Having another go at Chain of Command

Intro
After almost a year of unvoluntary hiatus, I’m quite happy to post a game report – this time around L. and I managed to find some time and play some Chain of Command. By now, this ruleset has been reviewed, analyzed and quite justifiably been discussed a lot on the net. I will therefore limit myself to saying that Chain of Command is a WWII skirmish ruleset with small teams and sections as tactical elements. If you want more information about this rulset, all you need to do is make a Google search.

The game L. and I run yesterday was based on first generic scenario in the ruleset, called Patrol – two platoons bump into each other and mayhem ensues.

The game

The game started with me trying to get into the house complex to the left. All I managed to get in was a BAR team, which managed to get a drop on one German squad, but failed to inflict any damage. In firefight that followed, my team was wiped out to the last man. Their sacrifice paid however unexpected divident, as L. decided to send the squad that killed my BAR team on a long walk around the houses in an attempt to flank me. As things turned out, he never got the chance to spend resources on that march and the entire squad remained out of position for rest of the game.

‘Main event’ took place in the center of the board. L. was favoured by the powers that be on that particular day and managed to retain initiative on three different ocassions early in the game. This allowed him to push his two remaining sqads across the road and pin one of my rifle sections on the height to the left. He had an MG42 in perfect position and their fire slowly picked off my guys, one or two at a time.

In broken terrain section there was another stalemate – one squad on each side took potshots at each other without much effect. Somewhere in the middle of the game, I tired of it and closed the distance with one of my rifle sections. It was a close run thing and both sides suffered heavy casualties, but the assault failed.

In sheer desperation, I threw in my last squad from a jump-off point at the edge of the table. They were far away from the ‘action’, but in CoC, rifles have unlimited range so the distance didn’t really matter. I pushed them forward slow and steady while keeping a constant barrage of small arms fire – in the end, I had a bit of luck and managed to inflict serious casualties on opposing Germans.

L. retaliated by assaulting my isolated and seriously depleted section on the height in the center of the board. Close combat that ensued was surprisingly bloody, but decisive – once the dust settled, the high ground was in German hands.

At this time, with both sides seriously weakened, the game was in the balance. But we were at it for over four hours and were quite satisfied with what we achieved so far. Therefore, by mutual agreement we decided to call it a day.

Musings after the battle
The ‘special thing’ with Chain of Command is that the game starts at the moment of first contact. The action is therefore fast, furious and most importantly, pretty much immediate. This seems to be a litte of mixed blessing, because just as in our first game (run almost a year ago) our positions became locked pretty much instantly. As a result, the entire affair became rather static dice-trow festival, with both sides hoping to roll high for ‘shock’ (morale hits) and ‘kills’. In yesterday’s game, L. picked off my lads in rapid succession, but failed to give me any ‘shock’ points. I, on the other hand, seemed to have my weapons filled with blanks, but dished out serious amount of ‘shock’ points, forcing L. to pick them off and thus being unable to act more decisively with his leaders (despite three ocassions where he retained initiative and had two consecutive rounds at his disposal). The stalemate was finally broken by my third squad, which finally managed to kill three Germans and for all practical purposes broke L.’s right flank.

This rather static nature of the game (for second time in a row) is a bit troublesome, but perhaps not surprising. After all, both sides are of equal strength (a platoon each, with some minor support elements). Also, I read some comments on the net that this particular scenario tends to develop into a static firefight, while the other five scenarios included in the ruleset are of more fluid nature. Let’s hope that’s the case!

Until next time and let’s also hope that it will be sooner than in ten months time!

First impressions of “Chain of Command”

For the wargamers who just arrived from outer space, let’s start with a short introduction to “Chain of Command”. It’s one of the “newest” rulesets from Too Fat Lardies and it’s a WWII skirmish ruleset. One miniature represents one man and one vehicle or artillery piece model represents a corresponding single real world piece of equipment. The ruleset focuses on combat between forces of platoon size with some reinforcements. While it allows the player to directly control every individual figure, the basic manouver and fire units are squads of 8-12 men. Those can be further split into (usually) two teams, which is how most units of that size operated in real life. Specialized weapon teams, such as bazooka or medium machine gun teams provide additional firepower. Command and control is performed by ‘leaders’ of two types; junior leaders usually lead individual squads and weapon teams, while senior leaders provide control at platoon comman level, allowing coordination between individual sub-units of the platoon. Ruleset caters for support units in all forms and shapes – tanks, mortars, artillery (both on the table as well as off-board), engineers, etc are all handled. D6 dice is used throughout the ruleset.

“Chain of Command” has been around for a while now (about three or four years, I believe) and many reviews have allready been written about it, both in printed publications and online. So I will not try to reinvent the wheel by writing yet another lengthy review that will hardly add anything new to what’s already been said and written. If you’re interested in a detailed analysis, I recommend for you to listen to episode 106 of Meeples&Miniatures podcast or read an excellent review posted on Anatoli’s Game Room blog. Both of them provide a very good overview of this ruleset.

So what’s the point of this post of mine then? Well, I hope to provide a ‘rookie’ gamer’s initial impression based on two games I’ve run yesterday. In the first one I acted as Game Master, in the other one (enriched by my impressions of the first game) I took over one of the gaming seats.

The setup

Since it would be a first experience of the ruleset for all involved sides, I’ve picked up the most basic generic scenario that is included in the ruleset – an encounter between two patrols in no-man’s land. In this setup, the players start by establishing their initial zones of control with help of simple meta-game. Basically a bunch of markers are moved over the board until they come into 12’’ of one of enemy marker. Once this is done, players select their jump-off points in territory they control – computer game players can think of those as spawning points. These define where individual squads, teams and leaders can be deployed on the table.

To further simplify the task of ‘first game’, I decided to play on smaller area than recommended 6x4’ table. The game would be played on my kitchen table, which is only 5x3’. The terrain setup was my own creation – i basically threw whatever terrain I had available on the table with hope that this random arrangement would provide for a good game.

Finally, I decided to limit order of battle to a single basic platoon and no support units. So both sides (German and American) had their three squads consisting of an LMG team and rifle team to play with. Each of the squads was led by a junior leader. Furthermore, Americans had at their disposal two platoon leaders and a bazooka team, while Germans had a single platoon leader and a panzerschreck team.

Game one

In our first game the Americans, played by T., managed to gain control both of the hill and the house in the initial phase. This gave him a huge advantage from the start and set the tone for the game. He deployed one squad in the house and the other two along the ridge of the hill. L. responded by deploying one of his squads in the hedges by the crossroad and the other one in the woods by the ‘northern’ foot of the hill (by the chairs in the picture above ). The MG team of that squad gained a foothold on the hill, deploying in the rock outcrops in its northern end. And that was it… both sides started to hammer each other, with Germans clearly getting the worst of it. After a fire-fight lasting over several phases, L. suffered eight casualties to two of T, the  machine gun teams of both of his deployed teams were wiped out and the remainder of the squad in the hedges by the road was pinned by T.s fire from the house. To put it plainly, he was screwed and he knew it. Thus, we ended that game.

Game two

T. left our company by that time and L. and I gave it another go. Wiser by the experience, L. managed to claim the posession of the house in the initial phase of the game, while I grabbed the hill and the high ground to the south of it.

L. then proceeded by deploying a squad on second floor of the house and another by the wall outside the walled house court. I responded by establishing the line of fire along the ridge with one squad, deploying the second in the rough ground at the southern foot of the hill. I deployed my third squad behind the hill, out of sight. My plan was to move it around the hill and hit the house from the north. Once again, L. never bothered to deploy his third squad, probably waiting with it until he found out my intentions for the squad behind the hill.

In some respects our game developed in similar manner to the previous. L. blasted at my guys in the rough ground, while I tried to hit him hard with fire from the hill. The pressure mounted on units on both sides, but yet again an impass seemed to occur almost instantly. After a couple of phases I grew tired of this static character of the game and decided to take a risk. I ordered the squad on the hill to fire suppressive fire at the Germans in the house – this is a temporary state where the incoming fire won’t cause any damage, but automatically reduces fire effectivness of any enemy units that are in the sector where suppressive fire is ‘applied’. This was a preparation step for my next action, which was a mad dash across open field toward the house by the rifle team of the squad in the rough ground.

As Germans hunkered down under suppressive fire, the advancement was completed without any casualties. L. reacted by dropping a couple of grenades on my guys who were now huddling directly below, hiding behind the arcade walls of the house. My luck held and noone was hurt by the explosions. Naturally, as soon as I had the opportunity, I pushed on into the house. A vicious close combat for control of the house now took place… with disastrous consequences for the my side. Once the dust settled, six out of my soldiers were dead, with the sole unhurt man trying to patch up his wounded leader. Normally, such outcome would rout the survivors, but considering the enclosed surroundings we agreed that my survivors were now POW;s.

L.s triumph came however at a cost of three casualties and a wounded squad leader. Another round of whittling fire from the hill completed the grim job, breaking the German squad and forcing them to flee the house.

At this time we were at it for five hours and were more than satisified with the entertainment of the day. Thus, the second game also ended inconclusively.

Musings after the battle

After a single evening, it is far too early to say anything definite about this ruleset. But there is a couple of things I can say with conviction even after this brief exposure.

• First and foremost, I am not at all surprised that so many people have been raving about ‘Chain of Command’ over last couple of years. It is a cracking ruleset and I will definitely invest much more time and effort into it.
  
• In one rather important respect, ‘Chain of Command’ seems to be a very different beast when compared with other similar rulesets (‘Arc of Fire’ and ‘Bolt Action’ comes to mind). Let me explain.
  
  Over the years, I have learned to identify (and also exhibited myself) in gamers a phenomenon that I believe can be called ‘a stress cone’ – once a player sets his mind on a ‘target’, be it an enemy unit or a specific location, its destruction must be accomplished. And as the game progresses, this target increasingly becomes the sole focus of gamer’s attention. When this happens, a certain blindness to alternative solutions seems to occur. Flanking manouvers, an often valid option of breaking of contact and re-deployment or employment of less obvious assets is no longer considered – the initial goal must be accomplished. What’s even more important, it must be accomplished by direct assault and destruction by fire or close combat. To an unengaged observer, such behavior may seem odd, sometimes even bisarre. But if you think about it, we all occasionally exhibit it and many of us much more often than not!
  
  So what does this have to do with ‘Chain of Command’? Well, in most wargame ruleset, the initial phase of the game consists of manouvering the units into contact with the enemy. As this takes time, it also allows players to logially consider their options. Once the units come into contact and ‘combat’ starts to happen, player’s attention shifts to the actual action. He may then enter further and further into this ‘stress cone’ I’ve mentioned above. What seems to be special about ‘Chain of command’ is the fact that with this ruleset, the opposing units can be deployed pretty much on top of each other directly at the start of the game. And indeed, this is exactly what the designer of the ruleset states – a game of ‘Chain of command’ starts with opponents already in contact with each other! In other words, players are placed immediately at the small end of the ‘stress cone’ with consequence of ‘shootout’ games being a very tangible possibility if one is not careful and remains cool-headed. But if a player manages to keep his cool and remembers the simple fact that you don’t have to shoot at an enemy as soon as he’s visible, this ruleset has a possibility to provide a damn realistic experience of low level combat in WWII setting.

Allright, enough of ‘deep thoughts’ for this time around. Let me round this post up with repeating the sentiment that ‘Chain of Command’ seems to be an excellent ruleset. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely give it a shot (pun intended).

Here we go again

Last Sunday H. decided to grace me with a visit. Naturally he insisted on dragging his unrully Saxons along with him. My Britons filed a strongly worded complaint to these plans and another clash in our semi-dormant Dux Britanniarum-campaign became unevitable.

Yeah, its’ been a while since I’ve hosted a proper game!

We’re still dipping our toes in the pool when it comes to Dux Britanniarum and trying out different scenarios that are included. In our previous games the games focused on some sort of loot – either plunder of a village or getting away with stuff already grabbed before the encounter in the game. This time around we choose a scenario that is a bit different from the rest of the lot included in the rulebook – a Briton patrol consisting of two warrior groups and an officer are returning from an uneventful stroll around the countryside. The rest of the Briton army is camped around the watchtower at the other end of the table, which also doubles as the ‘panic room’ for the patrol. Saxons have apparently gotten hold of playbook of South-American drug cartels (or would it be the other way around?) and figured out that snaching a noble could render neat little profit without having to deal with angry peasants and sniveling kids.

With a lot of random setup elements in the initial deployment as well as a terrain deployment controlled by players intending to block movement paths or trying to ensure escape routes, there seems to be a lot of replayability in this one.

Initial deployment

The terrain placement would obviously play a significant role in this scenario and it took us a while before we were done with all the sneaky shuffling around of bogs, rough patches, woods and hills. We agreed that all terrain features with the exception of stand alone trees, were medium difficulty terrain. The steep hill-side was impassable.

Next, I placed my units on the table. My forlorn patrol was allowed to move a bit towards safety of the building that proxied for the watch tower (future terrain project?), while the rest of my troops was deployed around it. Saxons had to roll for their entry edge, as well as how many units would enter on first round. H. promptly rolled a six, which meant that all his scoundrels would pour onto the table without any delay.

The game

Plans, plans, plans… Well, the obvious part of my game plan was to make the patrol move as quickly as possible and hope H. wouldn’t catch them. What to do with the troops around my base was a bit more of a challenge, mostly created by myself. In deployment phase I was a bit flippant and spread individual groups around the deployment area – you know, ‘we are resting and doing nothing’-thing. Once the game started, I  realized however a bit too late that this dispersion gave H. an unintended advantage. It would now take time for me to gather everyone together and time was something I didn’t have in this game. By that time it was too late for regrets and I had to adapt to the situation I’ve decided to send my elites and archers under command of Noble on a dash toward the patrol as some sort of quick reaction force. In the meantime I would use my Lord to herd together my levies and when ready, try to get behind the Saxons, wherever they may be at that time.

H. must have read my mind and split his force in three groups – his two groups of hearthguard and two warrior groups set were arranged in separate formations and set of in a run toward their intended prey. Remaining warrior group, its numbers increased to eight warriors after his previous successful raid, accompanied by his archers turned toward my base in a clear attempt to secure the flank of main force.

After a couple of rounds the character of the game started to take shape. Personally I suffered from a brain-freeze and threw my patrol into rough terrain in front of them, not only unnecessarily slowing them down, but also giving the a couple of Shock points. Really dumb move – I should have either rushed to the right of these boulders or rushed to the top of the hill, gaining superior defensive position. My choice now guaranteed that H. would catch my patrol detachment in the open. This meant forming a shieldwall and waiting for the onslaught of a shedload of now clearly visible horde of screaming Saxons, quickly closing the distance.

At the other end, my peasant levies tried their best to gather together, failing miserably, with one group being too fast for their own good and the rest dragging their feet. The ‘fast’ group ended up dangerously close to H.’s ‘security force’, which pounced on them without delay. Three peasants promptly went down in the violent melee that followed… but to everyone’s surprise, two Saxons also met their end in this initial clash! Unexpected casualties seemed to have taken a bit the fight out of the remaining Saxons, who probably expected some easy killing but met their match.

This initial contact also put some ideas into my head – my rescue force was now about same distance from the position of my now stationary patrol as it was from H’s flank group. Due to its separatin, it presented a juicy target – with my peasants in front and comanipulares jumping them from the rear, they’d surely be dead meat! Said and done, I diverted my rescue force from the initial destination. The plan was now to wipe out these separated Saxons first and proceed with rescuing the ambushed patrol if there was still time for that. And if I didn’t make it in time? Well, eye for an eye, mate!

My decision shaped the game into its final form, consisting of two separate actions. The encounter between H.’s flank party and my comanipulares asssisted by a levies shieldwall was a one-sided affair. The outcome was assisted by H.’s consistently bad luck with dice rolls in this fight. His warriors took their time dying, but die they did, one or two at a time! The few survivors finally had enough and broke down, trying to make it to the edge of the board. In this they failed and were unceremonously dispatched by their pursuers. The noble leading this unlucky group managed to dodge all the blows (and there were many!) to the very end and was finally allowed to flee as last man standing. For me, the cost was one slain comanipulares – all things considered, a decent payoff.

The main event was however the last stand of my warriors. And indeed, it was a last stand worth of songs praising this group of stalward heroes! Over five rounds they stood their ground, not budging an inch, slugging it out with the best H. could throw at them. Over the course of this fight there were very few casualties, with just one man going down on each side, and my noble, leading by example, suffering a honorable wound. In the end, the fight was decided by the Shock mechanism, which dictates that each two points of Shock take away one attack dice for the inflicted group of figures. As the fight progressed, my shieldwall formation absorbed all but one kill result H’s hearthguard managed to score, but my Shock points increased steadily. When H’s warrior formation, which lagged behind, finally slammed into the side of my shieldwall, the jigg was up due to a scenario special rule, which said that if Saxons had three times attack dice my force could muster, my lads would give up. And that’s precisely what finally happened – abandonded, obviously in despair and completely exhausted, my warriors realized that further resistance was futile and laid down their arms. But they never broke!

With the entire patrol in the bag, H. declared that he would be quiting the field. This he was allowed to do without any challenge on my part – the distance to the edge was too short and even if I managed to get to his main force before it left the table, it would be in disorganized manner. I would be asking for further losses, so it was better to bite the bullet and wait for the inevitable ransom demand.

Post-battle

In Dux Britanniarum, each scenario is set in a simple campaign setting. Once a game is finished players compare their results – were scenario conditions fulfilled, how many loses were suffered by each side, were any Nobles wounded or killed and so on… This comparison decides who won the game and how much of a success it really was. In this case, the destruction of H.’s warriors on the flank minimized the level of his victory to a rather phyrric victory. But a victory it was nonetheless and now he has enough money to advance career of his warlord to the next step in the overall campaign.

Musings after the battle

Well… there were moments in this game where I feared it would turn out into a frustrating, one-sided affair leaving bad aftertaste in loser’s mouth. But in the end it turned out to be a true nail-biter that could literally turn either way due to a single dice roll! Also, the rules are rock-solid in every respect, with combat mechanism actually surprising me with its, in my opinion at least, quite ‘realistic’ outcome in both main fights of this game. The post-game phase is also a bit of a blast with its capability to reduce a seemingly very sucessful encounter into a sour grape.

Two events that took place during the game require a further analysis. The first took place in final phase of the massacre of H.’s flanking force. The ruleset says that Nobles don’t suffer hits in normal way, instead a simple check is made whenever a group to which the Noble is attached suffers casualties. If a roll on a D6 is equal or less than the number of kills suffered by that group in a fight, the Noble takes that hit instead. In our game, H.’s Noble managed to avoid damage throughout the game and in the end only he and one last warrior was still standing. Three kill hits were dealt against them in combat round that followed. Common sense says that both men were hacked to pieces. But if rules are applied in ‘rules lawyer’ manner (which we chose to do), all these hits would be absorbed by the ‘last’ warrior and a check with a D6 would follow, with a result of ‘1’ resulting in a wound to the Noble. Our check left H.’s Noble unscathed and a lucky card draw allowed him to escape the field. I’m not entire sure how I feel about that outcome, as I would have loved to finish the man!

The other curiosity occured due to scenario conditions. As already mentioned, the ‘main event’ ended with my Noble and eleven of my warriors being taken prisoner. This event posed a question that is unaswered by the ruleset – how were these prisoners to be regarded in terms of loses in post-battle phase? The question is not trivial – a loss of eleven men could be a very significant factor when deciding level of victory, which in turn can have impact on development of the campaign. The noble will probably be ransomed, but would the British lord care about paying for captured warriors? Maybe, but would the Saxon chieftain want to release them? They would probably be worth more on slave market somewhere in Europe. In the end we decided that everyone in captured party had to be considered as a loss. It would however be nice to hear opinions of other players about this situation.

All the ambiguities nonewithstanding, the fact remains – Dux Britanniarum gave us another excellent game and that’s the important thing. Also, with H. having successfully amassed wealth necessary to proceed in the social meta-game, we will now be able to expand number of troops in our games.

Wild, wild West

I once read that the best way to avoid the ‘oh look, shiny”-syndrome is to concentrate at least for a couple of years on a single game system and period. If one is to draw any conclusions from my personal ‘rat race’ with multitude of projects that seemingly never come to a fruition, it does sound like very good advice.

And proof is in the pudding! Couple of weeks ago I had a chance to participate in a Western skirmish game arranged by T., one of my closest wargaming buddies. He has has been working on and off on his Western town for a couple of decades and over last few years it has been his main project. It certainly shows, his setup is exceptionally nice. All buildings and terrain features are built from scratch and more and more of his buildings have ‘playable’ interior.

The game itself? This time around we used a ruleset from Knuckleduster Miniatures (I think) called ‘Desperado’. T. run the game with basic rules and some home rules bolted on. A lot of shooting, a lot of wounds, few fatalities and a lot of banter and laughter – what else would one want from a wargame? In the end all the bad guys were on the ground, filled with copious ammounts of led, but they did manage to give as well as they took before going down in a blaze of glory.

 

Sidetracked

So if you take a look loong way back into time machine of this blog, you will discover that once upon a time one of my ambitions was to put together a small set of minis and terrain for World War II skirmishes in Normandy. That particular project had some success, I have two complete platoons of Yanks and Germans, as well as some terrain. If I recall correctly, I’ve had two or three games with T. (Arc of Fire), before the project died away. Cause of death – extensive requirements for hedgerows! As said before, I’m not that much into terrain making.

Anyway… with vacation period upon us and me being rather ‘sick and tired’ of anything Vietnam-related, I needed a quick side-project. So when I literally stumbled upon a resin PzIVH from Milicast that I bought many moons ago for above-mentioned skirmishes in Normandy, I thought ‘what the heck, let’s get this one done’.

Now, working with 1/76 resin kits isn’t exactly the same thing as their ‘little brethren’ from Flames of War or Forged in Battle. In case of Milicast kits, we’re talking about proper ‘models’, with detailed mouldning and small, fiddly resin parts that need to be cut out of their mould blocks and cleaned up. It maybe sounds more complicated than it really is, especially with Milicast’s Battle Range, which I think is simplified for wargamers, but there is some additional clean-up work involved with those kits. In case of this particular PzIV, the casting was mostly very clean. The exception was a nasty, solid blob of resin lodged between turret and one of front edges of turret shürtzen. Finally, after drilling a bunch of small holes and cutting and chipping away at it, I managed to get most of it out, but it was a real PITA.

Small resin parts can be either cut away with scalpel (gently) or sawed out with specialized tiny razor saws mounted on scalpel handles. Yes, it is additional hassle, but it’s worth the effort. The kit looks, at least in my opinion, really great with all its small details. Perhaps a bit softer that its plastic cousins, but on the other hand those shürtzen mounts won’t snap in two if you breath at them a little harder. Also, Milicast’s product range is simply bewildering, by far exceeding whatever is out there in plastics!

Paint job is in this case pretty straight forward ‘German’ routine. First, wash the kit in warm soapy water – this is really necessary with resin kits where rests of mould release materials are always present and can make painter’s life a real hassle. Next, I used Vallejo grey primer as initial coat. Funny thing about resin and primers – this is the only one that seems to stick to resin, at least for me. Generic primers for plastics and primers just seem to pool together on resin when I use them.

Next, default German ‘war paint’ was applied. Orche from Tamiya, followed by German Olive Green from LifeColor and German Cammo Brown from Vallejo Model Color. All applied with an airbrush, I’m afraid – I’m sure there are ways to paint mottle cammo with brushes, but if you have an airbrush handy, why complicate life?

Once the paint job was sealed with acrylic varnish, weathering process commenced, starting with an overall application of dark brown wash from MiG. Next, I ‘chipped’ the kit with Vallejo Panzer Grey and applied streaks with different products from Ammo. Finally, some pigments were added, before sealing everything with another coat of varnish. This of course resulted in pigments being virtually wiped out, but what can you do?

Here’s the final product, in my opinion as good, if not better as anything that Warlord puts out for their 28mm range and for a fraction of the price.

This is a robbery!

Well, just as I was ready to chalk up May as another month without any wargaming activity, Tony came to the rescue and not only invited me to push some lead and roll some dice but also gave me an opportunity to try a new western ruleset called ‘Dead Man’s Hand’.
For our game, Tony put together a bank robbery scenario with a twist – five robbers ride into town with bad intentions, but what they don’t know is that a bunch of Pinkerton men is waiting for them in an ambush. Luck is initially on the side of the bad guys and they manage to grab the cash without being noticed, but as they exit the bank, the teller runs after them screaming his head off. Anyone familiar with the western movies knows what happens next – a single shot rings out, the obnoxious teller drops dead, silenced forever by a bullet in the head… and then all hell breaks loose!



Quick overview of the ruleset is in order. ‘Dead Man’s Hand’, just like most of the rulesets in this genre it’s intended for skirmish games with a single miniature representing one character. The activation sequence is decided by a card deck – each character gets a card, the lowest cards act first. Each character gets to perform three actions of out of following selection – move, shoot, aim,  reload and rally. It is also possible to duck back one movement length or take a snapshot out of the turn sequence if the character hadn’t acted yet in the turn. Shooting is done with a D20, the result can be a miss, a ‘hit’ in form of suppression, a serious hit causing a ‘hit’ and an additional morale check causing additional ‘hits’ if it fails and finally a killing shot. Chances for a hit are affected by type of weapon/range and can be improved (marginally) by one or multiple ‘aim’ actions. A character is out of action if number of ‘hits’ exceeds his toughness, which usually is between 3 and 5. Lucky ‘kill shots’ put the character down with immediate effect.



To add a little spice to this vanilla mix, each side also has a set of cards with different events making life easier for your side or more difficult for the opponents. Players can play as many of those cards as they wish during the game turn, but they only get to pick one new card per turn – consequences for over-eager use of the card hand are obvious.



I won’t go into details of the game, but it took us about two hours (including the explanation of the rules) to get two of the robbers and all the money out of the town. The remaining three were mercilessly gunned down by the Pinkerton men. All four players, including me, had a pretty good time – ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ provides a fun game of beer and pretzels variety with proper western feeling. If you’re into type of light-hearted games with emphasis on the ‘game’ rather than ‘simulation, I would recommend without reservations that you give it a try.




Finally, a quick note about the buildings in the pictures below – they are all scratch-built by Tony. Yes, he’s one of those odd characters who’d much rather spend his time on making buildings or scenery than painting figures. And don’t even mention ‘painting horses’ to the guy!
The reason why I mention all this is that Tony let me know that if you like his stuff, he’s willing to take requests… for a reasonable fee, of course. So if you like what you see and would like to get some of your own, drop me a line.