First western building completed

The first building for De Lancy is complete, well almost there are a few things I will probably touch up in due course.  That said it is in a playable form so the De Lancy General Store, proprietor Colonel J De Lancy, is open for business.  It's made of balsa and bass wood cladding over a foam board core.  I went with a removable flat roof design for this one.  Signage is a mix of home designed and Sarissa Precision items. The brown plate part way up the right side of the building is:

a) a plate for me to mount a lamp to, and

b) a disguise for a poor bit of building work!

My shoddy workmanship shows in this shot!

And some of the required touching up can be seen here.

I copied some modelling tips from a couple of blog sites where the authors had scratch built their towns, but I'm not entirely happy with the suggested build process.  To me the main failing is that there is a solid box core to the building with no gaps for windows or doors, so figures inside cannot be seen from the street and doors are always closed.  For my next build I have cut gaps in the foam board so let's see how that works.  The other issue is that there is no internal detail.  I don't think the designer really intended fights to happen inside buildings.  I'm expecting that they will.

That next building under construction is a County Sheriff's office and jail (Yes, I know that civilised folks spell it gaol, but this is Texas when all is said and done).  This represents a stone-built structure, so I have been inscribing the foam board and applying washes to make it look, well, stony!  That also means no balsa cladding is needed.  Unlike the store I am putting in internal walls and detail.  At present I have the external walls done and one of the internal walls completed but the building is not glued together.  The bits of bass wood lying on the foam in the picture are being tested for size, they will line cut outs for the doorways and windows to give a flat surface to place doors and windows into.

Who knew stone walls came flat pack!

As back story to the building I'm saying that it was a block house built as a defence against Commanche raids by the Mexican military back in the 1820's.  Subsequently it was taken over by the Texas Rangers as a way station before settling into its current use.  It will probably be known locally as the 'old block house' rather than the sheriff's office.

The end of an era

I have waited a few days to put my thoughts in writing since the death of Queen Elizabeth.  I'm not what you might call a dyed in the wool monarchist, after all I fight for Parliament when re-enacting the Civil Wars.  That said I'm not exactly a republican either, the thought of yet another job for politicians to screw up doesn't exactly fill me with glee.  What I do recognise is that for my entire adult life the same person has been Head of State.  Not having a huge personal effect on my life and yet managing to be a huge presence within it at the same time.  The ER II on post boxes (in England at least, she was Elizabeth the First in Scotland), the head on money and stamps, the person I swore allegiance to when I joined the TA.  Yes, there in so many aspects of daily life.

I think the suddenness of it all has been the most peculiar aspect of it all.  Greeting the incoming PM on Tuesday and dead two days later.  No time to get used to the idea.  Now it will be a new head on coins (looking in a different direction), a new set of words the National Anthem yet for most day-to-day purposes it is business as usual.  Others have given tributes in the media that sum up a life of service albeit one with few financial worries and a guarantee of continuing employment (although that was also a promise of dropping in your traces as well) but not a life without cares.  Looking in from the outside it is hard to know what sort of person she really was, but to me at least it seems clear that she cared about the role she filled and its continuation and the clincher to me she stood head and shoulders above the dirty mess of day-to-day British politics.  I might not be huge fan of hereditary monarchs, but I like the alternatives even less.

I have lived my life as a New-Elizabethan and from Tuesday teatime I'm now a something else.  What that will be called I'm not sure, Carolinian perhaps?  It really is the end of an era and the start of something new.

What does a good Old West town need?

A Western shoot out game needs a locale, perhaps not a full town but at least a main street, but what businesses would be on that street and the ones branching off it.  In fact, what would a town look like back in the period 1870 to 1890(ish).    So, it was off to Google to check a couple of forums for some information.  The answer I found is that town layouts vary by location, type of settlement (that's the main industry the town supports) and how long the town had been in existence.

Location would have been partially linked to the type of settlement, for example a mining town isn't going to be founded where there are no minerals to exploit.  In cattle country the movie style grid layout would be standard, but in areas originally settled by the Spanish there was a formal layout that was followed, based on royal law.  In mining areas towns tended to be in valleys below the mines and followed the line of the valley sides.  Railroad towns tend to develop with main street at right angles to the track with stock pens and related businesses over on the 'wrong side of the tracks'.  Most main streets were much wider than we might expect at around 100 feet to allow a wagon and its team to turn 180 degrees.  Side streets were slightly narrower at around 60-80 feet and residential areas had far narrower streets.

For most towns the first buildings would be a store and a saloon.  These would start with tented establishments and if the town prospered these would be converted to more permanent structures.  Brick or stone buildings would be rare outside the centre of older, more important settlements with two exceptions the jail and the bank.  These might not be made entirely of brick or stone, but the secure areas would aim to be made from one of the other (depending on local material availability).   In the Southwest adobe buildings would be found in the older settlements and those built to the royal law would have a plaza and a church from almost the very start.

In terms of businesses, as noted above, the average town starts with the general store and saloon but there would be more drinking establishments than you might expect (more akin to UK market town numbers in the period up to the mid 1970s) with roughly one saloon/bar for each 100 inhabitants.  A cattle town would also have stock yards from very early on in its history.  After that a livery stable and blacksmith and additional stores would be added with the owners often living in the back or above the shop.  As those businesses prospered or if the town was attracting families, then housing would appear at the edge of town.  With time a cemetery, County Sheriff or Town Marshall's office/jail would appear.  In farming areas, a seed store would appear fairly early on.  Other businesses might include:

- A hotel 

- Restaurants (Man's gotta eat)

- Billiard Hall (more common than I expected)

- Undertaker (Can't leave 'em on top)

- Saw mill/lumber yard (the lumber for buildings has to come from somewhere)

- House of ill repute (or three)

- Barbers/dentist

- Doctors office

- Gunsmith (for passing bandits to steal weapons from)

- Butcher

- Baker

- Dry Goods Store

- Clothing Store

- Rooming house

- Land Office (for burning down to get rid of land grant records)

Eventually if the town attracted families a schoolhouse and a church would be built.  There was some basic urban planning with building lots marked out but no strict rules on what buildings went where but the main street tended to be where the less salubrious bars and businesses were sited the older areas being dodgier than the newer ones.  Spanish founded towns had to conform to Royal building laws so would generally have a more structured layout to the centre of town.  One reason for starting in 1869 is that I can legitimately have a limited number of buildings in De Lancy and add to them over time.

Basic construction front view

and rear view

Front with just the window frames to complete and roof to build.

I'm aiming to start with a couple of stores, a saloon and some stock pens.  I will also need a county Sherrif's office for story line purposes. Work has started on an initial scratch build store but longer term I'm eying up MDF kits.  The De Lancy Construction Co has started operations!

The Painting Table - August 2022

A little late with the August update.  I didn't get much painted this last month as Mrs E and I took a holiday at the start of August and went away re-enacting over the Bank Holiday weekend.  My total output was four 28mm western shootout figures.  I did base and texture twenty-one 3mm Soviet light anti-tank and anti-aircraft vehicles, but I still have a bit of work to do on those so I can't count those as completed.

The monthly painting table shot

Space is starting to appear on the table but fear not there is a lot of unpainted lead to go yet!  You can just about see the based Soviet BRDM2 Sagger AT missile armed) vehicles and  SA-9 Gaskin AA vehicles (on round bases).

Three more shootists and a target ... er ...bystander

So welcome four more citizens to De Lancy County.  

De Lancy's Reckoning - May 1869

For the purposes of this test scenario all you need to know is that Colonel De Lancy (the old Southern money in the county and founder of the town which bears his name) is at odds with two Yankee Carpetbaggers who have broken his store monopoly in town.  For various reasons the good Colonel feels that an example must be made to preserve both his honour and more importantly his profits.  He has hired a trio of ne'er do wells to remove the problem with what will be known in the future as 'Extreme prejudice'.

To achieve this, the would be assassins enter the store owned by Messrs Butler and O'Keefe (the Yankees) with the intention of calling them out.  It is important that they provide an excuse, no matter how flimsy, for their intended actions as this part of Texas has a quaint notion that whoever goes to draw a gun first is the instigator of events and likely guilty of premeditated murder.  Also in the store at the time is one Davis 'Doc' Travis, passing through on his way west.  He has stopped to buy supplies and becomes caught up in events.

The characters in this drama are:

The Targets

Randolf (Randy) Butler.  Novice, unarmed, slow reactions, slow draw.  Skills Pistol 2, Rifle 4, Hand to Hand 2.

Jim O'Keefe.   Average, unarmed (but a scattergun is under the store counter), average reactions, slow draw.  Skills Pistol 2, Rifle 5, Hand to Hand 3.

The Assassins

Little Ned Tice.   Average, Breech loading Sharp's Carbine, Colt 36 Navy revolver, Bowie knife.  Average reactions, slow draw.  Skills Pistol 5, Rifle 6, Hand to Hand 6.

Jake Hartley.  Average, Colt 44 Army, Knife.  slow reactions (he has been drinking  but isn't drunk), Average draw.  Skills Pistol 5, Rifle 1, Hand to Hand 3, Throwing 6.

Roscoe Penny.  Professional, Smith and Wesson Model 1 .22 (7 shot, low impact), Bowie knife.  Slow reactions (more Dutch courage), average draw, Skills Pistol 6, Rifle 4, Hand to Hand 4. 

The Passing Stranger

Davis 'Doc' Travis.  Professional, 1856 Le Mat .42 (9 shot plus .60 shotgun barrel), Knife.  Fast reactions, Fast draw.  Skills Pistol 9, Rifle 6, Hand to Hand 5, Throwing 3.

Civilians

There may or may not be any non combatants involved if there are they will have slow reactions and skills of zero.

Set up

Doc is stood inside the store.  His pistols are holstered.  The assassins are on the sidewalk outside.  Jake and Roscoe have holstered pistols, Little Ned has his Sharps in his hands with a round loaded but the hammer isn’t cocked.  Ned will be posted outside the store while the other two go in to ‘do the deed’

When the assassins enter they will initially be focussed on their target and will have to react to any others in the store. They will have to trigger some sort of argument with the store owners to provide an excuse for gunning them down.  The owners will only start to react on a threat being made or weapons being drawn. 

The fight

Roscoe and Jake enter the store and Jake approaches the counter.  (Each phase of action is about 1 to 1.5 seconds, so far 15 seconds have elapsed).  Jake looks over at Jim O'Keefe and snaps "Gimme some of that rollin' tobacco" and slaps a dollar bill on the counter (This takes a further 2 seconds as the rules allow three words to be spoken a phase).  Looking down O'Keefe realises that the money is worthless Confederate script.  "Hey, this is Confederate money, it's no good".  Jake snarls a reply " Damn  ya Yankee, take the money".  At this point things start to move real fast.  Both Jake and Roscoe go for their pistols.  They are both average draw speed so this will take two phases before they can shoot, longer if they aim.  Unfortunately for them Doc standing in the corner has already turned towards them after hearing the raised voices.  As he sees hands dropping to holsters he reacts   A reaction is a response to any act seen by the character which may require a change in their current orders or state.  For example to draw a weapon on seeing someone going for a gun.  Professional characters react faster than average or novice characters.)  He shouts "Drop those pistols" and starts to draw his Le Mat. (Only needing one phase as he is a professional and has fast reactions and draw speed).

Positions as the shooting starts

The next phase he adopts a firing stance and continues his shout with "or I shoot".  The sudden interruption forces Jake and Roscoe to have to react (A reaction is forced by being shot at unexpectedly, after shooting, seeing a comrade fall wounded or sight of a seriously wounded or dead comrade or any unexpected or sudden event).  They decide to continue to attack the storekeeper.  Meanwhile O'Keefe is moving closer to the counter in an attempt to grab the scattergun hidden beneath it.  At this point Doc fires a snap shot at Jake who has his pistol clear of the holster.  He inflicts a serious body wound on him knocking him to the floor.  (The rules calculate a chance of scoring a hit with a possible range of 1-99%.   There are adjustments for skill, time spent aiming and other factors. Percentage dice are then rolled and if the score is below the adjusted total a table cross referencing the to hit and dice roll is checked to see what the wound is.  Serious wounds always knock the target to the ground and leave them stunned for  up to 10 phases.  The location of the wound has other effects to.)  Jake is unable to act for 10 phases and after that can only crawl or stagger and all actions take twice as long.  Realistically he is out of the fight.  While all this is going on Randy Butler is heading unseen for the store's back door.

Everyone takes a phase to react to this first shot and Doc also shouts "I said Drop em" while switching his aim to Roscoe.  Outside the store Little Ned has been standing unnoticed by everyone.  After the first shot rang out he reacted to events as he was cocking the hammer on his Sharps carbine.  He decides to go for O'Keefe as he can't get a clear shot at Doc.  Three shots now ring out as Roscoe also opens fire at O'Keefe while Doc fires at Roscoe.  O'Keefe staggers, hit in the body by Ned but it is only a light wound and he doesn't fall although he is stunned for four phases.  Roscoe isn't so lucky he misses O'Keefe before suffering a serious leg wound from Doc which knocks him to the floor and stuns him for five phases.

Little Ned watching with horror through the broken window realises that he has an empty carbine and a holstered pistol making him effectively unarmed against a lethal opponent who has a gun in hand and decides to run.  (reloading a breech loader like a Sharps would take six phases and dropping the carbine to draw his pistol is going to take two phases to draw with a shot being fired on the third phase).  Doc can't get to the door before Ned ducks down an ally and is gone.  This fight is over after only twenty four seconds!

The Aftermath

The town Sherriff is called and initially thinks to arrest everyone, but both O'Keefe and Butler support Doc's account of events and passer's by heard his warning shout and vouch for the fact that he gave Roscoe and Jake every chance to stand down.  Despite being a De Lancy lackey there is little the Sherriff can do other than take the two wounded men into custody once they have been treated.  Ned has gotten away and reported events to the Colonel who has to decide what to do next.  With O'Keefe wounded a message has been sent just not as forcefully as desired.  However Jake and Roscoe are going to be a problem.

Next up

If Jake and Roscoe survive their wounds they are now a liability to Colonel De Lancy.  As long as they are in the Sherriff's custody it can be assumed that they are not going to be questioned but should a US Marshall get wind of events and take an interest things could become awkward.  De Lancy needs to get them out of jail before he is implicated.  I guess I'm going to need some buildings soon.  You can't have a jail break without a jail!

The Rules

I used the Old West Skirmish Wargames rules for this and they played fine.  The reprinted rules have been commented upon by Amazon purchasers saying they are slow and overly detailed.  I didn't find this to be the case.  This game revolved around reaction times, skill levels and draw speeds which seems fair for a fight in a tight space.  This shoot ot was played in under an hour including checking rules and writing out the sequence of actions to ensure I didn't miss things like delays due to reaction.  In a multi player game written orders are required but those are pretty basic and several phases orders can be written in one go any way.  I don't need a lot of the rules such as machine guns or artillery any way so I can play with the core rules alone.  The rules on misfires are the only thing I needed to look up and these are only triggered on a roll of a double.  At that point I'd just look up the effect.  To be honest in a game where revolvers are the norm most players ignore it and simply cock and fire again anyway.

I have added a couple of house rules one is to make reaction times separate to the experience status the other is for the longer term effects of wounds.  For example while a serious body wound might be survivable in a pre-antibiotic world as likely as not it will prove fatal and if not will require a long period of recovery and will create some reduction in capability.  A serious arm wound is probably going to require amputation and so on.  So things are not looking great for Jake and Roscoe.

By the way I misremembered the need to roll high in these rules.  You need to roll low to get under the 'to hit' value and increase the severity of resulting wounds.  So Deadshot Karen had a genius for low rolls not high.  Either way it was better to have her with you rather then 'agin' you. 

De Lancy - A nice place to live?

The North West Texas town of De Lancy was founded in the aftermath of the Texican- Mexican War of 1836 by a returning veteran, the New Orleans born Major Joshua De Lancy.  He saw the potential in what was an isolated trading post on one of the western bound trails, and decided to expand it into a ranching community.  

He had seen money being made by supplying beef to the army and by dint of connections to Sam Houston gathered some small contracts to provide beef on the hoof to settlers, and military outposts.  However it wasn't until the US-Mexican War of 1846 that business really picked up and the town really started to grow.  The next decade saw steady growth in De Lancy's business but it wasn't until the outbreak of hostilities between North and South that the town really found it's feet.  Contracts to deliver beef to Confederate forces were paid in gold, at least to start with and times were good.   However, by 1862 the Confederate States had switched to paying in paper money.  De Lancy wasn't concerned though the money was good and the South was going to win, wasn't it.  This all came crashing down in 1865 when following the Southern defeat Confederate dollars became worthless and the small stock of gold De Lancy had left was dwindling fast.

Old De Lancy now styling himself Colonel (he had held a militia commission in that rank) looked around for a way out of his and the town's problems.  Most of the decent folk had moved on and the town was becoming a haven for the worse sorts.  These were a mix ex-confederate soldiers, Yankee draft dodgers and Tejano rustlers who made a living by rounding up wild longhorns and driving them North, when not committing more traditional crimes.  So De Lancy simply joined in, turning a blind eye to the sourcing of the cattle they sold north.  

The town became an assembly point for herds from the region as well as some stolen from farther afield ready for the drive north.  The town gained a kind of prosperity from gambling and prostitution as well as the income from cattle.  It also gained a reputation as a wide open town despite US occupation forces and carpet baggers attempts to impose a basic level of law and order.  The sad fact was that there were simply too few Federal troops available and they were only occasional visitors to town. 

By 1869 the Colonel had a decent herd and good grazing land but the lawless element are not above rustling his cattle which bit into his profits.  He owned the main mercantile store in town but is facing competition from a new saloon and store financed by a pair of Yankee Carpet Baggers.  What is worse is the cattle herders were no longer all working for him, some had set up in business against him.  A citizen's committee was starting to make noises about electing a sheriff  to clean up the town.  Colonel De Lancy was broadly in favour of this so long as it was on his terms.  Records show that the Colonel tried to bypass the citizens and and those damned Yankees by bringing in some independent contractors to impose his version of law and order.  This is the town that Doc Travis rode into in the spring of '69.

Why 1869?

Historically during reconstruction Texas was wide open with no real federal occupation force as the occupying Federal army was being stripped back.  The old agrarian economy dependant on slaves was being reshaped by the Freedmen's Bureau.  Old Confederate politicians were precluded from running for office until Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870.  There was no state police until 1870 ,and even then they only numbered about 200 men, and were dissolved a couple of years later. The only other state law enforcement body was the Texas Rangers but until 1874 they effectively did not exist as there was no funding made available.  That leaves local law officers who were a mixed bag.  Some were effective others more interested in lining their own pockets and some were no better than those they were meant to protect their jurisdictions from.  In short in the period 1869 to the late 1870's there is a lot of scope for scenarios.

I also have an eye on the situation in New Mexico and Arizona from around 1870 onwards so the location of games (assuming there is more than one) may well drift west.

The return of Doc Travis

Doc was one of my western skirmish characters from back in my student days.  He was, in the terms of the rules we used, a Professional.  That meant he was someone who earned a living by the gun and had the skills and reactions to do so. He stayed on the right side of the law, mostly.  All our games were played with 54mm Britain's 'Deetail' Cowboy figures with the occasional cheaper figure thrown in.  The setting was always a town made up of the plastic Timpo wild west buildings.  Doc was usually to be found in the saloon sipping a root beer mainly because the rules penalties for being drunk were lethal!

Britain's Deetail Figures.  Doc is on the left of the rear row

I had the three figures on the left of the image.  They looked much better after a quick repaint, Doc acquired a red-brown hat, green shirt and blue trousers.  The Mexican was in dark colours with red trimmings and the one in buckskins firing a rifle from the hip just got a brown coat.

There were numerous other characters to be found in town beside Doc.  Dangerous Dave Le Mat, Bowie Pete and Deadshot Karen to name but a few.  Tales about them stick in my memory even though it was almost 50 years ago.  

Bowie Pete for example was so called not because of his prowess with said knife, but because that's how he normally ended up in Boot Hill,  lying wounded in main street when his opponent would simply write the order 'Bowie Pete' which we all knew meant that a bullet wasn't going to be wasted on him when a slashed throat would be as deadly!

Deadshot Karen was the long suffering (real life) girlfriend of one the players who would be roped in to make up numbers.  She had an unnerving ability to roll a natural 100 with her rifle skill which meant she usually killed you from the other side of town with a Winchester.  It didn't matter whose dice she rolled she seemed incapable of rolling less than 90 on a set of percentage dice, that in a set of rules where rolling high was a good thing.  You stayed off Main Street when Karen was in town.

Dangerous Dave Le Mat was one of my characters.  So called because on his weapon of choice was a nine shot Le Mat revolver (as used by Jeb Stuart) which had the bonus of a selectable 20 gauge shotgun barrel under the normal one.  I was playing in a winner takes all type game where it was everyman for himself.  Names had not been divulged and weapons were secret until used.  Dangerous Dave was sat playing poker in the saloon with three of the other players, unknown to them he had used one phase to draw his pistol under the table which no one had reacted to and a second phase to select the shotgun option, when the then (and still current) Mrs E looked over my shoulder and innocently asked 'why is your man called Dangerous Dave Le Mat?'  At which point all three opponents hurled themselves out of the cone of fire of the Le Mat and then shot me down like a dog!  Moral of the story don't name yourself after your weapon of choice if you don't want anyone to know about it.

My Britain's figures are long gone now but I recreated Doc in 25mm a few years ago and he is getting a run out so I can refresh my memory about the rules.  So welcome to 1869 and the town of De Lancy, Texas, Population variable.  De Lancy has a detailed back story which I will unfold in some future post. 

The scenario I'm going to play is a straight shootout inside a dry goods store.  I don't have any buildings as yet so for test purposes a floor plan will have to do.  There will be Doc v two or possibly three greenhorns plus for interest a couple of innocent bystanders  these may or may not represent the Daughter's of the Confederacy Temperance League.