"Good Wild West Rules?" Topic

I m getting started with Cowboys and am looking for a good set of Wild West rules. Which is better, Dead Man's Hand or What a Cowboy?
Any other suggestions?
I have Ruthless which seem pretty good, and have played a few homebrew types at conventions.
Any suggestions?

I am a huge fan of "The Old West Skirmish Gunfight Rules" from way back in the day. If they are currently available I would love to hear where.

For solo play Two How Wargames Six-gun Sound is fun for a quick scuffle.

DMH works well and is easy and inexpensive. Draculas America looks good, but I haven't tried it yet

Ask six people what their favorite gunfighter rules are and you will get ten different answers.

Personally, I use Desperado. I've played a number of sets and they all seem to give a decent game. A lot of it comes down to what kind of rule mechanics you like.

Never saw a need to stop using Boot Hill.

Fistful of Lead!

Suggestion: Tell people what makes Wild West rules good to you.

Crunchy gunfights? Desperate chases through challenging terrain? If I can't fight in, on top of, and alongside a moving train on a horse, all at the same time … forget it. Logistics that make honest men into desperados? Barroom brawls and black eyes? Rancher and farmer wars?

One Hour Skirmish Wargames.

2nd Fistful of Lead!

I'm partial to Gunfighter's Ball, but there are many good rule sets depending on your partiality to complexity and play-ability. Here's a place to compare:

link

Rules With No Name aka Fistful of Dice by Bryan Ansell and available free from Wargames Foundry at:
link
With tweaks to suit personal tastes like every other rule set I use.

Dead Man's Hand for larger games (up to 8 figures a side).
What a Cowboy for games with 1 or 2 figures per player

I have run "What a Cowboy" at several HMGS conventions this past year and got favorable response from players. It does limit the number of actual players to about 6, with 2 characters each.

I have Fistful of Lead and like the system, but have yet to try a game. Also did Boot Hill years ago, and they were fun.

79th PA had the best response. If you have nice selection of figures and good looking table layout you can make any set of rules enjoyable.

Kim

Legends of the old West is a really good game.

For Dave Crowell:
I think this is the rules set you are asking for:
link

"The Old West Skirmish Wargames: Wargaming Western Gunfights"

There are second hand ones for sale as well, but oddly at a higher price.

For folks wanting to compare, a good start is Board Game Geek:
link

And here us a Lead Adventures forms on it:
link

"One Hour Skirmish Wargames" are excellent rules for wild west games.

Shoot and Skedaddle! Mix of skirmish, role playing along
with both card and dice driven rules. Lots of fun.

Another for "Fistful of Lead"

The one you have the most fun playing.

Incidentally, the "The Old West Skirmish Wargames: Wargaming Western Gunfights" mentioned by Dyehard is available on Amazon.

Fistful of Lead by Jaye Wiley. Great set of rules. This is especially good if you want to run a larger game. My other favorite is The Rules with No Name. This set will have Clint Eastwood and other tough hombres act like they do in the movies. I have played What a Cowboy. I had fun and own the rules. You track ammo usein these rules and while I like them there is a bit of added complexity involved over most of the other sets mentioned. Running one or two characters seems to be the sweet spot. Doesn't make them bad. There just is a learning curve involved if you haven't played any of the What a Tanker style rules.

Thanks

John

I like Fistful of Lead, followed by One Hour Skirmish Wargames and also a two page page called Shootin Iron

A second vote for "Rules With No Name," aka "Fistful of Dice," not least because it includes some simple "morale rules" which allow for figures to do things the players might never do.

There is, it seems, two schools of thought on such rules. Namely, the player IS every figure he pushes around (much as we Old Timers played "Cowboys And Indians" as kids), and each figure is a "Character/Unit" which may act and react according to his immediate circumstances, whether the player would want to or not.

I prefer the second approach as it prevents a lot of potential over-identification with the toys.

Curious to know if anyone else sees the same divide.

TVAG

I like the roleplaying aspect where the townsfolk are run by a gamemaster. Each set (gang) having a common goal where nobody knows what that may be until the end of the game. I was an advocate of Gunfighter's Ball and now also am happy with A Fistful of Lead- Reloaded. Like any minis game, the scenery you create is good for most sets of rules. It's the visual of not knowing that the feller you are hired to take down is actually in the room next door! A creative gamemaster can use the NPC townsfolk to keep the game focused (if need be) or add additional tension to the scenarios. A great period with a lot of undiscovered history to be gamed.

Nice to see no one has given their opinion as the only sensible/correct option.
That can be most tiresome.
"hands down", "without question", "the best", "no contest".
Well done so far.

martin

I've run games with Boot Hill & Six Gun Sound.

I still play "The Old West Skirmish Gunfight Rules" from the 197Os. I have tried others, but keep going back to these

I am real partial to Dead Mans Hand. It works well with 2 to 8 players. Its fast and fun. It is a little bit Hollywood but that is part of the fun. It allows you to build a good assortmant of gangs and has a new addition coming out soon.

There is, it seems, two schools of thought on such rules. Namely, the player IS every figure he pushes around (much as we Old Timers played "Cowboys And Indians" as kids), and each figure is a "Character/Unit" which may act and react according to his immediate circumstances, whether the player would want to or not.

It's really a question of which decisions you want the players to face. Ultimately, the players ARE NOT the figures on the board because they don't occupy the same head space. They have different perceptions than the figures would and different options (the wargame is constructive, and thus has a much more limited action space than reality).

So it comes back to the desired decisions. I am not a big fan of morale rules in general. I prefer to create this as a decision space for the players based on victory conditions.

When you do have morale rules, I prefer that along with multiple gradations of poor (hesitating) performance and possible routing, you have the option for Catastrophic Morale Success.

CMS is more difficult to implement that various degrees of morale failure because it represents being so unjustifiably sure of yourself that you do something that would be considered stupidly aggressive if you were in the right head space. I find it easier to implement by affecting opposing forces positively.

For example, a CMS event might reconstitute an enemy 25%-50% of their losses in the game. You didn't really kill those other guys, you were just so happy with yourself that you thought you did.

I just acquired What A Cowboy. Typical good TFL playability system. Typical lack of explanation of card use. And something different for TFL, oversimplification of weapons.

In an era that arguably spanned 100 years through two centuries, that went from late flintlock firearms to semi-automatic pistols, bolt action rifles, and fully automatic armaments a little more attention could be paid than the included jump between a single-shot percussion hand gun used at the Alamo to a misleadingly titled colt navy revolver with a cartridge converted cylinder. True it isn't hard to flesh out the firearms with a little research and a desire for playing the enormity of different firearms available. But I shouldn't need to do that. William Hickock's favorite sidearm isn't even addressed and it dominated handgun usage for twenty five years.

Just my two cents, and I am looking forward to using and modifying these rules.

I recently downloaded the free RUTHLEES gunslinger rules and have played three games using the character stats 'Coffin Lid' panel that I designed a month ago. It uses spent brass shell casings to track ammunition supply.