The Brushwood Gulch Monitor

 

A Fistful of Balls - Across the Rio Grande

After a cracking game of Gunfighter's Ball, over the May Day weekend, I was enthused enough to finally begin my solo campaign. The campaign will use A Fistful of Lead - Reloaded, as the scenario generator, but the games will be played out with Gunfighter's Ball.

Scenarios are generated by a card draw and the first one was to be 'Across the Rio Grande'. As the O'Finnigan gang escaped with the Wells Fargo strongbox, in our Brushwood Gulch game, I decided that they had fled across the border and the Pinkertons were in pursuit. Unfortunately, for them, they are about to be bushwacked by Indio and his gang of bandidos.

This is a survival scenario, so no campaign points will be generated; the idea is to just not get killed!

The Rio Grande

The Rival Gangs

First card and Pinkerton Edmund Reid approaches the ford.

As this is a solo game, I used a system similar to Mr. Babbage from TMWWBK, to decide when and where the bandidos would appear.

Jesus pops up on the ridge above the ford. It's a long shot for a pistol, Jesus has moved and Reid counts some cover. Only 5% chance of a hit but Jesus fires off a single round anyway......

Jesus rolls 01 - a hit! Reid shot in the right hand.

Fred Aberline rushes forward to cover the ford - but a rifle armed Indio emerges from the bushes.

With the crack of 3 rifle rounds, Aberline is down, suspected dead. 

Blind Pea enters the field on the left

Taco pops up from behind a rock. Unfortunately, Pea is wearing his custom spectacles and doesn't miss. Taco is mortally wounded and down to his last wound chip.

End of turn one and Taco must test for bleeding out. Don't roll a one - oh dear!

Turn two ands it's Pea again. The boy doesn't miss and Indio drops shot through the heart.

Next out is Reid. Switching his gun to his left hand he takes a snapshot at Jesus -and hits! A mortal wound for Jesus. The Pinkertons might pull this off after all.

Juan decides to join the fight, firing from the rocks. It's a tricky shot. Only a 15% chance....... 

It's a hit!! Reid hit in the left hand.

Wounded in both hands and incapable of holding a weapon, Reid high tails it, leaving Pea to his fate. Can Pea make his escape?

Juan fires again and hits Pea in the pocket book!

Mission abandoned and Pea also legs it.

Juan and 3 dead bandidos hold the ridge. As for Rafael - he never turned up!

A bloody little affair. The game lasted two turns through the deck and 20 shots were fired (11 by the bandidos and 9 by the outnumbered Pinkertons).

So Pea and his men fail to cross the Rio Grande, leaving the O'Finnigan to make his escape with the trail going cold.

After game rolls determined that Pea and Reid both made a full recovery with a 'Just winged me' result.

The unfortunate Aberline rolled 'call the sawbones' and must miss the next game, returning with one less wound chip.

The Pinks will have their revenge.............

The Gulf Strike Campaign 2nd Tranche

The official table E Dropbox holds the necessary documents including a copy of the game files.   Please can I again ask that we be careful who we share this with. ..

Once again gentlemen I find the 3rd edition clique has prevailed!  

After four sessions in our Middle East Campaign we have finished turn eight.  That's something like 12 hours of play.

Table E are using Whitmore's 2nd or "elongated" tranche to modify the rules.. For  example the rule we don't allow the "shadowing" Soviet CG to fire first OR allow the +3 ASM strike.  Not after Mikes last try.

2nd edition owners beware, you will need the table E crib sheets 2 and 3b to follow this.

Not sheet 1 or 1a though since I must have been having 1st edition flashbacks when I wrote those.

No problem 3rd edition owners (like myself- did I mention my Saddam special edition at all?) 

Pregame

We decided to focus on two of the four modules (all separate, fun games in their own outright): Persian Gulf: Battle for the Middle East and Arctic Front: Battle for Norway the reds squared off against NATO commander McGurk in the south, while the big AC took on comrade Whitmore in the north. Consequently, the AAR portion of this thread deals with my experience in the turbulent Middle East.

The 2nd Tranche ammendments (Fear not I will write up the 3rd set in a separate post)

1. This is operational warfare with twists: Move, attack, repeat. All units have 6 movement points (but terrain costs vary depending upon unit type. One twist being reserve/echelon sub phases; if you are not in a ZOC, you get to move/attack a 2nd time in a "phase" or regroup (remove a hit of damage). The mechanic is a good one, since it produces a fluid situation & breakthroughs. The other twist is unit quality: proficiency.

1.  Big soviet tank divs: ratings: left (attack), mid (defense), right (proficiency).

2. Simple CRT: No DRMs. Odds shifts for the terrain, air {ground support} and proficiency (see below).

3. Simple logistics: No depots (argh). Infinite length supply lines (what da?).

4. You are god: Move anything & all. There is no friction. There is no infighting. No activation rolls. No chits. No pesky 4th estate.

5. IGUGO (I Go You Go) There is ZERO chance to interfere with his ability to execute exactly the attack they wish (other than tossing in an air asset to impact odds).

Diplomacy Chart: McGurks twist

1. The Diplomacy Game: Cards to push/pull factions/countries. Bravo! Factions to court: Tudeh! The Kurds! And, an initial deployment that won't repeat itself in your lifetime. I really like the idea of influencing the initial deployment; a mechanic I hoped is baked into A LOT more wargames.

2. Proficiencies: each unit is rated for proficiency (beware of the Israelis!). Nice way to reflect morale, organizational ability, etc and gives most units their own unique flavor

Elite Israeli airborne unit. Proficiency of "9"; highest in the game. Higher proficiency ratings? Shift combat odds in your favor. Contrast that with the our friends the Tudeh - a "2" proficiency.

3. Air war: Lots of unique air units (A-10s!, B52s! Backfires!). Another Chadwick elegant mechanic is that after an air unit is flown, you've got to make a maintenance roll to return the unit to action: very cool!

4. Units: There all here (minus Liechtenstein - note to self: score a copy of The Next War: Modern Conflict

5. National will: Each country has a "Shaken" and "Demoralized" rating (number of units lost). A hoot to see that Iraq will take more abuse before turning tail vs Turkey or other NATO countries: very mid 80s after Iraq had fought Iran to a standstill. Very cool to see how brittle this or that country is.

Having set up for two hours we were pushing counters by ten. Dr P and I started playing diplomatic cards to influence where the Middle East minors would land. However, we screwed up a rule regarding the playing of the cards and so restarted (How many times can you use a card? We found out later only once. Although, we played that you could use a card multiple times (not things like RDF, but, things like "Denounce Israel!").

Each side has a dozen cards. Some have prereq's. Each side plays one at a time - either "active" (face up) or "inactive" (face down and discarded for the game). You're actually pretty limited in choices, but, that's not an issue.

There is an interesting dynamic that the side that enters Iran first is considered to have invaded if they don't have the support of the Islamic Republic; creating a tension as to when sides kick off the military action. And, we really liked the civil war that breaks out as parts of the Iranian Army rebel. Another good dynamic is that NATO doesn't want to get behind in the intervention/mobilization race: NATO can't afford to let the Pact run wild in the Middle East alone.

The prewar has three stages: the diplomatic dance, crisis (each side gets at least one minor committed) and then conflict (each side has military forces in the same country - which, will end up being Iran). Once conflict occurs, you're off and running with a general mobilization possible.

In our restart, the diplomatic game played out as follows:

1st Turn: Both the Pact and NATO decided to woooo Saddam and gave him shiploads of arms.

2nd Turn: Somehow, the godless Warsaw Pact then managed to charm the Islamic Republic, while NATO decided to pass (made a discard). Syria committed to the reds.

3rd Turn: The Pact didn't want to shake its emerging edge with the muslim states so it made a series of speeches at the UN condemning Israel. NATO decided to assist the Iranian leaders. Apparently, Israel took offense and committed to NATO. Given that each side now had a committed Middle East minor, we had reached "the crisis stage".

4th Turn: The Pact again went with denouncing Israel (again, we made a house rule that some cards could be played multiple times to give us a little more flexibility), while NATO recognized the Centralist Iranian gov't (if a side gets the Iranian army and the Iranian Centralists, the army is more likely to rebel against the Islamic Republic). The effect of both cards was to drive the Islamic Republic into soviet arms, while the Iranian Army & Centralist committed to NATO. At this moment, we then had to conduct rebellion die rolls for all Iranian Army units (very cool!). Rebels nabbed 15 units, while the Islamic Republic held on to 7 low grade units (five 2-2-2s, one 2-2-4 and a 2-3-3...no armor, no marines). NATO held on to all the major cities.

5th Turn: Soviets mobilize the Southern Districts, while NATO placed a 3AM call to the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF). Saudis & Jordanians jumped into bed with NATO, while the TUDEH! joined their red comrades.

6th Turn: Both sides played their Intervene/Invade cards. Soviets are considered to have intervened (since the Islamic Republic had committed to Moskva), while the NATO is considered to be the invading infidels.

During the 1st Pact Segment, soviets flooded south (actually, there are not many forces at all engaged in the Persian Gulf module - which is great: LOTS of maneuver on the four mapper game space). We had our first battle of the game at Tabeiz. Luckily for the soviets, a deadly USAF A-10 was aborted by thick AA fire. Soviets hit NATO's allied Iranian army forces on the 2-1 table and tossed a magic "6": eliminating the speedbump.

NATO entered Iran via Bushehr (denoted by a big green block in the pics below...Red blocks indicate control of major city by the soviets, yellow block is neutral Baghdad...little yellow disks have RDF forces stack'd on them...iraqis on orange disks) and established a small beachhead in southern Iran.!"

On turn 7, both sides ordered a general mobilization, so, we arrived at "The Day Of"...war turn 0. NATO Commander McGurk did re-administer a previously hard learned TWW lesson: don't stack when there is B52 around! A B52 administered 4 devastating hits to the creme of the Pact forces in the area: the two soviet division whacked could take 5 hits, and, thus barely survived. Luckily, the B52 mechanics were evidently participated in a little too much shore leave and failed their maintenance roll in the ensuing turn. Overall, soviets strengthened their position and managed to hem in the RDF to their small beachhead. To win the Persian Gulf scenario, the Pact basically needs to take all of central Iran and hold it.

On turn 8, the Iraqis decided to launch a limited intervention (10 divisions - a random chit determines whether or not they will intervene - a 1/3 chance - if they haven't committed to one side). In one other note worthy engagement, alert USA AA managed to shoot down a significant pact air asset. The US subsequently vaporized a loyal Iranian army unit.

During the course of our Persian Gulf session we developed our house rules for the campaign game but they have become so detailed it will need another post to go through them.

An afternoon in Brushwood Gulch

Brushwood Gulch Monitor

Trouble rode into town yesterday with the O'Finnigan gang, the so called "Rustler boys." Word had gone around the "bad" men that Colonel Mortimer Whitemoore had hidden his poke, a stolen Wells Fargo box full stolen gold somewhere in town.

With O'Finnigan was the villainous Knuckles McGurk, Bronco, Kinski and Mexican hero Sancho Panza.

Unknown to the rustling outlaws the State Governor had called in the Pinkerton detective agency to recover the gold.  The Pinkertons were lead by "Blind" Pea, and included Ringo, Abeline and Jubal.  They were guided by town drunk Kid Shelleen who did nothing but drink for the entire game.. 

As the sun climbed reluctantly into the sky the two sides appeared, both determined to find the gold and retire to California.

The action

The "Pinks" appear.  Failed dentist Doc Pea questions young Arthur Dodger, who promptly steals his wallet and runs away.

Meanwhile the outlaws come to town from behind the church.

Mexican war veteran Fernando doesn't know where the Colonels strong box is and takes offence at Pea's tone.   "What are you looking at gringo?"   A fist fight breaks out.

Knuckles follows a funeral procession but in a Benny Hill chase sequence they keep eluding him

But O'Finnigan has found a clue.  Dig up the grave of Arch Stanton.  They've just buried Arch, and Knuckles is coincidentally chasing the poor man's relatives.  O'Finnigan announces to Boone,  the dry goods seller that he needs a shovel.

In fact at this moment Knuckles has trapped the funeral procession in the church and is threatening the lot of them.

Meanwhile Pea gets into another fist fight with a Mexican.   Not popular with the locals that boy.  Maybe they just don't like failed dentists.

Without informing the rest of his gang O'Finnigan reaches the grave and starts digging.  It's a new career for him if outlawry fails

Alerted by the digging the Pinkertons close in.  Meanwhile O'Finnigan digs up the box and begins to drag it away. 

In fact he vanishes up the trail with the cash leaving his boys to fight it out.

The gunfight starts.  Bronco is knocked down.  

He's down but not out. Kinski misses.

From across the street Pedro shoots Fred Abeline in the back

Knuckles McGurk busts out of the church, shooting.

Jubal goes down, hit through the heart.

Sancho dives behind a wagon.

Sancho shoots at Ringo but Ringo draws and shoots him in the right foot. Sancho's shot hits a horse which bolts.

Bodies fly as the horse stampedes knocking folk all over the street.  The Colonel goes down and breaks his fancy shootin' iron.

Kinski shoots at Pea misses and hits a Mexican.  The town is up in arms and the Marshal dashes out

Kid Sheleen takes a drink.  Down to one action.  He shoots long distance two at Kinski.  Missed.  Knuckles shoots down Dr Pea.  Mortal wound.

Pea crawls away and tries to plug his wounds.  Unlikely but he succeeds.
The town Marshal appears.  I misheard his name as Edward Tattsyrup. a local Marshal for local people, but no, rereading my notes I discover he is Edward Hastings.  The O`Finnigan and he were Colleagues in the Chicago Police Force before the Irishman was discovered to be in league with an Organised Crime Group.  
Edward readies his shotgun and puts Sancho out of everyone's misery.  Alas poor Sancho.  All he did was shoot a horse and hid behind a wagon.
In many ways Sancho was the best of us...

Jubal hits bronco down prone.  Knuckles shoots Jubal through the heart after thinking he had missed.

  

Knuckles shoots at the Colonel, who misses.  The Colonel is shot in the head.  Dead.

But at this point the outlaws start to run away.  Its game over as they make it off table, leaving chaos behind them.  And of course poor Sancho.

We will have revenge on Ted Hastings and the Pinkertons for Sancho...

Oh and sorry about shooting that horse...