Cowboys and Panzers

Managed to get in a game of both Blitzkrieg Commander and Gutshot at the club last night.  Mick and I started out with Blitzkrieg Commander and we played a fairly straight forward 1,000pt all out battle, mainly because we wanted to blow the cobwebs off the rules and see how the 10mm stuff fared on the table.

Unfortunately almost all of the photos I took last night turned out rubbish as I'd forgotten to switch the macro mode off and in turn all the long range table shots come out... well rubbish.  We both forgot to bring a green game mat so we had to play using my western one so north west Europe looks a little dry in the photos but the rest of the terrain and the minis (the painted ones at least) looked fantastic on the table.

Blitzkrieg Commander (1st edition) was a blast to play.  It's close enough to Warmaster that I don't have to unlearn any of the rules from that game and the extra WW2 stuff fits into the system nicely.  Sadly the Brits, played by myself didn't start out too well against the Germans who were superbly commanded by Mick.  I handed over command to James in turn two who managed to fare better than I did but was still unable to turn the tide.  Well we've got the main mechanics down now and I feel more comfortable that next time we can manage a bigger game.  The German reinforcements will hopefully have arrived by then and I think I'll have to base the Aussies up for use until I can get some more British.

I was too busy painting WW2 stuff yesterday and forgot to quickly reread the Gutshot rulebook, so play was a little slow to start with but move along quick enough, with most players not needing to refer to the rulebook by the end of the game.  We played the Last Man Standing scenario with two characters apiece.  Each player started in a respective corner of the table and very soon the gunfight, and knife fights, began.

Game play is fast, I like the card activation, and characters seem to take a bit of a beating without being bullet sponges.  The game play feels very Battletech-ish in the way the system handles combat modifiers for movement and damage with progressive negative modifiers to movement and accuracy is also very familiar.  This is not a bad thing though.  The game is simple and play is fast, it would get boring if all you played was shootouts week in week out but scenarios run by a referee are where this game shines.  I think I'll bring this may just become our choice of "quick game at the end of the night".

I'm happy too with the cardstock buildings, they've suffered in storage but I can fix that with a little balsa wood and glue.

Cards:  the card activation for Gutshot works a treat but the rulebook does recommend using name slips in a hat of something similar.  I went with cards and just assigned a number to each character.  This worked but slowed things down a little.  I think I'll get hold of some poker chips we'll use those in future.  A white sticker on one side with the characters name in pencil should do fine.  Also removing dead guys from the deck helps and it quickly got to the point of turning four or five cards before we got to a live fella.

My two characters below, Blackie and Ol' Gray, named after their hats of course.  Ol' Gray managed take take two hits from a revolver, got spat on and cursed at (twice), got stabbed in the back with a bowie knife before being shot for the final time  Blackie didn't last much longer but he did manage to take down the gringo that snuffed out Ol' Gray.

I had a few people asking about where to get miniatures from so I think things look bright for Gutshot.  Now all I need to do is find a Marty and Doc mini, I've got an idea for a "Mad Dog Mcree" scenario.