A game of cowboys......mostly

on saturday a few friends got together and played a game of cowboys.  I offered to do the donkey work and organise a (thin!) plot and provide figures and buildings.  I already had in mind an idea but with 9 people opting to join in I had to be a little creative in the gangs and their reasons for joining in the madness!
I waa worried that I wouldn't have enough terrain for such a big game but it seemed to fill more than I thought.  The excellent base cloth was bought along by another player and I will have to get one of my own at some point.

 The game revolved (or should have!) around an exhibition of the grave goods of Pharaoh Suq mahtoof the first that was travelling around the big cities of north america.  The train had stopped over night in a small western town, ably  guarded by the great British detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson.  The next morning the train had disappeared and a glowing mist rolled around the area of the train station.  Chests and crates could be seen in the mist but so too could the animated corpses of the two famous guards.

 So everyone should have made a bee line for the treasure, but to add another level of complexity into it I also devised about 30 mission cards that would generate extra points for their completion.  Everyone drew 2 of these at random. These could be simply gaining extra points for killing the leader of another group or for robbing the local bank in the confusion of the day.
We used a simple version of legends of the old west as most of us had some background in a games workshop type game and so mechanisms would be comfortable, and I also made a set of cards that could be used to interrupt people's turn, boost your own figures or just sow general mayhem in shooting matches that had none of your figures in...
Below, my posse move up the table at the start of the game.  Their two secret missions were to sleep with the famous town whore and to rob their own bank!!!  dream big boys, dream big.......

 Darren, the player on the left wears the initiative hat :)  I felt it was easier to roll dice and highest went first, then clockwise from there.  The initiative hat marked the start of the round.
Groups of figures can be seen moving towards the centre of the table.

 The Sons of Horus, dedicated to thwarting the return of the Pharaoh, move towards the mist.

 Queen Victoria, here to collect a few choice artifacts for the British museum, decides to make a detour and warily passes the Red Brotherhood, who are quickly rushing to their masters aid.

 Comment about the British forming square were made....

 reinforcements arrive for one of the groups.

 And charge into the mist to try and steal some treasure. All of the chests contain golden items but some contain guardians.  The secret Cabal of the Chinese government felt that they were the only civilisation with the culture to appreciate the history of the items, and they got to ask the Pharaoh in person as they managed to summon him by opening a treasure chest.  The brave tiger warrior ran off!

 The Sons of Horus, seeing all the monster emerge from the mist, jumped onto a wagon that contained a fully loaded Gatlin gun and set about shooting Dr watson

 The British revealed a secret agent hidden in the ranks of Uncle Thulu's band of madmen. (Uncle Thulu was here as he had a 4000 yr old grudge to settle with the Pharaoh).  However, the secret agent proved to be particularly inept as he tried to shoot the Thulu in the back of the head from point blank and he missed!

 The Pharaoh sets about retrieving his treasure.

 The Gatlin gun shoots down some cowboys...just for fun.

 Reinforcements arrive for Uncle Thulu, which was just as well as he was going through his men at a spectacular rate.  One of the players (Rhys) had bought his own cowboy figures to use.  These happened to be cowboy teddybears. Now, having shoehorned chinese, mexicans, queen victoria, the sons or Horus, the red brotherhood, Egyptian undead, a zombified Sherlock Holmes and Watson and Uncle Thulu into a plot, I felt no moral ground from which to say that he couldn't use them and so the scene was set for an afternoon long fight between a great old one and cowboy teddybears....

 Sherlock fights a Tigerman

 The Red brotherhood still moving towards the Pharaoh.

 Teddybears and Thulu shoot it out.  Many stick of dynamite were thrown.

 Queen Victoria and servant on their own having sent off the boys to do and die.

 My towns folk prepare to storm the unguarded saloon in order to sleep with the town good time girl.

 Rhys did smile more than this during the day...honest.  maybe his bears were dying to fast at this point.

 The British storm a wagon to use as a strong point.  Great tactic until Uncle Thulu threw some dynamite in..,,
Surprisingly most of the british survived and Thulu managed to blow himself up.  Not what we were expecting.  But then, probably not most of the participants were expecting when I said "fancy a game of cowboys next week?"

I think at the end of the game the Son of Horus had just managed to pip the British in the end due to shooting the Pharaohs wife with the gatlin gun and stealing the contents of Watson's bag.
I am now looking through my collection of figures for ideas for my next 'cowboy' game....