INDIANS AND DINOSAURS VS. THE STEAM-POWERED 6 AND 7/8'S CAVALRY
On one side were the Indians, valiantly trying to defend their home against the white men who wanted their land and dinosaurs.
Saturday morning I ran a GASLIGHT Game. INDIANS AND DINOSAURS VS. THE STEAM-POWERED 6 AND 7/8'S CAVALRY On one side were the Indians, valiantly trying to defend their home against the white men who wanted their land and dinosaurs. On the other where the brave men of the 6 and 7/8's Cavalry, lead by the gallant (if a little headstrong) Colonel Armaggedon P. Fluster (no, the P. doesn't stand for Prettyboy). The Indians advanced in a broad front with a Horned One (with guiding Indians) spaced evenly across the battlefield. Lt. Johnson advanced quickly to seize the waterhole (the whole point of this battle) as regular cavalry and Mechanical Cavalry advanced behind him. But where was the pride of the Cavalry, the USLS Vicksburg? Broken down at the back as usual. It spent half the game trying to restart, failing, succeeding, then failing a sustain, and so forth. It's absence through much of the battle cost the Cavalry dearly in the end. Lt. Johnson bravely faced a third of the Indian forces. Using his machine pistol, with help from the Mechanical Cavalry he shotup one band of Braves. Could he survive the Horned One and the other band? Meanwhile, on the Cavalry right. Colonel Fluster and the Steam-Cycles took the hill, while a unit of cavalry deployed dismounted beside it. Lt. Johnson kept dropping savages with his gatling pistol, unconcerned about the other approaching band and Horned One. On the very left a squad of Cavalry and a band of Indians clashed in mounted combat. Oh the terrible slaughter on both sides! The Mechnical Cavalry managed to score one wound on the Red Horned One. On the right Colonel Fluster and Chief Rides Like the Wind engaged in one on one combat, while the charge by an Indian band fell short of the squad of dismounted troopers. Lt. Johnson drove off one band of Indians and, thanks to losing a guiding Indian from Johnson's deadly aim, the white Horned One wandered off. On the very left the clash of the Indians and Cavalry left the Indians holding the field while the Cavalry fled in disgrace. The red Horned One and it's guiding Indians smashed the Mechanical Cavalry, with the last trooper being attacked by Medicine Man Buffalo Skull (in the center). The victorious Indians on the very left charged the troopers in the middle. Johnson was cut off and facing two bands. Did he flinch? Never! Coolly he ignored the arrows falling all around him and gunned down two of the band nearest him (I've never seen so many misses and saves in a GASLIGHT game for one character). The white Horned One meandered around out of control. Finally, the Landship Vicksburg advanced. On the right the band of Indians was drivden off by accurate fire from the Troopers. Chief Rides Like the Wind, after an epic battle, felled Colonel Fluster, and was then gunned down by the Sergeant leading the Troopers. The yellow Horned One's charge fell just short on the now immobile Steam-Cycles, who luckily dropped two of the guiding Indians (on a 1-6 shots from extras hit the dino, 7-10 they hit the Indians guiding it). It promptly failed it's control roll, I mean was driven off by the massive fire of the gatlings, and wandered away from the hill, out of control. The Indians that had charged the Troopers in the center fled, but where replaced by the red Horned One and it's Indians. Despite a valiant attack by an un-named Trooper that wounded the red Horned One before he died, it crashed through to attack the Landship. Gatling rounds bounced off it's thick hide, as it smashed into it (doing 3 damage to it's Start, just what it needed). In desperation, Medicine Man Buffalo Skull charged Lt. Johnson, and in one mighty blow cut him down. Johnson would earn a posthumous Medal of Honor and his single-handed successful fight against over-whelming odds made a story told over and over again around Indian campfires. The red Horned One destroyed the gatling on the Landship, which promptly fled. While advancing towards the Steam Cycles it was dropped by a lucky shot from their gatlings (third and last wound). The remnants of the Indian bands gathered around Medicin Man Buffalo Skull at the waterhole. Leaderless and battered the surviving Cavalry forces withdrew. It was a good game. The high point was Lt. Johnson's stand. He lived a charmed life dodging or saving from everything two bands of Indians could throw at him, while dropping Indians with his gatling pistol. The low point was the Landship commanders bad die rolling. At two cards of a turn it still couldn't move forward until the very last, when it did little but get pounded on by a Dino. Oh well, that's GASLIGHT for you.
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Saturday morning I played in a Game of Desperado. Three groups of cowboys, and one group of lawmen vs. three groups of bandits out to rob the bank. Layout of the town. The Bank is the second building from the bottom on the left. One group of bandits started by the barn on the top left of the picture, the other two entered the board directly behind the bank. The bandits had to exit the table on the edge with the barn. My boys, From left to right 2-Gun Bob, Billy Bob, and Just Plain Bob. Things went bad for the bandits from the beginning. The cowboys by the barn opened up on them without warning (and without reason) tying up that group of bandits for the remainder of the game. The cowboys in the saloon and the lawmen by the jail had to react based on actual events, not just shoot whoever they felt like. The other two groups of bandits made it to the back of the closed bank and tried repeatedly to kick in the door. The cowboys in the saloon opposite the bank moved to the windows or out on the porch to see what was going on down the street where the gunfight had broken out between the bandits and the cowboys. The lawmen left the jail and moved towards the shootout by the barn. After several tries, the bandits finally kicked in the back door of the bank and blew the safe with their one and only stick on dynamite. Before the lawmen could react, the sheriff (lower left) was shot in the leg and was left crawling for the rest of the game. A bandit dashing across an alley to cover didn't make it and is shot down. One thing I like about Desperado is that you never know exactly how far you'll move. You roll 1d6 for crawling, 2d6 fpor walking, and 3d6 for running. There were times you could walk fast than you could run and crawl fast than you could walk. Dashing from cover to cover was dangerous, a bad roll would leave you out in the open. The bandits kill a deputy with a head shot. A cowboy and a bandit blaze away at each other at short range, mainly misses and and a couple minor wounds, until the the bandit took a leg wound and went down. The wound dropped him but didn't take him out and the fight continued. This fight lasted for several cards. Billy Bob exits the back of the saloon and is shot by a bandit. Just a graze to the head, and Billy Bob guns the bandit down after a couple of cards of shooting. The bandits start grabbing the bags of money from the safe, run and go over the stone wall, and try to use that for cover to make it to the edge of the board by the barn. One by one the bandits run down the wall, and one by one the get gunned down. Even with covering fire, no one made it. The guy who figured out you could crawl safely down the wall, still had to stand up and run at the end. In the end the cowboys and the lawmen won. Not a single bandit made it away, with or without money.
The Bobs, those were my boys, got three kills and only took one wound, and that was only a 5 point graze, Another cowboy player got four kills and took only 15 points of damage. It was a real massacre of the bandits. I really like the game Desparado, BUT it is easy to hit and easy to kill. Several times players were firing three or more shots. The first would be at 45%, the second at 35% and the last at 25% chance to hit. With those odds you are bound to get a hit. When you did, the hit location chart has plenty of auto kills and auto disables on it. I've noticed that Desperado tends to be a bloodbath every time you play it. It would be a hard system to campaign with, because you characters would rarely last two games. To fix this I propose letting all of the shots take the minuses for the number of shots fired. As it is now the first shot is at full %, the 2nd is at -10%, the 3rd is at -20%, and so forth. Instead, if you fire three shots you would be -20% to all of them (you aren't carefully aiming, you're just blazing away). I feel that this modification would tone down the bloodiness of the game. |
Mysterious BillI've been gaming since the 1970's and even wrote some RPG adventures in the 80's for the Judges Guild. It seems that I can only get in miniatures is gaming at cons, but I do regularly play boardgames and RPGs. Archives
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