Something new and exciting has entered my life - TRWNN!

The Rules With No Name! 

Western gunfight rules that are new to me but probably not to you, being as they have been floating around for 15 years or so! 

Once again inspired by Spacejacker and his use of TRWNN for a Scifi "Throwdown" game, I hunted down a copy of the free rules and then went and bought the hardback edition from Wargames Foundry which was reduced to £10 from £25. (It's back at £20 now but is still well worth it in my opinion). 

Inspired still further by the book, I got out a few 15mm gunfighters I acquired a while back:

Then I set about photographing them so that I could make up the character cards for the game:

Then my son and I grabbed the 50cm x 50cm desert/arid board we recently made and added our Cowtown and some rocky outcrops:

We came up with a quick scenario having randomly chosen characters (Tom got the best two characters - "Slick" the Legend and "Rock" the Shootist whilst I got the worst two - "Chaps" the Gunman and "Neill" the Citizen).  Chaps and Neill had to break their buddy out of the sherriff's office over on the far side of the street - that's them making their plan behind the rocks.  Unknown to them, Slick the Sherriff has had a tip off and is ready for them along with his trusty deputy, Rock.

"C'mon Neill, we gotta bust Amby outta that damn jail or he'll be hangin' by noon.  You head straight for the livery barn and cover me, I'll go left through the rocks and come in along Main Street."

As Chaps goes left through the rocks Slick moves across to the barn and lets fly with a hail of lead that hits everything except Chaps and leaves Slick needing to re-load.  Chaps sees his chance and returns fire, downing Slick with a serious leg wound:

Meanwhile, over to Chaps' right, Neill runs across the open ground, initially dodging Rock's heavy fire but eventually he is hit in the head and staggers around like a drunk as Rock tries but fails to finish him off.   Rock either needs an eye test or a straighter barrelled gun!

Rock blazes away at Neill to little effect - no wonder he kept missing, he can't even focus on Neill, he's all blurry!  Perhaps it's the drink!

Chaps runs in close, hoping to finish off Slick but the fearsome reputation of the legend that is Slick puts him off his aim. Instead, Slick is able to drag himself to his feet, reload his pistol and hit Chaps in the arm and graze his chest:

Both wounded, Slick and Chaps then engage in a fistfight whilst Rock finally manages to hit Neil again with a serious arm wound.  This is too much for Neill and he runs for the hills shouting to Chaps to get away while he can:

Chaps breaks out of the fistfight with Slick and hightails it, hoping to put plenty of distance between himself and the hobbling legend:

However, he is not quite fast enough, and at extreme range Slick manages to salvage his reputation with a cool, calculated and fatal shot to Chaps' head:

Besides, Rock was closing in for the kill having chased Neill off into the hills:

Sherriff Slick will have to get that leg fixed up by the Doc but at least the outlaws were driven off or killed.  Rock could do with a pair of glasses but is otherwise unhurt.

Well, what a great time my son and I had playing this game - this was truly one of those 'moments' you just occasionally get when discovering something new that suits you down to the ground.  We found the rules really simple to follow but they gave the game a truly cinematic "Hollywoodesque" feel that was incredibly fun to play.  Thanks to Spacejacker again for the heads up and inspiration.

I just love that we could have a meaningful and fun game with 4 figures, 10 buildings and 4 rocky outcrops on a 50x50cm board.  In fact this could easily be played on my footsquare board - the buildings are at the small end of 15mm and may in fact be 10mm but they work really well here for breaking up lines of sight and providing corners to take cover behind.

I'll definitely be trying these out with my Scifi figures and I reckon they will work a treat for some colonial skirmishes I have in mind.  I think the optional rules for group movement would be a good addition if I am going to get disciplined soldiers involved though. 

I am also going to make suitably adorned MDF bases as my wound, action and character cards/chits and pull them from a bag rather than shuffling cards - I am rather fumblefingered.  I will still make character cards though but the players can keep them so they have all the vital information on and they can add on wound chits as they are drawn from wound bag.  So, that's a bag of action & character tokens and a separate one containing 2 or 3 sets of wound tokens.

Wow, I really have a young boyish sense of incredible excitement at the prospect of all the goodness to come!