Introduction A 3-sided western skirmish starred the following: Player Gunmen Number of cards Jim Butters Texas Red Jim Blue Kid Grey 4 5 4 John & Randy Doud Jim Pierce Two Gun Brown Bad Bob 4 6 5 W Simon The She'ff 6 The column headed "Number of Cards" indicates the relative reaction rate of each man in the scenario. The Butters Bunch had a base of 4+5+4 or 13 cards; these 13 cards were shuffled and drawn one by one to see which man was to move or fire. Similarly, the Doud Gang had 4+6+5 or 15 base cards in their deck. The actual number of cards in each deck was as follows: The Butters Bunch 13 The She'ff 3 Horse Cards 10 Total 26 cards The Doud Gang 15 The She'ff 3 Horse Cards 8 Total 26 cards Note that the She'ff, opposed to both groups, had his cards evenly distributed in both decks. "Horse Cards" were also distributed between the decks, whenever a Horse Card was drawn, all horses on the table could move 4 inches. The 18 Horse Cards permitted the horses to move at a rate some 3 to 4 times as fast as a man. The Showdown Figure 1 diagrams the town of Gunslick. The initial set-up permitted Kid Grey to be hidden somewhere in the town; the She'ff was standing at the bridge, while all other men had to enter the town by riding across the bridge. The goal of the Doud Gang and the Butters Bunch: grab the sack of gold located in House A and run!! As the riders crossed the bridge, they were warned by the She'ff that anyone who drew a gun in town violated Gunslick Ordinance 24, Section 44. The penalty: death! ... and the She'ff's rifle was at the ready to enforce the law. Several riders did have their guns out initially, but promptly holstered them as soon as their cards were drawn. Jim Pierce, a Doud man, made his way to House A, dismounting there, when sneaky Kid Grey, stationed in House B, fired 3 shots at him. All missed, but the She'ff, now alerted to the fact that there was a varmint in House B, took his next 3 cards to run over to B and, on the 4th, sent several rounds into Kid Grey, putting him temporarily out of action. The weapons in use were the revolver (6 shots) and the rifle (10 shots). The probability of hit for each weapon was: P(Revolver) = 39 Range in inches P (Rifle) = 59 Range in inches An additional +3 was tacked onto P for every round fired. With Kid Grey out of the way, the She'ff noted another provocative act: Bad Bob had ridden into the center of town, dismounted, and, gun still holstered, had gone prone facing the She'ff. This looked mighty suspicious to the ol' law enforcer, who promptly announced to Bad Bob that going prone in the center of town violated Gunslick Ordinance 32, Section 67. The penalty: death!! (it appeared as if the Town Code was a fairly simple one: either obey the law... or you died!! No halfway measures for coddling lawbreakers in Gunslick! In practice, it made for a nice clean, empty jail.) Bad Bob thought the whole thing over, and on his next card draw, he stood up. And then all hell broke loose. Two Gun Brown traded shots with Texas Red. Both fell. Pierce, the Doud man at House A, fired at Jim Blue - who had entered the house and was dragging the gold out to his horse and dropped him. The She'ff promptly potted Pierce. Kid Grey, now somewhat recovered, ran over to the She'ff, and at point blank range, fired 3 shots in the lawman's ear ... all missed. Despite being deafened, the She'ff whirled and gave Kid Grey his what- for. And while this was going on, Jim Blue staggered to his feet (1 card), slung the gold sack across his saddle (1 card), mounted (1 card), and took off like a cannon ball. The Doud Gang all yelled to the She'ff that he should stop firing on them, that Jim Blue was the real culprit, a genuine gold thief. No use. The She'ff's dander was up... besides, he was still deaf from Kid Grey's volley. The She'ff fired at everyone except Jim Blue, who, each time a Horse Card was drawn, flew another 4 inches towards the bridge. And that's how it ended: the Butters Bunch victorious. Although there wasn't really a Butters Bunch any more since Jim Blue was the only survivor.   Back to PW Review December 1981 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1981 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com