Steady as a Rock: Gunfighters Ball

Nothing in American culture is more iconic that the western, where we see all sorts of heroes and villains engaging in gunfights at high-noon on a dirt street in the middle of a town. Most people have some level of familiarity with the old west and now we have a game that can bring the exciting gunfights to our gaming table. Gunfighters Ball from is the game where you get to re-create these iconic gunfights and much more.

My history with this game is somewhat odd, but hardly unique in our community. I loved the models and bought about twenty of them and was told that a free version of the rules are available online. I downloaded the Greenhorn edition of the rules, bought the poker chips, D3 dice and a deck of cards and never played the game due to time.

When I saw the rules at the booth at Cold Wars earlier this year I also picked them up. This did not lead, unfortunately, to getting the game on a table.

This changed at Historicon 2019 when I sat down with Forrest Harris and played the game finally. Forrest confirmed what I have always known from reading the rules, the game is excellent and a ton of fun.

The Figures

The models are 28mm and are well done with many of them emulating the historical personalities of the period. Others are caricatures of personalities from popular movies. The last group being the men and women you would find in any western town such as a bartender, judge and town drunk.

The sculpts are well detailed and come with a notched base, so the figure can sit with no “base bump”. One thing I noticed about Gunfighters Ball is, unlike many other games based on history, that the women of the old west are well represented. I also like the fact that I can paint each model with colors of my choosing since none of them wore uniforms, so you can let your artistic juices flow and make some very attractive looking figures for your collection.

The Mechanics

Overall the game is easy to learn and very straight forward. After you set up your table you select one or two models for the scenario. Each figure has an action number of 1-3, based on this number you place that many cards from a standard deck in an action deck that all players share.

When the card for that figure is drawn you can take two actions. You can move, shoot, draw or load your weapon, charge your opponent or even get on a horse. Shooting is based on a percentage that depends mostly on distance and cover. You roll two d10 dice. If your roll is lower than the shooting percentage you succeed. If you miss, your shot may hit an innocent bystander. To determine the damage you can use the Wound Chart to see where the weapon hit (also using two d10) then rolling for how many “wound chips” a character loses. Damage is counted by poker chips, six white and three red. As your figure accrues damage, it loses the white chips first. Once you get down to red chips your figure is mortally wounded and fall to the ground and may bleed out. For an alternative, you may use the Black Deck from Knuckleduster instead of rolling dice for wounds which speeds up the game.

After I played the demo with Forrest, I picked up the Black Deck, Pistoleer Deck, the Character cards, and a few more models. All of these are optional. They do aid in the gameplay and speed things up.

The game is very light on the pocketbook. You can download the rules and get 4-6 models (about $3.50 each). Accessories, like the additional decks, are optional, so you can quickly get into playing the game.

The low model count was a huge attraction for me and who doesn’t have spare poker chips and a deck of cards laying around.

Where does this Game Fit?
If you have read this article up to this point you can see how easy the game is to play and how fun it is, however, is this game for the serious grognard? Well in all fairness this game may not be what many would call a wargame because of the topic it covers. Though I believe it counts as a wargame.

The mechanics are solid and it has a level of depth that does not bog down the game. This game is great for when you want to roll some dice and lack the time needed for a huge game. You can also use it as a gateway game that can unlock our wargaming hobby to outsiders.
This second point is crucial. Our hobby can be “clannish” at times and we often do not see the need to grow the hobby by adding new players. Few games give us the opportunity to show others what miniature gaming is all about, the large rule books and hundreds of models intimidate many from joining our community.

Gunfighters Ball changes this, it exploits a genre that everyone is familiar with and by adding characters from movies that play alongside the historical figures of the old west just adds to its allure. I can see using this game to show my non-gaming friends how much fun the hobby is and use it to bring them into historical gaming.

I hope this article motivates you to at least download the Greenhorn rules and give this game a shot. I feel you will fall in love with this game and perhaps I will be seeing you around the saloon in the near future.