12th May - 5th May Deadman's Hand Game vs Toby (Outlaws)

Finally got a game of Deadman's Hand in with Toby last week. We'd grabbed him the Outlaws box as a Christmas present last year when we'd grabbed all our own gangs. A little bit of friendly pressure and sure enough they got pushed up the line in his painting queue and we're all ready for a game.

I got a few more building put together since The Wife and I had our first game, so the table offered a bit more cover than our previous game.

Once again the scene is set. The Pinkerton's having ousted the corrupt 7th Cavalry settled in and proceeded to clean up the streets. Unfortunately some of the more undesirable elements that had been cleared off  decided to band together and attempt to do some clearing out of their own.

The first two turns saw both of us spreading out through town. I sent my Detective with the Repeater up to the roof tops in an attempt to cover the street approach. The Special Agent along with a couple of detectives headed behind the main street buildings, while the Bounty Hunter took the remaining two and headed through the Sheriff's office in an attempt to surround the Outlaw force. I believe Toby had the same idea, but used the multitude of rear and side entrances of his table edge to get into some really nice firing positions.

It was during the third turn the the game began in earnest with shot's being fired on both fronts, but Toby's elevated covered positions proved to hard for me to crack with not a single shot of mine managing to place a single under fire marker on him, while his shooting proved to be effective leaving me with several gang members under fire. 

The forth turn began and after some woeful initiative cards on my end and some brilliant ones on Toby's I decided to take a rather large risk and played one of my face cards allowing me to swap three initiative cards between the gangs. Now having the bulk of initiative I decided to take a risk and rushed a couple of detectives out of cover and into point blank range of the Outlaw leader but only managed to score a single hit on the man, even after burning a second card for an additional modifier for all shooting against the man that turn. At the end of the turn the final result was one under fire marker for the Outlaw leader with three on my shotgun wielding detective, who had missed completely, and one downed detective after some devastatingly accurate return fire.

The next turn saw my lack of accurate shooting continue, while Toby managed to spread a few more firing markers around and would have taken another Detective out of the game if not for another card from my hand. The next turn saw my luck turn though. Finally I was landing some shots managing to take out his right hand man with a single shot and spreading some under fire markers across several more, while not taking too much fire myself. A couple of turns later things were in my favor with myself short the poor shotgun wielding detective who just could not land a shot down along with the Bounty Hunters second back up man. However I'd removed Toby's entire flanking operation with some fancy shooting from the Special Agent and his partner. And finally with the last action of that round my Detective on the roof top who had yet to hit a single target in the game thus far. Finally found his range and put two incredible shots into the Outlaw leader putting him down and sending the Outlaws packing.

Another good game. I have to admit even though the dice gods were against me from the start combined with a couple of tactical blunders, having already had a game in me and making use of at least one of my cards each turn definitely gave me the edge on this one. Toby enjoyed it though so along with The Wife and hopefully both of The Daughters I should be seeing this on the table a bit more as something in the quick afternoon game category.

Hobby-wise I've finished off the Sisters of Acquisition for Across the Dead Earth today, and I think they've come out fairly well, although to be honest I did rush a little to get them finished off. I've got a fair chunk of the State finished as well along with the Trader's Caravan so with any luck I'll have the painting table cleared next week ready for my next big project. I've decided it's time to stick together rather large amount of various zombies I've got for a few reasons. One I want to have a play with the sollous rules for Across the Dead Earth, Two getting them finished and stored away will help clear up the miniature shelves a fair bit and Three I'm intending to do the bulk of the painting with the airbrush so I can play around with some different techniques cause let's be honest they're zombies so of course they'll look a bit ratty :).

Just finished playing the second installment of our micro practice Across the Dead Earth campaign with Toby tonight too so expect another battle report soon along with pics of the finished Sisters