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Post by Legionnaire on Aug 12, 2008 8:26:09 GMT
During the testgame yesterday, that was pretty instructive to all of us I trust, we thought about starting an informal campaign. Apparently none of the scenarios take a lot of space, so we might be able to have two games going on at the same time. Playtime is also a bit reduced, as each and everyone have fewer minis to muck around with than normal.
A good starting point might be to play a few of the scenarios to give everyone an opportunity to get acquinted with the game. I personally have a few ideas that might be useful as a campaign.
Thoughts anyone?
PS. I have now pretty much reconstructed my forces, especially as the horse was my best and most trustworthy trooper...
The Swede.
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Post by joeoe18 on Aug 12, 2008 10:39:01 GMT
I'm all in favour of starting a campaign this weekend. What sort of ideas did you have Ove?
It might be best if we knew exactly who wanted to take part, that way it's easier to plan what scenarios will be played when - especially if we want to add a little bit of story.
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Post by John on Aug 12, 2008 11:04:03 GMT
Campaign wise I'm in the astute among you may already have guessed that. I'm almost certainly not going to make it to this Sunday but I'll drop in whenever I get the chance. My Posse are "Texas Rangers", obviously it depends on what fits within the Campaign and where it is set but I had invisaged them being from out of town, with them arriving here chasing after a fugitive/stolen materials or such like. This gives a little freedom regarding how local Lawmen and such like can interact with them. Obviously the Campaign side is Ove/Joe/Stephens? to mastermind. I have run a number of Necromunda and Mordhiem campaigns in the past though so if you are interested I'm happy to talk about campaign mechanics (setting up events, scenarios etc in a way that add theme without the GM having to micro-managing everything). I'm happy going along with whatever though
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Post by joeoe18 on Aug 12, 2008 12:33:45 GMT
I assume my posse will be the local lawmen - I think everyone else (so far) is outlaws and their motives and origins are fairly maliable. When are you going to be able to play John? If not for a few weeks then you could come in late in the game (with some sort of experience and money bonus). Perhaps called in as support for my lawmen who are having trouble dealing with all the outlaws
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Post by John on Aug 12, 2008 12:57:10 GMT
Roughly how long does a Gunfight take? I'm playing Warhammer against Mike next Monday, we both know the rules well so if things go smoothly I may have time for a game after?
I don't think I can make the 25th, thus the first definite date I'm free is Monday 1st September, which although a while off is only 4 club meetings away. Hopefully their won't be any need for a starting bonus, the infamy re-rolls should make things a little fairer.
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Post by Legionnaire on Aug 12, 2008 15:42:55 GMT
Campaignwise I have earlier vouched an idea ripped more or less straight from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", at the top of my head that could be constructed into 4-6 different scenarios. Obviously I have to get a bit of more thought about eventual special rules and which terrains to use, but that shouldn't take long.
The obvious kick-off is (preferably) in a chase between a Lawman-posse and an Outlaw-posse to get to the wounded Wells Fargo courier (or such), drag him to safety and spill the beans of the $200 000 in gold's whereabouts...
The Lawmen's incentive is to retreive the payroll and get glory and fame, the Outlaw's to get filthy rich...
The Swede.
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Post by joeoe18 on Aug 12, 2008 17:40:51 GMT
That suggestion sounds like a good one....although we need to know specific numbers of players before we can know exactly how many scenarios it will be. Also I was thinking that maybe that first scenario could run like a Jailbreak, except you have to escort the Wells Fargo man. Perhaps he'll only move if one of your men is in base to base contact with him. The idea being then to get him off the table first (or shoot your enemy so much that they run away). Although obviously only two posses can do that scenario, perhaps some of them could fight it out to see who gets there. Although those posses would then need another scenario to mak sure they play the same number as the two doing the Jailbreak. Complicated
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Post by Legionnaire on Aug 12, 2008 19:02:44 GMT
Already ahead of you there Joe. As you point out it's a good idea to move the "victim" by being base-to-base, up to 6" in the direction of your choice, but he may only move once per turn (first to nudge decides). Being such a valuable asset to everyone, no-one may fire at the "victim" or at a figure obscured by him. The winner will be the one to chase the "victim" over the edge, thus keeping him safe. Or if only one team remains, that team, but in that case they don't get any bonus exp/ loot.
Now to the other part. I think it doesn't exclude more than two posses to participate, reasons below.
- Multiple Lawmen, someone might be Pinkertons hired by someone wealthy to retrieve the money. Usually didn't care much for the laws juristiction.
-In the case of multiple Outlaws, a bit of business competition isn't unexpected.
- Another possibility for Lawmen or Outlaws is actually Bountyhunters, get the wanted criminal, no matter what.
These are just a few thoughts, but in my opinion it can be doable with more than two posses. I think it only takes a bit of fleshing out the exact boundaries of your posse. That in turn could make the starting scenario a free-for-all (well, up to four posses).
In addition, I could probably play once a month, preferably long Sunday. Mostly because I'm involved in Mikes RQ, and play a few boardgames on regular Mondays.
Suggestions anyone?
The Swede.
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Post by Stephen Mawson on Aug 12, 2008 19:48:55 GMT
I was more envisioning simply playing an open ended series of games using the campaign rules, to bring in the experience, money and hired guns into the game.
Of course if people have good ideas about how to run a series of linked games that's great. Once we know roughly what posse's we've got we could of course run a series of these story lines, with the same posse's getting involved from one series of games to the next.
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Post by joeoe18 on Aug 13, 2008 8:53:28 GMT
Those all sound like good ideas although one problem I envisaged with the moving the "victim" rule is that: if you can't shoot at him or through him then the man who's herding him around will be essentially invincible as long as he can keep the man between himself and the enemy - given that they'll be coming from 2 different directions that's not going to be to difficult. Although it might not be terribly realistic it might be best to allow that you can shoot the man moving the "victim" and just ignore the "victim" for the purposes of the Shootin' phase.
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Post by John on Aug 13, 2008 9:32:08 GMT
I think it'd be fair to say you could ignore the 'victim', after all he has valueable information which he needs to be alive to get so it's not like anyone would use him as a human shield, chances are they'd push him into cover if someone was shooting that way.
- - - One thing that often works well in campaign board games is to split them into Chapters, with players free to play games during the Chapter but with a special event at the end. Each Chapter would have a different event, and may have a couple of special rules during that month.
As an example, you might say that September was Chapter One in the newly formed town of 'whatever'. Rumour has it that there's a massive stash nearby but it's lost and no one is admitting they know where it is. As it's the first month you don't have any special rules, but at the end of the month (or the all day Sunday on the 21st) the Posses converge on the one man who knows where it is. You 'might' add a rule saying that this Scenario is Lawmen vs Cowboys vs Bandits, or a rule saying that people who have won games during the Chapter get some form of advantage (to move the courier 3" after deployment "as they have most information on where he is hiding") but don't have to do anything like that.
Obviously the above is just ideas, but it balances the desires of players who want to be able to play games more often, with the desires of players who want to play strongly themed events. The only issue that comes with this is that players who are more active will have an advantage but that can be balanced in later Chapters by special rules (such as a famous Lawmen or Desperado coming to Town to help out).
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Post by Legionnaire on Aug 13, 2008 10:34:04 GMT
Point taken lads. On this note I'd like to keep the informant in play as before but on the assumtion that someone is shooting in the informants direction, he licks the ground (ie. doesn't count as being in the way for simplicity of play), putting self preservation foremost.
On the other hand we can accomodate Stephen's wishes to play a few loosely tied games first, to get experience and equipment, and when the number of players have been sorted out, hit the written campaign.
I aim to get the first two scenarios for the campaign written for Sunday though, in case people want to start right off.
Scenario 1: the earlier mentioned get the guy to spill the whereabouts of the gold.
Scenario 2: Timed scenario through a settlement.
Scenario 3: Possibly involving blowing up a bridge, also on time.
Scenario 4: Possibly the Grand Finale! Involving Spotting and all-out fighting at a cemetery.
And if need be, some "fillers" consisting of scenarios from the book or the net.
The Swede.
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Post by Stephen Mawson on Aug 13, 2008 11:32:27 GMT
I don't mind playing a more themed series of games, all I was saying is that I hadn't considered the campaign running in such a fashion.
That's probably more to do with the fact that when I've played similar kinds of games, Necromunda and Mordenheim for example, both of which are small team skirmished based games with experience and money built into the games. The way they've tended to be run is simply that people play games against whoever they wish, whenever they wish, and who ever has the most powerful gang/team/posse at the end of the campaign wins. So no real story line, or even theme or anything, just a series of open ended games.
I'm quite happy to play a much more story oriented series of games, that isn't a problem, indeed it'll be a nice change of pace from the normal sorts of wargames that I play.
Given the way the rules look in terms of experience and money, in based on some of the other similar GW games I've played in the past. I'd suggest that any campaign that wants to allow a meaningful gain of experience and money for all posse's will probably need to allow for between a dozen and twenty games being played by each posse.
Given this as John says I'm thinking that scenario may want to be translated into several individual one on one games, followed up by a big centre piece game to finish that part of the story off. Thinking of them as chapters, rather than scenarios, and giving them a time period of say a month each, is a good way of structuring things.
For Ove's suggested Scenario 1. You could work this out as several one on one games of high noon, to represent the various posse's searching through the town for the location of the Well's Fargo guy and running into each other doing the same thing.
If you assume that the winners of the various High Noon games would pick up some kind of clue as to where the guy is holed up. Then when you come to the main event game on one of the all day Sunday's the posse's that have got the most clue's (i.e. won the most games) get a small advantage during the main event games.
Perhaps they start a little closer to where the guy is hiding, as they've managed to track him down a bit quicker.
If the various parts of the storyline all get this treatment then everyone should get a chance to play a game, or perhaps two per chapter, plus the big finale game.
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Post by Stephen Mawson on Aug 13, 2008 11:39:10 GMT
John,
In terms of how long a game of Legends of the Old West takes, I'd suggest that a hour and a half is the maximum amount of time game would take, and you could probably play a game in less than an hour if both players play reasonably swiftly.
We managed to get two one on one games in on Monday, including the time taken to set up the table, and to pack it away, and we still had finished and tidied up before 10:30. And that was with players unfamiliar with the game system and the rules and a lot of pauses to look up things in the rule book.
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Post by dave3 on Aug 13, 2008 17:49:41 GMT
This all sounds great. As I have lots of minis now, I could select a multitude of posse types. Maybe my Mexicans, with a few gringos, who could be Texan, to act as the reason for Johns Rangers in the game. I was originally thinking of being Lawmen, but outlaws, or Cowboys (after seeing Lonesome Dove) could be fun. Dave
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