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mage 6 years, 6 months ago.
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Before we show our game from last weekend I would like to talk a little about Wild West Exodus (second edition) to give those who either don’t know much about the game, or don’t think it would appeal to them some idea of what it’s about and why it is our favourite and most played game.
I won’t delve too much into all the factions themselves, as I tend to ramble and this would be far too long and cumbersome, plus there is a good series of video’s already on Bow covering them. Instead, I’ll just cover the factions we play and why.
So what is Wild West Exodus all about? Well, It’s a game set in the Old West (with a twist) just after the civil war that mixes the real life Heroes and Villains of that time with fictional characters, Monsters Shapeshifters, and Aliens.
The Game revolves around a Substance, a power source called RJ1027 that is used, not only to power vehicles but to enhance weaponry. With some of the game’s factions trying to destroy it due to its corrupting influence, and some factions making the most of its power.
The Current factions are: The Hex (RJ1027 corrupted, influenced or mutated humans), The Order (zealots out to eradicate RJ1027 and those corrupted by it), The Warrior Nation (Native Americans, including Shape Shifters), The Union (The American Government and its soldiers and agents), The Enlightened (a consortium of scientists who create their Posse’s from experiments combining RJ1027, machinery and the near dead) The Watchers (Aliens- Nuff said), The Lawmen (The Guys n gals of the west who have made it their mission to protect the general populace from the machinations of the other factions) and finally the Outlaws (made up of disparate bands of thieves and cutthroats, Mexicans/conquistadors, and the remnants of the Confederate army)
The game itself plays very well and scales beautifully from playing with the half a dozen or so figures that come in the faction boxes to larger games played with 1500 – 2000pt forces. It is fairly easy to learn with the rules well written and frequently updated and streamlined (but not so often that it’s a pain in the ***).
Essentially, in a turn, a player will draw an Action Card which gives him a random amount of Action Points to use. He then selects a unit (although everything is referred to as a unit whether it be multiple models, single models or vehicles) to activate and spends the points accordingly, up to that unit’s action limit. Apart from movement all stat checks are done on a d10, rolling the dice and adding the particular stat including any positive or negative modifiers. If the score is 10 or greater the roll is a success.
The game length and victory conditions depend on the scenario played, and there are a number of these in the book and more on the Warcradle website, or you can simply create your own.
The factions we play at the moment are The Enlightened (Chris, my youngest son), The Outlaws (Matty, my oldest son) and the Lawmen (Yay me).
Ok, The Lawmen. This is currently my goto faction. It consists of cheaper but fairly weak hands units, to fairly Powerful Characters. You are nearly always outnumbered and can find it very difficult to slip Heavier vehicles into you’re posse’s – especially in lower point games. I chose them initially because of the cool characters I could field but found they fitted well with my playstyle which was a bonus. The less I have to think about, the less mistakes I make.
Our Usual game size is 2000pts and in that sized game we will usually take 2 Posse’s.
Wyatt Earps Themed Posse
Consisting of:
Legendary Wyatt Earp + 2 K9 Gun dogs with Gatling guns
Doc Holiday
Virgil Earp
Warren Earp
Pat Garret
Morgan Earp
Interceptor
And a more generic Posse
Wild Bill Hickok
Nate Berenger
4 Deputised Sharpshooters
It’s a mixed bag, good long ranged shooting from Virgil, Warren, Pat and Morgan, with some mobility from the Interceptor and the Gun Dogs. Wyatt Himself is a little short ranged so it can be a bit risky, but his gun has enough power to destroy vehicles and bypass a number of the abilities characters come with, killing them outright.
Wild Bill’s Posse is more static, preferring to use its range from Wild Bill and the Sharpshooters, and the powerful AOE effect from Nat Berengers Grenade Launcher to clear an area before advancing and either grabbing objectives un-opposed or moving over to add their firepower to my main Posse.
Choosing Matty’s force was a little less straight forward due to his Autism. He doesn’t really have a playstyle as such, changing the way he plays from game to game, so we needed a faction that was customisable enough to accommodate that. With the Outlaws being the biggest and most varied faction by far, we eventually settled on them.
He selected his Posse’s by picking a variety of troops, a good mix of long range and short ranged/close combat guys, and a few vehicles with not only firepower, but transport for his slower footsloggers in mind.
His force consists of Two full themed Posse’s, Jesse James’ and Johnny Ringo’s.
Jesse James
Frank James
Robert Younger
Jim Younger
Cole Younger
Frontier Outrider
Doomsday
Johnny Ringo
Bill Brocius
4 x bandit Cutthroats
5x Bandit gunmen
Jake Williamson
Apache Kid (I gave Matty a bit of leeway on this guy because he isn’t actually allowed in this Posse but he looked so sad when I told him that I let him get away with it).
Dust Cutter
Scenario: Convicted of Rustling, Red Bart has been sentenced to hang. Unfortunately the door to his cell was left open by a corrupt deputy in the pay of Jesse James and Red Bart was able to pull off a daring escape, killing both the Sheriff and his own liberator in the fracas that ensued.
Wyatt Earp has been sent to either recapture Red Bart and return him for his sentence to be carried out or if need be to mete out his own brand of Justice.
Wyatt and his Posse have been joined by Wild Bill Hickock and his men, and have tracked Red Bart to a small Farmstead a few miles outside of Town, where he has taken refuge. The Lawmen are unsure at this point as to whether the Farmer and his family are being held hostage by the errant Outlaw or if they are in cahoots with him. Until that is made clear, Wyatt has decided that the best course of action is to surround the farmhouse and starve Bart out.
Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Jesse James and his band of Outlaws has arrived and intends to make sure Bart re-joins their ranks.
Objective: Take and Hold the Farmhouse
Victory Conditions: At the end of any turn after turn 3, if a Posse Boss is in Base to Base contact with the Farmhouse and has more units within 6 inches than his opponent and there is no enemy boss within 6 inches he wins the game.
Deployment: Matty won the Card draw for Initiative and chose to make me start to deploy first so he could move first.
As the game employs alternate deployment I will just sum up the positions we ended up in.
Matty: On his far right and on the edge of the forest he placed Robert, Cole and Jim Younger with his Dustcutter just to the left of them. On the right of the Farmhouse he placed Frank James, followed by his five man strong unit of Bandit Gunmen, then came The Apache Kid and Jake Williamson. Behind the Farmhouse he placed his Posse Bosses Jesse James and Johnny Ringo. On the left of the Farmhouse He placed his Frontier Outrider, followed by the Doomsday in the Corn Fields behind the house and rounded up his deployment with Bill Brocius and on his left flank he placed his Bandit cutthroats.
Me: I wanted to keep my deployment fairly central, hoping to swamp the Farmhouse with units but being outnumbered and seeing how Matty’s own deployment was developing I had to abandon those plans for fear of being outflanked early on in the game. As I went first I had already placed Wild Bill according to my original Plan, which was near the Coral on my side of the table to the left of the Farmhouse. Responding to Matty’s deployment I placed my Interceptor on my far right hoping that its long range would slow the Younger Brothers and maybe even give Frank James something to think about. Next to Wild Bill I placed Nate Berenger, hoping his grenade Launcher would deal with the Dustcutter. Keeping Wild Bill’s Posse together my Deputised Sharpshooters joined them. Centrally and in base to base contact to make the most of the special rule Tinman (giving them +1 to their Amour Save) I place Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp. The rest of the Earps and Pat Garret were set up in pairs (again for the Tinman bonus) ready to get amongst the Barrels for cover. Although it wasn’t ideally how I wanted things, I was pretty pleased with things….except for that flippin Doomsday.
Turn 1: Matty opened, as expected, by moving the Doomsday through the Cornfields and opened fire. Fortunately there was nothing in range and the shots fell short. On my left flank I moved the Interceptor as far forward as I could, even though it left it in the open, and fired on Frank James. I really didn’t want to advance with the threat of his Sniper Rifle over me. The Interceptor hit and disordered Frank but didn’t kill him, still, I hoped that would keep him out of my hair for a turn. As it happened it did and the rest of the turn, for both of us, was spent moving forward and getting as much as we could in cover… or at least with as many objects between us and the opposing units as we could.
Turn 2: Again Matty edged the Doomsday forward and opened fire. He wanted to target Wyatt, but he wasn’t within 12” and Wyatt wasn’t the closest character, so he chose Pat Garret as his target. He did manage a single hit out of the six shots he took, but with Pat being in base contact with Wyatt and gaining the Grit bonus from Tinman plus a re-roll using his Fortune Chip, he emerged unscathed. I was somewhat luckier with my Interceptor and it took out The Apache Kid. Unfortunately for me, Matty moved the Dustcutter up, and although he did no damage this turn, I now had three models in danger of heavy fire and needed to win the intiative in Turn 3 or lose a potential 2 models rather than 1.
Turn 3: I felt a sense of relief when I won the intiative I so desperately needed only to have Matty flip and Adventure Card and steal it from me. Pat Garret disappeared in a hail of bullets from the Doomsday. This left me with a problem, Wyatt had the only gun powerful enough to take down the Doomsday, but it meant moving him closer to it, and without Pat Garret he no longer had the benefit of Tinman, or I could move Wyatt out of danger… but that meant the rest of the Earp Brothers would have to face it. I chose the former and edged Wyatt closer to the Doomsday, managed to hit it twice but failed to damage it.
Matty kept moving forward, managing to get both Jesse James and Johnny Ringo in base contact with the farmhouse. I countered with the rest of the Earp Brothers who between them managed to wipe out Matty’s Bandit cutthroats. He responded by moving Bill Brocius up to threaten Wyatt and taking out my Interceptor with his Dustcutter. With the threat from Bill Brocius and a newly arrived Iron Horse (where the heck did that come from) I moved Doc Holiday across to get between Wyatt and Bill Brocius and used Wyatts Gundogs to do the same with the Doomsday.
Nothing seemed to be happening on the other side of the table. Neither of us seemed to able to gain any advantage, both of us either missing or failing to wound.
Turn 4: At last I gained the initiative and Matty had nothing to relieve me of it. I tried a shot from Wyatt on the Doosday but it was proving tougher than normal. In turn the huge machine took out a Gundog. With little to shoot at the Earps spent the turn getting into better positions, Virgil, the only one with a target managing to take out the Iron Horse, but not before it killed the last Gundog. Doc managed to Disorder Jesse James but ended up becoming Disordered himself by Bill Brocius with Jesse James finally finishing him off.
Turn 5: I gained the Initiative again and tried to take down the Doomsday with Wyatt, I failed again to do any damage. The doomsday, finally getting the bead on Wyatt it wanted, opened fire, scoring two critical hits. Wyatt saved one but the other left him Disordered. Bill Brocius tried a shot on Virgil Earp but missed. Then Matty, with a huge grin, moved Jesse up and killed Wyatt. With Matty having Johnny Ringo in base contact and more units closer to the Farmhouse and with me unable to get Wild Bill close enough by the end of the turn, we called it a day.
Victory to Matty.
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