Liberty - There's gold in them there hills

The wild west town of Liberty is an enigmatic place at the best of times. Various unsavoury gangs appear, causing mayhem by robbing the bank, freeing prisoners from the jail, looting the gold mine, gunning down towns folk and delaying the 3.20 to Yuma train.

We use a simple set of rules that someone else wrote several years ago. The game uses two decks of cards so it is possible to have 5 Aces!.

Each player controls up to 5 figures and is dealt a hand of 5 cards.

Each player  in turn plays a card which for shooting or brawling affects 1 figure or for moving affects a group of figures

Spades - 1 figure can take a shot
Diamonds - 1 figure can brawl or 1 or more figures can move
Clubs - 1 or more figures can move
Hearts - 1 figure can defend against shooting or brawling

The card value indicates either the number of  inches a figure or group of figures can move or the accuracy of a shot or the strength of a punch. Ace = 11, King, Queen and Jack = 10

In order to shoot a Spade card must be played. The target must reply with a card. If the target plays an Heart that equals or beats the value of the Spade then it is a miss otherwise it is a hit

Each figure can take 4 hits before they die. Each hit reduces the value of any card they play by 1

Everything else is sort of made up as we go along

The game, There's gold in them there hills, was played with 3 players, Mike, Shaun and myself controlling 3 figures on a 2 foot square table. The objective being to steal the gold from the miners and leave town on the 3.20 to Yuma.

My plan was to sneak up on the miners, shoot them, steal their gold and run for the train. I have no idea what the other 2 varmints had planned but my gut told me it was something along the same lines

I should have got worried when the 2 other gangs started sneaking around together

Leaving one guy, Pacífico, to provide covering fire my two remaining guys, Tuco & Benedicto, snuck round the back of the camp, past the Bean Master no doubt sleeping off a quart of cooking sherry in the chuck wagon

Meanwhile the other two gangs had started taking pot shots at the miners wounding one of them

Tuco found the miners' stash in a tent and headed back to join up with Pacifico

At this point the 2 gangs started to try and head me off at the pass

Somewhere along the trail Benedicto and Pacifico were shot down leaving Tuco to get on the train alone - hey that's life - they weren't relatives. The opposition had other plans though

Having made it onto the train Tuco found himself the target of every ne'er-do-well between here and the Rio Grande and died in a hail of lead.

The 2 other gangs broke their alliance gunning each  other down in a mad frenzy trying to grab the gold. By this time my only living gang member, Benedicto staggered onto the scene

As the train thundered through the canyon the 3 gangs fought a terrible duel....

leaving Mike's single Apache to claim the gold and clamber onto the train. Benedicto looked on helpless with 3 wounds and no Spades. Hey at least there was a clean pair of pants on the miners' washing line

All of the terrain was made by Shaun. All of the 28mm figures,various manufacturers, were painted by Shaun, The Train is Shaun's. The Chuck Wagon is by 4Ground

Watch out for more posts from Liberty