Dollar Tree Conestoga Wagons and a Bag O' Dogs

When you wargame in 54mm you have to know when to mass purchase.  You never know what era will present itself in the toy stores and dollar ships.

Buck a Bag.

Conestoga Wagon, with driver!  Fire pit and tripod of beans in a pot. Some 60mm possibly useful cowboys and Indians.

Bag O' Cats.  Well actually small pets in 54mm and 90mm.

More on this one later.

The bags have mixes of figures.  The wagon, fire pit and tripod are consistent and of useful quality in setting up a scene of a wagon train.

What made me buy the lot was the fact that the wagons had drivers.  I have found wagons in bags of cowboys before but this was the first instance of a useable driver figure on the bench.  Now the action can be wagon train "under way" or we can circle the wagons and defend a lager.

Cowboy.

Mixed figures in each bag.

Two bags opened for display.

These cats are essentially useless.  However I also game in 90mm medieval and these could be used as scenic devices but that is a stretch.  Anyone know of a good cat based RPG?

The dogs are what made me purchase three of these bags.

I am not a breed specialist but this is a good bird dog?

This brute will be added to my untouchables police set.

As well as these two tracking dogs.  I now have a K9 unit for my police.  These ought to paint up wonderfully and I don't know of any 54mm dogs I have ever seen before.  Anyone?

Time to track some criminals.

Great dogs for a dollar.

You never know what will pop up in a dollar tree.

Thanks for looking in.  Leave a comment for encouragement.

2015 NAWGASOC Nerf Division

Welcome to the new year and the 2015 North American Western Gunfight Association Shoot-Out Championship Nerf Division.

This semi-annual competition was held in the sleepy hamlet of Greenwood this last Thursday evening among the Secondhand Lions wargames club.

Let's look in on this event and stand table side with these outlaws and lawmen...

Greenwood, Missouri 2015 1875.

The NAWGASOC players used 1/72 scale cowboys in a cut and paste western town on a 2x2' table to maneuver and set up a line of site shot on each other.

Please bare with your erstwhile editor as I am learning Picasa Web Albums and have played overly much with the photography editor.

This shot is of the town and game room of your host Kenneth Van Pelt.

This western gunfight wargame was played out using a variety of Nerf weapons to resolve combat.  This target box was what we shot at when it was our turn to fire.  The modifiers to hit were adjusted via the size of target hole we needed to hit to score a wound on our opponents.  We shot at this target from about 4 yards away.  The smallest target hole is an inch and a quarter in diameter and the largest is five inches.

Here is an aerial view of the town we moved around.  By a card dealt initiative we took turns moving 3" using a movement stick.  This movement stick was left in place to show the path of travel for the gunfighter.  In our rules set we assumed that all of the action taking place was simultaneous and that the path of travel may be seen by an opponent so it was indeed possible to shoot at the path with of course a penalty modifier.  This sort of allowed an "OP" fire or opportunity fire overwatch. 

And now back to our melodrama...

Below we see the victory shot by our new sheriff Ted C.  Mr. Ted, on the right in this image, plugs the last outlaw, Mr. Van Pelt to take the championship 2015 NAWGASHC tin star.

When your playing piece was dealt three gunshot wounds you were eliminated from the competition.  Gunshot wounds were actual blood stickers made for the event.  You can see them in the dead shots of the killed outlaws.  

Sheriff Ted Conn.  2015 NAWGASOC champion.

Kenneth Van Pelt, last outlaw in the town of Greenwood 1875. RIP

Shot by Sheriff Conn.

The notorious Jon Mark Haworth, killed 1875 by sheriff Conn.

That wily outlaw and Nerf gunsmith Terry Carr, RIP town of Greenwood 1875.  Shot in the street by Kenneth Van Pelt.

Another scurilous villain.  D10 Billy shot at Greenwood, 1875.  Shouldn't oughta brought a derringer to a street fightin' shootout.

That south of the border nabob, Carlitos.  Plugged early on by sheriff Conn.

The death of D10 Billy.

Thanks for looking in on our blog and gaming table.  Hope you enjoyed the story and listening to the piano player play as we roll credtis.

Go Get That and Bring it Over Here

A wargame night of pick up and deliver games played in the Lion's Den.  Our first offering was a Parker Brother's game from 1960 called Trade Winds.  I didn't get any images of this game play but it was our first game of the night and was a blast.  I got this copy off of Ebay and it was a bit of a grail find.

Here is the game on the table pre-event.  This is a fascinating game of pirate action in the Caribbean and plays up to six players.  We had five and the event was won by our prodigal governor Carl L. - in a fantastic epic battle in his home port.

Then we headed out west and went gold mining in the Ravensburger game, Eureka.

I pimped this game with some HO scale cowboys and Indians.  It is traditionally played with wooden meeples.  I also printed the expansion fan art cards from Boardgamegeek and we added equipment cards.  this gave us guns and gold pans a clock and a mule.

This one was won by our stalwart regular Ted C.    He made a bid for taking all my gold from a bandit and surpassing that wily Indian character Terry C.

Final game of the night was a 1956 Gabriel games Stampede.  This is another pick up cattle and move them to your coral.  The kicker in this game is that the pawns are spring loaded firing mechanisms that you use throughout the game to kill rustlers.

The man in the yellow hat (Curious George reference) won the cattle baron award and that goes to our own Terry C.

And finally here is my game room tour that I am going to post on TMP.  It is currently in vogue to show your game room, paint table and your collections of games and toy soldiers.  So welcome to the Lion's Den.

Thanks for looking in.

We Don't Rent Pigs

Jake Spoon: A man that will talk to a pig ain't no better than a farmer.
Gus McCrae: I expected you to own a bank or at least a whorehouse by now Jake. It seems life has been a disappointment to both of us.
Jake Spoon: That might be so, but by God, I ain't never said a word to a pig.

Gus McCrae: Well we don't rent pigs and I figure it's better to say it right out front because a man that does like to rent pigs is... he's hard to stop