Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Well, it’s been a whiiiiile! The timestamp of the images for this battle report are from the middle of October! Then again I did have a grand total of 3 or 4 days free in all of December, so I’ve been a bit busy. Too much Mad Men, Robocraft, Simcity 4, family and friends, and gin. At least that’s the excuse I’m going to use :)

Anyway when we last left off the Drylands Expedition had helped defend Hyran Mine against Night Dagger raiders. During the fight Amparo was hit by a “Toxic Gun”, which infected him with a deadly poison. With barely a break to breathe, the posse immediately headed towards an outlying / forward post of the Night Dagger camp. Their intent was simple: get an antidote for Amp!
In addition a new member joined the posse, named Sarah Love, as talked about here. Since I last mentioned her I’ve painted 90% of the figure (mainly just need to finish the base and a few details), so hopefully I can wrap that up soon.

My notes for this battle are…sparse. As in not even a page. But the pictures speak volumes. I think the table looked really good this time, as I went for slightly lower hills, the black mat (to represent the dark hills around Hyran Mine), an old abandoned bus (which I always love), and best of all I got to use my new inexpensive roads! Brief sidenote, the roads are made by cutting out textured fabric from a local craft store. They look good (especially for the price) and the cobblestone really pops on them. I cut a few to be main roads and a few to be little side trails, so lots of variety. Now that I’ve (successfully) tested the roads I think I’ll try to get more fabric in the near future and make even more roads.

Table
I played on my usual gamesroom table, 4’x3′. I’m hoping to get two slabs of wood to make the table 6’x4′ at some point (so I can run two simultaneous Dinosaur Cowboys games) but for now it’s the classic size.

Objective
The Night Daggers had to Destroy 4 casks of Anti-Toxins. If the Drylands Expedition could stop them from doing this, there would be enough antidote leftover to help Amp.

Deployment
The deployment used was “Quadrant”, although my rolls basically made it “Edge”, haha. Both halves of the Night Daggers deployed on the west side (with the bus) while the Drylands Expedition deployed opposite them. I was hoping for a true Quadrant battle, but like I said the deploy rolls didn’t end up that way.

Features
I had the Drylands Expedition start “Out of Supplies”, to represent their haste from running from Hyran Mine. That meant they would start with all weapons needing a Reload. So the first turn would be catching their breath and moving to better positions while reloading their weapons.
I also had the “Night” variant in effect, which would give some protection against Medium or Long range shots (basically a saving roll).

Posses
Drylands Expedition – 1/179 IP, $2,000 – Posse PDF
Night Daggers Antidote Defense – 4/179 IP, $2,000 – Posse PDF

Setup
The Drylands Expedition split Quidel with Rhodes and Sarah Love, and then Gibson, Amp, and Dwaal. The first half were in the south east quadrant, with the dino half were north of that (north east quadrant).
The Night Daggers split Lanecaster with Zeus to the south west quadrant, opposite Quidel and those fellows. Then Igel, Aletha, and Cobalt were in the north west quadrant opposite the Dryland’s dinosaur Dwaal.

General Report
In general the Night Daggers surged forward, trying to destroy as many antidote casks as they could. By the end of Turn 2 the newcomer Sarah Love was down, and both objectives near the Night Daggers side of the table had been destroyed. One of these was torn to shreds by their mighty dinosaur Zeus.
There was a great fight around the bus (as usual…that bus is awesome as a focal point), with plenty of moving and position for the best shot. Dwaal had rushed forward to try to slow the cask damage, so he proved to be a useful distraction.
On the south part of the table Quidel and Zeus duked it out around the third cask, with Quidel barely slaying the mighty dinosaur before the T-Rex could tear apart the cask.
Amp spent most of the game sniping from a building, but eventually no targets were in range so he advanced and had a bit of a long range duel with Igel.
Dwaal and Gibson eventually teamed up to do an aggressive flank and further draw the focus away from the fourth cask by Amp’s building. With Quidel and Amp closing from the other side the Night Daggers were in trouble.
However everyone was pretty beat up by this point so both sides had heavy losses in each of these late game turns.
Finally Amp engaged the Night Dagger leader Lanecaster, who had slightly hung back earlier due to her short range, and she was able to take Amp out before help arrived. But Quidel showed up soon after to finish off the enemy leader.
In the end the Drylands expedition were able to offensive defend the last two casks by pushing back the Night Daggers.

End of Encounter Process
Drylands Expedition had everyone except Quidel taken out of action. Ouch! In total they had 5 kills for a total of +15 IP and $150 (plus the usual $30 for winning) and the IP boost gave them another Trait. Luckily 2 casks were undamaged enough that Amp could be healed of his toxic infection.

Like I said, light notes compared to the usual blow-by-blow account!

The Wound and Injuries results weren’t that great for the Drylands Expedition. Amp and Dwaal managed to avoid a Wound, and Quidel’s old “Broken Knee” Wound healed up. But Gibson, Rhodes, and Love all took a Wound, as rolled below.

Wounds:
Gibson Crawford – Cut Feet (W)
“Crazy” Rhodes – Broken Hip (W)
Sarah Love – Shaky Hand (W)

New Resources: 16/194 IP, 180/2180 ND, 5/6 Traits

Flush with cash I decided to rework the Armor setup of the posse a bit. Quidel handed down his Cloth Armor to Sarah Love (no cost), and then bought himself shiny new Bone Armor for $150, leaving the posse with $30. I decided to hold on to the leftover cash for now.
In terms of IP the characters are getting to the point where upgrades are pretty expensive. For example to go from RTN 6 to 5 is 22 IP (but also really awesome and tempting). Instead I gave Quidel another boost, and finally got his Speed up to 4 (from 3) for 10 IP. That left 6 IP, a convenient number considering that is the cost of +1 HP. So Crazy Rhodes got +1 HP, boosting him from 11 to 12 HP.
Traits were a bit tougher, mainly because there are so many I want to get, but I had to narrow it down to a single choice. I considered giving another Trait to Dwaal, perhaps even more HP or some Speed. I considered going for a second tier (II) Trait for someone, maybe Amp with “Inspiring Shot II”. Maybe “Eagle Eye” for Rhodes to push his range out a bit further. An Active Trait was the most appealing, maybe “Retreat!” for someone who normally is near Dwaal, so that the dinosaur could get Speed 14 for a turn! The flat damage Traits are always nice too, and come in handy in pretty much any situation (like Quidel’s “Knee Shot”). “Quick Hands” or “Rally”, “Speed Reload”, the list of things I want is endless. But time to decide (I’m literally sitting here with The Saloon open as I type this, trying to figure out a choice). And that decision is “Rapid Fire II” for Sarah Love, giving her the possibility of 6A-6D, which just might be enough for a one shot kill. Actually it’d be 7A-6D with the Dual Wield variant in play (which it is for this campaign).
I’ll need to boost up Gibson next time, I think, as he’s falling a bit behind.

Final Resources: 0/194 IP, 30/2180 ND, 0/6 Traits

Posse after updates: Saloon link or PDF link.

Next Up
After counter-raiding the outer Night Dagger camp and stealing the antidote the Drylands Expedition have their eyes set directly on the main Night Dagger camp. So the next campaign game will focus on a big attack through the layered defenses of the Night Daggers. I expect a lot of casualties and chaos.