THE BALLAD OF TEFLON BLAIR (WHAT A COWBOY! GAME 5)

 After a short break, due to real life, I decided it was time to crack on with my solo What a Cowboy! campaign.

When we last left them, the Digbeth Gang were struggling, having lost all four games against Grizzly Johnson's boys. Desperate situations call for desperate measures, and in a forlorn attempt to recapture some influence, the Digbeth Gang have kidnapped Mayor Teflon Blair. The gang have holed out in the old timber mill and the scene is set for a rescue attempt by the Johnson Gang.

The Old Timber Mill

With the death of Doc Butterworth, in the last game, the gang needed to recruit another member. The dice decreed that Kimberley Clark, a Buffalo Hunter (shootist level), would join them.

Comparing the Force Morale of the two gangs, the Digbeth Gang were way behind, thus qualifying for a roll on the game balancing table. Hence, the Unknown Gunfighter, a Legendary Bounty Hunter, would join them for this game. (Let's not pretend - it's the Man With No Name, isn't it? We'll just call him Joe.)

The Digbeth Kid, Scarface P Knutt, Kimberley Clark and 'Joe'

Half the gang were allowed to deploy in the centre of the table, so Scarface and Kimberley took guard positions, over the hostage Mayor Blair.

Scarface takes post behind the saw table.

Kimberley Clark holds the mayor captive in the site office,
whilst taking up a firing position at the window.

Jebediah Springsteen boldly moves out of the tree cover and heads straight for the mill.

Whilst Grizzzly Johnson struggles through the undergrowth with his thick furs.

Joe takes up a position behind the cart, whilst, true to form, the Kid fails to appear. 

Grizzly initiates a gunfight and pins Scarface behind the saw table.

In the distance, Armitage Shanks skirts the woodland attempting a flanking move.

Springsteen sprints for the cover of some barrels, where he is out
 of sight of Kimberley Clark at the window of the site office.

Kimberley moves to a side window, only to have Springsteen fire his rifle through
the front window (in a dangerous disregard for the safety of the Mayor, it must be said).

Meanwhile, Shanks has put in a stellar performance,
driving off Joe wounded, only to be shot dead by the Digbeth Kid

It's a bit late in the campaign but it seems the Kid has finally found his mojo,
after killing Shanks, he sprints to the cover of the steam donkey and takes a pot at Grizzly.

Unfortunately, it's too late for the Digbeth Gang, as Springsteen puts Clark out of action .

Using the dice changing ability of a Legend to the full,
Springsteen exits the table with the Mayor, for a win.

Yet another loss for the West's worst outlaws. It's not looking hopeful going into the grand finale. Post game, Clark recovered from his wounds and the Kid finally progressed to Gunfighter status, but the gang have nothing in the coffers.

On the other hand, Johnson's gang have amassed $215, but are down a gang member. In the hope of getting a decent replacement for Shanks, they invested $50 of the gang's stash to ensure a good outcome. As it happens they rolled high anyway, so didn't need the cash injection. John Bovey, a Gunslinger joins the gang; claims he's a Cowboy but he's wanted dead or alive!

So we're all set for the final showdown - High Noon in Paradise City. Can't wait!

Blood and Horse Droppings Game 2

 I was new to these rules, but the other Petains had played and enjoyed them.  They looked pretty good to me, and once again we used the 10mm Wars of the Roses figures of Master Quilp.

The scene is the County of Midshire, and   the quaint market town of Much Rutting.  Once again the Duke of York and his allies face off against the Lancastrians lead by the Beauforts.

My photos pretty much follow my own game, and because I was learning it as the game went on I'm not too up on the changes we followed from the original rules as written.  We are inveterate tinkerers I'm afraid.

Much Rutting.  

Percy's Ward goes down first.

Then I get the Duke on table.

My left wing is Earl Richard, who gets a nice hill and sits on it for the whole game

Percy presses forwards, with the usual innuendo following the Great Man.  

We gave each ward commander three Fate coins at the start.  Percy was soon to prove a big spender.

Some lucky shooting hammers Percy.  Its a fluke but by turn two he was tottering.

The Lancastrians come in as Earl Richard holds that hill and shoots.  We commented that maybe limiting arrows /ammunition supply would work to counter a tactic like this.

And our Peter Pig style clock couterd down from 21 really quickly.  By turn four we had only four points left.

Percy is killed in the shooting and his ward seem quite OK with that.  They pass their rolls and continue without him.

And to be fair, part the Lancastrians enjoyed sitting on their hill too!

The Yorkists had far more focus on shooting that the advancing Lancastrians, when seen from the Red Rose side of the table.

The hand of Earl Richard as the Lancastrians Irish mercenaries charge home.  He may be attempting to shoo them away.

But ironically it's the guy who didn't advance an inch who now faces combat from the Celtic fringe of the Lancastrians.

The Duke of York puts in a steady advance but both sides seem to want to Shoot it out.

Yet some of my units retain the first fire marker.  Stanley here is  trimmer, so he was in the Yorkist reserve line.

And after a battering round of shooting from the Duke of York the Lancastrians roll the battle clock dice as a six.  The sun sets and victory goes to the White Rose.

Really enjoyable game. I'll revisit this with my 6mm Barons War setup where the figures are based as retinues.

Shititake's demise

 The Takeda faced off against the Tokugawa again, but turns out one of the Takeda clan generals failed to arrive, as did half the army.  A "stand in" General was appointed, Takeda Shititake, level four no less.  It was his chance for glory!

Half the army missing!  Shingen is not happy!

In fact Shingen sits on his War Commode, face somewhat strained.

Shititake trundles his Cavalry into a wild charge.  

He smashes through foot Samurai to his front.

A challenge to single Combat and Shititake goes bust.  His head is given to Tokugawa, who comments on the brave Samurai's crazy eyes.

But the rest of the Takeda army decides to appear.

Abd Shititakes mad Cavalry attack are still going in.

But wait, Takeda Crapitake has finally turned up.  He gallops into the action.  

Time ran out as the Takeda sought to reverse the terrible initial deployment failure and the Tokugawa wondered just what inspired the crazed cavalry charge.

Shititake set a high standard for proper Samurai behaviour! 

TINKERING WITH BLOOD AND HORSE DROPPINGS

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Firelock Games 'Blood and.....' skirmish rules system (Blood and Plunder, Blood and Steel, Blood and Valor, and the upcoming Blood and Crowns), however, despite the name this ruleset is not from that stable. No, rather 'Blood and Horse Droppings' a big battle game for The Hundred Years War plus the Wars of the Roses, by Robert Jones.

The author is both a medieval historian and a wargamer, so I was keen to see his take on period warfare.

The rules are free and can be downloaded from here: Blood and Horse Droppings — Historian in Harness - probably best not to google blood and horse droppings, unless you're of a veterinary bent!

The introduction to the rules lay out the author's take on the period, most of which I totally agree with, so the rules tick a lot of boxes for me.

Unlike most rules of the period,  the basic unit is the 'company', which consists of mixed archers, billmen and men-at-arms. No separate units of single troop types here. (A shout out to my favourite WOTR rules here, Bloody Barons, that have the same mechanic).

So this gave me an opportunity to get my 10mm WOTR collection on the table.  All companies have the same footprint with a recommended ratio of 3:2 for frontage to depth. So six of my Bloody Barons bases in two ranks are perfect.

My Bloody Barons units are 8 bases, so this leaves me plenty of spare bases to create even more units. Hence, very large battles are a possibility, although, the suggested army lists use a standard 12 units per side.

Warwick's company with archers to the fore.

Warwick and Percy have at it.

For my test games I stuck with 12 units per side but randomised the armies a bit by using the noble cards from the board game Kingmaker. The leaders, for each side, are determined by the ranks of the respective cards - so Dukes outrank Earls, which in turn outrank untitled nobles. I also used the corresponding game counter to identify the units.

I also took the Noble's characteristics from the Perfect Captain's 'A Crown of Paper' rules, which I attached to the appropriate cards.

Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire's company.

Another benefit of the cards was that I could use them a depository for hit markers and other game related paraphernalia, hence reducing table clutter.  It worked really well for a 'pickup' game but I would probably use a rosta for scenario games.

Courtenay's company showing 6 remaining hit points (red dice), two 'Shock'
(casualty markers), and two Fate Coins (counters).

The Battle Commences.

Lancastrians defend the hamlet of Dunny on the Wold.

The Yorkists struggle through the hedgerows.

So after a couple of club games and a similar number of solo games, what's the verdict?

In short, we're impressed with the rules. They're not perfect by any means, but easy to tinker with to get the sort of game we prefer. And you can't fault the price.

Things we like.

1) The mechanics are very simple and, after a couple of rounds, we didn't even need a play sheet. 

2) No casualty removal.

3) A clever and innovative combat system. Each side chooses one of six tactical stances that are printed on cards. The outcome of a round of melee is decided by the combination of the attacker's and defender's chosen tactical stance (card).

The Attacker has chosen to 'Thrust Home', whilst the Defender has chosen 'Gather to the
Standards'. This determines that the Defender will attempt a rally before the melee, and 
the Attacker will follow up any fall back and fight another round of melee.

Things we didn't like:

 

1) The rules use a system of  'Black Flags'. 'These are caused by melee, shooting, or attempting to perform complex or risky Actions (for example withdrawing in the face of the enemy, or crossing terrain).' 

This is essentially similar to the 'Shock' mechanism used in most TooFatLardies rules or 'Fatigue' in Blood and Plunder. Nothing wrong with that; it is in fact a mechanism that I like very much. In fact we changed the name 'Black Flags' to 'Shock' to resonate better with other games that we play. Rather our problem was that, as units rout on receiving their third 'Black Flag', units were just too fragile. We saw units rout after one or two rounds of shooting on multiple occasions. Now there is no doubt that archery was important but my impression was that most battles were decided by hand to hand combat. Although, I'm talking of the WOTR here and maybe it's fine for the 100YW? Maybe this is a misconception and I just need to do more reading but it's a shame that the nice combat mechanism is underused because everything is decided by archery.

We changed this in the last game, so that units only rout if they gain more 'Shock' than remaining hit points.

This worked much better, but I'm not convinced that we couldn't tone things down even more. Maybe a limited arrow supply mechanism?

2) The rules use a system of bespoke dice. This just feels like a bit of a gimmick and D6 work just as well. We changed it to a 1 or 2 has no effect, 3 is a possible bonus, 4 is a Fate Coin, 5 denotes a Shock point and 6 is a casualty.

3) Armies are divided into 'Wards' (Vanward, Mainward and Rearward) but the mechanism for keeping Wards together didn't really work for us. We swapped it for a command radius. Commanders are rated as Amateur (D6), Practised (D8) or Old Soldier (D10). Hence, we gave command radii of 6, 8 or 10 inches, depending on the commanders rating.

Units that are out of command, either as a result of being out of the command radius or the ward commander being killed, use the company's rating for all tests and cannot use or gain Fate Coins.

That's about it really. We made a few minor house rules to clarify a few areas where the rules are a bit vague but nothing too drastic.

So all in all, we were generally impressed and will, no doubt, be playing them again.