Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Another Battle to Seattle night! We had two simultaneous games again, except this time at different locations, hooray. The first was Redwood Forest in northern California. The second was at Lassen Volcanic National Park, aka the Lassen Volcano.

We also had our first guest player, my cousin Rob, who would play vs New Haven Vigilantes in the Redwood Forest. I was playing some savage cannibal cultists against the Dustin Tails posse. The Dustbowl Dusters couldn’t make it.
Speaking of my cousin he’s actually designed an RPG called Realm of Strife which has a terrific class mechanic where you basically can mix and match power sources to define what your character is. For example a pure Vigor character is a Fighter, but if you mix Vigor and Stealth you get a Ranger, or Vigor and Faith for a Cleric. With a bunch of power sources this makes quite an impressive matrix as you can see here, and I like gives a fresh, less restrictive approach to class design compared to the traditional D&D multiclassing. In some ways it reminds me of the old computer game Titan Quest.

Above: The tin can trees, and also the New Haven Vigilante Stegosaurus who is started to get some custom armor added.

Above: The new inca statue and the path to the volcano.

Redwood Forest
I hastily made some large tree stumps from old tin cans and cardboard tubes. I used textured spray paint, followed by a flat brown coat, and then a light dusting of green and more textured spraypaint. Then a bit of protective clearcoat. I’m happy with how they turned out, and made for some fun line of sight blocking terrain.

In terms of the game the New Haven Vigilantes setup in the middle of the table, in a rough camp of barrels and crates. The idea was they would be ambushed by raiders just as the sun set. The raiders would deploy half their posse to each long table edge. So basically Center deploy with a slight change.
There was a single objective in the middle, marking supplies, which either posse had to get off the table. The idea was the New Haven Vigilantes wanted to grab their supplies and run from the ambush and rally up later, whereas the raiders (predictably) wanted to steal things! So Smash and Grab objective type.
For Features the plan was “Dusk”, which is kind of like Night, and provides a 10+ save against Long Distance attacks. The other was Gusting Winds from the strong breeze through the trees, which provided 2″ Pushed to all weapons. However the players ended up forgetting both Features so they weren’t even a factor. I’ve definitely done that before!

The posses involved: Bigtree Raiders (PDF) vs New Haven Vigilantes (PDF)

In the end the New Haven Vigilantes, who started right on top of the supplies, were able to safely get them off the table and secure victory. From what I saw it looked like the rider of the T-Rex fleeing (and taking the dino with him) hurt the push to secure the supplies. Then it looked like a fight amidst the trees as everyone tried to position around the supplies.

Lassen Volcano
The Dustin Tails posse heard screaming as they approached the volcano, and saw a young woman chained at the base of the volcano. A hooded cultmaster was preparing to sacrifice her to their Molten King, while various cultists chanted nearby. Sort of like Indiana Jones Temple of Doom, haha. Anyway the cultists had to wait until the stars were properly aligned to perform the sacrifice, which gave Dustin Tails a chance to sneak in and try to rescue the girl. However as they approached the cult leader noticed them, and soon cannibals were pouring from the jungle to attack.
A Line deployment was used, with Dustin Tails in a 4″ line near the road. The “Sacrifice” was an ally and could be used normally. The cult leader deployed on the volcano itself, while the cultists were continually added from the two long table edges. They were easy to 1-shot with only 6 HP and crude weapons (Throwing Knife and Axe).
An Escort Objective was used, where the Sacrifice had to be moved off the short table edge opposite the volcano.
For features there were a few. I had a new “inca head” statue (more aquarium terrain repurposed) that was Fearful Ruins to Dustin Tails and Inspiring Ruins to the cultists. Also the volcano would start erupting at the start of turn 2, spreading deadly lava D6″ forward each turn. Anyone in contact with the lava would suffer an automatic 1D12 Damage.
Also the cultists were represented by goblin and other monster figures (like Skaven from Warhammer) since with the heat the Dustin Tails gang was hallucinating the cultist warpaint into a truly menacing appearance. Plus let’s be honest, I just wanted to use goblins in Dinosaur Cowboys.

The posses involved were Cult of the Molten King (PDF) vs Dustin Tails (PDF)

The cultists started strong with some early pressure, but eventually the overwhelming firepower of the Dustin Tails posse chewed them to pieces. The Auto Shotgun was particularly deadly with a kill a turn. That 5A-5D at Short distance just mulched 6 HP cultists!
The cult leader was somewhat effective, initially Slowing the Sacrifice with his Bolas. He tried to go toe to toe with the Dustin Tails Leader but both characters found the high Defense of their opponent tough to surmount. The lava was a huge factor in this fight and came less than 1″ away from hitting the cult leader. After the Dustin Tails Leader killed the cult leader he was actually overtaken by the lava (after an amazing 6 on the D6″ lava roll) and suffered 12 damage on the D12 roll! Good thing he had 14 HP.
The Sacrifice was harried the rest of the way down the track, and had fairly low HP by the end, but was able to survive. She had a lot of defensive Traits that helped get her out of sticky situations, especially Escape.

So double victory for the “player character” posses of the campaign!

What’s Next
Next week should be another fun one. We’ll have another guest player to fight against Dustbowl Dusters at the dried up Crater Lake. Then Dustin Tails and New Haven Vigilantes will fight onboard Swimmer dinosaurs. Basically hopping island to island trying to recover metal salvage to give to a weaponsmith.