Brownville Gold (LotOW)

Last Friday's SHMW Game Night I ran a little Legends of the Old West game at the Den. I ran it for a couple of reasons. One was so that all the games for Novemeber and December didn't end up being WW2 games. Also I had recovered a bunch of my old west figures from Mr. Burt's basement when I went I was in Calgary for Fallcon and wanted to make use of them.

These old west figures I speak of have a bit of a (boring) history. I ordered them all from England about 17 years ago. I think a couple were from Britannia Miniatures, the rest I haven't a clue. If anyone out there can tell from the pictures let me know. Anyway, I painted them up with intentions of playing some sort of old west shoot out game. I know John ordered Once Upon a Time in the West, and at some point I picked up some I.C.E./Rolemaster old West type game. But we never, ever got around to playing with them! At some point, over a decade ago, I was purging miniatures and John took them and stored them in his basement until I came to my senses and asked for them back.

I decided these guys really needed to see some action so I said I'd run a LotOW game for the game night on 15 Dec 06. In the last couple weeks I rebased all and touched up some of the figures, and finished painting a few that weren't finished. Then I had to reread the LotOW rules as I hadn't even looked at them since I bought them when they first came out. Luckily Jeff showed up for Game Night as he has played it a few times and helped out when I forgot things (which was just about everything...).

The scenario I cooked up was that the Brownville's, some hicks that live up in the hills near Snake River, had found some gold on their property. Now the Brownville's aren't trusting folks and usually hide all their money in old coffee cans but there was a significant amount of gold in the vien they discovered so they made arrangements for the Bank in Snake River to hold it for them.

Well word kind of got out and a couple of interested parties set out to ambush the Brownvilles on their way into town and make off with their gold.

I played the Brownville's; Ma, Pa, Billy-Ray, and Jethro. These are more recent additions to my old west collection. They're Coppelstone Castings "Sharp Shooting Hillbillies" from the Gangster line. I used the cowboy list to make them up, I didn't buy them wilth points/dollars, I just used the list for the stats. Their goal was to lead the mule laden with gold into snake river and turn it over to the Sheriff and his deputies that were waiting at the bank.

I also played Sheriff Johnson (one of the ones I think I got from Britannia Miniatures) and his two deputies (a couple more recent additions; Artizan's "Gothic Gunfighters").

I made up a couple groups of outlaws with my older figures but only ended up using a one of them which Gary played.

Jeff and Dylan played posses that Jeff had brought along. Dylan had outlaws, Jeff had some (corrupt) US Marshall's(?) or Texas Rangers or something like that....

Here's a bit of how it went down:



Dylan (left) and Gary (right) check out the lay of the land, and are setting up their posses. The Brownvilles started at the table edge furthest from Snake River, which can be seen in the distance. Jeff (hiding behind Dylan) later set up his posse on the same side as Dylan, but closer to Snake River.


Here is Ma and Pa Brownville. Jethro and Billy-Ray are trailing behind as they've been shooting up some of Dylan's Outlaws (seen in the background).



Now these are some of those ancient Old West figures of unkown origin played by Gary. Gary maneuvered them through the gullys and tried to make best use of the cover available (and let Dylan and me and jeff shoot each other up a bit before jumping in!).


Sheriff Johnson of Snake River and his Deputies. They didn't play much of a role in this scenario. armed only with six-guns their sole purpose was to distract Jeff for a turn or two while catching a few bullets from his rifles. Jeff's Rangers shot down the two deputies then Sheriff Johnson decided to head for the hills.


Some of Jeff's Rangers. Some look like Mexicans to me.


At this point Ma's been shot down and Pa's grabbed the mule. Snake river is in sight (as are the Lawmen just beyond the Snake River sign). Jeff's Rangers are up oon the hill. I think Dylan's Outlaw's (not in this picture) were already making "Head for the Hills" checks and passed them for about 6 turns in a row before finally calling it a day. The turn after this picture was taken the rest of the Brownville's went down.


Jeff's Rangers on the hill looking across at Gary's Outlaws that have recovered the mule. Gary had been going dead last every turn up until we had to check for where the mule went. The player with "the drop" determines where bolting animals go. So of course Gary got the drop, the animal bolted, and headed straight for Gary's group. At this point Jeff and Dylan forged a (temporary) alliance, otherwise Gary's Outlaws would turn and head off the table while they continued to shoot each other up.

Jeff then shot the mule. The mule was replace with four gold tokens. Where the mule could be lead at a walking pace, each gold token had to be carried by a different figure, which could onl move at half rate when carrying said gold and could only use single handed weapons. So Gary picked up a few of them and headed for his table edge.

Jeff and Dylan's guys chased him across the table shootin' as they went. Eventually Dylan's guys decided they'd had enough and called it quits.




A couple shots of the final shoot out between Jeff and Gary's posses. There was a lot of fanning of six-guns going on and guys dropping like flys. In the end both were below half strength and I think it was Gary's guys that head for the hills first.

Another fun game. Thanks to Gary, Jeff and Dylan for coming out to play!

If I were to do it all over again I'd probably've used Savage Worlds. I'm far more familiar with the system and could have tweaked things a bit better to make the Brownvilles a tad more survivable. Each would have been a wild card (or at least Ma and Pa and Jethro and Billy-Ray would have been really tough extras), whereas the players would have had a single wild card leader and a group or two of extras.