The Waldrop-Hartmann Feud, or, Fill Yer Hand Partner, Its Dyin' Time

I like Cowboys and the Old-West, at least the movie versions of it anyway.  I grew up with a Dad who loved John Wayne movies, me I preferred Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood, of course...

Once I was settle in a real job (after a LOOONG time in acedemia) I decided to splurge on a new gaming period, I bought a whole buch of prepainted HO-scale old-west buildings and I built a small-ish skirmish set, in the now hard-to-find scale of 20mm.  There weren't many manufacturers then, but I slowly expanded it using old railway kits and plastic figs.  I ended up building a small town and an eclectic group of gunfighters from a mix of metal and plastic figs.  My girlfriend liked them a bunch (even going so far as playing a couple of games with me), so she asked me to use some of them as a grooms-cake topper when we got married.

She insisted...   ...so I made it a shotgun wedding

In my first version the maid of honour had a baby, but that was deemed too much.  This is a mix of plastic (IMEX and HaT?), Raventhorpe and Qualitycast figs.  The Bride featured heavily in a game I ran that the GZG ECC a few years back.

While I have a playable collection, I have struggled to find a set of rules that I felt 'fit' the style of games I wanted to play.  However, that may have changed,  I just recently got a (digital) copy of Fistfull Of Lead Reloaded (https://www.facebook.com/FistfulofLead) and after a read through I think I like them a lot.  To test them out I set up a small game to play the basic rules.

Enough chat!   On to the game!  Its a simple grudge-match between cattle folk and gunmen, each side trying to take the other down.  The gunfight takes place in a corner of the small town of Stromburg

 A quiet part of town, for now

 The stagecoach dropping off

 The Waldrops, Boss Waldrop, his daughter Maisy, Cletus and Cleton, the twins

The Hartmanns, Jim, Jerry, Jake and Bob

The Waldrops start near the Livery

Waldrops fan out looking for the Hartmanns

The Hartmanns appear behind the Bank

Jerry sneaks round back

Boss Waldrop spots him and blasts him with buckshot, pinning him

Jim moves to support Jerry

Cleton blazes away, can't hit the side of a barn and uses up all his ammo, time to reload

Cletus advances on Jerry, keeeping him pinned down

Bob, always the loner,  does a sneak aroud while Jake goes more direct

Jake lines up his rifle on Maisy, and...

...its a tough shot

KABLAM, Maisy is down.

Boss Waldrop is MAD, he goes gunning for Jake, blasting him with both barrels and pinning him

Jim dashes out to battle Cletus

Not his best move, Jim blazes away to no effect.  Cletus guns him down like a rabid dog

Bob does a runner

Boss Waldrop lines up another shot

And blows Jake away with both barrels

Bob shoots, and flubs, time to actually put bullets in the gun Bob.

After Jim ,Cletus rounds on Jerry, keeping him pinned down

Cleton twils, raises his trusty Winchester and...

...BLAM, down goes Bob, with his unloaded gun in his hand

Jerry sees Bob go down, tests his nerve

And fails.  Jerry flees fron Stromberg.  The Waldrops won, but Maisy is down.  They paid a heavy price for the win.

My skirmish set.  Enough for moderate games.  I'm thinking of running a cowboy game at GZG ECC 20 next year so I'll be painting a few more figs and terrain peices for that game. I've also just bought and the new gunfighter figs from Newline Designs.  They look great and should be a nice addition to the set.

As for the rules, I played the basic game, it was very quick and easy to pick up.  I felt that it did a good job of capturing Peckinpah/Leone-style Westerns, so for me its a Winner!.  I'll definitely be playing them more.