A MOST AMAZING GUNFIGHT
or
STRANGE DOINGS IN COW TOWN

A Most Amazing Gunfight by Walter O'Hara (Burke, VA. USA)
or, Strange Doings in Cow Town

Attendees: Lame turnout tonight, for many reasons, most of them to do with that "Having a Life" syndrome. We decided that since only three people showed up (John Frazier, Dave Markley (my convention Co-Ref) and I), we would each run a faction of five people to add some weight to the game. John ran the Santos gang of Mejican banditos, I ran the Hole-in-the-Door Gang, and Dave ran the town lawmen and the Low Plains Drifter.

Dramatis Personae:

The Santos Gang [All Shootists]
Jose "Scumbag" Santos (Evil) PISTOL
Felix Navidad ("Merree Chreeeeesmas, Gringo!"-- Tough) SHOTGUN
Marcos Bendecos (Marksman) PISTOL
Chewie Habanero (Crack Shot) PISTOL
Jesus Jalapeno ("the Crazy One"-- Agile) PISTOL, TNT

The Lawmen of Cowtown [all Shootists]
Tony Ravioli, Pinkerton Man (Marksman) PISTOL
Sherrif Dawson (Tough as Nails) PISTOL
Deputy Fife (Tough) SHOTGUN
Deputy Connors (Crack Shot) RIFLE
and a Neutral Bounty Hunter thrown in on the side of Goodness:
Low Plains Drifter (Lightning Fast) PISTOL, TNT

The Hole in the Door Gang [All Shootists]
Botch Casually (Lucky) RIFLE, PISTOL, TNT
The Sumdunce Kid (Quick Shot) 2 PISTOLS
Reb "Peg" Legg (Clumsy-- 1/2 move) SCATTERGUN
Bill "Flatnose" Carver (Tough) SHOTGUN
Fletch Bailey (Deadeye) PISTOL

Cowtown was set up like so:

I took some pictures that I intend to scan to show a replay of the action at key points.

We played with the following new rules in effect:

NPC ACTIVATIONS, REVISED DYNAMITE, DAVE MARKLEY'S NEW SHOTGUN TEMPLATE, STAMPEDING RULES and DOCTORING.

ONCE AGAIN WE FORGOT NERVE CHECKS... DANG IT! This would have altered the face of this *amazing* game, come to think of it. In the future, please, please PLEASE remind me we need to do this... part of the problem of playing AND refereeing a game is that I get caught up in it, too, and forget things...

HOW IT PLAYED...

John's stealthy Mejicans, lead by Jose "the Scumbag" Santos, got a series of action cards at the very beginning (who shuffled that deck, JOHN?), enabling them to move out almost uninterrupted to get into tactical positions.

Chewie Habanero took up position around the corner of the jail. Marcus Bendehos ducked behind the shed on the South end of the street. Jose and Felix stride boldly up the street, followed by Jesus Jalapenos, who is pulling a stick of dynamite out of his back pocket and puffing furiously on his cigar.

Sherrif Dawson's pack were clustered in the next series of cards drawn... Tony Ravioli (near the undertaker) and Deputy Fife (guarding the bank) passed. Sherrif Dawson strides out into the street (from the jail) and confront Jose Santos. "Hold on there, amigo. What's yore business in our fine town??"

Deputy Connors takes aim from the porch of the Jail. The Low Plains Drifter has another whiskey in the saloon.

Botch Casually moves up to get cover behind a chuck wagon in front of the Saloon and stand at the ready. Reb Legg stumps up on 1/2 movement. The Sumdunce Kid moves towards the bank. Flatnose Carver rolls particularly well for movement and almost runs into the bank itself.

Fletch Bailey moves to a covering position.

At the very end of the turn, the NPC Cattle Drive moved ahead about four inches... Cattle Driving and Stampeding are two new, very cool rules we have implemented. They add a lot to the fun of the game.

NEXT TURN:

Sherrif Dawson's challenge is answered by a fusilade of bullets from Jose the Scumbag Santos. Unfortunately for Jose, they are only grazes to the head, not an organ the Sherrif needs overmuch. The Sherrif opts to Move and Shoot in response (reducing running movement to two dice and taking a firing penalty of -1 die). He fires at Jose from the side, making up for that lost die from movement with a bonus. As Jose fired first, the Sherrif doesn't violate the Law of the West (about firing at a guy from the side or behind). Jose takes two grazes and a flesh wound.

Connors fires at Jesus the Dynamite thrower (only a graze). Jesus responds by puffing on his cigar, lighting a fuse with it, and winging it at Deputy Connors. The resulting lob bounces off the steps, falling BACK towards JESUS..., catching both Connors AND Felix Navidad in it. Both are knocked down, with Connors going unconscious and Navidad getting a broken femur (NO MOVEMENT result). The blast does not hit any buildings. We got a chance to use Dave's BLAST RADIUS template he got from White Dwarf magazine. It worked like a charm. Tony Ravioli moves down in the direction of the gunfight.

Meanwhile, Flatnose Carver moves & fires into the bank (reduced movement, reduced to hit). Instead of announcing himself and saying "this is a holdup," he just runs in and lets the folks inside get it with both barrels of his shotgun. The Banker is instantly annihilated and Deputy Fife, who was standing on station with *his* shotgun, gets seriously wounded with a knockdown. The Sumdunce Kid follows him in and covers the wounded guys with his pistols while Flatnose robs the safe. Reb Legg keeps stumping up at half movement. Botch Casually retains a cover position with his rifle. Fletch Bailey runs down the street to see what's doing on the other side of town.

MEANWHILE... the stampede rules state that ANY DYNAMITE EXPLOSION within the city limits will trigger an auto stampede... so those doggies started to move! Town photographer, Matt Brady, got caught up in the stampede (he didn't roll well on his stampede escape roll), and got carried along with it down the center of the street and eventually trampled.

So now we have a chaos of wounded and disabled men (some badly, people running and screaming, and now distressed beef on the hoof tearing down main street as fast as they can go (3d6 inches). Ah, chaos, it's lovely to see.

NEXT TURN.

The stampede moves forward, trampling Photographer Brady into meat goo. Connors regains consciousness. Virtually everyone on the West edge of town needs to recover from some wound or two. Deputy Fife is disarmed as he is recovering and the Sumdunce Kid and Flatnose Carver hightail it out of the bank with the loot, heading out of town. Mission accomplished. The Low Plains Drifter ambles out of the Saloon, dabbing at the edge of his mouth with his serape (they serve a good steak in the Cow Town Hotel). Unfortunately for him, Botch Casually has the drop on him and blazes away with his rifle from around the corner of the building. Low Plains Drifter, backshot and riddled with bullets, flops faceforward in the dust, deader n' hell. (we'll bring him back next time, honest... and now he has one hell of a grudge against Botch Casually for bushwhacking him).

Fletch Bailey runs up behind Tony Ravioli (the giant Pinkerton agent), and tells him to spin around and draw. Fletch had an extra action card, but it availed him to nought as he saved it too long and he lost it to the Joker.

Our Bystander activation rules worked elegantly here. Three bystanders in front of the Hotel activated as a result of the gunfire between Low Plains Drifter and Botch Casually. Two of them rolled within 1-8 (which means they want to get out of the vicinity at a high rate of speed) and were removed from the table. But ONE of them rolled a 10, which means the NPC will attempt to attack from a position of advantage. He blazes away at Botch at point blank range, but because he is a Citizen, he rolled badly... Botch miraculously escapes damage.

NEXT TURN.

Ravioli goes first, fires at Bailey who gets a graze. Reb Legg goes next, and he opts to 1/2 move and fire at a penalty. Good decision, as he riddles Ravioli with double-O buckshot, and he flops face first into the dusty streets of Cowtown, his expensive Eye-talian suit a shambles of gore and dirt. Bailey is hacked off at Legg for depriving him of all his fun.

[at this stage it was almost 10:00PM, and John had to leave early. I took over running his men]. The stampede comes down the street, closing in on Jesus Jalapeno, who runs to safety before he gets caught up in it.

Jose Santos is not so lucky... he gets caught up in it, being a little slow to move with all those wounds. He would have been trampled, EXCEPT...

Remember little Felix Navidad, laying there in the dusty street, blood leaking out of his shattered leg? He's staring at a stampede running down the street STRAIGHT AT HIM and there's NOTHING he can do to get away! So I determined John would do the only thing Felix *could* do in that situation, and that's attempt to stop the stampede from a prone position. He painfully rolls over and fires both barrels at the lead animal (which is how you stop a stampede). The lead animal catches it with both barrels, full effect, and gets a KNOCKDOWN in the NICK OF TIME!!!! Quick thinking and coolness of nerve saves his butt and the butt of his Jefe, who would have been trampled and gored next turn (having lost his stampede escape roll already).

At this point most of the law of Cow Town is either dead or disabled. The Hole in the Door gang has the loot and is heading out of town. I attempted to follow with some of the least wounded Mejicans (Chewie Habanero and Marcos Bendecos) but the other bank robbers had too much of a head start so we called it a night.

OBSERVATIONS:

We probably should have positioned the Hole in the Door Gang a little farther from the bank. It was a cakewalk for them, as the ONLY lawmen they really had to to kill to reach their objective was Deputy Fife, and he went down early.

The two gangs needed to compete with each *other* more so than just drilling the local law... I'll think about positioning and advantage a bit longer for the next gunfight.

Nerve checks would have made a difference, AGAIN.

LOVED the revised dynamite (blast radius is smaller, you get bonuses to the scatter dice if you guess the distance accurately).

The NPC (Bystander) rules worked VERY well.. they need some clarification but the idea is sound... citizens react to what's going on close to them, otherwise they just aren't involved.

The new Shotgun template (from Dave Markley's fevered brain) works extremely well, and will probably make Shotguns a very popular weapon in this game. Basically, it is a sliding clear template that moves on a series of rulers which measure out the shot deflection (one red, one black to match the dice). All the information is there-- all you need to do is roll the dice. Very cool. Again, we will work on refining this a tad but it's a great idea and speeds up the game a lot.

Having more people involved in this gunfight would have made it the funnest game we have ever played... it only lasted a few turns but EVERYTHING happened-- gunfire, explosions, stampedes, backshooting.... it was a blast. Can't be helped...

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