The Chicago Way Scenarios: Double Shot
Seth Wilson taught us how to play The Chicago Way from Great Escape Games back in March. In early April, my birthday fell on a regular Thursday game night and he cooked up some new terrain and ran a four player scenario. Prohibition Agents and Police Vs. Moonshiners and Gangsters. It looked great and was a lot of fun – so much so that we had another run at it recently. Here’s a recap and a new double shot of The Chicago Way.
We played two scenarios. We spent $6,000 each on a family of Moonshiners and 
squad of Police. Usually, you have $10,000 to spend but we kept it small for our first two games. The Raid: I set up Pa and a hick (in other words the leader and a red-shirt) in a building and Seth’s Police came gunning for Pa. A terrific shootout ensued! Things ended badly for my Stump Whiskey Gang.
The Gauntlet: The Police started off with a snitch in their squad car and had to get him off the other table edge. The sneaky Moonshiners played a 3 of Clubs card at the start of turn one and plunked a civilian down right in front of the cop car. Cops can’t run over a civilian! The Moonshiners wasted no time riddling the car with hot lead until it crashed. The informant didn’t live to testify. The civilian lived to tell the tale.
Four of us showed up for the next Thursday game night, the perfect number for a Police and Prohibition Agents Vs. Gangsters and Moonshiners shoot out. We played The Heist: The Moonshiners made short work of the Police with some lucky rolling, grabbed as much loot as they could carry, and ran! Again, the game swung wildly on rolls of the D20. In this case, two 19s in a row eliminated what was left of the Police squad. The Gangsters were on the ropes at the other end of the table. Those Moonshiners not already ladened down with loot came to the rescue. We might as well have been playing The Massacre scenario with the good guys getting wiped out almost to a man. Bad guys won!
More pics of the game in progress.
Recently, we played the remaining scenario: The Hit. We rolled at random for table edge and then again for which side was doing the hit. Being surprised, my Moonshiners took a full round of fire, with boss-man Pa taking two hits, before I got to shoot back against the boys-in-blue. I was able to triple move my boss into a building making him almost untouchable. A couple of late game back-to-back 19s on my trusty D20 put the game to rest.
Like I said, don’t play this game unless you’re prepared to have a D20 roll or two decide the game. The scenarios are short and punchy enough that you don’t mind (easy for me to say, being the lucky roller) as there’s enough time to play multiple games in a night. I’d suggest leaving the board set up the same and switching roles during a second game to solve for any advantages granted by the scenario and board set up.
Thanks once again for Seth for making great stuff and letting us play with his toys! All comments welcome below.
On Sean's Table 