I've been doing some thinking on Old West rules, when it hit me: Old West Kriegspiel!

Kriegspiel! That wonderful system that has been around for nearly 200 years!

What is a kriegspiel, well, basicially, it's a wargame without any real set rules. Instead, combat is decided by the GM, with a random element in the form of a die to stop it from getting too predictable.

So, let's go back to the northwest frontier of India in the late 1800's. Let's say the 3rd Foot and Mouth want to fire on that horde of charging Afghan tribesmen. The player rolls a die, let's say a 5. The afghans are in cover, so that will make the fire less effective, as will the long range (let's say about 100 - 150 yards), though they did get a high number on the die, so let's say it was a bit above average. We shall say then that the afghans suffered 15% casualties, had it been a more average resul (a 3 or 4) then it would have been about 10%, or a sad 5% (or even nothing!) if a 1 or 2 had been rolled.

It sounds complex and strange, but it is quite simple and easy, as there are no modifiers or stats or abilities to look up, the GM just does a quick assesment in his head and the results are applied.

I am thinking of using a kriegspiel type system for an old west shootout, any takers? If you guys really want to I could give it a try this Friday, though I won't have had a chance to test it, but it should work (the key word there is 'should')?

Mike

That sounds just crazy enough to work! I'll play. Do you want to do a shootout or a Zombies game this Friday? I'll play either...

I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl, I could always bring up the zombies as a back up.

I figure we can try the shoot out in a test game for around 8 o'clock, and if it works then we can run another game at about 9 - 9:30, if not then zombies for the 9+ game. How does that sound?

Mike

We do have the Reaper Warlord Overlook Hotel scenario booked for tonight, so as long as we can squeeze that in, I'm good. It's a 750 point scenario with ghosts and crazies atttacking every round, so it shouldn't take too long.

The Kriegspeil was a lot of fun -- very organic & logical, no obscure unplaytested rules to conflict with each other. I'd definitely like to try this again.

As for the Old West Zombies, that seemed to work out, although the zombie generation on a 5-6 does seem to be the way to go. And as for you, Matt --

camaraderie (noun) "käm-'rä-d(&-)rE, "kam-, "kä-m&-, "ka-, -'ra-
Etymology: French, from camarade / comrade
Definition: a spirit of friendly good-fellowship.
See also: Fellowship, teammate, backup.

Just FYI.

Indeed, very easy, and fun. I like not having to think about rules all the time, just play!

Zombie Kriegspiel would be neat.

I have been thinking up some ideas for a zombie game (not kriegspiel) where all the players are competing to score the most kills, with zombie movement by the players like in the Zombies! board game...

Zombie Hunt! Or maybe Zombie Safari? That would be cool. I think we'd need to power up the weapons just a little, introduce a more strict control for ammunition, scatter ammo supplies & first aid packs around the board (a la Zombies!!!), and maybe have a secondary set of weapons too? Like maybe a grenade or two hidden somewhere on the board? Cool!

Already thought of that, it will not use ATZ mechanics, something quicker and easy (a one page front and back type of thing). A beer and pretzals game like Warlord. I'm thinking equipment tokens scattered around the table, with set numbers of shots per gun and reloads are found during the game. I'm thinking of using a d10...