Dead Man's Hand AAR Stagecoach Attack

I got up to the club for another game of Dead Man's Hand with Jeff  yesterday and it was an absolute blast. Easily one of the most fun and cinematic games of DMH I've yet to play and I think we're really going to try to make this a once a month game if possible, maybe even create a bit of a campaign with a continuing storyline.

I really wanted to get all my Battlefield in a Box Badlands bluffs, plateaus, and rocks on the table for a game as they really give a Monuments Valley/John Ford kind of look. I had several different ideas for the game but decided on the US cavalry escorting a new commander in a stagecoach to Fort Defiance, while the Indians were attempting to stop that from happening.

We rolled off to see which sides we would run. I took control of the US cavalry, escorting the stagecoach and Jeff ran the Indians, trying to stop the stage from getting to the opposite side of the table. 

This is the very first time I've ever played DMH where every single model was mounted and I'll definitely be doing it more often in the future as it was a lot of fun.

I did have foot models available for every model in the event of being either shot or knocked off their horse, which surprisingly we only had one.

Jeff set himself up with the Indians in two separate groups above. 

Out of all the figures I own (and believe me I have a ton lol!) the mounted Indians we used in the game are easily my favorite models, hands down no contest.

The war paint on the horses really make them pop on the tabletop.

This model is my absolute favorite of all out of the 15 that I currently own. It really reminds me of Wind in His Hair from the movie Dances With Wolves.

Two Moons led the Indians - second from the right.

I placed my troopers around the stage, three in front, two to the side, and two in the rear hoping to keep as many options available depending on where the Indians would end up attacking.

I also had the stage driver with a pistol and his companion riding shotgun, with, well, a shotgun 😀

In hindsight and talking with Jeff after the game, the next time I run this scenario I will have the two passengers in the stage armed and as a part of the cavalry side as well.

This will hopefully help to make it a little harder for the Indians to attempt to jump onto the stagecoach with the passengers being able to defend at point blank range.

With the way initiative works in DMH (I also got to use my new token initiative markers and they worked a treat) and the fact that you are able to move 8 inches for one move action on horseback, even though we started pretty far apart by the fifth activation of turn one we were fully engaged. 

With both side blasting away with pistols, bows, and rifles.

As well as having our first cinematic moment where one of the Indians came galloping up alongside my commanding officer, Major O'Rourke. 

And smashed O'Rourke with his club nearly knocking him off his horse.

The bluffs and plateaus really created a choke point for the stagecoach here and I needed to get through there as quickly as I could, but also needed to not get too far ahead of my escort to leave myself pretty much defenseless.

Jeff played that position to his advantage brilliantly and it was here that the Indians really swarmed the stagecoach and where the game really took on the feel of a movie.

By the end of the game I lost four of my troopers right at that choke point.

It was also here that we had our first attempt at hijacking the stagecoach. Thankfully for me Jeff failed his nerve test in attempting to jump off his horse and onto the stage and his Indian fell off to the side.

This turned out to be one of my few kills on the day as Trooper Collins managed to shoot this Indian attempting to ride around to the back of the stage.

A close up of him with his bow raised, but not quite quick enough.

Jeff ended up taking out the stage driver with a natural 19 roll. With the stagecoach driverless we decided that it should run at max speed and the direction should be randomly rolled when its activation would come up. Talk about possible chaos in the making!

Seeing all of this play out, I managed to get one of my troopers up along side the stage and I successfully made the leap off his horse and onto the stage in an attempt to take over the reins and retake control of the stage.

But I never got to the front of the stage as another Indian jumped on the stage from the front and a hand to hand fight ensued. 

As per usual in these types of situations I naturally lost the fight, badly, and had yet another trooper go down. The next turn the warrior made his way to the front of the stage and grabbed the reins.

With the Indians in control of the stage and making their way off the board, and me only having one trooper left we called the game - but that does leave that lone trooper to return to tell the tale of what happened and to set up a rescue of the now kidnapped commander and his wife. There was quite a bit more that happened in the game, but a lack of pictures and also my horrific memory unfortunately leaves me with this summary of the game, hopefully it makes sense.

So stay tuned... but then that would mean that I now have to build teepee's for an Indian village, ugh lol!

The more I get to play DMH again the more I remember why I absolutely love it. It's such a fast paced game and really fits the Old West perfectly. Now I just have to source some casualty models for the cavalry and Indians.

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor

*also apologies for the awful photos, they are all from my three year old phone - something I really need to address, and my only goal for 2021 is a new camera*

Dead Man's Hand AAR

One of the bright spots to come out of the last several months, and the main reason why the hobby has been reignited for me is being able to spend a couple of days a week working at Shieldwall Gaming Club.  

Obviously Covid-19 has put quite a strain on our club, but the owner and my new best hobby friend Jeff has basically moved all of the product into an online store so he's been able to keep the doors open so far.

The club opened up a year ago, right when I was leaving for my six month trip to South Carolina so I never really got a chance to hang out with Jeff or roll dice anyone else at the club - which was absolutely soul crushing for me because I'd waited years and years to find something like this (to be around like minded hobby people) and now I was leaving for an incredibly long time.

I'd been promising Jeff I'd set a game up for him since I got back from South Carolina in May and I finally was able to do it in the beginning of August - so you can see how long it's taken me to get back to the blog.

I chose to show Jeff Dead Man's Hand by Great Escape Games because it's a solid skirmish game that I knew I could teach in a matter of minutes, and being set in the Old West would be a lot of fun.

So I packed up a box of my 4Ground Old West terrain and some tree plates and set up a quick table at the club.

As it was basically a small learning game, I only gave us each three models, and didn't have any kind of narrative to it either so it was just last man standing wins.

I gave Jeff three Bandito's for his side.

Our Sergio Leone tribute photo 😀

In a future post I will show how I've since solved the initiative cards on the table problem, like above, with some small tokens instead - one complaint Dead Man's Hand and The Chicago Way always gets from people is that you have the cards "littering" the game table and it takes away from the immersion.

I took a couple of cowboys modeled after the red sash wearing cowboys from the movie 'Tombstone'. Here's Curly Bill Brocius moving up behind some barrels.

I don't remember a lot of the specifics from each photo as it has been forever ago since we played, but I do remember that we had an epic hand to hand fight next to the stagecoach that went terribly for Jeff as his dice rolling was just atrocious - and the only reason I do remember that is because usually that's me, not my opponent rolling like that.

It was here that I was actually double teamed by two of Jeff's Banditos, but because of those dice rolls I mentioned above I won both fights.

It's actually really nice to know someone personally who rolls dice as horrifically as I do 😂

There was also a lot of shooting that was taking place that caused a few casualties.

As I've gone to the super thin bases for all my models for my skirmish games I thought I would utilize those same bases for my casualty figures.

A little red paint on the clear base and I'm then able to easily slide it under a casualty figure to add a little bit of Hollywood to the scene.

I do remember this part of the game as well. Jeff had used one of his cards to take a civilian hostage, which is the photo above - and again, one of the really fun and narrative things that come from the cards. 

In my attempt to shoot the Bandito I missed and actually hit the hostage.

I'd forgotten how great of a game Dead Man's Hand is, and how much fun the card interrupts are. If you've never had a chance to try DMH I highly recommend it.

It was just a great time and I think that day really solidified the new friendship Jeff and I now have, as we've been consistently getting together weekly (and talking through text messages almost daily bouncing ideas and WIPs off each other) since August at the club, working and hobbying together - a big Star Wars project has been what we've both been focusing on together for about three months now and why you'll be seeing a lot of Star Wars posts. So stay tuned. 

And finally, welcome to new follower Dave Stone, really appreciate you hitting the follow button 😀

As always, thanks for looking!

Ivor