WARPAINT: The Cavalry and Indian Wars in the American West, by our own MWANer Stephan Lawrence, is a wild west rules set written specifically for 25mm figures ($15.00) and is published by THE EMPEROR'S PRESS, 5744 Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL 60634 (312-777- 7307) and OLD GLORY (who just released an extensive line of 25mm Wild West figures to accompany the rules set). This is a professionally done 31-page rules set which utilizes two formats: the Battle Game where one figure equals five real men, a turn equals one minute and one inch equals ten yards and Skirmish Game in which each figure is an individual, each turn equals thirty seconds, and one inch equals five yards. Each turn has seven phases (initiative, spotting, initial fire/charge, movement, countermove, regular fire, and morale). The regular rules encompass only five pages while the skirmish rules add another three pages; thus, these are your standard Stephen Lawrence rules - easy to learn, well written, and FUN to play! Two additional pages are devoted to play charts. Movement utilizes a six-sided die (D6) plus a certain number of inches, a concept I've always liked because it provides for variable movement distances.
There are 13 scenarios; nine for the Battle Game and four for the Skirmish Game. A number of wargaming personalities (including me as "Hangin' Hal McClintock, US Marshall !") are used in the scenarios, a neat feature! The rules are wrapped up with a page of "designer's notes". A very nice effort, Stephen; my congratulations! Highly recommended!
Stephen writes to tell us the following about the rules: "There is one area of confusion, in the melee rules section, concerning the results of a melee combat. The difference between the die rolls is used to determine the results (i.e., a difference of 10 would result in an immediate kill). As can be seen, seldom will two evenly matched opponents obtain a quick kill in hand-to-hand combat. "
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© Copyright 1996 Hal Thinglum
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