I played a great game this week using one of the Wiley Games 'Fistful of Lead' rules. In this case it was the Glorious Adventures in the Age if Steam rules and took us off to Mars.
The game set some High Martians against a British Patrol who were trying to rescue 'Miss Lucy', a spy who found herself stranded in the Martian badlands (Miss Lucy is the figure from the Temple of the Beastmen game). The Martians were armed with a mix of pole arms and bows but had the advantage of being able fly over the rough terrain while the rifle armed British had to pick their way around it.
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| The Martian Leader scoops in to capture Miss Lucy... |
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| ...while the British advance in pursuit |
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| The shaken spy is rescued! (After being shot by her rescuers!!) |
As usual the rules made for an exciting game which went to the wire. Casualties mounted on both sides and the Martian leader almost escaped off table with his prize but was slowed down when a redcoated rifleman unsportingly took potshot at him, hitting Miss Lucy instead, but thankfully not actually wounding her. The resulting shock slowed her down though, allowing a better aimed shot to kill my leader and free his prisoner. Not sure that's really the way Anthony planned it but it worked!!
FFOL are probably my favourite skirmish rules... I've used them in settings from Ancients through to 19thC, as well as the SF version Galactic Heroes, and they always give an exciting and fast moving game. In our post-game discussion I admitted that, while I'm an unashamed rules junkie with far too many unplayed sets filed away, I've been increasingly jaded with many of them. I guess ultimately there are only so many rules mechanics and often rulesets promising 'new innovative features' are a rehash of several other existing games. Like a number of gamers I've chatted with I'm finding that increasingly I'm narrowing down to a few sets to use more consistently rather that flitting, moth-like, to the next shiny thing. Doesn't stop my buying new rules though! More on recent acquistions in another post...
Looks terrific fun!
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
FFoL are a great set of rules, and like you, we've used them for many, many periods. We've found they work very we for remote games too, as the card activation regulates the pace of the action.
ReplyDeleteGreat game! FFoL have been my go-to for almost everything since 2019. One of my big projects for 2026 into 2027 is going to be getting everything painted up for a Back of Beyond game using FFoL Bigger Battles at my local wargaming show.
ReplyDeleteI played this with Anthony as well and had the worst luck ever!
ReplyDeleteI have stopped buying new rules completely. I have a set of rules that work and that I am happy with and I can no longer be bothered to buy a £30 book and spend weeks trying to understand it.
It does mean I stand a chance of understanding the rules when I come back to them