DEAD MAN'S HAND: JUSTICE IS SERVED (NOT).

A Thursday game from a few months ago. We played a two game mini campaign of Dead Man's Hand. The first scenario was, I think, 'Ambush' 

Two bad guys (left) ambush a good guy. 

Another good guy(left) exits a building straight into a hail of gunfire and is out of the fight.



A third good guy moves towards the bad guy. The second bad guy is sheltering at the corner of the second building on the left (betrayed by his face down card).

Both bad guys are at the top of the street. Accurate fire

A bad guy tries to finish off the closest good guy. His mate manages to shoot accurately and put a second good guy out of the fight. 

Two good guys down. Victory to the bad  guys!

The second scenario was.'There Will Be Blood'

Good guy, right, encounters a bad guy.

In a dastardly and cowardly act, the bad guy plays a card that allows him to take a hostage.

The other good guys muster in support. The bad guys prefer to do their shooting from the cover of buildings.

The marshal manages to cause hits despite the hostage.

Two street level views of the action.

With two good guys down, victory to Rick's bad guys.

The game system is great for fitting into the amount of time you have available for gaming. Two games in completed in under three hours.

FROM THE DESERT TO DEADMAN'S HAND.

A couple of weeks ago, my old friend Neil was back visiting from the UAE. As well as catching up we managed a few games. Three weeks ago we had a Wednesday of games. The first game up was a couple of Scenes from Dead Man's Hand. 

The first scene was 'Ambush'. My Outlaws ambushed some Lawmen. This led to a larger gunfight as other members of both sides rushed to support their comrades.

It took a lot of cat and mouse movement and quite a few missed shots, before the Lawmen managed to win the scenario.

The second scene saw the aftermath of an Outlaw bank job. The Sherriff was in the Barber's, but rushed out to help bring the Outlaws to book, along with some deputies and concerned citizens. To start off with, the Outlaws had the best of it. That was until the gunfighter on the roof was put out of action allowing the Lawmen to catch the Outlaws in a crossfire.

The Outlaw boss resorted to taking a female hostage to use a human shield.

But good use of the cards allowed a concerned citizen to put him out of action with a straight shot with no modifiers (good or bad).

Neil enjoyed his first go at the game. The card driven mechanisms were familiar from our experiences with Piquet.

We later had a game of Star Trek: Attack Wing, which will feature in my next post.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 3.

The final scene, 'We Will Be Waitin' saw the Outlaws confronting the Sheriff and the Marshal with the other Lawmen diverted elsewhere..

 The two Lawmen were automatically activated as if they had drawn Aces ( high in the game).

 The Sheriff made good use of his activation to move behind the jail. The Marshal moved behind the building at the end of the street. The Outlaws followed, concentrating on the Marshal.

 The Sheriff evened the odds by putting a dude out of action.

 The deputies and upstanding citizens react to the gunfire and come to their comrades' aid.

 The Gunslinger takes out a deputy.

 Meanwhile, the Sheriff takes down a varmint. Just visible in the window of the building beside the jail is one of the Lawmen who stayed behind. He will play a big part later in the game!

 A deputy strikes lucky, putting the Gunslinger out of action.

 Two views of the battle. The lower picture showing the gunbattle between two upstanding citizens and the Boss and two dudes. The Outlaws also came under fire from the two buildings on the right where the Lawmen had taken position.

The Lawmen now had the upper hand and closed in on the remaining Outlaws. One citizen paid the price, but two more Outlaws went down. At this point, the Outlaws failed a big nerve test and 'got out of Dodge'.

The three games were completed in a little under four hours. It may be possible to play one or two scenes in a normal games night, but not all three. The rules are fairly straight forward, with the cards driving most things. After the first game, the modifiers for firing had been memorised and play speeded up.

The need to declare all actions when activating a figure was a good touch. Several times threatening situations were avoided by the timely playing of a card interupting and stopping the intended action.

The one downside is that the board can get cluttered with cards when there are more than a few figures per side. One potential solution is to use tiles from the Play 5 game, which are Scrabble sized tiles with card suits and numbers on them.

All in all a good start to the gaming day. Fast and furious with clear results in quite short order. I think we will play this game again.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 2.

The second scene was 'The Town Ain't Big Enough' and saw the Outlaws ambushing the spread out groups of Lawmen and Upstanding Citizens. The Lawmen set up first, splitting into equal groups, one of which had to be in a building. The Outlaw's boss was holed up in another building, waiting for his minions to take down the Lawmen. Hopefully he wouldn't be needed! 

 The first group of Outlaws, The Gunslinger and a varmint, encounter a deputy and two upstanding citizens in the main street. The Outlaws win by putting three Lawmen out of action, the Lawmen win by putting two Outlaws out of action.

 The Outlaws get off to a great start when the varmint rushes forward and fills an upstanding citizen full of lead (rolled a 19, out of action).

 The, now unescorted, Gunslinger is taken down by a deputy, who rushes out of a building and gives him both barrels of a shotgun, putting him out of action.

Further down the street, a dude and a varmint (right) engage two Lawmen. The markers show actions taken by activated figures and the effects of fire taken.

Another view of the action. The Sheriff has emerged from the building and leads the fightback against the

The  replacement Marshal and a deputy (top left) combine to put a dude out of action which brought victory to the Lawmen and a measure of justice (or revenge) for their fallen comrade.

The last scene will be 'We'll Be Waitin' where the Outlaws try to overwhelm the forces of law and take over the town. The Lawmen will have the benfit of an extra card in their hand.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND, PART 1.

Saturday 1st February saw one of our irregular games days. The idea is that we play games that normally would take too long to play in a normal evening. Each participant hosts a game and we move between venues. This time Aidan was otherwise engaged so Rick offered to host two games.

 

I had decided to try out Dead Man's Hand. I had seen it played at shows and had acquired some figures and buildings.

I intended to play a linked series of three  scenes (scenarios) from the book. These would be from The Good, The Lead And The Ugly storyline. The scenes start small and escalate to a final confrontation.

The first scene was 'The Stranger' and saw three Outlaws testing the mettle of a visiting Marshal. The game is driven by the card decks. These show the order that figures activate and also have effects which the player can use on their own or opponents figures. In game terms the three Outlaws were 'drunk and complacent' which meant they could only take two actions per activation rather than the normal three.

The Outlaws activated first and impetuously moved forward and shot at the Marshal, who returned fire. When activated, a figure can take (mostly) three actions. They have to state what actions they are taking, so the opponent has a chance to play a card in response. Despite putting some under fire markers on his assailants, he was driven back. 

Firing is done using a D20, modified by various factors. 11+ gives a varying amount of under fire markers and nerve tests. Failure of a nerve test means another under fire marker. 19 and 20 put the figure out of action. Most figures can take four markers with more experienced characters taking five or six. Here the Outlaws managed to put the marshal out of action, meaning he would not be able to take part in the next scene. The Outlaws would get an extra card in their playing hand.