Zorro and Dracula: A Fistful of Lead

Back in the fall, Bruce hosted a couple of games of Fistful of Lead using his Swashbuckler adaptation of the gladiator game (Arena of Death?). First up was Zorro.

Zorro and his (wo)men had to rescue their compatriot who was being hanged in the town square. If the hanged man got into the crowd and Zorro exited the left side of the board, Zorro would win! Zorro set up hidden and, until one of his hidden units was spotted neither the four guards at the gallows nor the four lancers at the stables could move.

As soon as Zorro was spotted, the lancers moved out, trying to thin out Zorro's henchman and also set up a blocking position to prevent his escape. They could dismount, but there was an advantage in combat to being mounted so they did not.

Zorro and broom guy beat one of the guards silly while others rush the gallows. The lovely Maria was one of the most effective agents of rebellion.

Meanwhile, behind the stone house, the lancers catch Zorro and tie him up.

The doomed man makes his escape but more lancers keep piling in on Zorro. He fights valiantly, thinning the ranks, but cannot sustain this level of wounds forever.

Finally, he succumbs to the pressure and draws his last breath. Or does he?

A few weeks later, Bruce hosted another horror game. The villagers must pass through town and destroy Dracula's castle. Dracula has lots of critters to help him defend and delay the townsfolk.

Bats assail the shooty group of villagers.

More damned bats.

And now rats assail the stabby group of villagers. Improbably discipline among the villagers (plus some pretty lucky rolling) allowed them to brush aside these annoyances one-by-one. Some additional time pressure would have made the game more challenging for them. The fast-moving fliers could also have used their faster movement to isolate and dog-pile some villagers to try and thin out the peasantry.

The forces of evil moved as blinds until spotted.

Here, Frau Blucher and some rando find themselves alone against a large number of rats.

Fortunately, good dice trump bad tactics every time and the villagers rush towards the castle.

In the end, Blucher and some guy with a mug of beer ran head-first into Dracula and put the boots to him (yay, box-cars!).

Overall, a very slick system for skirmish Bruce is working up a few more flavoured rules so more powerful characters can do more movie-like moves.

Some Gaming

I've been doing bit of afternoon gaming with Bruce lately.

We playtested a campaign mechanic for generating miniature battles for his 1920s gangsters. The mechanics entail tough decisions and should give players reasons to interact as well as fight.

We also play tested a grand strategy game called Swords Around the Throne. Basically point-to-point movement, 22 locations, card-driven, and super hard choices (made worse by only getting half of you card deck (at random) for the first half of each turn (a turn is a year and you have six actions per year). I would love to play this again now that I understand the rules!

Last of the Crimean!

And I've finally reached the end of the 28mm Crimean armies. Whew!

There were five command figures for the Russian dragoons plus four more troopers.

So many horses.... But the command figures were quite nice.

Up next: Who knows? Maybe some 28mm furniture?

Russian Dragoons

Second-last post on this Crimean project with a group of Russian dragoons. 

These are 28mm Foundry sculpts. Nice enough detail. There were just a lot of them!

Up next: More dragoons!

Hawkins Ford

Bruce popped over for a game this week. I was keen to get my War of 1812 plastics out for a spin so I dusted off Rebels and Patriots (part of the Osprey Rampant series). It looks like we'd last played these rules in 2019 with the Battles of Pork Rind and Baby Duck Ridge. I decided to play Hawkins Ford, which is a bit of a cheesie race scenario as the British defend a key river crossing against a superior American force.

The Americans had three line units, two half-sized skirmishers, a light cannon, some dragoons, and a leader. They started in the top left (by the white dice) and needs to capture Hawkins Ford (mid-board on the right. 

The British had two units of militia dug into hard cover by the ford plus two units of line and one of Indian allies that started bottom left (by the red dice). The river was impassable except to the Indians and the dismounted dragoons. Points-wise, this was 3-2 for the Americans.

Bruce advanced the Americans up the road, swinging his line units towards the river's edge and his cavalry and skirmishers to the other flank. This was the reverse of the approach I'd taken in my playtest but didn't seem make a big difference in the end.

The British managed to advance their line units towards the ford to reinforce it but kept crapping out on command rolls for everyone else. Based on our 2019 experiences, we amended the rules such that a failed unit activation caused initiative to switch (more in keeping with the rest of the Rampant series). The game was to end when turns plus 1d6 =16.

The Americans formed up into close order to assault. I missed getting a picture of the dragoons approaching and getting absolutely murdered by a lucky British fire. Meanwhile, command blunders stymied the British. Eventually, I got the Indians moving towards the flanks of the formed up Americans.

A nasty fire-fire and set of charges sea-sawed at the ford. Bruce had terrible combat rolls. Meanwhile, the Indians plowed into the rear of the American advance, with devastating effect.

One unit of American line was routed by the Indians while a second was damaged by fire and forced to retreat. This was enough for Bruce to call off the attack. A couple of thoughts. First, having initiative switching on failed command rolls made the game more interesting (because the sequence of activations now was a more consequential decision) but still not super interesting.

Second, having played Xenos Rampant, really what the game needs is to bolt-on the newer Xenos mechanics to create more differentiated units and more interesting choices and caused units to fight more like they did historically. So I think that's what I'm going to work on next. It should be a pretty easy adaptation. That also streamlines the kind of clunky morale tracking, I think.

Hussar Lancers

 Just a quick update today with these six Russian Hussar Lancers from Foundry's 28mm Crimea range.

There were just six of the guys and three were a command unit. Happy to be done them. Just a few Dragoons left to go!

Up next: Some of the Dragoons, I think. Maybe also some terrain. Thinking about taking break from posting for the summer to concentrate on kayaking and gardening. We'll see what happens.

Crimean Cossacks

As I slowly work my way through the last of Crimean figures, I finished off some 28mm Foundry Cossacks with lances. Nice models.

I experimented some with building up washes to get a nice dark colour that did not absorb all of the light. These turned out okay.

I wonder if the lances need pendants? The command group was nice enough.

Up next: Russian Hussar lancers, some 28mm colonial warriors, and some random Batman villains are all in various stages of painting. 

Crimean cannon

I finally finished the last of the Crimean foot! These three bases are 28mm foundry Russian cannons.

The models and the crew were pretty nice to paint.

I opted for 80x80mm bases, which seemed to work for Black Powder (being 4x the standard infantry base).

Up next: I'm grinding away on three units of Russian cavalry. The Cossacks are almost done.

British heavy dragoons

After months of not being at all interested in these figures, I finally put on my big-boy pants and finished them. They are 28mm Foundry British heavy dragoons for the Crimean. 

Nicely sculpted and all. Maybe the colours are a bit too bright--a black undercoat might have been better.

Up next: Some 28mm Imperial Assault Wookies and some 28mm fantasy are on the table right now.

28mm British Crimean Lancers

 And back to the Crimea yet again. This time, it is a bunch of British lancers from Foundry.

There were also these guys with swords. I painted them as lancers but they are more likely dragoons, now that I look at them. Oh well!

Up next: Wrath of Khan Trek.

28mm British Crimean Dragoons

And back to the Crimean War, I knocked off the a small number of British Dragoons from foundry. Holy hell, are cavalry a lot of painting.

Up next: Some Star Wars game pieces.

28mm Scots Greys

Alright, some more progress on the Crimean project, with some Scots Greys painted and based. 

These were nice figures in two parts (horse and legs cast separately from rider torso).

I have a bunch more British cavalry underway (lancers and dragoons).

Up next: Who knows?