Shootout at the Sierra Corral - Preamble, Setup and Game

Time for another update..  a game report for a change..

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Preamble..

As the sun rose over a sleepy Cedar Gulch and gradually lit the Sierra Corral and its sales office, the inhabitants of the (normally) sleepy town little knew what a rude awakening they were about to experience..

Wes Alsop, the owner of the Sierra (which was situated just outside the town), had taken delivery the day before of some new horses for the local ranch, the "Lazy C". Chaz Bishop, senior hand on the ranch, had taken the opportunity to ride over to pick the horses up, and at the same time have a coffee and a yarn with his old friend. 

As they sat there in the office, the rich smell of coffee filling the air, neither of them knew that they were to be the cause of their local citizens rude awakening, for unbeknownst to them, the horses had also attracted the attention of some of the local bad men.

'Deadeye' Cooper and Fred Early had been in town the day before drinking in the 'Silver Dollar' ("Whiskey, Beer and Rooms") when someone had happened to mention the arrival of the horses. Looking out the window at their own beaten up old nags, the victims of one too many escapes and hard rides, the looked at each other and words unspoken, lifted their glasses to each other in salute. As the evening went on they got into conversation with Gus Farley, a saddle tramp, who also invited himself in on the "party". One more gun would never go amiss...

Dramatis Personae

The number is the characters toughness rating - the lower the number the tougher the hombre..

Table and Scenario Specific Rules:

• I'm using Ruthless [clicky] again - Ruthless-Fastest-Rules-in-the-West-3.pdf (fireballforward.com) [clicky] ..they're free gratis, but more importantly they drive a fantastic narrative 
• Top of the picture following is North
• Deadeye enters at 2/.
• Fred and Gus at 1/.
• Wes and Chaz are in the front of the office come bunk house at 3/.
• Neither Wes or Chas can react until one movement in view of any of the bad guys, and even then Wes is cursed with a sense of fairness and won't open fire until shot upon
• The horses are unsaddled and in the Corral, and for any of the bad guys to get them away they need to expend 4 actions/two complete turns doing absolutely nothing else - after that they move at foot rate in any direction the bad guys wishes to take them (there are gates in the fence so I'm not going to make it any more difficult for them than it already is 😏)
• Winner is the side that either has the horses in (the good guys) or out (the bad guys) of the Corral
• The "Skeddadle" dice is a D6 rather than a D10 due to the small size of each group 
• Any move that includes shooting will result in the horses moving D6" in a direction decided by a direction dice
• All ground is good going except rocks, hills, fences, scrub/inside building which counts as rough. Scrub/fences count soft cover, building/logs/rocks hard cover. Hills/rocks/building block line of sight

The Game

[Move 1] 

Start of move..

As the sun slowly rose over the horizon, and a new day burned its way into the retinas, at the  far end of town Wes and Chaz, breakfast over and coffee in hand, are chatting, laughing and reminiscing about previous misdeeds, narrow escapes, ladies loved and lost, the best brands of sipping whiskey and the favourite horses of their respective youths [their cards are discarded as they require one full move to react to any sighting]. 

Across the way Fred gets the drop on his compadres and runs across the open ground to join up with Deadeye who moves into the cover of the fallen logs closer to the office. Gus, the most trepidous of the three, moves to the cover of bushes north of the corral.

The horses snicker and move nervously [no shooting so no movement].

Skeddadle dice not required (no casualties/unconscious or lily livered...  yet... 😏)

[Move 2]  Wes spots Fred running across the clearing the other side of the Corral and something about his furtive manner makes him drop his coffee cup, pull his iron and drop down to get the full cover of the window shouting a warning to Chaz.

Deadeye, cursing the stupidity of his partner at being seen so soon, sprints to the side of the cabin nearest him coming to a rest next to the window, back to the wall while Fred runs to the fence line, using the horses to cover him from the cabin. Gus, screwing up his courage, runs to the scrub at the north east corner of the Corral.

Chaz is slow but pulls his iron drops down to the other side of the window and snaps off a shot at Gus. [One shot only to allow for the other actions - not aimed - can ignore long range - target in soft cover - but not surprisingly perhaps he misses]

Sitrep End Move 2 before horses move

The horses snicker and move nervously towards the cabin [dice(s) give 3" to the East]

Skeddadle dice again not required (yet.. 😏)

[Move 3]  Gun still in hand, and Gus still visible, Chaz takes advantage aims and squeezes off another shot at him across the way [long range but that be ignored because of his character trait, soft cover but the aimed shot counters that] and is rewarded with the sound of a shout of pain from  Gus - "hit 'im" he grunts to Wes.. better.. he's fairly sure Gus is going nowhere soon [he was right - Gus failed his subsequent morale test and becomes "lily livered"..  'shaken' in other words] but his optimism is rudely rewarded with a couple of shots in return from the wounded Gus, splintering the wood work around the window but doing no other harm..

Across the corral, Fred jumps the fence and moves towards the horses, still keeping them between him and the office. At the side of the office Deadeye turns and jumps to the side window intending to fire off a shot at Wes in the room. out of the corner of his eye Wes sees him and quickly snaps off a shot at him before he can fire. Deadeye grunts in pain and drops out of sight - shot untaken.[Interesting passage of play from a rule perspective and shows their flexibility - so Deadeye had the initiative, but the rules allow a character who is about to be fired at, but who hasn't activated yet this turn, to "get the draw" - overwatch if you like. Wes tested (at -1 as I allowed Deadeye his "stealth" bonus), but won, and managed to get a successful shot off  before Deadeye could shoot - Deadeye then failed his subsequent morale test so I adjudged that the wound - which was serious - plus the failed morale test would have meant him dropping out of sight pronto]

End Turn 3 - just prior to the failed "Skedaddle" test - yellow pins indicate "lily livered"/shaken

Fred shouts "I'm getting out of here!" and runs for cover (and the town), and is swiftly followed by both Deadeye and Gus..  looks like the beaten up old nags are going to have to suffer yet another hard ride.. [with two characters now on failed morale the bad guys needed to get over 2 on a D6 or fail the skedaddle test - needless to say they threw a 2 😏]

Post Match Analysis:

• Short, sharp and sweet - like a good Tequila (or so I understand... 😀) - but another fantastic short story delivered by this set of rules..  you can just smell the heat, the dust, the sweat and the cordite when you play...
• Not a lot of lead thrown, but Wes and Chaz were very accurate, both hitting and hitting hard with their few shots..             

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 "Laters", as the young people are want to say...