"Legends of the Old West for Mexican Revolution?" Topic

Has anyone on TMP used LotOW for the Mexican Revolution? If so, I'm interested in any advice you might have (and especially any house rules you might have found helpful).

I have not, but there is a Lord of the Rings yahoo group with lots of conversions to different time periods.

Thanks -- I'll check it out.

It depends on how big a game you want. My son and I have done 20 figures per player in 8 player games with Flying Lead. In case you wanted alternatives.

That game looks beautiful, Bob!

IMO, LotOW is great for what it was originally designed for: short fights with almost RPG style posse development played with several players and smallish numbers of figures per player, in mostly 1 on 1 match ups.

I'm not nearly as keen on the game for bigger actions, even ones that would be properly termed skirmishes by historical gamers.

Some of the stuff that makes it good,buckets of dice, Hollywood Shoot 'Em Up, beer n pretzels fun on that sort of small scale makes it crappy on a larger scale.

In the Way Checks ( the inverted Saving Throw) in particular add a bunch of cruft and time comsumption for not much pay off ( or, alternately strength vs. grit checks if that bugs you more). Either way, it leads to a longish slowdown in games with bigger numbers of minis.

In a micro skirmish type game, that's cool. It's very Bullet Timey, ultra Slo Mo. In bigger games, it's just an unfun drag.

We tried LotOW once at the Bengal Club. Scene was one gang hiding in the town, 2nd gang moving in. The moving gang decided that the best way to test the rules was to walk down the center of the street in a clump of 6 figures. Whenever an enemy character appeared to blast us, the Boss figure spent some of his 'magic points' (I forget what the rules call 'em), and all of the walking gang got to fire first, shredding the ambusher before he could fire. After this happened the third time, we decided to go back to Brian Ansell's western skirmish rules and never looked at LotOW again.

Hey Chick … I think you were doing it wrong.

The ability in question is called Fame. It allows any individual hero to "act out of sequence". However, the hero must declare what it is spending the fame point on at the beginning of the specific phase. You can only do it once per turn. And most heroes only get 1 or at best 2 points of Fame, so it's a one or two trick deal at best.

For example: It's my turn, I announce we are now in the Movement Phase. Before I move anyone, YOU have to declare if you are spending a Fame Point to Yee Haw (which allows you to move before I do – even if it's my turn). You can't wait until I've moved some of my figures and then do it. Up front, or you pass. ANd if you spend your point to move, you can't then spend another one in the shooting phase.

Next I announce it is the Shooting Phase. If you are going to shoot first, you declare a Quickdraw. Which is fine. Your hero, and all within 6" get to shoot.

Then it's my turn to shoot, and you are all walking down the center of the street, bunched up, right? I had the cover of walls, windows, doorways, barrels, any number of things that could take the shot. And you get nothing?

You might get lucky and hit one of my guys, I'm not going to need luck to hit 2-3 of your guys. If you have a clump of 6 in the street, I will surely make sure that all six of my guys appear in their various shooting spots the same turn. I won't let you get a 6 to 1 jump on me.

Also, I can only guess that none of the opposing figures had a shotgun. The "spread" template is great for blasting at clumped up figures.

But all that said, if you didn't like the rules, you moved on and found something else you did like, and that's good.

Reminds me of my favorite negative review of Six Gun Sound: Blaze of Glory.

Fellow walked his hero down the middle of the street to face multiple bad guys in cover and got shot dead.

Horses for courses.

Sounds as though we MAY have been doing something wrong.