Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Well the last release was a little over nine months ago, how crazy is that? You’ll notice with this release I jumped a bunch of version numbers. The reason for that is because of all the massive changes. I know I had said the core rules were solidified at the v1.0 release, and in a sense they still are, but yeah, v1.9 and forward will be different than prior releases.
What I’m planning to do is release v1.9, let it simmer for a bit, and then release the “final” version as v2.0. This is because I might have missed typos or other errors just due to the sheer size of the changes.

First of all, here is the brand new Dinosaur Cowboys Rulebook v1.9.

Anyway, I keep talking about big changes, so let’s hear them (ordered biggest change to smallest)!

Version 1.9 Rules Changes
– Renamed the statline, which is now: DEF, RTN, CTN, BTN, SPD, HP. That would be Defense (Armor Rating), Range Target Number (Ranged Miss Chance), Close Target Number (Melee Miss Chance), Bravery Targer Number (Bravery/Gutless), Speed (Movement), Panic Speed (Panic Movement). The reason for this was to apply a consistent naming to the lower-is-better stats (RTN, CTN, BTN). Also Defense makes more sense in terms of dinosaurs and lightly armored cowboys. Speed also sounds better since then the Maneuever Phase can become Movement Phase instead. Also Defense is written as +X, and Speed as X” instead of both being flat X. The use of these statistics doesn’t change much, it’s more just a redone naming and reorder of the stat line. To get an idea of what the new statline looks like see this example posse roster.
– In the same vein of renaming for theme, Run was changed to Hustle
– Split Speed on the Posse Roster (similar to Hitpoints) to easily see what the Hustle distance would be
– Dinosaurs now ignore Difficult Terrain, due to their massive size. This also makes moving a big dinosaur toy MUCH easier on a cramped table.
– Dinosaur balancing: King DIS 9 to 8, King A-D 1-9 to 1-8, Raptor A-D 1-6 to 1-5, Fin HP to 17, Terror A-D 1-7 to 1-6, Terror MV 5 to 6, Plated HP 23 to 22, Runner HP 10 to 11, Thickskull A-D 5-1 to 4-2, Horned MV 6 to 5, Horned A-D 4-3 to 6-1, Ripper HP 12 to 13, Longneck HP 37 to 35, Titan HP 32 to 30
– Added 10 Deployments to spice up games beyond “line up on opposing sides”
– Added 11 Objectives to help move away from plain “kill everything” matches
– Added 40 Features to provide some extra variety to games, such as Duststorms, Volcanos, Traps, Weapon Emplacements, etc.
– Added a Forced March rule to allow posses to travel longer per day at the cost of Initiative
– Added an underdog table for unbalanced battles in a campaign
– Added rules for Overland Difficult Terrain
– Added after encounter Wound and Injury rules for an ongoing campaign
– Updated Variant Rules to have 19 solid options, instead of old brainstorm info
– Renamed Surprise Hit to Shot in the Back (for flavor)
– Added a Custom Game Sheet that helps track Variant Rules and Features in a game
– Added a game component and game example image to the Game Overview
– Buffed Lassos so they are a little more viable. Now they base the attacks-damage off the dinosaur being ridden. This basically gives a mounted dinosaur a slight ranged attack
– Added a new image based on an old Pony Express ad
– Improved Dinosaur page by making it landscape and adding silhouettes to give an idea of each dinosaur
– Minor change to Minimum Range to be 0-X instead of 1-X to clarify that it can’t be used in melee
– Lowered Voluntary Weakness for Bravery to make it less profitable. Now it goes 2, 2, 3, 4 to stop getting 14 IP from dropping Bravery by two
– Made a note about maximum Traits (which is 13 at 400 IP)
– Reworded Neotechnoist wealth refund to be clearer
– Embed fonts in exported PDF, very important for Dingosaurus font (used in Dinosaur list for silhouettes)
– Cut the PDF size down to ~2.5mb (even with all the new images) by changing from Lossless image export to 100% quality
– Added an example completed posse roster to help players understand how they should look
– Added a note that dinosaurs block Line of Sight
– Added a D12 Random Direction table (demonstrating using the faces of a clock)
– Cleaned up item lists to use alternative colored rows and some green garnish
– Add a note that only a single Panic token can be added at once, regardless of double or triple damage
– Added Dice Tables for D4, D8, D10 in case players only have D12s
– Removed the Crossfire rule and diagram. It was never used, was overly clunky and complex, and didn’t add much
– Added Hatchet as an alternative to Hammer
– Trait “Runner” was renamed to “Racer” to avoid confusion with the dinosaur
– Ten grammar and typo edits from user Grusome99 on Boardgamegeek, many thanks

Like I said, a TON of changes. I maybe should have done an intermediate release, now that I realize how far out of date the old v1.3 was compared to the current.

Version 1.9 Saloon Changes
As usual I updated The Saloon to match the current version. This was a lot of work because of all the PDF export work that needed to be done. Otherwise there were a few minor changes:

– Changed NeodollarFormatter to cut off the decimal places
– Changed fonts and also embedded them in the PDF. This roughly doubled the file size (~185kb to ~350kb) but will ensure the PDFs display properly on all operating systems regardless of what fonts they have available

Next Up
For now I’m going to take a break, play some Dinosaur Cowboys, and make sure v1.9 is solid and there aren’t any unconverted stats or other typos. I have a 4-player game lined up tomorrow so that will be fun. With luck v2.0 will be out in the next month or two.