Fistful of Lead: The final showdown

Marshal Bill Marshal was the toughest man ever to draw breath. He'd put more bad guys, scoundrels, and ne'er do wells in the ground than cholera. But his reckoning was coming.
Organized by those blackards, the Dixon Gang, every scum and renegade in the territory was riding hard for Lesterville to put an end to Marshal Bill.

 Lesterville

The Longriders move in

El Guappo's crew gets piled up on the bridge...

...because of well placed snipers in the hotel.

The Dixon Gang enters the fray.

The Cavalry doesn't save the day.

El Guappo's banditos tried to cross the border, but were quickly pinned on the bridge by some well placed riflemen in the hotel. Meanwhile, most of the Marshal's men were tied up keeping Yellow Knife's Indian renegades at bay.
Two forces started out off table. The Dixon Gang could enter on a d10 roll less than the previous trun number. The Cavalry on a d6 roll, making it, in theory, easier for the Cavalry to arrive.
It didn't work that way. The Dixons entered turn 2. The Marshal's men were now outnumbered 2-1 and taking casualties. The Marshal was nowhere to be seen.
When the Cav did appear they rode straight for the Injuns... And were either wounded or killed to a man. So much for the big save.
As blood pooled in the streets, the Marshal appeared. He had been hanging out in the General Store for most of the game. Playing checkers? In then proceeded to do what he does....kill.
Until, El Guappo showed up. The corpulant bandito then killed 3 men in a row, including the Marsha.
With the mission accomplished, it was just a matter of cleaning up.
Lesterville was now in for dark times. There was a new boss in town. El Heffe himself.

GASLIGHT Battle

It won't stop raining here in the Midwest. To alleviate the gloom, I need something steamy and clanky.
Each player got two infantry units and one contraption. Each side had one village, but needed the other village.

This would prove to be an oddball game. The Jaguar, a German velocipede is usually the first unit to draw blood, and being unarmored, the first to die. This game, he took three turns to get started, despite a high START roll. Then, once engaged did little damage.

Weird thing number two. Most of the time units break apart somewhat quickly because of failed morale rolls. This time, it seemed like every unit stuck around to the bitter end.
Third, the Rokkittruppen, as regular readers will know are a tough unit to use. They move quickly, but because of the "fire OR move" basis of the rules means if used wrong, they usually charge to their deaths. This time, they moved into a defensive position and unleashed Hell with their spring work submachine guns.

And the unicycle Uhlans...Poor Uhlans. They held postion the entire game, waiting for thr right moment to charge. They took a calculated risk and moved last in the turn, hoping the following turn the Germans would go first.
They didn't. The Home Guard cut them to pieces.
With both sides beaten and bloody, we called it soon after the Killenkanner toasted an entire unit of French soldiers hold up in a house.

Returning to DUST

Summer's a hard time to get everyone together. That's why I went back to simple set of rules with some great models: DUST. We only had 4 people playing, but a ton on minis and tanks on the table. I was even able to the Boy to drag himself away from the Xbox to play, which says something about the cool factor.

I don't have the official DUST dice, but you can easily use standard 6s or, if you are like me and have a bunch of 6s numbered 1-3, even better.

Each side had a "biggun" with guns capable of insta-killing anything on the table. These became the focus of both sides. The Axis had a bunch of undead troops. These boys are cheap, but don't take suppression hits. They are mostly close combat troops, however. This forces them to run across the open battlefield, but they get great saves.

The Allies had some heavily armored troops capable of rocketing into position. We used these try a pincer.
It sort of worked.
Much like any other game, we learned the hard way those troops better be suppressed or have already activated before you close in for hand to hand. The ability for troops to deliver Reaction fire creamed most of both sides assaulting troops before they got close.
The Axis ended up with a marginal victory. All of the Allied armor was knocked out, and what infantry was left, was hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
Again, a great game in very little time. I'm still thinking of converting these for 15mm SciFi.