'SAVE THE LAST BULLET —-'

[Howard Whitehouse]

‘SAVE THE LAST BULLET —-‘

Ontario wargamer Howard Fielding tells a story of the 1980s rules, ‘Pony Wars’. These were essentially a ‘players against the rules’ system of mechanics, where the players were all White Eyes of one sort or another – cavalry, settlers, cowboys – while the rules took care of what the tribal warriors did, or didn’t do

“I played in a game of Pony Wars one time. Never played it since so I don’t know if we used house rules or “straight up”.

Anyway, at one point I was playing some settlers in a wagon train. The referee said 1) you always had to reserve ammo for the “last bullet” to save yourself and the women and children from a “Fate Worst than Death” and 2) you had to roll to see how bad your ammo supply was. (And it always seemed to be bad for the settlers.)

So I am running this wagon train in, trying to get to the fort and encounter a large band of Indians. I roll for ammo and it’s pretty bad. So I say: “I shoot the women and children and fire the rest off at the Injuns” (Preparing to go down fighting…)

The referee says make a percentile roll and I roll really really extreme – 01 or 99 or 00 (I can’t remember which). He looks it up and says you killed some, including the chief. Then he has me roll again for the Indians morale and again I roll an extreme number.

And they ran away…”

http://tmauthority.org/2016/01/gamers-tales-18/

I do all my own stunts.

[Angel Barracks]

Are they RPG rules or wargames rules?

https://cromsanvil.co.uk/

[kyoteblue]

They are miniature wargame rules. Really.

[Alvin Molethrottler]

Pony Wars? There’s a blast from the past!

[Author]

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