Well, as I mentioned elsewhere I spotted a new miniature game just before Christmas called a Fistful of Honey. Yes, bad puns aside, this is a 28mm game of teddy bear gunslingers.
Eureka miniatures
The models themselves are great quality. I haven't seen lead-based miniatures for some years since the UK/US rules changed and GW went over to "white metal". The models are therefore slightly softer than I am used to (and need to be handled with more care to avoid bending the gun barrels etc) but it the casting quality is much higher. The detail is clear, and there are very few mould lines to clean up.
The bases could be a little larger, as in play the models tend to fall over easily. They only have a 10mm moulded base - mounting this on a 25mm round base should solve this problem.
Toy Town
The only thing missing was some scenery to represent Toy Town, the scene of the fights. Since gunslinger bears would seem out of place fighting amongst the Gothic ruined city, or the adobe-esque huts of Tallarn, something more appropriate was needed. Good old Google soon gave me the solution - templates of western-style buildings for 28mm games! Ideal.
These were downloaded, then edited in Powerpoint to add my own shop fronts and signs. Printed onto card, these were cut out and assembled. Since I was trying to make these quickly, I added tabs to the pieces so i could just glue them together. They would be more sturdy if the buildings were made from foam board, with the templates glued on to these, but my bad.
An evening gave me a dozen or so buildings, enough to cover a 3' x 3' playing area, or a sparse 4' square one. A few barricades from the 'normal' terrain collection soon made up numbers.
So...what about the game?
I persuaded a friend to try a game with me a couple of nights ago, expecting boredom and the models to be consigned to the bin...I mean display cabinet.
Instead, we spent all evening playing various scenarios, and having a lot of fun.
This stems partly from the game being so damn easy to pick up. All that is needed to play is a deck of cards and some markers (bits of torn paper in our case). My opponent, as a total newcomer to wargaming of any form, picked up the gaming concepts straight away and was more than capable of giving me a run for my money.
With six bears per gang (5 - 10 is recommended), and six longhorn cattle to rustle, even with all the "advanced" rules for lassoing, gunslingers and cattle the games only take 15 minutes or so to play.
Bears are either armed with a revolver (short range), a rifle (long range) or a lasso (special rules apply). Movement is either on foot or on horse back, depending on the model.
Shooting is resolved by naming a suit, then turning the top card over - if the suit is correct, then the target bear is hit and plays dead. If the colour matches (but the suit is wrong) then he is only startled. Much faster than rolling dice to hit then to wound as with WH40K! And trying to guess the suit adds an element to the normal cursing of the Dice Gods.
In almost every game we played, all six cattle were "rustled" with only the loss of one or two bears. Most games were a draw with three each captured. An obvious change would be to get some more cattle so as to make the end game more interesting, and an odd number of cattle would remove a drawn game as an option! Another 5 or so would seem about right.
Next?
Well, I need to paint the bears. Some names would be good for the little fellows, if I can think of any more bad puns to use.
Some additional cattle may be a good idea, as already mentioned, and perhaps (just perhaps) a couple more bears for each gang (probably mounted ones)
Toy Town could benefit from a few more buildings, easy enough to provide, and perhaps some rail fence sections, barrels, carts etc. to add some more cover and obstacles. All easy things to make.
All in all, I'm glad I spotted and got the models - and I haven't even begun painting them yet!
The models, and a pdf file of the rules, can be found at eurekamin.com.au
The image files for the scenery seem to have been removed from the site I used. If they get put back, I'll post the link.
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