The Gunfight at the OK Corral - a play through

Both of the Empires at War buildings are complete and for now I can proxy the other buildings needed, so it's time to play out the gunfight. The Land office is proxying for the Assay office which was next door to Fly's and I scratch built the second building on Harwood's two plots. The idea of the play through is to see what skill levels and draw speeds best replicate the actual outcome. That in turn will give me some indication as to where these should be set for fictional encounters.

These ratings are mostly guesses but they do have some background in fact. So as examples I have factored in any reputation for being proficient, known past participation in gunfights, previous behaviour and in Doc Holliday's case foolhardy levels of courage as he seems to have courted death perhaps due to his incurable TB.  So without further ado here are the details for all of the participants:

Name	Experience	Draw	Courage	Aware	Pistol	Rifle	H-2-H
Virgil Earp	Average	Average	6	6	6	6	7
Morgan Earp	Average	Average	6	6	5	5	6
Wyatt Earp	Professional	Fast	7	6	6	7	7
Doc Holliday	Professional	Fast	8	6	7	7	5
Ike Canton	Average	Slow	3	6	5	5	4
Billy Clanton	Average	Average	6	5	7	6	6
Frank McLaury	Professional	Fast	7	6	7	6	6
Tom   McLaury	Average	Average	7	4	5	5	6
Billy Claiborne	Novice	Slow	3	5	5	6	5
Wes Fuller	Novice	Average	4	6	5	5	5

All numerical factors are on a 1-10 scale with 1 being poorest and 10 being best.  The factors are for use with the Skirmish Wargames Group "The Old West" rules.  I'm using the (I think) second edition set printed in 1977.  The latest edition is still available via John Curry's History of Wargaming project.  (Sorry the table is a bit squashed up on the blog.  It looked fine on the draft and the preview, honest)

Although most accounts state he was unarmed I have elected to give Tom McLaury an 1871 .41 Colt Cloverleaf, this is a short barrelled Light Impact pistol holding a maximum of four rounds.  Other than that weapons are as detailed in my last post.  I didn't give Doc Holliday the Colt Lightning double action revolver for this game leaving him with the coach gun in hand and a holstered Colt single action Army revolver.  

In terms of the game plan of the two sides I'm going to follow the actions of the real individuals until the first decision point which is where the Earps turn into the lot between Fly's and the Harwood house.   As background it is important to realise that the Cowboys are badly disadvantaged.  The Earps know where the Cowboys are as Sherriff Behan inadvertently gives them that information when he says he has gone down there and disarmed them.  This means that the Earps don't need to react to a surprise sighting on turning the corner of Fly's, they do need to order the cowboys to hand over their guns though.  The Cowboy's need to react to the Earp's turning the corner (unless one of them is out in Fremont Street to give advance warning).  Both sides need to react to the other going for their guns.  Once all of that is out of the way the lead starts to fly.  I'm going to treat the narrow space between Fly's and Harwood's as if is indoors for visibility through smoke as it was a chilly day and smoke would hang, but that would be after the first round of shooting.

The Game

The Earp's start out in line abreast outside the Assay Office (proxied by the Land Office for this game).  Sherriff Behan has already stated that he has been down there and disarmed the Cowboys but has been ignored by the Earp party.  For purposes of this run through I'm using Figures from Empress Miniatures as the Earp party.  Virgil is in a black Stetson, Wyatt in a Brown one and Morgan is the figure in the brown Derby (Bowler hat to us Brits) while Doc Holiday is the figure carrying the rifle.

1. The Earp's ignore Behan (on the sidewalk) and set off down Fremont

The Earp's walk down Fremont until they gain a view into the vacant lot between Fly's and Harwood's.  The Cowboys are leaning against the wall of the Harwood house.  Frank McLaury is in a red shirt, his brother Billy wears a duster and Tom McLaury is in the pale blue shirt, these are the three armed members of the Cowboys.  Wes Fuller is at the back of the lot in a red-brown coat and hat, Billy Claibourne is the figure in the sheep skin jerkin and Ike Clanton is in a brown suit and Derby hat.

2. The Cowboy's initial positions

As the Earp's get close to the corner of Fly's they can see the Cowboys.  Because Behan had told them they were there no reaction test is required for them.  The Cowboys have to take observation tests to spot the Earps.  Tom McLaury is the first to see them and reacts at once shouting and pointing to alert the rest of the Cowboys. 

3. The Earp's first sight of the Cowboys, Behan ducks into Fly's

The Earps swing their line into the space between the two buildings and close in on the Cowboys while Virgil shouts "We are here for your guns".  This takes two phases to utter and in that time the gap closes to a mere five yards.  Meanwhile the Cowboys are reacting to the Earp's appearance.  Courage tests are taken all round. Each character has a courage rating of between 1- 10 rolling under that value using a D10 is a pass rolling above the target number is a fail.  Billy Claibourne, Wes Fuller and Ike Clanton all fail the test and panic causing them to run away.  Morgan Earp fails but only hesitates.  The result of the Courage test has four possible outcomes pass, hesitate, freeze or panic.  Pass allows the character to continue as ordered, hesitate is a single turn before they can act, freeze prevents action until a courage test is passed and panic causes the character to run away.  There are adjustments for wounds, near misses, being unarmed and having panicked and not recovered.

4. Both groups move towards the other

At this point Frank McLaury goes for his gun, he is a fast draw which means he will draw and shoot in one round.  Wyatt reacts immediately (professionals react immediately to events) and also draws he is also a fast draw so shooting is simultaneous.  Frank misses Wyatt (by a lot) but Wyatt hits Frank in the right arm causing a light wound.  Frank is stunned for a turn and drops his pistol.  Doc Holliday reacts to the firing and brings his coach gun to a firing position.  

5. The first two shots ring out

The next turn all hell breaks out,  Doc fires both barrels at Tom McLaury and hits him twice a serious right arm wound and a light body wound.  Virgil and Morgan are drawing their pistols. They are average draw speed so draw in one turn and shoot in the next.  Wyatt snap fires a second round at Frank McLaury but misses.  Billy Clanton fires at Virgil Earp and inflicts a serious body wound.  Virgil is stunned for 10 turns and is effectively out of the fight.  The lot is filling with smoke now so I impose a 15% reduction in the to hit value from this turn.

Wyatt now switches target to Tom Mclaury and hits him causing a serious body wound.  Doc fires at Tom as well but misses, Morgan also misses his shot at Frank Mclaury.  No shots are returned from the Cowboys as Frank has dropped his pistol, and both he and Tom McLaury are stunned while Billy Clanton is reacting to events.  Both Tom and Frank have dropped their horses reins and the horses bolt away from the noise of the gunfire taking the holstered Winchester rifles with them

6. The smoke clears with only Frank is on his feet from the cowboy side

Doc now takes time to aim his next shot at Billy Clanton for a turn.  As a result he kills him outright with that shot. Each turn spent aiming adds 10% to the chance of a hit and the dice rolled very low too.  Wyatt needs a turn to shift target but his next shot is fired at the same time as Doc's he hits Frank again inflicting a serious left leg wound which knocks Frank to the ground.  All three Cowboys who stayed to fight are now wounded or dead.  Wyatt demands their surrender which triggers a courage test which they fail.  Frank and Tom McLaury surrender and the Gunfight at the OK Corral is over.

The Aftermath

By my count fifteen shots were fired inflicting seven hits so this creates a hit rate way higher than the actual gun fight did.  This suggests that either my skill factors are too high or my dice are rolling high.  Maybe a to hit reduction for being shot out in the previous turn for average and novice characters of five and ten percent respectively would do the trick.

The casualties were less severe than the real thing though with only one death.  I think that I need to consider serious wounds as potentially fatal.  Perhaps treat a serious body wound from a high impact weapon as a fatal shot and all other serious wounds as fatal in 25% of cases from a high impact weapon and 10% for normal impact.

Lastly for solo play there can be a lot going on which needs to be tracked so some kind of marker to show wounds, perhaps hidden under the base might help.  Time to have a think about a final set of amendments.

I hope you found the series of posts about the Gunfight at the OK Corral interesting, please do follow the blog and leave comments if you did.