Rio Diablo - a 28mm Wild West Campaign. Prologue: "Owlhoots"

I wanted to test out my Tray Battlefield, so I decided to play a 'prologue scene' for my Rio Diablo Wild West setting.

The idea of the setting is to play a number of games in the tray that are basically scenes from a story. They are used to direct the flow of the campaign and develope the story.

To kick the game off I pitted three Owlhoots against a lone cow boy tending some cows.

I rolled for initiative, and as the Cowboy rolled really high vs the Owlhoots, I decided he wasn't caught alseep in his tent and would appear from a randomly chosen side of the tray, and this is where the action would kick off.

The Cowboy took a couple of shots at the closest Owlhoot, wounding him before getting a bit of concealment behind his tent.

This was the last action the Cowboy managed to get in, as the Owlhoots advanced and the shotguns two of them were totting soon silenced their victim.

After killing the Cowboy, the Owlhoots made off with his cows.

This ended the prologue scene, setting up the initial event for the campaign.

The main characters of the campaign are a couple of Rangers and the game starts with them attempting to track down the Owlhoots.

To do this they will need to find clues at each crime scene or by visiting different locations in Rio Diablo to question folks about 'going ons and happenings'.

Once they get enough clues they can confront the Owlhoots at their hideout. The longer they take to find the hideout, the more crimes the Owlhoots will get up to.

Each scene will provide a clue or two for them to find. In this case, they found two clues when to came to where the Cowboy was killed:

Game notes:

 I used a modified version/mix of Iron Ivan Games "Disposable Heroes: Point Blank" and "Where Heroes Dare".

The rules worked really well, but as with all the Iron Ivan games I have played over a much bigger playing area, you need a lot of cover/obstacles.This didn't worry me for the first game, as I kind of needed the Cowboy to be killed, but played out the game, as any casualties the Owlhoots took would give the Rangers more clues to work with.

Over all the game took roughtly 30 mins to play.  It was so quick I tried my hand at a pulp game in the tray to see how that would work:

I am happy with the games I can play in the tray, but I certainly need to modify/refine the rules I am using to cope with only a small number of figures in a small area. The two things I need to focus on is scenery/cover and victory conditions for each game.

Using a tray for a battlefield

Months ago I had a lingering man flu that really stuffed my lungs up. When I was resting up I really wanted to play a game, and I was eyeing off the tray I was eating a meal from.

This gave me an idea for making scenery to play a game.

I created some removable terrain bases to put in the tray and put some figures and scenery on to see what it looked like.

This is what I came up with for a 15mm scale game:

There is just enough room to play a squad level game on the tray.

Same tray with a 15mm tank on it to give it some perspective:

The green terrain boards I made warped a bit, so this made me think of doing something a bit more permanent.

This meant buying a new tray that would be ok to 'destroy' to make my playing area.

I went to Bunnings and purchased an MDF tray.

I taped the inside edges, undercoated it lightly in black, and then flocked it.

The tray was much smaller, and doesn't really work for 15mm squad level games, as you can see in the following photo where I placed five figures on the tray with a tank:

This is a photo with a Russian village and two full opposing squads placed on the tray:

It looks good, but there just isn't any room to manoeuvre.

So I started thinking that maybe using one to five 28mm figures per side might work better in my smaller tray. I placed some basic scenery and a couple of figure (including some that are a work in progress) to see if I could be done:

I was very happy with the results. You could easily play a small skirmish in the tray.

I honestly don't think any modern game would work well due to the range of firearms, but anything from Black powder backwards in history would work.

I got to thinking that maybe Wild West, Pulp and 1920's gangster games would work, and they tend to be in close action wise.

 And what would work is if you added the fronts of buildings only and not the whole building. This would allow for scenery to be placed in the tray, but not take up so much room.

This was my initial concept photo to see if my idea had any legs so to speak:

Next I knocked together the shell of a Wild West building to see if it would really work:

I was happy with the results, as I could have a town in the tray for a shoot out, and there was room to hide around the corners to give cover to the figures:

Making the most of my enthusiasm on this project, I cobbled together a small collection of buildings of various types and sizes and came up with this:

Now I need to add the planking to the buildings, as well as windows and doors, and it will be good to go. I might even buy an new MDF tray so I can have sand as a base instead of grass... it would be better for a Wild West town.

I also intend to make an "adobe town" using the same method and some wilderness 'scenes' with trees, rocks so that I can vary where the game is played.

If I were to play a campaign, each battle would be a scene in a story rather than a whole chapter.

The great thing about the 'tray battlefield' as I am calling it, is that it is easy to move around with it, doesn't take up much room and can sit across your lap when you are in a chair.

  Put your scenery and figures in a box and you have a game you can take with you on holidays for example.

You can also keep up to date with what I am doing with my Tray Battlefield on twitter. Either follow "@shelldeake_au" or search for #TrayBattlefield.

Gutshot - a quick review

In my previous post about 'Gutshot' wild west gaming, Zabadak requested a bit of a review on the rules, so here goes.

Image used from the EM4 web site

'Gutshot' might look complicated and appear to have so much detail that one could mistakenly think it is a role playing game, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

 Quite the opposite - it is dead easy to play.

The rules books comes with a table of contents and an index, something a lot of other rules don't have.

 It is also laid out like a technical manual / military pamphlet, which to those familiar with this type of book, makes it easy to find things.  Looks like my 20+ years in the army are finally good for something ;-)

The first section of the book is the introduction, and section two is the quick start guide.  Experienced war gamers can pick up the basics in the ten pages of section two and pretty much get a game started, if only just the basics.

Section three covers some very basic information for the 'Game Marshal' or 'GM'. This is the person who sets the story and referees the game.  It is important to know that a GM is not essential to play the game, but isn't a bad idea when teaching new players to the game how to play.

The remaining ten sections of the rules goes in to greater depth on the actual rules, and includes a lot of detail, including stats for horses and wagons, pre-generated Non-player characters (NPCs are a familiar concept to anyone who has ever played a role playing game), as well as rules for campaign play.

Each player controls one or more 'character' and has a character sheet to use for each one. It is at this point that I imagine your average war gamer starts to worry and think they have a role playing game on their hands, and not a war game.

 All the character sheet does is act as an easy reference for the player.  It has the name of the character on it, as well as what weapons, including ammo carried, any skills  known (skills provide modifiers for the game, and should not be though at something from an RPG), and an area for recording damage and other important numbers.

 The remainder of the character sheet is just useful information to remove the need to look up information in the rule book; things like movement rates, combat modifiers and weapon data.

 Once you know now to play the game, most players would never need to stick their nose in to the rule book at all.

 Game play is so simple you could be excused for wondering if you are leaving something out.

 Initiative is a random draw kind of thing. Each character has a number of 'chits' that are drawn from a hat, and this chit allows them to perform an action or more. Once all the chits are drawn a new turn starts.

Any action, including combat, that needs dice to resolve is done by rolling two dice and comparing it to a target number on the activated character's sheet.  Rolling low is not good, whilst rolling high is good.

That is all there is to playing the game. Draw chits, make a simple dice roll to determine the results of any actions, apply the results and draw a new chit. Done. Very fast and simple to play, and second nature once you have played a few games and know what you are doing.

Campaign play is part of the rules, and for anyone that has followed my blog(s) will know, I love campaign play.

 The rules for campaign play are very simple too - with each game you play you earn victory points. Once you have saved up enough victory points you can either buy new skills, or improve your character's all important stat that determines the success or failure of an action.
  
About my only complaint about the rules is a lack of character types such as Native Americans, Banditos and Mountain Men for example, but that is easy to fix by making your own.

  A serious complaint I have is the Hawgleg forum seems to be broken - I have signed up but can not access the site.  The email address provided doesn't seem to work either. But the Hawgleg Guys mosey in to TMP all the time should you need to ask some questions.

A lot of review I have seen harp on about the game being a RPG type of thing, including Meeples and Miniatures, but having been a war gamer and a role player for a long time now, I can honestly say the Gutshot is not an RPG, but you could make it so if you wanted to.


Interested in the rules? Why not visit the Hawgleg site and download the rule sample they offer to wet your appetite: gutshot downloads   You can find the aforementioned rule sample, as well as character sheets to download.

How much are they? The rule book, which is around 180 pages long  is $25US plus postage.

 You can buy it from Hawgleg direct, or a variety of other stores in the US (I purchased mine from Rattlehead games as they had the best postage on offer when I bought them back in 2008 [not 2009 as mentioned in my previous post]), or from EM4 Games for those in the UK for around twenty quid.


All in all Gutshot is a fun game. I like it even more than 'The Rules with no name' if simply because 'TRWNN' always left us questioning a few things.

On an end note, Hawgleg mention a lot on their web site/blog "Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood".  I think this is an expansion for Wild West with Zombies, but I have no idea if or when it will be released. I hope it will be soon.

Hopefully this review was useful to someone, and if you are in to Wild West war gaming, I urge you to take a look at the game as they are a lot of fun and very easy to learn and play.

Gutshot!

It has been a while since my last post. I have been very busy, including a period of over five weeks without a day off, but I have been 'chipping away' at the hobby.

A few months ago I dusted off the Wild West rules "The Rules With No Name" and played a few games with my friend.

 We decided a Wild West campaign would be a great way to go for the year as it would be one of the easiest to maintain momentum.

 After a few games, I took a set of Wild West rules off the shelf that I have had since 2009, but never actually played.

 This set of rules are "Gutshot" by Hawgleg publishing.

 I suggested trying them to see what they were like. 

 I am very glad we did. They are VERY easy to play, and dare I say it, even BETTER than "The Rules With No Name".

 A lot of reviews of the rules say that "Gutshot" is closer to a Role Playing Game than a Wargame, but I don't believe they are.  Yes, you have characters and character sheets, but it is not a RPG.

 The game does encourage interaction between players/characters to a certain degree, but it is far from a "dungeons and dragons' kind of game.

 I am in the process of finishing off some scenery and figures, but I am thinking a lot of my wargaming this year will be a Gutshot campaign set in the county of Rio Diablo, located somewhere in the wild west of America.