Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Posse Creation Example
As a treat I thought I’d share the creation of a Posse, in this case the “Drylands United Cattle Company”.
Each Posse has 1 Leader, 2-4 Members, and up to 1 Dinosaur. The Leader has some special benefits (stat boosts and abilities), and is kind of what the main character in the old RPG-centric version was. Members are what Sidekicks used to be.
Anyways you start with, currently, $1,000 and 100 Improvement Points (IP) and 3 Traits to distribute. Hiring a Member costs $200, the Leader is free, and I haven’t worked out Dinosaur prices yet.
Improvement Points are used to upgrade the stats of your characters. So for example you could pay 10 IP to improve someone’s Ranged Miss Chance from 8 to 7. Or you could pay 12 IP and upgrade your Movement from 4 to 5. This point buy system is kind of neat as it helps balance out the differing value of each statistic (for example boosting RMC isn’t NEARLY the same as boosting BRV).
Anyways I’ve been typing all these rules up already so I really don’t feel like going in circles over them here. Instead I’ll jump right into the example…

First I looked in my figure case to get some ideas of characters I could have in my Posse. I settled on a cloaked old man with a spear (Quidel), a commoner looking fellow with an AK-47 (Khulan), a military jungle girl (Trista), and a scruffy bandit with a blunderbuss (Trask).
I went for 1 Leader and 3 Members because it seemed to strike a good balance between a tiny few highly skilled and equipped members, or a big crowd of poorly equipped people. I mainly matched weapons with what the figures had, and tried for a general role for each, as well as a strategy overall.
In this case Quidel and Trask would be close combat buddies, Trista would be a sniper, and Khulan would be my midfield gunner.

Creating Quidel
I started with the Leader, Quidel. The base stats for any Human are: MV 4, AR 0, RMC 8, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 8. Since he’s a Leader he gets +2 HP, +1 BRV, and the Leadership ability (basically allow an ally to re-roll).
I wanted him to be tough and survivable, since losing a Leader means everyone remaining in your Posse has to take a Bravery Test. I figured an Allegiance of Duster would suit, since that gives -1 MV and +2 HP. Then I used the following IP purchases:

10 for -1 MMC
6 for +1 HP

His finished statline is: MV 3, AR 0, RMC 8, MMC 7, BRV 7, HP 13.

Creating Khulan
My midline gunner would need pretty basic stats, but some staying power. I decided on Duster Allegiance since he wouldn’t need tons of Movement speed, and the bonus HP helps. For Khulan I made the following IP purchases:

+4 for -1 HP
10 for -1 RMC
10 for +1 AR

Notice that he sacrificed 1 HP to get some IP back (4 IP in this case). This is called “Voluntary Weakness” and allows you to offload some important stats if you’re really desperate for IP. You can do this with MV, BRV, and HP.

Anyways he ended up a slightly better than average shooter, but fairly well protected with his bonus AR and slightly better HP. Finished statline was MV 3, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 9.

Creating Trista
Time for my sniper. Neotechnoist was an obvious Allegiance choice was the -1 RMC will help a ton, plus the -2 HP penalty won’t hurt as much since I’m assuming she’ll be outside of most ranges. My IP purchases were:

15 for -1 RMC (higher than the base of 10 since I was going from 7 to 6, since she was already better from being a Neotechnoist)
6 for +1 HP

A simple enough character, and I was able to buy the extra HP to slightly offset the Neotechnoist penalty. In total her statline was: MV 4, AR 0, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 7.

Creating Trask
Last up was my melee man, Trask. I knew I wanted him to be faster and to hit nice and hard. The plan is to move him up ahead of Quidel and lock down a shooter, and then Quidel can Charge in without being shot while he uses his slower movement. I figured Trask’s rough appearance means he should have the Bandit Allegiance, which provides no benefits or penalties. For IP purchases I did:

12 for +1 MV
10 for -1 MMC
15 for -1 MMC (pretty pricey at 25 total for -2, but it should help him hit)
6 for +1 HP

His finished statline looked like a beefy close combat killer: MV 5, AR 0, RMC 8, MMC 6, BRV 6, HP 9.

I had 4 left over Improvement Points, which will be handy when my Posse reaches Level 2. Now upon each Level Up you get 20 IP, 1 additional Trait, and $100. So I’ll have some options there (for example I could use my combined 24 IP to buy +1 Movement for 2 characters).

Traits and the Posse
Next up were the 3 Traits every Posse has to start with. I needed to select and distribute these as I saw fit. I decided to go for an even approach, so Quidel, Trista, and Trask all got an Active Trait.

For Quidel I chose “Berserker” which gives him +2 Melee Attacks. Remember that since it’s an Active Trait (previously called Boost Traits) it can be activated at the start of his turn, and will last until his next activation. So basically one time during combat I can get a few extra dice to attack.
Trista got the handy “Try Again” which provides a complete re-roll of Attacks. I figured this would help if I really needed to hit, or if she got a bad Reload and I wanted to avoid that.
Finally Trask got “Sprint”, which gives +3 Movement once during combat. I’d probably use this either early on or right before a Charge, or maybe just to be certain to grab cover during a really open part of the map.

Equipping the Posse
Now it was time to throw some money around. I had spent $600 of my $1,000 just on recruiting Members, so I had $400 to play with. Part of my recent work involved reducing the price of weapons so that a basic pistol is a mere $10, midrange is $80 to $120, and there are only a few super powerful weapons over $700 (for example the most expensive is the Flamethrower for $1,500).

As with generating I decided to go character by character.

Quidel got a Spear ($80), a nice midrange 4A-3D melee weapon. For ranged I decided to cheap out and just give him the basic 80kw Six-Shooter (4A-0D, but it’s $10). I think he’d probably spend most turns double moving (aka Running).
Khulan I thought I’d try a Projectile weapon instead of just Energy. So I went for the Assault Rifle ($120). It’s cheaper than a Burst Rifle, but tends to need to reload a lot. It’s 6A-1D but the Reload is 2×1, so yeah, could be painful.
Trista needed range, lots of it, so I got her a 400kw Lever-Action Rifle for $120. The range increments are pretty good at 4-10/11-14/15-21, and it is 3A-4D with 3×1 Reload. I had increased the minimum range for these weapons, so she might need to fall back if enemies get too close.
Finally Trask’s blunderbuss (on the figure) became a Club ($40), which is a solid 3A-3D melee weapon. He also got the 80kw Six-Shooter backup gun.

This left me with $20, so I decided to buy 1 Whiskey Drop ($5 each) per character. These handy items restore 2 HP on use, which might be just enough to keep someone from being taken out of action.

Posse is Done
Now we have the Drylands United Cattle Company, 4 members strong, $0 and 4 IP in the bank, and looking for a fight.

As you can see the system looks like it will support a ton of options for customization. I could have done a pure melee band, or a high tech band, or a glass cannon band, or really anything. As I said I need to finish the Dinosaur aspect, mostly around price to hire and some clarification of their rules. Otherwise it’ll probably just be tweaking and formatting. The $1,000 start price is probably too low, but 100 IP seems about right. The weapon prices might need changes, as I still feel that Melee is a bit too high for what you get. I think I’ll just have to try making different Posses and see what’s possible.

Tag Note
I’ve created a new category/tag on this blog called “Posse”. I’m hoping to use it to post complete Posses that you can easily use in your own games. Eventually I might even post the filled in Posse Roster so you can print-and-play if you like what you see.