Mammoth Steaks & Bronto Burgers

It was many years ago that I first became aware of Tusk, a set of miniature rules written by Matthew Hartley. It was the tag line 'Mammoth Hunting from 12,000 BC to 1914 AD' that caught my eye and made me want to learn more about these rules that were designed to portray prehistoric hunts. I was intrigued. I mean how cool would it be to have a group of cavemen hunt mammoth?

Then back in June this year I came across a review of Tusk on The Ooh Shiny Complex blog. This again got me interested and I was excited to learn that the rules also included Victorian hunters and dinosaurs.


Well, just today I saw a post on Tim's Wargaming Stuff blog where he talks about using the rules for a Star Wars-themed hunting party of Tusken Raiders. He even included a link to the rules at Wargame Vault where you can download the pdf version of the rules for US$4.95.

I'd felt I'd put off purchasing these rules for too long and the little voice inside my head was telling me that I hadn't purchased much gaming material this year. So I made a quick trip to Wargame Vault, input my credit card details and downloaded the rules.

Here's the blurb on the rules:

Tusk is the widely acclaimed set of Mammoth hunting rules written by Matthew (Aeronef, Scudbusters) Hartley.

Tusk includes rules for cavemen hunting mammoths using stone age weapons, fire, dogs and also heroes called Og! The mammoths are controlled by a reaction table so Tusk makes for an excellent solo game as well as one played by two or more players (whether in competition to get the mammoths or in co-operation).

Beyond mammoths, Tusk also includes rules for pre-historic beasts to allow you to recreate Hollywood-esque cavemen versus dinosaur battles.

Additional rules allow you to include Victorian adventurers who discover beasts from forgotten ages on distant plateau in South America or Central Asia.


I'm sure I've got some plastic mammoth and dinosaur models around here somewhere...