First Ruthless game

Instead of visiting Belgium like many of my countrymen during our sudden national lockdown, my son and I played our first Ruthless game (Ruthless, the fastest rules in the west).

Starting small with 3 figures per side seemed smart so my son played the bandits, who were hiding in a log cabin in the hills after robbing the local bank, while I played the Law who had tracked them down and were now converging on the cabin.

The bandits were led by Mr. Blonde (revolver) with two accomplices: Mr. Gray (repeating rifle) and Mr. Brown (revolver).

Sheriff McCloud (revolver) with two deputies: Crockett (revolver) and Tubbs (repeating rifle) made up the posse bent on bringing back the loot and the bandits dead or alive.

Every character got a toughness of 5 and no traits, to keep things easy.

The posse deployed behind some cover near the table edge and started to move cautiously towards the cabin.

Tubbs takes cover behind a rock.

Pretty soon the bandits started firing at the posse, hitting Crockett in the chest. Meanwhile the sheriff tried to get to a dead spot between the firing angles of the bandits.

Tubbs dashed from his position behind the rock to take cover behind a stack of crates, getting closer to the cabin. Despite his chest wound Crockett kept firing at Mr. Gray, taking another bullet in the arm from Mr. Gray's repeating rifle.

The sheriff reached the cabin and moved to exchange shots with Mr. Brown, both missing their target. Tubbs charged through the cabin door and opened up on Mr. Blonde. Mr. Gray spun round and fired at Tubbs. This allowed Crockett to reach the cabin and fire through the window at Mr. Gray.

The game now continued as a shootout where everybody fired at each other.

Both sides had people wounded in arms, legs and chests, knocked unconscious and recovering from that. The amount of missed shots was unbelievable, but finally Mr. Blonde was mortally wounded.

The next one to succumb was Tubbs. But my son rolled a 1 on his skedaddle roll so the game was technically a win for the Law. However both the sherrif and Crockett were wounded in arms, legs and chest, while Mr. Brown had not a single scratch, so we decided he grabbed the loot before he skedaddled while the sheriff and Crockett had to hope they were found before dying of their wounds.

Mr. Brown skedaddles with the loot.

It was a fun game which would probably have ended sooner if we hadn't forgot to take Lily livered dice roll tests every time a model was wounded.

I really liked the playing card driven initiative system, the fact that you have to reload your guns and the simple d10 shooting system. The rules could be used for any cops & robbers or gang wars scenario as long as they are lightly armed (no assault rifles and such). You would only need to adapt the character cards to allow for the larger automatic pistol magazines and pump action shotguns. And of course you only need a few miniatures per side!

Unfortunately my buildings don't have lift off roofs and a lot of the action of the game took place inside the cabin. I'm thinking using a floor plan of the building once the fighting moves inside next time.