Welcome to the Great Plains of the American West. Back East a Civil War rages, but those who look beyond the war see a transcontinental railroad and settler expansion all the way to the Rockies. Across the wide Mississippi, Native Plains tribes brace for a war of their own against the white invaders. In this alternative history, warrior chiefs settle traditional tribal scores and united, North and South, take a stand against European encroachment. Welcome to … Plains Indian Wars!
Welcome back to our ongoing game of Plains Indian Wars. This is the third of what will probably be 10-12 rounds. This time around the U.S. player has a little more luck. This is what the map looked like at the end of the 2nd Draw Round. Let’s put all the faction discs back in the bag and begin Draw Round #3.
Third Draw Round
1st Draw – The Purple Enemies token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The Cavalry player places one purple cube in the last region of the Santa Fe Trail then moves one purple cube from an adjacent region into the same region. The rationale here is to build a defensive force to defend incoming wagons. This is a good spot as it is just out of reach of the growing SPT group just east of them.
2nd Draw – The Red Northern Plains Tribes (NPT) token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The NPT player commits his Rain-in-the-Face card.
He adds three red cubes to the Mormon Trail and then activates two groups that can be moved up to two regions. The first he moves in the North where he attempts to gain another purple region. For his second move, he activates the newly placed cubes moving two cubes south to join up with the SPT force there and moves the remaining cube to the black hills.
He rolls for his battle in the purple region. The NPT dice result in a blank and a Treaty. The Enemies’ die results in a blank which allows the cube to retreat into a growing Enemies’ reserve force.
The NPT player draws a replacement card and ends his turn.
3rd Draw – The Black Railroad (RR) token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The Settlers’ Player is in luck. She is able to build in the Eastern track spaces adjacent to the railhead there – three more black cubes are placed because at lease three brown settler/workers are presented next to the empty spaces. Her build roll in the Western Rockies results in one blank and one symbol
(Remember each symbol allows track to be laid in one mountain space). Slow going through the mountains – Still have three to go. The Track building phase is now over.
4th Draw – The Orange Southern Plains Tribes (SPT) token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The SPT player commits two cards. The first is the War Party card – Peta Nacona. It allows placement of three cubes and activation of three groups with movement of up to two regions.
Her second is Text card Mangas Colorados which allows the placement of two additional cubes and the stipulation that the Settlers player may not defend in the first round of any battle for the remainder of this draw round. Recognizing that drawing 5 reinforcement cubes will empty her SPT Ready Box, her first activation is the Indian Casualty Box. This allows her to move the four SPT casualties there back to her Ready Box.
Her second activation is to move four cubes off the Santa Fe Trail up north of the rail line. Her third activation is to move the four cubes in the center of the map to the intersection of the Oregon & California trails, while one is moved east reinforcing another group on the Santa Fe Trail. Her final two cube placement off of the Mangas Colorados card go in the recently vacated space. Despite the advantage she would have this turn against the settlers she has no SPT attacks this turn.
She draws her two replacement cards and ends her SPT turn.
5th Draw – The Brown Settlers token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The Settlers player chooses to play migration card – Kansas Bleeds.
This allows placement of four cubes and activation of three groups with movement of up to two regions. She places three cubes in St. Louis and one in Sacramento. This turn the Settlers play a wait-and-see tactic choosing not to take advantage of any of her activations.
She draws her replacement card and ends her Settlers’ turn.
6th Draw – The Yellow Wagons token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
Both wagon cubes on the map are moved ahead on the trails one region. The two yellow cubes in St. Louis move onto the map, one onto the Santa Fe Trail and one onto the Mormon Trail. Finally, two new wagon cubes are moved from the Wagon Train Ready Box to St. Louis.
The Wagon’s Phase of the turn is ended.
7th Draw – The Blue Cavalry token is drawn and placed on the Token Track.
The final draw is the Cavalry. This player too plays two cards, choosing Fort Phil Kearney and Nelson Miles.
The former Engagement card allow for the placement of three blue cubes and the activation two group with movement of up to two regions. He places his three reinforcement cubes in St. Louis then activates the region south of the rail line adjacent to St. Louis moving this force west along the Santa Fe Trail to engage the large Indian force in that region. He then activates St. Louis moving oe blue cube to reinforce the attack in progress. He also moves one blue cube which escorts one brown cube moving to the region adjacent to St. Louis, north of the rail line. He declares that he is using his Nelson Miles card in his Southern attack. The card’s affect allows both players to ignore treaty symbols and restricts Indian defense to no more than two dice – a decided disadvantage for the Indian players. The Indian force is mixed, so no ambush is allowed.
Players make their first battle roll resulting in two cavalry hits, two settler blanks, one SPT Treaty and one NPT blank. The Indian force is equal (four & four) so one loss is taken from each faction. These are removed to the Indian Casualty Box. Using the NPT blank, one red cube retreats into the adjacent Indian force. Players make a second battle roll. This time resulting in one cavalry hit and one blank, two more settler blanks (useless), one NPT hit and one SPT blank. Since the US forces are also even (four & four) they may choose to take their loss from either faction. They choose to lose a cavalry cube. The Indian Forces lose an SPT cube and retreat an NPT cube. Leaving two SPT cubes to carry on the fight. The third roll results in two Cavalry hits, a Settler treaty and blank, and two SPT blanks. The remaining two SPT cubes are removed to the Indian Casualty Box.
1st Roll
2nd Roll
3rd Roll
A great U.S. victory, giving the U.S. player a good opportunity to extend the Union Pacific in the following turn. As you can see, the Settlers are pretty useless in combat as opposed to the Cavalry who are quite effective. The Cavalry player draws two replacement cards ending his turn and the round. This is the current situation as the round closes.
Watch for the next round – coming soon!
Note: it would be coming sooner … if I didn’t have a day job! 🙂
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Author: John Poniske
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