Wild West Reboot

Over the last couple of weeks or so I've been thinking about booting up my Old West project, which I originally began way back in 2004 and which ended up with two complete posses, one of Lawmen and one of Mexican outlaws. These were used for a number of very enjoyable games using the then newly published Legends of the Old West rules. After a while, however, these fizzled out and I moved onto other things, despite tinkering with The Rules With No Name and enjoying a couple of games of Dead Mans Hand at the club.

I've always wanted to expand the project beyond the two existing gangs and have a box of Foundry, Artizan and Black Scorpion figures to do so, set aside waiting for a new set of rules to grab my attention. With my recent acquisition of The Law of the Gun and Fistful of Lead Reloaded, I now have a perfect opportunity to get at least one more posse rounded up from my leadpile of figures. This will now be my project for the Autumn, alongside the continuing Japanese infantry platoon for Chain of Command, with a Cowboy and/or Outlaw posse as the objective.

I'm also going to spend time and funds on some of the laser-cut mdf western buildings that are now widely available at a reasonable price. The first time round, I had to scratch build some suitable buildings and terrain, as the only alternative was expensive resin or flimsy cardboard. Now, however, I will be assembling enough mdf to kit out a small frontier settlement, complete with sheriff's office, saloon, general store, boarding house and bank, alongside other generic western buildings. I'll also aim to get all the fences, railings, barrels, wagons and other stuff to provide some soft cover during gunfights.

I can't afford the expensive option of the pre-painted buildings from 4Ground, so will be falling back on the Sarissa Precision and Battle Flag ranges, which are very nice all the same despite needing to be painted and weathered by hand. I'll aim to scratch build or adapt some terrain features including a 3' x 4' baseboard and some hills and bluffs for scenarios set beyond the outskirts of town. I already have a railroad train and carriages, so all I need to make that useful is some track and a station. I may not get all of this done but I will have enough terrain to run some games at home for the boys, which is the ultimate objective of the project.

I'm really looking forward to this project to complete over the next few months up to Xmas, putting the colonial project ideas back until the following year, unless I can squeeze in the tribal army for In the Heart of Africa at some point in the next four months? This is another of my existing projects that I'm set on for 2016, especially as there are a couple of new sets of skirmish rules for Darkest Africa just over the horizon including Congo and The Men Who Would be Kings. There's a definite feeling that things are coming around full circle at the moment, at least as far as my interests in wargaming genre are concerned.