For A Few Models More: Hang 'Em High

The Reverend 'Truth' Foster deferentially closes his bible and slips it back under his frock coat as he concludes his prayer and nods towards Deputy Archie Roach, who's impatience with proceedings is clear as day despite his woeful attempt at feigned solemnity. The Mexican vaqueros, Teo De Herrera, twists and struggles on the dusty wooden platform, his hands tightly bound together behind his back and his neck held taut and red raw by a thick loop of coarse rope secured to the gibbet.

Armpit Heights

For the first time on Monday, the Livery and Mountain boards from my Old West town left their dusty Battleshed residence to make the trip up to my club in Falkirk. Encouraged by the two town sections successfully making the trip without any issues I gingerly loaded boards 3 and 4 into the back of the car and set about drivin’ like an elderly vicar.

Rubber suits and stetsons

One of the most appealing aspects of our hobby for me is how many of us can effortlessly switch between the most contrastive genres and gaming systems without even a raised eyebrow. Or any irony. Or even registering the incredulity of our long suffering other halves! Take the last few days for example. I’ve played the part of a gravelly voiced Superhero and led a posse of Old West Lawman attempting - and failing miserably - to bring order to a frontier town. But I had a blast whilst doing it!

Obession in Falkirk

This week, I moseyed up to the Falkirk club, bringing along two of the terrain boards from my Old West town, Obsession, for a demonstration game or two of Dead Man's Hand.

Obsession boards 1 & 2 at the shiny (literally -look at that floor!) Falkirk club.

As a few of the club members had indicated interested in giving the game a try, I volunteered to moderate a few games by providing a couple of gangs and all the bits n' bobs to get them shootin'.

Brisk business at the undertakers

A visit to the Old West town of Obsession recently. Well, a suburb anyway. A quick game of Dead Man's Hand was on the, um, cards. My Lawmen were tacking a whole bunch of horse rustling Outlaws. This new lot of hotshot Longriders were planning to raid the Livery on the outskirts of town.

There's no room for the Law in this town

Just a quick shout out for Jimboba who earned his first pair Dead Man's Hand spurs with a visit to the Battleshed yesterday. He was joined by my regular gaming buddy, Sam Pate, for a casual shootout in the streets of Obsession.

Claymore 2015, a rusty robot and Deadwood Weekend

On Saturday just gone I made my annual pilgrimage to Claymore 2015 in Edinburgh. As ever, a well organised and attended wargames show organised by South East Scotland Wargames Club. 

With plenty of free parking at the venue - Granton Campus, Edinburgh College - and spread over two large calls with a varied mix of traders and demonstration games it's always a pleasure to visit.

We all got pieces of crazy in us, some bigger pieces than others

 

A flurry of cards, hilarity and poorly executed wild west accents was in full swing at the weekend. Yes, it was a return to Dead Man's Hand! Having arranged a two-player game I used the opportunity to bring boards 1 and 2 from my Wild West town, Obsession, to my local club. I'm going to have to get a van if ever all four boards are going to be transported regularly!

Careful as a naked man climbin' a barbed wire fence

This weekend, I mostly participated, in a very relaxed and agreeable three-way game of Dead Man's Hand at my local club, Livingston Battleground. I'd planned to transport all four boards that make up my DMH town, Obsession, over to the club, but with the wind and rain forecast for a bit of a hoolie I decided - to the disappointment of some of my fellow gamers - not to risk damaging the terrain boards in transit on this occasion. However, one of the other club members did bring down a box of his 4Ground buildings and fences (thanks IC!). I contributed a barn and more fences and Arabianknight provided the crates, a key element of this game.

Dead Man's Hand free resources

For those new or interested in playing Dead Man's Hand, there are some excellent free download resources over at the Great Escape Games site, including updated errata, markers, building signage, sample pages from the books and, in particular, some excellent Quick Reference Sheets.

Don't squat with your spurs on

The Old Mine

A very much welcome return to Dead Man's Hand yesterday. It's been many, many months since I last played. Actually, I think my Lawmen last had an outing back in July 2015, whilst I was on holiday in Crete with the family!

Dead Man's Hand: A town called Obsession

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board Project - ready to game!

Friday night will see the inaugural game on my 'officially' completed DMH terrain board project. All four boards are now ready to be put together to form the town of Obsession. There's still a myriad of tweaks, fixes, enhancements still to be done, but at long last, I can finally say it is 'ready to game!

Three makes a crowd in Obsession

This morning over at Livingston Battleground, I brought along my DMH boards 1 & 2 for a shootout with Ian's gang.

John decided he'd like to get in on the action, so a three-way game ensued. Unusually, my Lawmen weren't the sandwich filler on this occasion, which is my normal position in three-way games and, even more remarkably, my Lawmen were victorious, ridding the town of the ne'er-do-wells without taking any casualties!

Always an excellent, fun game, with much card-playing skulduggery and cinematic shenanigans :)