Recently I noticed a few hits coming from Lead Adventure Forum, specifically a thread about cowboys vs dinosaurs where my game was mentioned. I always like free exposure for my game. The cool picture to the right (with some of the nicest buildings I’ve seen) unfortunately used a different ruleset, but is still in the right genre.
Simultaneously some fans created almost ten posses on The Saloon. So I’m gonna go with my gut and say these items are related. If the fans wants to speak up and comment here I’m more than happy to hear from them – see if they played any Dinosaur Cowboys games, and how their posses worked out. :)
EDIT: I was way off, the forum post and posses were unrelated. See the user comment below for details of a cool battle report and setup!
Anyway I thought I’d highlight a few of the posses (much like I did with Doom Eagle’s creations), since I see a lot of interesting and fun elements, and you may not check The Saloon as regularly as I do.
- The Bloody Rustlers – Some real cowboys in this posse. The Leader is armed with a Rope Lasso and Harmonica, which is an interesting combo, especially since they also have the Wrangler trait. Nice to see a unique approach to combat beyond “pistol and good RTN”. I also like the hardcore member who has a Stick of Dynamite and a focus on Punching. I can only imagine them running forward, throwing the grenade, and following up with some savage melee. Anytime the Boxer trait is used I consider that a win.
- Exodus – Posse built around the massive $1,000 Titan dinosaur, but also having a powerful leader with a Grenade Launcher and the Strong Rider trait. A brutal combination to be mounted on such a beast. I like the remaining member being a support type character with a Flagstaff.
- Jungle Gentry – I really like the name of this posse, and the split of 2 Neotechnoists and 1 Savage. Especially because the Savage is a “by the books” doctor statistically (Triage and a pair of IRPs), except I like to imagine him themed as a rustic shaman hired by a pair of foppish nobles.
- Dem Bois – Cool gang with lots of elements I like. First of all a minor doctor character with Triage and a Large IRP. Second an Energy Sword…enough said (love that weapon). And of course the Big Game Hunter with a Bronto Gun. Even the name “Myrtle the Turtle” for the Armored dinosaur (who hilariously has Sprint for a nasty surprise). I could see myself playing a posse like this.
- Professional Funyuns – A bigger posse with some solid members. Nice to see the Broken Bottle and Serrated Knife being used…both of which seem like pretty brutal/vicious weapons. Another good Boxer trait usage. And a member with dual 100kW Six-Shooters, perfect for the “Dual Wield” Variant Rule. I’d be interested to know if the intent was to pile on the Ducky dinosaur to move into melee, or slog forward (as the Speeds are a bit low) and try to survive on healing and high Hitpoints.
Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game 
December 2, 2016 at 7:57 AM
I’m sorry to say that there’s not actually any connection between the thread and the gigantic pile of posses that were made in the Saloon, because most of those posses were me testing out what I could make, and I had no idea that forum even existed before now, haha. Most of these posses were just me messing around, but Dem Bois, Professional Funyuns and NOYB actually got used in a game between me and some of my friends. We… did not play particularly optimally, but it was fun!
We scraped together a bunch of random objects for terrain and figurines (I had a pile of books for mountainous terrain, a turtle figurine for an Armored dino, and a rubber duck for the Ducky, and my friends brought some Star Wars figurines, Pokemon figures and a bunch of army men). In retrospect, I might have overdone the terrain for a first game, but that might have been partially because of some slapdash objective and terrain feature placement, since I didn’t want to take too long getting the game set up. The biggest problem was probably that I placed all but one objective on high terrain, thus making it really hard to claim objectives once someone’s set up… and one of the four had a healing spring near it represented by a Pompeii snowglobe, which ended up costing me the game in the long run. (The more I describe this, the more I wish I had taken pictures…). The board was also 2.5 x 5 feet, which meant that NOYB, being on the long side, was both flanked and had more board access. I’m not sure if that was a major issue, but it did mean we made the game a little longer just to get into position.
Our team plans were as follows: Dem Bois (my posse) was trying to be a more generalist posse focused on quality over quantity, the Funyuns decided to just swarm the board with a fast, cheap dino to cover terrain with a bunch of their units, and NOYB decided dinos were for cowards and just bought bigger guns, which I can’t say was an entirely bad idea looking at how well that gatling gun worked.
The Funyuns did pretty well once they got going, although NOYB ended up making half their posse stall out on the lower level, since he didn’t want to expose them to Gatling Gun Han Solo (Boxer Palpatine got blown away first turn by a lucky roll). Two figures I don’t remember the stats of (but who were represented by Leia and Greedo) were put on the Ducky and starting rushing for the Hot Spring objective, though, which ended up giving them a major advantage, while NOYB claimed an objective on a choice shooting spot. On the other side of the board, Dem Bois ended up blowing away half of NOYB with the Bronto Gun and the leader with the Carbine, getting both members on that side (including their leader, represented by Chewbacca) to flee and get Taken Out one at a time, and ended up costing NOYB the win, since that was on turn 5 of 7 and his entire remaining Posse failed their Bravery rolls. Myrtle the Turtle did a little bit of dancing between cover with Sprint to help that out; in retrospect, though, maybe Myrtle would have been better as mobile cover than as a mount.
The last few turns, my medic – represented by Mace Windu – tried to intercept the group on the Ducky before they could take a second objective, but ended up getting piled on and and Taken Out due to the whole group recovering from NOYB’s pot shots, and the game ended in a tie between NOYB and the Funyuns after one of the Funyuns blew away my last unit
on the objective I fought with NOYB over. It was a bit of a mess – I’m gonna go lighter on terrain next time – but it was fun!
It’s almost finals week where I am, so we haven’t had time to try to organize anything else with it, but I’m glad to see this blog up and running again! I actually stumbled on this really recently, and I was worried this project was going to be indefinitely in limbo based on the dates of the posts. I’ll be sure to take pictures next time I manage to scrape a game together :)
January 2, 2017 at 9:42 PM
Awesome reply! Apologies for not responding earlier, my second kid was literally born a few days before so Dec was swamped beyond belief.
I do tend to post in spurts of bustling activity, but even in the quiet periods Dinosaur Cowboys crosses my mind daily, and I’m always ready to chat about the game.
Sounds like you had a really fun time! The text books as hills, random figures, and chaotic terrain setup reminds me of my youth playing tabletop games. Really glad to hear that magic is still alive and my rules could help you with it.
You definitely should have taken pictures :) Great fight recap, and from the looks of things you used the features very well (like healing spring). Definitely feel free to tweak as desired for board size, if you’re doing a 5′ table the movement speeds would be too low in most cases. Or if you’re finding big stacks of books tedious to hike up you could houserule everyone to have the “Climber” trait (ignore Difficult Terrain for hills). Lots of ways to modify the game to fit your group and personal setup.
For sure let me know if you play again! I’m always eager to host fan photos and stories.