A lot has happened in the past few months, which never ceases to amaze me, since I don't think I've had much time for the hobby lately! But I'll try to summarize things.
WELCOME TO POTTERSVILLE
Hotlead happened at the end of March, the organizing of said convention taking a lot of my time and energy. But I put myself down for a gangster game for the Saturday evening, because a friend and his son still really liked it after only one try with some really early rules, and I thought it would be a nice silly bit of mayhem for us to unwind with. I remembered my friend saying to his son, "the next time you see this [pointing to my roughed in, undetailed cardboard warehouse], it's going to look amazing!" No pressure. So the weeks leading up to the convention saw my gaming table awash in foam core and assorted weights of cardboard as I started assembling parts of a town. I've taken to referring to my town as Pottersville, which will be familiar to anyone who has watched It's a Wonderful Life.
A big mental roadblock was removed when I realized that not all the buildings would have to be interior detailed. Some buildings are, after all, locked. So the addition of a second cardboard shell warehouse and a tenement block went pretty fast. The tenement is still awaiting some decent windows however; the architectural details which make your model jump from being a box to a building are still a trouble spot. With buildings like the tenement I allow the players to get on the roof by entering at a door and spending a turn supposedly climbing the stairs, they just can't occupy positions inside for fear of housewives with rolling pins, locked offices etc. Of course, a few games later it's becoming very obvious that most players want to break and enter with impunity, so the buildings close to the action need to be accessible and preferably with floors too. The blank shells will have to be moved to the fringe of the gaming space. However, a page can be borrowed from our RPG playing cousins and one can draw out floor plans on a sheet of paper if one has too.
When one is used to traditional horse and musket type games, in which a thatched cottage represents an entire village and two buildings might be the city of Leipzig, suddenly having to produce an urban setting for 1:1 skirmishing is daunting. That's a lot of buildings after all. I've kept the buildings from looking lost by placing the action on a three foot by three foot brown chenille mat which looks a bit like gravel and dirt. Strips of the same fabric cut two inches wide and reversed to show the dark grey backing are used for roads. Also you have to start paying attention to weird things like alleys, the empty spaces in the middle of blocks and out buildings and storage sheds. I like my terrain to make sense, so just plonking down random buildings and fences bothers me. There has to be a reason for the fence to be there. Fortunately, a fence around a large lot with a small building can be set up with stacks of lumber and pipes to create the supply yard for a construction company.
The gift of a Lionel O-gauge "barrel loading platform" (missing a few pieces) and some Christmas village docks means that my imaginary town of Pottersville is moving from the midwest to the coast. I'm not sure which one yet, it could even be on the Great Lakes, although the decorative lobster trap glued to one of the docks is giving things a certain New England feel. Another friend picked up a fishing boat at a dollar store. He had planned to convert it into a War of 1812 gunboat, but then decided it would actually be easier to build from scratch, so the fishing boat has been passed off to me for a coat of paint to start smuggling rum.
A pair of HO scale factory kits have radically expanded the industrial base of Pottersville's economy as well as adding to the seedy nature of the terrain to be fought over. Fortunately factories are such over-scaled buildings that the 28mm figures do not look too bad beside the `smaller' scaled buildings. These kits were scooped up for a song by another friend. Obviously recruiting friends with a penchant for rooting through dollar stores and rummage sales is extremely useful.
SCREAMING WHEELS
Some more vehicles have been added to the mix. A Lledo panel truck with broken wheels was picked up by a friend at a rummage sale. Broken wheels meant the truck was free, so I just had to add some wheels from my bits box and paint over the flaking advertisement for some regional business. A Matchbox Model T van got the same treatment with the removal of plastic racing mags and painting over the "Hot Wheels Speed Shop" sign. A pair of 1932 Ford coupes has also been added.
The cars of course are proving to be a big attraction, with players mixing happy childhood memories of playing with toy cars while attempting motorized infantry tactics with carloads of wiseguys. So far I haven't caught anyone making 'varoom' noises. I think the biggest attraction is the novelty; we've all seen lots of superbly detailed AFVs in many different scales, but a half-decently painted 1930s car is still pretty rare.
ENTER THE DRAGON
My biggest purchase during Hotlead was from Pulp Figures. I added another pack of Tong and a pack of Chinese gangsters with knives, plus the `Bugs Malarky' pack, some thugs and a pack of unarmed sailors who will be on shore leave and occupying the speakeasy with some of the RAFM and Steve Barber molls. The sailors will fight whoever comes in. The Tong gang is now 15 figures strong, although 8 of the figures only carry knives or swords. They were a lot of fun to paint and I used bright colors to help them stand out and look more exotic. Even though they lack firepower, having only two tommy guns and one shotgun, every one wants to play them. Speaking of tommy guns, the police have increased their firepower as well. Steve Barber makes a patrolman advancing with his baton pointed forward and being smacked into his left hand. It was an easy matter to replace the truncheon with the tommy gun from the SB weapons sprue.
Of course I now need to get more foam core and build a speakeasy for the sailors to carouse in and a small China Town, which will consist of a laundry and a take out restaurant. Happily, the three foot square mat is starting to look a bit crowded now, and I'm planning on upgrading to four foot by two foot terrain boards. One board will be the shore line with the dock sections hanging off the edge. The table top will be the water. I can add more boards inland as needed.
RULES? WE DOAN NEED No STINKIN' RULES
Every time I run a game it seems the rules transmorgify and grow in complexity. During the game at Hotlead our esteemed editor announced he was taking the sergeant on the motorcycle through the door of the diner. Ummmm.... OK.... Roll a 5 or 6.
I then had to make up rolls for the tommy gun toting wiseguys on the other side of the door jumping out of the way and was the sergeant hurt in the crash? The rest of his section dismounted to follow him in and a furious brawl developed resulting in a few casualties and an arrest. In the same game, the player with the car load of G-Men decided to launch his raid on the gang boss by running down the two wise guys on sentry duty outside the gang hideout. One successfully jumped out of the way, the other was not so lucky. "You're under the car and you're under arrest!" Vehicular charging seems to becoming a bit of a repeating occurrence, so I'm going to have to borrow some rules for Panzer-Grenadiers overrunning positions from somewhere.
I have also been experimenting with various turn sequences. Card based movement and shooting has not been very satisfactory. There's too much going on all at once for any sort of movement order. So far having a more structured `orders' phase followed by simultaneous movement and the simultaneous shooting is working best. Although there are still glitches. In the last game, two Tong with swords charged across the intersection to attack a truck. During regular movement the police roared up the street to set up a perimeter around the intersection. During shooting one of the other players wanted to shoot at the Tong. Could he shoot them `before' the police arrived or not? I let a die roll decide.
The last few games were based on rival gangs fighting over a broken down truck loaded with booze. One gang sets up within 12 inches of the truck. The other players enter from different table edges and start fighting it out. The last time I had enough players that I let one take the police. I assumed that he would end up having to fight all the gangs and gave him extra figures, but it turned out the player defending the truck bribed him so the Paddy Wagons hunkered down around the objective while the motorcycle section and G-Men out flanked the other gangs. I haven't even added in the Monopoly money yet! But on sober reflection I should've added a scenario rule to the effect that accepting of bribes would remove the G-Men from the forces available.
Well enough chit-chat. Da Boss has requested I include the rules so here's the latest draft for you mugz to try out. I would like to find out how anyone gets along with them. Please e-mail your questions, observations and results of playing to me.
Thanks to Howard "the Masked Avenger" Whitehouse, "Dangerous Dan" Hutter, "Mad" Mike and "Johnny Jazz" for scrounging, inspiration and encouragement.
Gangster Project Pulp-Era Wargaming
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© Copyright 2004 Hal Thinglum
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