Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

I’ve been making some minor changes to the current rules, and as I’ve mentioned in the past this will eventually result in a v1.2 release of the Dinosaur Cowboys rulebook. The most recent change was adding two new classes of Dinosaurs, a $400 herbivore (to match the Raptor) called “Fin” (aka Dimetrodon). The second big class change was reworking King to be Tyrannosaurus specific, and cost $700 (to match the Horned dinosaur which also costs $700), and then I made the old King class into “Terror” and had it focus on the Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, etc. So basically more options for the “in between” priced dinosaurs.
I also added a note to the start of the Dinosaurs section in the rulebook stating how totally scientifically inaccurate everything around the dinosaurs are. I made the tough choice a while back to not try to be too accurate in my representations of dinosaurs, I went for the popular culture view of the main ones instead of getting into nitty gritty differences. I think for a game with cowboys and lasers it should be fine though :) But yeah, the Dimetrodon especially highlighted this since it’s not even a dinosaur! Haha, yeah.

Anyways I also made a bunch of other stat tweaks, so let me talk about them below in detail, and then show you how the new Dinosaur List looks!
Plated HP 28 to 24, Armored HP 26 to 22, Armored MV 4 to 3, Horned HP 24 to 26: Basically tweaking the $500 herbivores to be a bit fairer. Previously Armored was clearly the best choice because that AR 4 just DOMINATES. Now he’s a bit weaker to compensate for that.
King (now Terror) HP 24 to 20: With the “nerfs” to the herbivores I thought the King (now named Terror) needed to be reduced a bit. I figured changing any of his other stats would give him a different feel, so I opted for reducing the HP.
Ducky HP 17 to 18: With the new Fin class and a close look at the Ducky vs the Raptor I thought he needed a slight boost, so +1 HP it was. I mean his DIS 3 is already crippling enough, but what can you expect for $300!
Ripper HP 11 to 12: This boost was done to differentiate the Ripper a bit more from the Runner. Previously the comparison looked fair on paper, but in practice the Runner’s MV 10 is a significant advantage, similar to how the Armored looked fine until you really start thinking about AR 4.
Raptor attack from 2A-4D to 1A-6D: I changed this to make the Raptor act similar to the other carnivorous dinosaurs, with one single attack that does a lot of damage. I really think that helps distinguish their style from the herbivores. I visual it as the herbivores stomping and slamming the target, whereas the carnivores go for the neck in a powerful bite or claw.
Thickskull HP 18 to 21, MV 7 to 8, DIS 7 to 6, MMC 7 to 6: I needed to make Thickskull a viable $500 alternative, and still give him a unique feel. Due to his smaller size I figured making him an “advanced Runner” (aka slower but buffer) would be an interesting approach. So he got a few more HP, a bit more MV, better MMC, and slightly worse DIS.
Renamed King to Terror and made a new $700 carnivore and Fin ($400) class: I wanted a $400 Herbivore and a $700 Carnivore so an option was available for each price bracket, so these guys were created. I had a tough choice finding a way to split King and Terror, but focusing on the Tyrannosaurus a bit more doesn’t seem like a particularly unpopular choice.

And here is the list from the upcoming v1.2 rulebook. Eventually The Saloon will reflect these changes as well, and have the new classes. I imagine once I actually release v1.2 I’ll do that, since there is no point having new rules that are different than the PDF.

So as you can see some minor tweaks, and some exciting new additions. I don’t think anything of these changes really modify how the game is played, which is great because at this point (really since v1.0) I just want to make minor tweaks and improvements, and save anything drastic for a Variant Rule.

Website News
In other news my recent posts about Dino Storm have really helped traffic (some of which came from Facebook, which makes me consider making a Facebook page for Dinosaur Cowboys sometime in the future?). Most importantly today beat my all time record for “Views Today” with 193 (previous record was 132), and best of all my total views broke 10,000 late last night! Hooray! Thanks to everyone for their support and interest in the game, I’m happy to report that this blog is now dominating the search results for “dinosaur cowboy”, which makes me quite happy!