Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon - A Wargame in a Matchbox Epilogue

Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon according to my scenario and interpreted by ChatGPT

Last year I attended the 'Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge' with paper miniatures from Junior General and rules made by ChatGPT; Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon.

The rules was really simple, fast playing and easy, and I had to keep everything small to make it fit in a matchbox (which it eventually did). -Since the Challenge I've played the game several times with my oldest son. The game feels perhaps a little too simple, as gamers usually ends up behind cover exchanging fire with the opponents until one of them runs out of health. I wanted to see if it would help to this feeling and make the game more interesting if a little more was added to it than what would fit in a matchbox. So I decided to try out the very same simple rules and scenario with larger terrain and miniatures in 3D as I wanted to use my 54mm -ish Cowboys in a game.  I'm curious to see if a more '3D-game' gives another impression or 'deluxe version' of this simple game.

I had almost everything I needed to convert my 2D-game in the matchbox into a fully 3D one, except for a female hostage to rescue. I found one 28mm scale at Thingeverse and 3D-printed her to match the size of my 54mm -ish cowboys. I guess she can double up and I can use her as a civilian or a missionary in my Congo Crisis games too. 

Scenario: It's loosely based on the scene from 'A Fistfull of Dollars' when 'Joe' frees 'Marisol'; 3 outlaws are holding a woman hostage in the house, and our 'Hero' is there to free her.

Forces: Are dictated by the rules; 3 outlaws with health of 2 and hits on 5+ Vs. 'The Man with No Name' with a health of 4 and hits on a 4+ and activates first each turn.

The Rules:

The Game

The original set up for the game (as in the 'Matchbox Challenge), and my fully 3D set up for this game (which will not fit in any matchbox):

Our 'Hero' approaches the house where the 'Bad Guys' are holding a woman captive: 

The Bad Guys spot him at a distance and it doesn't look like he's gonna take them by surprise:

As soon as a couple of the outlaws leaves the building, they get into our Hero's gun sight:

But at this distance and moving targets the Hero misses, and the Bad Guys manage to get into cover and return fire:

And very soon the firefight develops into a locked position where all combatants are in cover exchanging fire in a very dueling like battle. The Bad Guys are good shooters and our Hero takes a couple of hits. This situation does not look good for him at this stage:

I think our Hero performs best under pressure because when it start to look real bad for him, he gets a couple of critical hits on one of his gunmen:

And one of them are out of the fight:

Then the nameless Hero focus his fire on the other gunman behind cover:

And finally takes him out too:

The Villain did not like this development in the gunfight, as he now has to go out and fight him himself:

Just as the Villain leves the building he doesn't manage to even open fire before the nameless Hero opens fire... 

...and at very long range accurately hits the Villain beside the female hostage, and impacts a critical hit on him with a single shot:

After 15 minutes and 10 turns it look like the nameless Hero saved the day:

Conclusion

So was this game any different than the Matchbox-version of it? - Not really, it's still the very same simple rules that makes battle develop more into static duels where the only modifier is it the fighters are Heroes' and have cover or not. The only difference with this game was that I was able to make even nicer images for the battle report.

And with this game and battle report its perhaps time to finally conclude my entry to the "2024 Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge". It's been an interesting challenge and I would like to credit Alan at The Duchy of Tradgardland for the initiative to the challenge and the entries as follow. Well done everybody!!

• Man of TIN blog
• Grid based wargaming
• Wargame Hermit: Solo Wargaming
• Deathzap
• Projects and Procrastination

I guess some of us has 'leftover matches' after emptying our boxes to join the 'Matchbox Challenge'. At the Model exhibition in Neumünster earlier this year I found this example what you can use your matches for. -At least if you have 3700 of them and 640 hours to spare...

- Perhaps an idea for a 'Challenge' in 2025??

A quick and easy military figure conversion followed by a 'Day out'

 

Just after I came home from our tour to the exhibitions at Neumünster and Hamburg, one of the travelling companions invited to a day out and running session on his garden railway the following weekend. It's been a while since I've been running my Roundhouse W^D livesteam locomotive, so I decided to bring it along. 

I've felt that this locomotive missed 'something' and decided that I wanted to add crew to it before the running session last weekend. There wasn't much time to arrange something, and when taking a look inside the locomotive's cab not much space for crew either:

It's a military locomotive and I wanted a military crew for it. On Thingiverse I found a couple of free figures (one military and one civilian) I resized to 1:19-ish scale to fit the locomotive which I then 3D-printed:

The locomotive-cab was so cramped by valves, cranks, servoes and tubes that the figures didn't automatically fit. Some cutting and drilling (to make them partially hollow) was necessary to make them fit. Thereafter they were hastily painted olive green mixed with a little brown to make the uniformes resemble British Battledress':

The Lance Corporal to the right needed to be stretched all directions but the height to make him partially hollow and fit on the lubricator cap

The 'original' driver to the right for comparison 

Despite that the 'chopped' figures didn't look so good, they looked much better when fitted inside the locomotive-cab:

I managed to get them just about ready for the day out at my friend's garden railway last weekend. Since operating my Livesteam locomotive takes so much attention, I usually don't get to take any photos of it during operation. This time however Tom Arild Sørli took some great photos of it. -Thanks mate!

This is a LGB-model of a Heeresfeldbahn steam locomotive HF110C, and is closer to 1:19 scale than the more usual 1:22,5 for LGB models, and belongs to a friend. The livery is civilian postwar though:

Here are some impressions of other trains from other companies operating the line last sunday:

It's not too obvious on this photo, but the 2 flatcars are still civilian in an American livery, so I'll guess they will be 'militarized' as future workbench project.

Thank you for the invitation and your hospitality Heine!

🚂🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃

Attachments to replies to friends in the comment-section 

Michael: 

I love to paint and weather my rollingstock, but I follow the suit and our club and run them whenever I can, despite time of year, temperatures or weather. This rollingstock is really sturdy and take rough weather well:

Modellbau Schleswig-Holstein in Neumünster and Miniatur Wunderland 2025

As I've written earlier in this blog, members of our Model Railway Club usually goes on annual tours to model exhibitions abroad. Visiting the 'Modellbau Schleswig-Holstein' in Neumünster has almost become a tradition in our club as it is not too far away from Norway being arranged in the Northern Germany (we lives in the Southern part of Norway). Last weekend we combined the Model Exhibition in Neumünster with a trip to Hamburg to visit Miniatur Wunderland - MiWuLa.

On my way down to our club house in Sarpsborg to meet the other guys before we set off to Germany, I passed a shop where I saw a familiar layout as a window display. This layout was built by us on request from the shop in just 4 evenings back in 2006. On this link there are some photos and further description (which you need to 'Google translate').

Modellbau Schleswig-Holstein

There were not only trains on the trade stands:

I had Michael (Wargaming with 54mm Toy Soldiers) in mind when seeing this vintage tinplate armored car:

After the 'Wargame in a Matchbox Challenge' I guess there are more of us having leftover matches after emptying matchboxes. Here are a couple of suggestions what you can make with your matches. Perhaps an idea for another challenge? 

There were several layouts there in different scales and gauges there;

G-scale:

Let's hope no president finds out that he wants to expand this by adding another face...

New jukebox at the Diner

I've always been fascinated by layouts with maritime elements and transition by trains and ships:

Lego:

More G-scale:

Some alpine H0m (Furka Oberalp):

Some old, classic vintage tinplate trains:

Not every layout was of the too serious type:

I am also very facinated by small micro layouts:

T-gauge; 1:450

T-gauge

T-gauge 

N-scale; 1:160

Less than T-gauge. Perhaps 1:750?

There were also other scale models on display. These were in plastic:

Some scale models in paper:

The Norwegian Oslo-Kiel ferry (which I travelled with 2 weeks ago)

A (Paper-) model of the model

There were also a larger exhibition of radio controlled models. This were some few of the boats:

This was the most numerous vessel in the German Kriegs Marine during WW2; Kriegsfischkutter in a number of about 600-700 

I love the weathering and details on this civilian fisch cutter.

A kind of unusual subject for RC boats.

In the RC section there were also a large proving ground for 1:16 scale Panzers:

Miniatur Wunderland

After the Model Exhibition in Neumünster we drove to Hamburg to visit the Miniatur Wunderland. We usually visit the this layout when we're i the area or on our way too other model railway exhibitions. MiWuLa is the world's biggest model railway layout.

I've posted some few photos from this model railway before, so in this blogger post I want to show whats new, or other things that might be interesting out of a 'military modeller point of view'. 
The Monaco part is the newest part of MiWuLa opened to the public:

The Circuit de Monaco is the center piece and is really innovative, and was developed by MiWuLa them selves:

The Prince's Palace of Monaco:

The wedding scene for Grace Kelly was based upon a black/white photo, so therefore the scene was modeled in black/white too: 

When in Monaco there is not so far away to Italy:

And in Italy they have modeled a False Front Frontier city as a Spaghetti Western movie set. 

How many Westerns can you name from these photos?

They have also made a busy airport in H0 scale, but it was actually the display of old aircrafts that caught my attention: 

Another reasonable new part of the layout that has opened is Antarctica:

Drake's Passage which divides Antarctica and Cape Horn:

On Cape Horn is the area of Patagonia (Chile and Argentine). I'm impressed that they managed to model H0e/H0n30/009 trains on 9mm gauge that actually runs on daily bases without stalling or derailments. 

A further bit longer north on the American continent is Mount Rushmore again. Seems like a popular theme when Germans are modelling North America. 

In North America the outskirts of Area 51 is included:

Even if most of the facilities are located underground:

MiWuLa is full of small cameos. This I saw hidden away in a Redwood Forrest:

The H0 layout at MiWuLa is enormous, and even if there are made a lot of military model railway accessories in H0 scale, you won't find many of them in MiWuLa. This camp and training facilities are located rearmost on the layout. Actually so far away that it was challenging to take photos of it:

This was located in Scandinavia:

The team at Miniatur Wunderland has not only made the largest H0 scale model railway in the World, but they have also made a series of smaller dioramas to H0 scale to act as a German History lesson showing the development through history on a similar scene. This is The History of Civilisation:

5500 - 2200 B.C.

770 - 1330

1300 - 1600

1600 - 1789

1789 - 1848

1848 - 1910

1910 - 1933

1933 -1942

So where this diorama series ends, a second diorama serie continues; A City Divided. This diorama serie shows the development of how Berlin was divided in several stages after WW2, and how it was finally reunited again. Western Berlin closest to camera and DDR to the back. The border in the midle:

1945 - 1949

1950 - 1954

1955 -1960

1961

1962 - 1964

1965 - 1988

1989 -1990

1990 - 1999

2000 - 2009

After a long day with a lot of impressions it's always nice to take a brake in the restaurant at MiWuLa and enjoy their Curry Wurst and local brew: