First Game in "Babel" playing Ruthless

Our group has been trying to arrange a war gaming weekend since just before the first Covid lockdown (March 2020), but since then just about everything has stood in our way and prevented us from achieving it.  Finally, yesterday the stars aligned and a good friend who used to live locally drove down for the weekend. Even though there were only three of us, instead of the intended four, and the heavens threatened to open up on us, we finally managed to play a game!  

This was the inaugural game for my wild west town of Babel. A table I have been working on for the last two years. It was intended for a 6'x4' and a lot more buildings didn't get to the table because we ended up opting for a 4'x3'. Most of the buildings are Sarissa Precision but there are a couple from Warbases sprinkled throughout.

My intention was to play test the new Too Fat Lardies game, What a Cowboy!, but for our first big game in well over two years the group opted to go with the original plan and use Ruthless, a free set of rules from Mark Fastoso. Besides I had already prepared a home made scenario that I had put a bit of effort into. Ruthless was streamlined enough and played very well. It required a bit of house ruling and we had a few issues with the timing of playing some of the special cards but apart from that it achieved what it claimed to be "The Fastest Rules in the West". In saying that the body count although was much less than we had expected and we had quite a few cowboys harboring a whole array of wounds having been literally shot to pieces.

All in all we had an excellent time and it was just so good to roll some dice again with good friends. The scenario involved the lawmen getting a captured outlaw to the Sheriff's office to face a proper trial. The outlaw's older brothers showed up and had to try and get him back. While this played out a low down gang of banditos who had been driven out of Babel a few days before decided it was time for their revenge and tore into Babel guns a blazing, not caring who they shot at. It turned out to be a pretty intense game and fairly well balanced. There was a fourth bounty hunter faction that did not get used. In the end the lawmen did get the outlaw to the Sheriff's office, winning the game, but for some time it looked like the outlaws were about to make the rescue, until they failed their Skedaddle test and called it a day. The Mexicans, played by me, generally caused havoc to both sides, not caring who they targeted. We have promised to get back to Babel again soon.