Legends of the Old West: Sly Bill Settles A Score

After the last couple of games between Marshall Mills and the 4:20 Gang, the latter were in rough shape. Sly Bill, after being dealt with in a particularly shameful way by the Marshall, decided that he was heading into town to settle the score. After a few bottles of whiskey, the rest of the gang didn't take much convincing and, before you knew it, the dastardly bandits were sneaking into the town hoping to catch the Marshall off guard.

The 4:20 Gang move up through the storage yard hoping to get the drop on Marshall Mills and his men.

The Assumption Vigilance Committee spots the outlaws and moves fast to drive them out of town.

After a vicious shoot-out, the Marshall moves in to fisticuffs range.

Bud Masters stands outside the hotel and surveys the scene after the violence has come to an end. 

As it turns out, the Vigilance Committee had spotted them advancing through the fields (drunk men are rarely as stealthy as they imagine themselves to be) and tried to cut them off at the edge of town in order to reduce the danger to innocent civilians. Unfortunately, the lawmen were beaten back rather handily - sometimes the drink makes a man a little more daring than he would normally be. The entire engagement culminated in a duke-out between Sly Bill and the Marshall himself. Although neither man went down, the Marshall's men were lying scattered in the streets beaten and bruised. Feeling that they had made their point, the outlaws withdrew amidst a chorus of triumphant whooping and yelping.

So, there you have it, Marc's outlaws finally had their revenge against the seemingly unstoppable lawmen. No matter - now the Marshall and his men are even more determined to see the villains behind bars or preferably, hanging from a tree!

In game terms, Marc managed not only to win but to do so without suffering any casualties. With more heroes in his posse (read: income earners), Marc is at a turning point I think. There was a point where his outlaws were on the line and I wondered if they would become so depleted that he would be forced to disband them and start over. It seems he is past the worst of it now and I fear my lawmen will have to work double-hard to drive them from the county once and for all.

Thanks for reading,
JET

Legends of the Old West: Marshall Ambrose Mills and the Brave Citizens of New Assumption, Oklahoma

My gaming group is at the beginning of a second Golden Age of Old West gaming using the Legends of the Old West rule set. After my first Lawmen posse was annihilated, I started a new one and, I must say, they are coming off pretty strong out of the gate. So here they are:

(L to R) Deputy L'il John, Marshall Ambrose Mills, Half-Tonne Carl

(L to R) John Black, Casper, Bud Masters, Old Gabe, Wendell Hobbs, Reubon Drummond, Willy Dicks, Eli Mason

I've been playing a Lawmen posse ever since we first got into LOTOW years ago. I guess it was only fitting that I play the town defenders since I built the entire town and all of the supporting terrain in the first place. We "wrote" quite a story during our first campaign around the fictional town of Assumption, Oklahoma. We decided this time around to keep the same general location and have renamed the town New Assumption.

My Lawmen consist of two groups, both visually and functionally, My heroes consist of Marshall Mills (Sheriff) and two Deputies - L'il John and Half-Tonne Carl. The bulk of the posse is made up of the brave citizens of New Assumption. They have pooled their money to hire the infamous Marshall-for-hire with the hopes of driving the outlaws from their land.

There are a number of players in our group right now but I suspect that Marc's Outlaw posse will be my main opponent, Here's how they look at this point in the campaign:

(L to R) Will McGraw, Bull Tucker, Halfbreed Bob Kickingcrow, The Philadelphia Kid, Dutch, Sly Bill

A creature of habit like myself, Marc has also only ever played one posse-type for LOTOW, his treacherous band of outlaws. They are currently known as the 4:20 gang, "on account of how they done robbed the 4:20 express from Bluff Creek, Arkansas." You might notice that Marc has far fewer models in his posse, only half as many as me, in fact. The truth is, since Marshall Mills and his Deputies arrived in town, Halfbreed Bob has lost some of his best men. Marshall Ambrose Mills would rather shoot an outlaw on sight and save the time and expense of a trial. Hopefully, the Marshall's vigilante-style won't come back to bite the citizens who brought him to town in the first place.

The Campaign So Far...
Marc and I have probably played about half a dozen or more games so far. I'm already on my second posse since, as I mentioned earlier. Marc's outlaws annihilated my first posse. So, he generally has more experience characters but I greatly outnumber him. I've included a few pictures of some of the games we've had so far. 

The 4:20 Gang advances on Hackett Farm.

Marshall Mills and his men drive the outlaws back to the forest.

The Marshall and his men track the outlaws to their hideout. Better take cover Will McGraw!

Sly Bill and Bull Tucker creep up through the turnip patch. Shoulda turned back when they had the chance.

Casper and John Black ready themselves before rounding the corner with guns blazing.

Stylized Counters

There's something to be said for a project the second time around. For instance, you often find yourself completing all the smaller details that you never found time for initially. Case in point - I printed a colour pdf of the counters from the original rulebook and mounted them on 25mm square bases. Then I colour-coded the bases to really make them stand out on the table. Marc and I found them to be a very attractive addition to the table.

The plan is to take this project to the same level as my Gothic Horror project. I already have a solid collection of Old West terrain and buildings, but my painted collection of models had only reached 25 strong by the end of our first campaign some years ago. I've recently ordered some new miniatures - specifically, enough to paint up two new posses. My first new posse will be cowboys. I've always wanted to do a cowboy posse. Can't beat henchmen with repeating rifles. The second posse,,, actually, I'll wait on that one. Nothing wrong with a surprise now and then.

Thanks for reading,
JET

P.S. After some experimenting with different blogging platforms, I've decided to continue using the old site. Expect to see some changes and "spring cleaning" in the near future. I should mention that, although I haven't been posting for the past couple of years, I have been painting and playing. I have lots of new models and terrain to post in the coming months. I hope you stick around and enjoy.

Chaos In Carpathia Reference Sheet for Secret Objectives

With my geek room not quite finished yet, I find myself continuing on with geek projects of the non-painting variety. In the previous post I revealed my new full-colour Secret Objective Cards. Next for your perusal I have the accompanying two-sided reference sheet. Each player would need one of these sheets and a deck of eight objective cards in order to play

There have been some tweaks and changes over the last year and they are all reflected here. For those who used the cards before, you'll notice that there is far less text on the cards than there used to be. That's because all of the necessary explanations and descriptions have been brought together on the reference sheet so the cards themselves can stay visually-striking and clutter-free. 

In any event, if you plan on using the new reference sheets and objective cards, make sure you read through them. There have been some changes here and there that might affect your warband, albeit not in any major way.

Thanks for reading,
JET

Chaos in Carpathia Secret Objectives - New and Improved

Last year I created a series of Secret Objective Cards for Chaos in Carpathia and we've been playtesting them ever since. Now that all of the wrinkles are ironed out, I thought it was time to make a sexier version of the cards.

For those who tried out the original text-only cards, you can see that the same original eight cards are still here. In addition to the graphic addition to the cards, I've reduced the amount of text. The next stage is to create a two-side playsheet (one per player) that explains game-set up, the objective cards, and the warband-special rules. I should have mine printed and ready for play in time for the soon-to-be updated warband lists.

Happy Halloween and, as always, thanks for reading,
JET

Yes, I'm Still a Geek

I don't know how I fell off the blogging wagon exactly, I just did. Tonight I got a sudden urge to check in and to assure anyone out there who still reads this thing that I am most definitely alive and that my geek life has never been better. Whatever gaming and small spurts of painting I've had over the Spring and Summer have mostly been divided between my two great loves - Impetus and Chaos In Carpathia.

We haven't played much (i.e. any) Impetus over the Summer but there is growth. Stu and I played our first 500-point game featuring his Swiss against my Free Company. You can see my new unit of English Knights below, the gents with the red shields sport the golden axes. Stu's lovely army is comprised of Legio Heroica models.

There is one other guy in the group (also named Jason) who happens to be just as big of a Chaos in Carpathia fan as I am. He is currently painting his 4th warband and, between the two of us, we have playtested and hammered out my Secret Objective and Campaign System. It's the game we just never get sick of us. In fact, you might find some recent game reports on his newish blog. Here are some shots of a game we had over the Summer. The Von Krumms, my Hungarian Monster Hunter warband, continue to be one of my favourites.

So, why haven't we heard from you lately?

Well, in spite of my love of the hobby and the games, there have been some very positive "distractions" as of late. Although my twelve-year old son spends most of his time on his scooter, making videos, and playing PS3, my two-year old requires a lot attention. Here's Jake in all his glory jamming with dear old Dad.

Also, we bought are first house over the Summer. The only major-ish job we took on was to develop the back of the basement area. All of the house stuff has also been eating up time. In fact, my father and I are in the throws of framing up a geek room. The final product will be 11ft x 12 ft and will have ample shelves and a gaming table.

I also am working (or rather, was working before the renovations started) on my 28mm Vikings with an eye to the Dux Bellorum Ruleset. I am in the process of "almost finishing" a number of projects including my 15mm Avar for Impetus and a couple of goblin units for Fantasy Impetus. After the geek room is ready for action, I plan on painting a Brotherhood warband for Chaos in Carpathia, the Alkemy warband I've had lying around for three years, and (no commitment on this one) a few of the guys are starting fleets for Firestorm Armada. I may give that a shot depending on what I see them produce.

Thanks for reading,
JET