For a change of scenery, an old west game called Dead Man's Hand. Designed for 28mm as a skirmish game, it is a little out of the ordinary for me. A member of the group has been working on putting this together and going so far as to hand make all the buildings pictured here. Plenty of law enforcement, cowboys, Indians, Mexicans and some French Foreign Legion. For this particular game, we just had some outlaws and law enforcement.
Being in Oklahoma, this land was once part of the frontier where gangs and famous outlaws like Jesse James, Belle Star and others passed through, robbed and even lived in. This game was based on the September 1, 1893 Dalton Gang shootout in Ingalls, Oklahoma. The buildings pictured here are more numerous than what's standing there now, but we decided to use all of what was available. All the actual gang members were represented as well as the law enforcement posse sent to bring these men to justice.
I had control of all the outlaws. Did my men drink too much in the saloon? Were they just horrible shots? Unlike the real shootout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingalls,_Oklahoma my men couldn't seem to hit anyone.
Just as the real shootout had started, my men were also inside the buildings awaiting the arrival of law enforcement that they knew were coming for them. I anticipated my seven men could take on anything. If worse came to worse, we had horses in the barn and could ride out of town. In fact, to win all I had to do was have half or more of my men escape.
My men quickly found out that most of their pistols were ineffective at shooting the better armed law enforcement across the street. The couple of shotguns I had were also better suited for up close gun fighting. In short, my men were not armed for this style of shootout. Of course, if I were rolling high, that probably would have not been such a problem.
The law enforcement agents came on strong and were quite brave. Repeatedly I opened fire and time and time again I couldn't hit them. They came on closer, even taking cover where possible and still I could do nothing. Running out the back of the buildings and heading to the barn to run away from the town seemed like the only sensible thing to do.
Up on the second floor of the bank was a skilled law enforcement agent with some long rifle. He seemed to be able to find his mark (nearly killing my leader twice) and I tried not expose my men to anything he could shoot.
The horse in the picture represents one member of the gang mounted up and riding out. No appropriately mounted figures were painted yet, but that will be taken care of in due time. The barn is on the left and my men are quickly sneaking in the back door to jump on their horses and rush out under a hail of gun fire springing from buildings.
A view from the law enforcement's side. Not pictured was a small shootout behind the buildings in the background where even at point blank range, I still couldn't manage to hit anyone out in the open. I did manage to successfully outrun the law enforcement agents entering the buildings as I escaped out the back door.
And the game ended with 2 of my men dead and more than half escaped. So I won, though how I managed not to injure any of the law enforcement agents is hard to understand. The Dalton Gang survived this encounter and will need to recruit to build up the ranks. Maybe this time find some new guys that can hit their targets.
The rules play out fine and are easy to pick up. There are cards drawn that look like 1800's playing cards (but smaller). The cards are more for the purposes of initiative rather than dictating certain actions. The cards can also be used to enhance or cancel certain game effects, depending on what is written upon the card. We'll play this game again soon and I believe all the buildings will be painted. I will make sure to get some better pictures for that post.
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