Bite the Bullet: Legend Variant

[Whiterook]

Bite the Bullet: Legend — Making of a Miniatures/Tile Counters Variant



I’ve decided to upgrade the book-game for the 2024 game, “Bite the Bullet: You Are A Legend”, by Frederic Moyersoen, to a both Miniatures and Blocks Variant, hence the altered game name. This is for my personal use in solitaire play, as well as for multiplayer games with friends. Originally conceived as a cut-and-play book game, where you must cut the maps, character sheets and counters from the book, this variant will expand the game for use with miniatures or blocks counters. 

Building upon this good old-fashioned shootout game, your goal, as either Outlaw(s) or Lawman(men), remains the killing of your opponents before they kill you! The book-game itself, does a real nice job as is, especially its solitaire bot. However, even though the existing game allows use of miniatures, I believe it can be greatly expanded with a little more randomization in character assignment and player selection of weapons — to effectively, *build* more of your characters’ fighting ability, while also accommodating the random chance of what fate determines you’re stuck with.

The rules will primarily be the same as the book-game, but with a few alterations:

• I plan on the use of 28 mm miniatures — 21 Outlaws and 7 Lawmen
• Randomized selection of factions
• Blind Draw of individual miniatures selection
• Roll for experience (Sweat level)
• Player selection of weapons

As a reminder to those that haven’t read the separate thread on the book-game, in solitaire play, the game is played in two rounds:

1. The system bot begins the game as concealed markers, all of which approach you, as the Player Character (PC) or characters, one square at a time each. When these concealed markers move into your Line of Sight (LOS), they are immediately flipped to reveal whether they are a Non Player Character (NPC) or a decoy dummy counter; the resultant NPC counter(s) are switched out for the activating concealer marker and decoys are removed rom the board.
2. Next, you switch to using the Character Sheets, each representing a different character; in solo play, there can be two lawmen PCs and six outlaw NPCs. Each sheet has a sheet number for each character PCs and NPCs, and you play each character in order of these sheet numbers (1-8); NPC opponents that are still concealed, unavailable to the scenario, or dead, are skipped in this rounds’ process. For play, the PCs roll against a “Number of Actions” table to see how many action points they get, to determine how many action points you have to spend during your turn, for things like moving, shooting, switching or picking up weapons, reloading, and other actions. The NPCs roll against an “Actions Table” that tells them what they can do according to current situational awareness (the bot).

THE PLAN:

WOOD LOCKS: I’ll start with making the PC and NPC playing pieces, gluing the PC and NPCs to wood blocks. I’ll then assemble all the other counters using my heavy SMEAD Pressboard method for making counters.

Ultimately, I plan to use 28mm resin miniature figures, of Gunslingers, Mexican Bandits, US Marshalls, and Bad Ass Women Gunslingers!

For the playing surface, I plan to create my own cardboard tiles, much in the same vein of my Vietnam War (The Legion) game I’ve been making (see here) …blank tiles come premade and I do the artwork with alcohol ink markers and waterproof pen & ink.

My thought process will be in quote boxes, for ease of reading and searching 

This will be a running Work In Progress thread.

[Whiterook]

The Characters

The book-game has Character Sheets (player aids) that list a specific character and their capabilities each sheet. The names are generic enough for standard conceptual means, though I would imagine a lot of gamers will want to name them something to their specific liking…I am one of those gamers  Personally, the names used in the game, like Susan, Ron, Cathy, and Todd, just don’t cut it for me…I prefer names that are more typical of the 1880s, and to accommodate this, I am looking at renaming the Character Sheets.

I will start with making the PC and NPCs into blocks; I’m looking at gluing the characters to Scrabble tiles. I think these kind of counters accommodate play best on the game maps.

I want to eventually use miniatures, as well; specifically, 28mm resin model miniatures. These would play well on the existing game maps, however, they may play even better on larger maps, or even cardboard tiles. Obviously, with assembly and painting, this will take longer to build, but I’ll start with pre-planning: I searched around and found Old West miniatures, made with lots of great detail is not the easiest thing to find, and they are all pretty much on the pricey side (except for those kiddie play-set types, like the famous Green army Men style). I went with the following…

3DBreed Miniatures, from Badger3DPrints, (a.k.a, Badger 3D Creations) out of York, United Kingdom. The benefit with going with them is, you can order the miniatures in 28mm ($18.18 USD), 32mm ($20.78 USD), and 54mm ($36.37 USD). 28mm is the smallest I would have gone, should they have offered smaller. The sets each come with 7 miniatures of varied poses and have some sort of base (not specified), and have several options to choose from, either mounted on horses or not. A big bonus was, if you ordered $35+ of merch, you got free shipping, which I of course did!

My choices were:

Wild West Outlaws




Wild West US Marshalls




Wild West Mexican Outlaws




Wild West Female Gunslingers



I felt this gave me a wide range of characters to cover what was in the books and future DYO. I’ll see what the bases look like and go from there, but I am anticipating the bases supplied are detached (as the company info sates they are optional, which I assume meant in choice to use or not). Switching out to third party bases is generally not a problem, so I am good with this.

Painting (after any needed filing/filling) will be a challenge, as I am still at the newer stages of this art form, but I relish the challenge!

And of course, as mentioned earlier, I think these are the perfect size to use on modular tiles, as well as dioramas. I will be taking a bit of a different approach with the tiles creation, as the “view” is substantially zoomed in, compared to The Legion game; I’m thinking several tiles needed for one building, or sides of streets with boardwalks on one side, etc.

[Whiterook]

For those following along, I edited the above two posts (a lot, in the instance of the first post) as I switched focus on the project, since it’s inception back in April… so it may be worth a re-read

[Whiterook]

SOLO/CO-OP VS COMPETITIVE MODE

I had to first think about what I wanted to be different in this variant to add a little more complexity, without sacrificing too much simplicity.

The first thing I had in mind was, the game as designed is indeed brilliant, but I also feel this nagging itch that it might be a bit too static — there just isn’t a lot of choice, from the Non Player Character (the bot) perspective, which is to be understood as an elemental part of any bot system…it is by natural design, very limiting through few choices of actions, else it will become a monster of variables! However, I want to see if I can up the challenge level, so that the game as is, not to be relegated to a dice chucker with predictable strategy and outcomes.

The other thing was, the competitive mode does a nice job of placing humans in control and eliminating the bot. However, the eight predefined characters of choice can be limiting, in that they will always have the same odds/factors… is there a way to scale that up and add more randomness so that the same character isn’t always as strong or weak?

The game as designed, accommodates solitaire play mode, as well as co-op play mode. In these modes, you (in solo play) or you and another player (in co-op play), are the Player Character(s) (PC), battling it out against the system bot as the Non Player Character (NPC). Your PC counter piece, pawn piece, miniature, standee, etc., starts out onboard the scenario map at game start; the NPC bot counters start as hidden and moving towards you by the shortest route possible until you have LOS, at which point they are revealed as opponent characters or decoy dummies that are discarded. These characters, both PC and NPCs, are controlled by “Player Sheets”, as shown below, in the solo and co-op mode examples from Volume 1 of the game.





…I personally think of these as “Player Cards”; though they may appear as such in this post due to image upload size, they are print out on an stock 8-1/2 x 11 inch page with each card measuring approximately 4 x 5-1/2 inch per card… being this big, likely why the designer called them “sheets”. 

Note that the default naming convention is that the name box bordered in blue are for lawmen, and red are for outlaws. However, in solo/co-op play, you and any partner can play either lawmen or outlaws, and I’m not really sure how that choice to play as the outlaw works yet, but I imagine you place an outlaw badge on a blue car(s) and play that way? …it will likely flesh out in time  

For this variant, that’s not really important however, as there will be no- NPCs!

Some other things to note on these cards is: 

• The red box that you roll on is the “Action Table”, that tells the NPC what to do — the bot.
• The blue box that you roll on is the “Action Points Table”, that tells the PC how many points he has to spend for moves, shooting, etc.
• The NPCs (red) are assigned one, and only one specific weapon.
• The PCs (blue) can choose multiple weapons; one small weapon for each hand or a long gun, and carry-on weapons (like on their back, in a holster, etc.
• And again, there are up to eight cards, all predetermined per character — the number and character never change, they’re static assignments.

In competitive play mode, there are no NPCs with tables (as in the red ones pictured above) that tell the character what to do. Instead, you have cards that are the same design as the blue (named and Action Points Table) cards, for both lawmen (blue) and outlaws (red), as in the following form Volume 1 of the game.





Note that all characters of both factions have Action Points Tables and choice of weaponry! Again, the typical convention is spelled out literally, graphically here, with the blues having the Sheriff’s badge for lawmen and women, and the reds having the Outlaw badge the outlaws.

[Whiterook]

One of the things you may have noticed with the competitive cards is the activation numbering in the lower left corner — if you look at the first page of four lawman PCs, the cards are numbers 1, 3, 5, 7 odd numbers, while the outlaws are even numbers. That means the competitive play mode is an I GO-YOU GO system, with the law always starting first. In and of itself, not a bad way to go, really. However, I’m wondering, what would happen if you introduce more randomness, in this variant?

Upon my request, the game designer provided these blanks…




Note that you can reassign the existing characters in the game, or make up your own! …as well as assign your own Activation Assignments and Sweat Levels. pretty much everything else is the same.

Thoughts I have in mind are:

1. I will have all 28 of my miniatures represented in this variant, per the seven Marshalls and 21 outlaws. 
2. I’ll have a few Legendary figures of the old west represented per specific miniature (i.e., Doc Holiday, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kidd, etc,).
3. I’m considering a blind draw from a shuffled deck of individual cards, so you never know who you’re going to draw (no pun intended).
4. I’m considering a roll for Activation Number, which you’ll place a number counter on the activation box, or dry erase marker on laminating these cards.
5. I’m considering whether to roll for Sweat (even Wyatt Earp had his bad days with a hangover!), or pre-assign numbers.

[Whiterook]

I bought a laminator today! Been meaning to do so for a long time but never got around to it. Among other things, I am thinking of perhaps making Character Cards with it so that you can use dry erase markers with them.

[Whiterook]

So it’s going to be a bit of awhile before I get the miniatures made and painted, and I want to start playing the game as written so that I have a full grasp of the mechanics for Solo and Co-op Mode play; to get playing quickly, I’m starting with assembling the character and admin counters, which I made today… see here for a full description of how I made these.

First to be made where the Hidden counters, printed out on heavy cardstock and glued to Scrabble tiles and glued on with Elemer’s XTreme super sized glue stick…

 

The back, reverse side of the counters are numbered 1-12; when you reveal a Hidden counter when it moves into LOS of your character, you reveal the number to see if it’s a represented scenario character or a decoy dummy counter.



Next were the Character counters, also mounted on Scrabble Tiles…



The back, reverse side of these counters have the color-coded name of the represented character…



And finally, the Admin counters, all mounted on SMEAD Pressboard Folder material; both sides ringed with my home color printer and glued on (front and back) with a glue stick…



For now, I placed all the counters in an AEGIS counter tray…



I now have all the game pieced from the book’s PDF assembled. My next task is to figure out what I want to use for the Action Points purchase marker… the book came with blue markers with the number 1 on it, that can be made into a counter, but I am thinking of using four Poker Chips, instead…I’ll put some thought into that over the next couple days.

[Whiterook]

I decided to make the Admin Counters double-backed, so I started gluing counter art onto the blank backsides of those last night… made it about a quarter way through and going well… I see that a little trimming with a craft knife will be necessary.

However, as I was doing these, I began to wonder, do I need more? The ultimate goal was not only to use this game in Competitive play with the advertised “…up to four players”, but perhaps even expanding it to six to eight… not sure how well the game would play with that large a contingent, but I would suspect, pretty well.

Regardless, I’ll make more counters, because… why not!??!

[Whiterook]

This project has many different elements I’ve been working on, upgrading the book game to miniatures and pseudo-miniatures game. One element that I was debating on was the Winchester Rifle, which holds 15 bullets. The Player Card has this represented with 15 rifle shells on the card, which per that game, you use a dry erase marker on the cards loaded in sheet protectors. Personally, my method for marking off bullet expenditure, such as the revolvers’ six bullets, are the use of small wooded cubes…



However, I got the bright idea of trying to make my own counter spinner, just for the Winchesters! I was able to find a decent version online and alter it to my uses with different artwork. The hardest part was finding the right wheel… the best one I could find actually had more than 15 numbers on it (as you will see), but that’s all good.

My finished, Winchester Rifle Ammo Counter Spinner!

Front…


Back…


Edge view…


Now that the counters are about finished, I’ll be laminating the Player Cards next, and then will be able to put everything together for some playing!

[Whiterook]

So the project was moving right along around the July 4th weekend. I was having leg procedures done so, progress was hampered and slow, but making a nice distraction to the discomforts.

• I had assembled my PC and NPC character pieces in black scrabble tiles, and made the cardboard chit counters for weapons and other various administrative counters.
• I had discovered I like using the little wooden blocks — I had a small bag of multicolor cubes that I got with a pledged for Kickstarter game, and found that the most numerous of the random sampling was orange, so those all went in the storage tray for using with the player cards (I can buy more if needed).
• To solve the aforementioned issue of how to track the 1-4 Action Points that are rolled for, I decided to use small red bullet tokens from LITKO that I had in my stash.
• And to track wounds, I decided to use skull & crossbones tokens, also from LITKO and in my stash.

This all added up to having all the playing pieces needed to play Solo, Co-Op, and Competitive Modes. For now, as mentioned earlier, I’ve placed them all in an AEGIS counter tray and put a quick inventory together.

[Whiterook]

Finished making all the counters I want to use with the game…



I clipped all the counters today, which look better and are easier to handle. It also cleaned up corner ends. An example of before and after…



Note that a full set of game pieces, on various counter sheets that come in the two books/PDFs, provides 166 counters for the game, with the addition of the 17 Characters, as well as 12 Hidden Character markers and the 4 Action Cost markers… that’s a grand total of 199 in the two volumes.

I have several more game counters than that aforementioned full set: I have a total of 210 equipment, horses, and other administrative counters, and also including 17 Characters (all on Scrabble tiles), as well as the 12 Hidden Character markers (on Scrabble tiles) and the 4 Action Cost markers which I am not using currently (but I have them on the side for potential use)… that’s a grand total of 243 game pieces.

I also have a bunch of orange wooden blocks for tracing pawns on the Character Sheets, as well as LITKO Wound Markers to track character health, and Bullet Markers to track Action Costs.

I not only want to play Competitive Mode with at least another opponent, but also up to 4 (maybe 6 or 8) in the future… so I will need more counters. It’s also better to have too many than too few!

I’m going to start out with this and begin the playtesting the new scenarios that the designer has assigned me…you see one playtest being setup in the first picture above. I’ll be able to get a better idea how many counters are needed, as the two new scenarios are Competitive Mode games, so it looks like I’ll be outfitting up to 16 characters!

[Whiterook]

So the project reached Phase I… a built Book Game/Print ‘N Play combo, playable with counters of Player and Non-Player counters on wooden supports (Scrabble pieces) and cardboard chit counters in paper maps. The playtest scenario is setup and ready to go today!



The Character Sheets (I call hem “Cards”)…





I’m happy with how everything urned out so far! 

[Whiterook]

Phase II will be, miniatures! Those need to be built and painted…I’ll have a separate thread in the Cheyenne Mountain miniatures building zone. I received the minis from the United Kingdom, but I’ve not really inspected them yet. I’m not sure what they come with for bases, if anything at all; if not, I do have generic raised bases, which I may use regardless… the chit counter mounted Characters are color coded within the game design and I am not sure if I will follow that design element in miniatures, mainly because I intend to have several more characters outside of the scope provided in the game as designed. Stay tuned!

[Whiterook]

Just a little update on Phase I

I’ve been playtesting new scenarios in development, along with new advanced and optional rules for the designer, and one thing that became clear in my recent plays was on my Winchester Rifle, counter spinner — as in, the device I created to track (counting) the number of rifle shells expended:

• I am feeling now, that I would need too many of them. From a logistical standpoint, it isn’t really a problem in building them, other than it takes a good bit of time and effort to make them from scratch as I do; but…
• More to the point being, that I am not sure on the practicality of having several in play within a game play session. You see, on a larger scenarios that has upwards of 12 to 16 characters being played, upwards of half +/- of those characters could be sporting a Winchester! So spinners would quickly clog up a playing area;
• A further issue would be, how would you track which character has which spinner? I thought on that a bit already and figured I could make name labeled that can be velcroed on a spinner, so that was the direction… up until realizing there could be way too many spinners needed.

[Whiterook]

DECK DRAW ALTERATION

A very cool game alteration idea transpired at the Compass Games Expo this past week, while playing a lot of “Bite the Bullet - You are a Legend” scenarios with my great gaming buddy, Tim Barnes, where we played probably half of the Volume 1 game books’ scenarios, and one of the playtest scenarios I was testing out a couple weeks ago. In the pictures, you can see Character Sheets of the playing pieces you as the player control… lawmen annd outlaws. In the game, you alternate from numbered character 1 through 8; in these sheets, #1 is Lawman Fred, #2 is Outlaw Ron, then #3 Lawman Alex, and so on. My gaming partner and I were discussing how playing in this manner, we were always looking who was coming up next in that 8-character mix that hadn’t activated yet, and also in plotting further ahead to what the order would be in the next round… this was greatly influencing our decisions and was becoming almost chess like, where were were plotting several moves ahead for our strategy. It does work well, but we started wondering, what if we randomized things with a blind draw???



Tim went to a local CVS by the Expo hotel venue and bought a deck of poker cards, and I took out the Ace through 8 cards, and we made a crude draw deck. OMG… what a difference in gameplay!!! In this way, we never knew which character was going to act next, and it made for extremely exciting action! This isn’t a replacement for the game, but rather an alternate method of character selection that can be used to make the game more unpredictable. Of all the scenarios we played, we used this blind draw on over half of the scenarios played and I have to say, I like it better, as did Tim.

Now home, I’m going to make a deck of cards for all the characters, with custom artwork, instead of using poker cards. We discussed adding Jokers as wild cards… maybe for a bonus play for any chosen character on your side, or similar; maybe unloads an advantage; maybe have surprise advantage cards. This also presents an opportunity for characters played with miniatures, and artwork of their specific looks. Just for personal use, of course, but a fun new project to work on over the coming months!

I’ll start a thread on this here.