August Game Day – East 08/18/24 Siege at the TA Ranch

Saddle Up for an after action report from the Wild West! Tom Vielott presented a modified The Sword & The Flame scenario for our Game Day East at Impact Game Center in Fairview Heights, IL and it looks like it was a barn burner…..but we will let Tom give you the details…..

Here see Jon Bancroft of DieCon, Ray Gluck , Big Muddy Historical Gaming Alliance – St. Louis East Organizer and Adam Jones, Big Muddy Historical Gaming Alliance – St. Louis Director Emeritus getting ready to enjoy the Siege at the TA Ranch.

“In 1892 the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, a conglomerate of large cattle businesses, hired a group of mercenaries to kill their competition: smallholding ranchers and the local government officials who helped them. For the last decade, the WSGA had attempted to drive the smallholders out by accusing them of “cattle rustling” and sending “range detectives” out to arrest or even lynch them. When these tactics failed and the smallholders formed their own association, the WSGA decided that more drastic measures were needed. With support from politicians at the state and national level, they cut the telegraph lines into Johnston county and quietly shipped a force of about 25 mercenaries into the area, to be joined by WSGA range detectives and leaders, collectively known as the “regulators.” At the KC ranch, they killed the leader of the smallholders association, but were found out by a passerby and a posse formed to arrest the regulators. Thus, the regulators fell back to and fortified the TA ranch; when the posse arrived, a siege began as about 250 posse members surrounded the 50 regulators. Both sides had experienced men from the American Civil War; the posse dug breastworks to envelop a well-entrenched barn and farmhouse.”

“Historically, the regulators were able to hold out until their allies at the national level convinced President Benjamin Harris to send in the US Cavalry to take custody of the regulators. The regulators in our scenario, however, were less than confident in their political allies…”

“The Regulators began their escape attempt by firing in a mass wave, which wounded several of the posse and killed one, driving a group which had approached the barn back to their entrenchments. A lively exchange of fire between the sides ensued, as the regulators moved some of their men out to the stables to prepare the horses, the posse closed in. Braving the fire (and passing several difficult morale checks!) the posse that began across the creek near the ranch approached the regulators to where their pistols and older rifles could be effective; they soon began encircling the stables and wounded several regulators.”

“Meanwhile, the Posse brought up a ‘moving barricade’ made of the Regulators’ own wagons in order to chuck dynamite that the Regulators had left in the wagons into the barn. A group of Regulators desperately sallied out to drive the dynamite-carrying men away but were gunned down by the Posse. As the Regulators started falling more and more wounded, the Posse approached and the pressure mounted. One group of Regulators was overwhelmed by the fire and surrendered; the other escaped out to the stables where they found themselves caught in a crossfire. With only one way out, they desperately mounted their horses; but alas for them, the Posse’s fire on them was accurate and deadly, none escaped without being wounded or killed and all remaining alive were eventually arrested.” 

“The game was a lot of fun for all, and I was very pleased with how it turned out. It was the first time out for my modifications to The Sword and the Flame for the 19th century armed economic conflicts and labor disputes in America and the feedback from the players will be very helpful in refining it!

Thanks Tom for running such an interesting scenario! This certainly supports the many hours of reading and research that we all do in this hobby to pull out those nuggets of history that we can then translate to the table top for a fun afternoon’s entertainment. There is something just about everywhere you look that can be a fun game.

Thanks to the great staff at super facility of IGC in Fairview Heights for their support.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 128 MB. You can upload: image, audio, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here