"3:10 to Yuma" a brief AAR

[NickNascati]

All,
      This is in response to "Fifteensaway's" lament. 
      Last week my son in law and I played a great scenario based on the end sequence of "3:10 to Yuma".  We used a slightly modified version of the "Cowboys - Way of the Gun" boardgame, altered for minis and a normal table top.  The game was set to last 15 turns.  Dan Evans and his charge Ben Wade started the game in a Hotel at one end of the board, and had to get to the train station and survive for 15 turns.  Ben's gang deployed first, and was set up in a semi-circle outside the Hotel.  This allowed Dan to set up at a rear door with back street access.  It also insured that the game would be a chase. 
      It was quite tense.  Dan with Ben "attached" to him, kept to the back street, trading shots with the bad guys only when necessary.  Being a former army sharpshooter, he was rated highly in the game, and was armed with a revolver and a shotgun.  The bad guys were led by the equally highly rated Charlie Prince, the psycho gunman of the gang.  He carried two revolvers.  The rest were garden variety cowboys with a single revolver each.
      Dan made a point of staying away from Prince, and focused on shooting up the rest of the gang.  He managed to kill one cowboy and badly wound another.  He finally had to sprint across main street with Ben to reach the train station. He was injured in doing so, but still reached his objective.  Dan reloaded in the cover of the train station, and managed to last 13 turns until Charlie Prince gunned him down.  It was a good, tense game.
      If you are looking for something a little different, check out "Cowboys - The Way of the Gun" by Worthington Games. It is a good set of rules with loads of scenarios.  Very easily converted to minis and a standard game table.

[CptJake]

I have the game but have yet to play it.   

What modifications to the rules did you make in order to use them as a minis game?

[NickNascati]

Basically I use the boards as a guide to set up my buildings, which usually result in an approximation of the board set up. I use the bards as a deployment guide.  Other than that, I just use an normal ruler to measure, 1 square = 1 inch.  One change I did make specifically for the scenario, is to allow 2 inches of movement per health point, as there was a lot of ground to cover.  I play the game quite a bit, it works well solo.

[FifteensAway]

Nick,

Thanks for thinking of me and nice report.  Now you've go me thinking of working up a scenario based on the scenes going through the railroad tunnels and before and after.  Good movie, that.  Not as good as Appaloosa as far as "realism", but good.

EMW