Monday 22 February 2016

Battle Report - Dead Man's Hand Heist

Time for another battle report, last weekend I had the guys over to try out some Old West gaming, we had Stan with some Desperados, and Duncan took the Pinkertons for a spin. We did some scenarios from the book, I think the first 2 are from a 'Few Models More' and we subbed in 'Massacre at Dead Man's Hand' for the last game to try out some multiplayer action.


Scene 1: Ambush

The Desperado's are plotting some trouble and decide to ambush a Pinkerton in order to create a distraction. There is one Pinkerton deployed by the stage coach, with 2 more in a building near by. The two Desperadoes are trying to kill a few before they loose to many of their guys. The Pinkerton by the coach is surprised so it should be easy to kill him in theory.



Unfortunately they are not such straight shooters and loose 2 out of 3 of their guys without killing anyone. Still life ain't worth spit if your a Desperado so there was still a distraction!



Scene 2: Heist

Taking advantage of the confusion the Desperadoes decided to rob the bank!


The Desperadoes have 3 guys in the Bank with loot that want to get out of town. A pair of guys in the street as look outs, and a few more around the train station, with one on the roof to provide fire support. The Pinkerton's are spread throughout town trying to find out what's going down so they can protect the Railroads assets. The Desperadoes have to get 2/3s of the loot off, or alternatively either side has to kill three of their opponents guys to win. But the Pinkerton's are mostly surprised the first round.


Things are going good for the robbers at the start, some of the guys with loot make a mad dash for the edge, and a gun fight rages in town. But a Pinkerton in the water tower was taking shots at them an brought one down. The boss of the Desperadoes got forced into a fist fight with the Pinkerton special agent who tried to arrest him just as he came out of the bank with his loot. This fight lasted the whole game really so no luck getting away with the goods.


General mayhem in town with both sides taking some losses. But luck was not on the side of the Desperadoes, one guy was shot down, and the Boss was eventually beaten senseless, but he gave it a good try. So in the end not a super successful bank robbery.



Scene 3: Massacre in Dead Man's Hand

For round 3 I decided it was time for me to get in on the action, and the Desperadoes were becoming frustrated with the law in this town. So they called in for some help and my Outlaw gang came into town on the noon train. Plan was to march down opposite sides of town with the law in the middle and gun them down. The Pinkerton's got a few deputies to even up the sides.


The Pinkerton's all promptly took cover in the Hardware store, not sure how much the owner appreciated that. So we had a bit of an Alamo type situation with the law hunkered down and all the bad guys moving in firing off shots. In this picture you can see my guys mostly around the stage coach, and the desperadoes moving down on the other side.


All sides are taking losses, the Desperadoes make short work of the Pinkerton agent in the water tower who had a rifle, and my guns are banging away at the house. All the windows are on my side mostly so it is looking a bit bad for the out laws in the early stages, and I am getting close to having to take big nerve tests, but not quite.


Attrition went on for awhile, until it came down to the Outlaw and Desperado bosses having a shoot out with the Pinkerton special agent, plus a few more peons around. The Desperado boss managed to gun him down, leaving just one pinned Pinkerton who failed his Nerve test to stick around. Both the bad guy forces had to take Nerve tests as well, but we both passed.


After that the bad guy bosses had a draw at high noon to find out who was going to be the big shot in town. My first card was super low, and the Desperado got a high card, and shot the poor guy down in one bullet. So fast I never even got a picture.

So hope you guys enjoyed that, these old west games are pretty fun, and I feel they have a bit of a story that makes for a good blog post. I am sure there will be more old west gaming some time.

Thanks;
Mike



5 comments:

  1. Thanks Mike...it was a fun set of games, those Pinkertons are pretty tough hombres...

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  2. Hah you just got to roll higher then 10! We can try a different game next time for a change whenever that is, maybe Legends of the Old West.

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  3. Amospheric table with beautiful buildings!

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  4. It was a really fun game, I did get a bit confused over who was who in my group of Pinkertons but the pictures on the faction card did help.

    The table was really good.

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  5. Maybe would be better if the picture was of my painted guys and not someone else's, and maybe a view more from above as hats are allot of what you see playing a game. But it was a bit of an experiment vs having the cards on the table anyway. I think it gets hard as you get above 7 guys also, may have been better to pair them on the same card.

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