There's a small, localish one-day wargaming event that takes place twice a year for the past few years; it was actually more local when I was living in Rochester, but between relearning how to socialize post-pandemic and just not realizing it was going on until day of, I haven't made it out there yet.
War Games Among the Warplanes is held twice a year at the National Warplanes Museum in Geneseo, NY (the town where I went to college) with tables set up among the displays. Because my brain isn't wired to let me just go and play games other people are putting on and I have to feel like I'm contributing, I'm bringing Fistful of Lead and putting on a game.
Since I've got a good sized (and growing) collection of modern urban terrain, it was an easy decision to make that the setting of my scenario. Mike Demana over at Lead Legionaries has an urban game called Mean Streets, and his after-action reports from running the game at conventions are hugely inspiring for me. I knew I wanted a scenario with up to six players where alliances were possible but double-crossing each other was incentivized.
I decided I wanted something with rival gangs - organized crime as opposed to street punks. Sopranos-style Mafiosos, or drug cartels feuding over territory. Or both! Maybe a new drug cartel moving into traditionally Mafia territory?
I did some brainstorming, and came up with a scenario in which the daughter of a mafia don was kidnapped by a rival gang, and the don's lieutenants were sent out to get her back. The lieutenants, however, have their own motives and rivalries, and this becomes an opportunity to get rid of their competitors. After all, once the bullets start flying, who's to say who shot who?
So I have quite a bit of painting to do for this - a few gangs' worth of figures (which shouldn't be too bad since most of them are wearing suits, or turtlenecks with sports coats over them), and I'll have to do some more buildings and scatter to fill up a 4' by 4' table.
I've got some building STLs that I'll be taking to a friend of mine to print out for me - a video store, pizzeria, shoe store and electronics store - which will likely be "quick and easy" paint jobs without detailed interiors. I might try to squeeze in a few more buildings from Atomic Lasercut Designs as well, but that might be iffy.
I'll probably be playtesting this in bits and pieces as I get stuff painted up. One thing I do want to do is add secondary missions, possibly randomly assigned - which might be "collect the laundered money from the pawn shop and move it off your gang's starting table edge" or "pick up a pizza at the pizzeria and deliver it to Fat Paulie at the shoe store." This is intended to encourage more movement around the table and also to distract from the main mission - that way every gang isn't sending five guys directly towards the end goal and maybe we don't end up with every gang clustered at one point on the table shooting at each other.
The figures I need are all purchased and on their way, so I'm updating my tracker now.
We'll see how this goes! Stay tuned for updates.
Figures Purchased in 2025: 58
Figures Painted in 2025: 52
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