Vengeful Trails - A Gatling Requiem

Since I played the Delta 6 rules by Adam L. Dobbyns earlier, I really wanted to try out the 'Hero section' in these rules with a 'hero going rouge' with a machine gun in a skirmish scenario and cinematic game. I know the rules says "1980's Hero", and therefore suggests some kind of (modern) 'Rambo Character'. I have no 'Rambo' figure, but when when I played and reviewed the Delta 6 rules, I got a feeling that these rules can be amended and used for several other periods as well. This made me think of a figure conversion I made as a 'Machine Gun Hero' last year; The Django looking Gatling armed Cowboy. I think the Delta 6 rules can be amended and played in an 'Old West' scenario. The Gatling will have the LMG stats. I will play the 19th century repeater rifles as the 'assault gun' as they are fast to reload. Other rifles will only score one hit on the roll of a 5. Pistols are Pistols according to the rules (a roll of a 5 can still score 2 hits as it can be 'fanning' the gun).

Preparing the game

I don't think the 'Hero' this game are carrying his Gatling gun on his hip all the time, so I found further inspiration from the Django movie to 3D-print a carrying case for it. This was printed just before the game, so due to time the settings were medium resolution and printed with a 'wood-looking' filament so it was 'ready made'. This 'wooden filament' was really challenging to print, clogging the nozzle and make the print look good. Won't buy it again (!)

Then the printed the coffin was blackwashed:

The Scenario

After a Shootout and killing an Army patrol of 5 in a shootout in 1884, the gang of 'Sinful Eight' was reduced to the 'Sinful Six', and wanted by the authorities alive or dead. They fled and hide in the small and remote frontier town of Dullstone, where they killed the Sheriff and kept the inhabitants under their 'domination'. Until the day 2 experienced Bounty Hunters who had teamed up for the large reward for the 'Sinfull Six', entered the town. After another Shootout the outlaws actually managed to take out the Bounty Hunters, but at the same time there was only 2 gang members back. They had to flee Dullstone as just the 2 of them couldn't keep terrorizing the population of Dullstone alone. They got even more wanted and the reward for them got higher after the last 'shootout'. So they're still chased by the law and Bounty Hunters alike. 

It's rumored that the 2 last gang members fled only a day of riding away from the Mexican border, where they broke into a house, killing the owner and kept his widow as a hostage. This way they could flee to mexico by horse if they were caught up by the law again.
- Until the day another stranger was passing by...

Forces:

• 2 remaining gang members from the original gang of 'Sinful Eight'. Both having a health of 6.
  
  
• 1 mysterious hero armed with a a Gatling gun with a health of 10.

Mission:

• Outlaws: To kill the mysterious Hero, or escape by their horses through the pass behind the building.
• Mysterious Hero: To kill the 2 last members of the outlaw gang and free the woman from captivity. 

AAR

Time:    20 minutes

Turns:   5

Result:  A victory for the Mysterious Hero

Since the Outlaws are unaware of our Mysterious Hero, I let the latter activate first; A stranger is slowly crossing the desert at foot dragging a coffin behind him. He can see a distant house ahead: 

When coming closer he uses his Army binoculars to better observe it. Are there any threats ahead? Then he recognize the horses and their saddles and immediately know they belong to members of the outlaw gang of the 'Sinful Eight'. There should be only 2 of them left now after the 'Dullstone Shootout':

He moves in a little closer, and slowly in the cover of some vegetation he opens his coffin and take out a Gatling gun:

Then he opened fire:

He shoots at the Outlaws' horses to cut off the Outlaws' retreat and escape possibilities. I don't let horses roll for a save when hit, and one off them drops dead:

The shooting alerts the outlaws in the building...

...and they rush to the window and door to return the fire:

As the Outlaws discover that they're taken under fire from a long distance, they understand that they'll need to get out of the house and get into more favorable firing positions if they'll manage to meet this threat. One of them gives covering fire...

...so the second one can run into cover and give flanking fire. Meanwhile the machine gunner has advanced further and is now in cover of a fallen tree. Both of the Outlaws are skilled shooters and scores hits on the mysterious machine gunner, but non of them are critical:

The mysterious Hero opens fire with his Gatling again, and take out one of the Outlaws with a 'headshot':

The last Outlaw fires another shot but misses. He's clearly outgunned by the massive fire from the Gatling gun. To continue to exchange fire will be useless and a 'deathtrap':

So the last Outlaw does the only reasonable thing he can; He makes a run for the last remaining horse to try to escape towards the Mexican border:

The mysterious machine gunner are more on the offensive now, and leaves his cover and moves towards the horse pen. He opens fire again...

...and takes out the last horse, and cut of the last Outlaw's retreat possibility:

The last Outlaw now understood that he could not escape this situation, and the only way was to take up the fight. He took cover behind the well and opened fire again. Unsuccessfully:

The machine gunner takes cover and returns fire...

...and successfully take out the last Outlaw with another 'headshot':

Our mysterious Hero silently wraps up his things and slowly continues ahead towards new 'adventures', leaving behind him a 'trail of death': 

Conclusion

Even if the Delta 6 rules clearly are made for more modern warfare in mind, I think amending them for a 19th century skirmish or a Old West shootout worked just fine. 

Even if the "1980's Hero" have more health and better close combat skills than 'regulars', he's still very vulnerable as it actually only takes a single unsaved 'headshot' to permanently take him out of action. Perhaps he should be allowed to roll 2 D6 for save rolls as well, keeping the best? - Or give him 'Johns' stats and let him 'Fade to Black'?

I had a good time and enjoyed the narrative and cinematic feeling of this game. Time will show when and where he appears next time, or if I actually get around to acquire a 54mm 'Rambo' figure...

Army Men in unlikely places

I know fellow blogger Mark at Man of Tin blog Two often posts updates on his blog when he finds army men or toy soldiers appearing in tv-series or movies. By coincidence I recently found some Army Men in a very unlikely tv-series. I'm actually not very interested in football, but when Norway was going to meet England in The World Championship in football I just had to watch the match. When approaching our tv, I noticed that the present channel was 'nickelodeon junior' showing Barbapa. -with Army Men (!). This was a very unlikely setting so I made some quick screenshots before zapping to The World Championship.

The Barbapapas were playing with traditionally toys together, including some Army Men. 

This was as far as I could catch not a very favorable episode for 'Army Men' as the Barbapapa who played the little soldiers eventually used them to dominate the others play...

...until another of the Barbapapa children brought robots and dinosaurs to finally take them out. - and invented a wargame (?). I've considered Barbapapa for being 'politically correct' tv for children, so I found this setting was somewhat a little surprising. Perhaps that's why they looked so less offensive only being armed with binoculars, radios or flags. Some of the poses looked familiar:

Inspired by a Matchbox American WW2 Infantry? 

Inspired by Airfix Russian WW2 Infantry? 

And the match? That was an exiting and very close one. Congratulations 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 !!

Visiting Miniature Kingdom

On our way home after visiting Djurhedens Garden Railway, we took a little detour in the area to check if there were any updates on the public model railway Miniature Kingdom in Kungsör. I was there during a motorcycle tour in the summer of 2024 as well. Miniature Kingdom is a kind of Swedish equivalent to 'Miniatur Wunderland'; a public model railway with more than 700 meters of rails focusing on iconic Swedish landscape and a lot of recognizable Swedish signature elements. There were a lot of people visiting The Miniature Kingdom while we was there, but we were early so that's why it looks 'empty' on my photos below:

A 'model of the model'

I've seen on the Miniature Kingdom's FB page that they're currently working on some new projects which includes the Swedish Airforce Museum in Linköping and was curious to see that live. It seems like they're building their new projects elsewhere and bring them to the layout when ready to mount. So unfortunately I didn't see the model of the Swedish Airforce Museum this time (which is a reason to go back sometime). They had completed what was work in progress when I was there in 2024 though; the County of Värmland with it's Canals and Locks:

In this yellow building it used to be an annual model railway exhibition IRL in Mellerud 

Since I was there last they had also upgrades in the County of Södermansland:

In Södermansland they had also included parts of the Femöre Coastal Fortress:

When I looked through my photos from this visit I saw that I actually had taken many similar photos as from my previous visit 2 years earlier, so it's obviously what is my favorite scenes. I found a medieval tournament I haven't noticed before:

I made a YouTube-video to capture some of my impressions and those long ore trains in Northern Sweden which runs to Narvik in Norway:

I'm intrigued by that many of the more than 400 iconic buildings in Miniature Kingdom are 3D-printed. - And especially since they're filament printed on an FDM printer. They're obviously 3D-printed in parts, and assembled as regular kits:

19800 visitors in 2025 alone is impressive for an attraction like this. Not as exact statistic, but you can put a pin on a map (of Sweden) where you're from,and it looks like there have been a increasing number of visitors since I was there in 2024:

The Swedish layout of Miniature Kingdom is about 200 square meters today, and it's planned to expand further 120 square meters. So it should be no excuses not to visit this great layout in the future.

Blog PostScript

Just 3 days after our visit, the new Linköping modules with the Swedish Airforce Museum was installed at Miniature Kingdom...
-This is so 'Murphy's Law'...

So it looks like there will just have to be another revisit to Miniature Kingdom some time in the future...