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...

Basic Battles 2.0

While looking for free easy to play wargame rules, and when I was searching for more information on how to play One-Hour Skirmish Wargames (without the rulebook), I've been (re-) directed to the 'Gray Army Gaming' YouTube-channel several times. The Channel contains a lot of wargaming information, play troughs and battle reports and is run by a Swede named Matthew T. Nowachek. I used the information he provided in one of his videos to play my very first game of OHSW (for free).

One of his playlists on his YouTube-channel is named 'Basic Battles: Tabletop Games for Kids', and it contains videos and information on how to play very basic (war-) games. Even if he made these rules as an introduction for Tabletop gaming for his own kids, I think the rules provided will be fun to play and give a good time for older and more experienced wargamers too. Matthew seems like an experienced wargamer and after watching his videos I certainly got curious about these simple rules, and decided to have a go and try them out for my self. I played the Basic Battles 2.0 as that version of the rules covers ranged battle, and the rules are free (!).

The scenario

Basic Battles are based upon single figurines or 'characters' rather than units. Since I've decided to play more 'Old West' wargames this year I'll go for an Old West scenario for this game.

After killing an Army patrol of 5 in a shootout in 1884, the gang of 'Sinful Six' was wanted by the authorities, alive or dead. So 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.

Forces:

• 2 Bounty Hunters with each a wound number of 6.

• 6 Outlaws in the 'Sinfull Six' with each a wound number of 2.

Mission:

• Bounty Hunters: To kill or capture all 6 outlaws.
• Outlaws: To kill the both Bounty Hunters.

AAR

Time:    45 minutes

Turns:   12

Result:  The Outlaws won the shoot-out.

Since the Outlaws don't know that the Bounty Hunters are coming, I let the Bounty Hunters automatically activate first. The 2 Bounty Hunters approaches 'Dullstone':

The Bounty Hunters actually activates until they make some sort of contact with the Outlaws, which again will alert all the Outlaws and activation according  to the rules thereafter.

I've placed the Outlaws 2 by 2 in different buildings in the frontier town:

The Saloon would be a good place to check for these Outlaws:

The 2 Bounty Hunters enter the Saloon and immediately spots 2 of the Outlaws. The Outlaws draw their guns and the shoot-out is a fact:

The Shooting coming from the saloon alerts the other Outlaws of the gang:

And they start to move over to the saloon to have a look. Some of them are a little more hesitant than the others:

But soon it gets very crowded by the saloon entrance:

Even if the Bounty Hunters eventually take the Outlaws inside the saloon one by one, they understand that if the rest of the gang are allowed to enter, they will be trapped. To try to split the Outlaws one of the Bounty Hunters squeezes through the crowd at the door and make a run:

And he tries to get a distance to his pursuers: 

Back at the Saloon the the first 2 Outlaws who were there in the first place are taken out, when 2 new ones enters:

So the saloon gunfights goes on:

Outside the other Bounty Hunter are trying to get out of sigtht, so he can get a distance to his followers and try to outflank them and to take them by surprise:

Which he manages, but unfortunately his fire is not very accurate and doesn't hit very well in his surprise attack: 

While at the saloon the Outlaws keeps getting fewer:

The Bounty Hunter outside are not so successful as his companion inside the saloon and just keeps missing (a lot of bad die rolling):

At the saloon the Bounty Hunter finally finish off the last Outlaw there:

And he hurries outside to help his companion. It really looks like he's needing it:

But it was just too late. The 2 Outlaws manage to take out the Bounty Hunter they have been chasing outside. The other Bounty Hunter makes one hit...

...and now the 2 Outlaws are aware of his presence. One of them get a 'Critical Hit' on the Bounty Hunter with a shoot...

...and the other Outlaw finish him of with another hit.

Even if this was a 'win' for the Outlaws, there are only 2 of them left now and that's not enough to keep terrorizing the citizen of Dullstone. So, they'll need to leave town and escape to somewhere safer.

Pros

• The rules are free and easy available.
• The rules are very easy to learn and play. They're even supported with an own YouTube-channel.
• You can use any figures, miniatures or virtually any toys, toy cars or tokens at hand to play it.

Cons

• You'll need some 'special' dice; a couple of D12 and 3 D20 dice.
• The rules don't differs between different weapons regarding effective range and damage potential. 
• No negative modifiers to hit targets in cover except for in the 'super small skirmishes' appendix. To keeps things interesting add a lot of items to block LoS instead.
• No form of suppression when a figurine receives heavy fire/ several successfully hits. It only loses wound numbers but can still act as 'normal'.

Conclusion

This game is really easy to learn and play, and it's simplicity implies that's it's missing some mechanics often found in ranged battle. Don't be put off just because this game seems easy and to be aimed at 'kids' due to it's name. I'm very glad I didn't, because it was a fast to learn and easy to play game and I had a good time at my tabletop.

The only thing I actually really miss in this game is a modifier for ranged battle where the target is partly behind some cover (which it can fires from). Perhaps deduct 2 from the attack (D20) dice if the target is behind a cover, and -4 if the cover is really hard? Or let the defender in cover roll another D20 no matter firing range?? The 'super small skirmishes' appendix let's figurines in cover roll another D20 dice, but just for short/normal ranges. I think this could be transferred to the Basic Battles rules too and let them stack on other D20 bonuses like long range, as there should be very difficult to hit someone in cover on long range. 

I guess you can convert this game from single figurines into units by replacing the number of wounds into numbers of members in a unit, and simply removing one for each hit.

I must admit I was rooting for the 'Bounty Hunters' in this game,  but the fact that they didn't win shows the randomness in these rules. Even if the wound-numbers were balanced, the outlaw-force was 'overwhelming' in numbers against the 2 Bounty Hunters. The game designer actually recommends balanced forces in numbers or in wound-numbers if it's not the same number of figurines each side, so one side isn't getting overwhelmed. Another thing I could considered before playing this game would be to give the 'Heroes' additional wound numbers as 'Hero Points'. Anyway, this game resulted in that the 2 remaining outlaws are still wanted and the reward on them probably got a little higher now. That will probably motivate more Bounty Hunters chasing them and to try to capture them in the future (and in another game).

Blog PostScript

I decided to give the Bounty Hunters another chance and another 'Wound Number' each as a 'Hero Point' and let them fight on where the game initially ended to see if this would be enough to change the tide of the battle:

The Outlaws activated first, and gained the initiative and opened fire again:

One of the Outlaws hit, but the other missed:

The last Bounty Hunter realized that he was running low on health, and desperately assaulted one of the Outlaws in close combat:

...- and won. But immediately got hit by the last Outlaw:

So, again this was another victory for the Outlaws. Just one more 'Wound number' as 'Hero Points' was not enough:

So would adding another 'Wound' as 'Hero Points' be enough to change the tide of battle? I decided to give the Bounty Hunters another try. They were low on health now and to regain initiative they were engaging the last Outlaw in a close combat, as it would improve their chances to take him out:

They were fighting for 2 turns...

...until the last Outlaw managed to knock one of the Bounty Hunters out:

The Second Bounty Hunter immediately moved in and engaged the last Outlaw in a fist fight...

...and knocked him out.

With 2 more 'Wound Numbers' each more than would equal with the opponent's total this was finally a win for the Bounty Hunters. I think if I'd play this game with some 'Heroes' on one side again, I would give each of them 2 more 'Wounds' as 'Hero Points' that would excess the equal and balanced 'Wound numbers' of each side. In this particular game the 'Heroes' were finally given a third more Wound Numbers than their opponents in total. 

I really recommend you to have a go and try this game yourself, and if you have kids or grandchildren you wants to introduce to (war-) gaming, this is a very good start!