fiddly bits - the anchors and posts. In the end, it turns out I made enough anchors to do my two tiles with plenty left over, all from one sheet. It was tedious, but easy. The posts were a bit more of a challenge. It was relatively straightforward to cut them (after reading the instructions - this is recommended!), but I found that folding them was a little difficult, as the dual layer of card means the outer layer doesn't quite wrap around the inner correctly. I'm sure there's a knack to it, but it was a little frustrating. It meant that I had to colour in a bit more than just the edge, but once assembled it all looked pretty good! I also tried a single wall and that was really quick to do, which is encouraging. It means that once I get enough posts and anchors done, I should be able to churn out the rest of the terrain pretty quickly!

The tiles all conncected. You can actually hold them up!

Rear shot showing the connectors in place.

Anchors attached and posts in place. The wall is complete. The stairs I did a couple of nights ago.

All assembled. Inside...

...and out!

Some terrain is on the cards!

Fuelled by the insane amount of fun we had with the Wild West game the other week, I decided to try and add some terrain into the mix. However, I don't have a lot of space to store large gaming pieces, so I thought I'd give the modular paper terrain offered by World Works Games a try. One of my boardgaming friends has a lot of paper terrain and his setups look stunning, so it seemed like a worthwhile thing to embark on. I've completed 6 of the tiles, which measure 6 inches square, but it did take me a bit longer than I'd have liked. I think that it'll get quicker with more practice, though. And I have to say, I am pleased with the result:

The 4 floor tiles. A building will sit on the wooden one.

These 2 extra tiles will provide the first floor and the roof.

Gunfight at the Triple-G Corral

Played an excellent game of The Rules With No Name at the G3 Club tonight. George has quite a wee horde of cowboys and I managed to finish another few for my own gang, so we thought we'd duke it out Wild West style! Also taking part was my brother, Carl, so we had a three way shoot out at the Triple-G Corral!

The quiet town of Woodside doesn't know what is about to hit it!

The terrain was placed as above and my gang, the Barons, entered bottom left in the pic. Carl's gang, the Hogfields, entered in the next corner counter-clockwise and George, the Jones', from the far side corner. The common objective was a stash of loot being held by a suitable villainous character in the hotel in the top left of the picture. The scenario had a wee twist though. I decided that a neat way of counting VPs would be using playing cards, especially as we used poker chips for activation. Each time your gang kills another character then you get to draw a card, with numbered cards worth 1, face cards worth 2 and aces worth 3. But cards are also playable, with numbers allowing a re-roll, faces allowing you to roll 2 dice and pick the result and aces allowing you to declare a single dice to be whatever you want. So you can gain advantage but at a cost in VPs. The other wee twist is that each gang hates one of the others, in a cyclic way. So the Barons hate the Hogfields who hate the Jones' who hate the Barons. You get to draw an extra card if you plug one of your hated foes!

So on to the game. Each gang immediately made a beeline for the hotel, but Carl moved one bandito towards my corner. I duly activated one of my gunmen and took a potshot at long range. Scooter had obviously been down the range, as his bullet took the hated Hogfield lackey straight between the eyes. I then sent Beauregard Baron, my shootist, to my right to make sure of him and get into the Hogfield's flank.

"Yup! He's dead, Pa!"

"Boss! Them Joneses are over here!"

"Well, don't just stand there, you stoopid dawg! Shoot 'em!"

Meanwhile, the rest of the Hogfields had made it into range of the Jones' and began firing wildly. George had a bit of a slow start and got a little bogged down in a fire fight. My legend Uncle Jess and Lucas were closing in on the hotel. From their position they got a good view of the action unfolding between the Hogfields and Jones' but were a bit too far away to intervene. However, their proximity to the hotel would pay dividends later!

"Look, Uncle Jess! We caught 'em blindsided!"

Making a break from the gunfight, George's Legend, Frank Jones, made a run for the hotel and made it first, bursting in on the target. A quick draw duel saw the rich land owner wounded. As the gunshots rang out in the hotel, Uncle Jess told Lucas to cover the back of the hotel.

"Knock, knock!"

"Holy cow! There's more of 'em coming!" BLAM! BLAM!

Back over at the Hogfields, a couple of barrels of grapeshot from Bill Elder, a Jones gunman, saw Bull Duvall, a Hogfield gunman, wounded. He lost his nerve and cowered behind the stables for the rest of the fight.

"Momma!"

"Who wants some more?"

Hearing the gunshots from the hotel, Jesse Jones ran to help his brother out, but he didn't count on Lucas Baron who had been skulking around the corner of the hotel. As Jesse neared the door Lucas leaped out and shot him clean through the head!

"Oh no you don't!" BLAM!

Things were now finely in the balance. Just as his brother was gunned down, Frank finished off his mark and seized the loot. If he could make it off the table, George could still win, despite the Jones gang being sorely roughed up. The Hogfields were still bogged down trying to pick off the last Jones', but trouble was brewing for him as Beauregard and Scooter Baron were moving up behind them.

"Ol' Scooter's got you now!" BLAM!

BLAM! "I'll take that loot!"

The last picture above shows Frank Jones finishing his mark off, but under the balcony lurks Uncle Jess Baron. Frank was the first to activate and ran out of the hotel, past Lucas and straight towards the board edge. But just not quite far enough. Crucially, Uncle Jess activated and claimed an action chip which let him activate again! He darted from his cover and let fly with his sawn-off shotgun!

BOOM! BOOM!

In a nail-biting finale, the buckshot caught Frank Jones dead in his back and killed him outright. Uncle Jess ran over, grabbed the loot and was off like a hare! Lance Hogfield, Carl's Legend, managed to wound Bo and Scooter, but it was too late. The loot had fallen into the clutches of the Baron gang and was gone!

This was a most fun and entertaining game. The Rules With No Name give a really fun game with lots of flavour. Sure, there are is the oddity of only moving in a straight line, but I think it makes you consider your moves a lot more and I actually quite like it. Certainly, this game was very cinematic and had lots of high drama and tension and we all came away from it grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat! I think we definitely have the beginnings of a campaign here and next we'll start to add in more gang members and give the ones that survived this scuffle some skills. All in all, I'd highly recommend this rules set for anyone thinking about gaming the Wild West!