Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game | A skirmish game where prehistoric dinosaurs meet the new wild west of 2285.

Battle to Seattle – Redwoods and Lassen Volcano

March 14, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

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.

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, Redwoods. Leave a Comment »

Battle to Seattle – Skirmish at Lake Tahoe

March 11, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Last weeks battle was a fun setup and game, although it did bring up the issue of rifles and their relative power level. Part of the problem is the relative flatness of the terrain, as you can see from the pictures.

But anyway the players had heard a rumor of old maps and information booklets in an abandoned camper trailer near Lake Tahoe. When they arrived they found the lake totally empty however, and a few other gangs wandering around the area (since watering holes are popular stopping spots). However in the middle of the night a boat drifted to the surface, probably from wreckage loosening under water. Everyone assumed the information was aboard the ship, so a fight ensued. Some crates had been offloaded in the middle of the night so they became a focus as well.

The tributary rivers were Strong Current which pushed towards the lake itself. The lake was Deep and Populated, which was tough for people to cross. The boat was Pit Fight only, meaning no guns could be used (on it, off it, into it) for fear of damaging the goods.

The deploy was Quadrant, but in an 8″ square instead of “deep” to the middle of the table.

The objective was Capture, with a 7 turn limit with a possible 8th turn (roll of 7+ at the end of turn 7). Both the boat and crates could be captured.

This was our first simultaneous 2x1vs1 game, and that aspect was really fun. If posses from different tables reached the boat they would just ignore each other basically, since they would be on different turns and activations and so on.

The boat itself was made by me long, long ago. I think I was maybe 17 or 18 years old at the time? It was made for a D&D campaign and was originally an airship (there was a clear plastic cup glued to the bottom to raise the boat up) that was hopping the planes, as in a planar campaign, like the video game Planescape Torment. The sails were a bit dark for Dinosaur Cowboys, but otherwise the scale and details were perfect.

This was also the debut game of some new figures. The players all bought various resin minis from the Black Scorpion “Tombstone” line. They look great and have some nice poses and weapons. We’re going to try to do a painting night soon so hopefully you’ll see less gray.

After the game we had one posse go to the Redwoods, and one go to Lassen Volcanic Park. We had to talk a bit “out of character” to end up with this, since so far everyone has pretty much gone to the same places, haha. Should be a good set of fights this week. We also have the first guest player so I’ll be interested to see how that goes.

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, Lake Tahoe. Leave a Comment »

Possible Variant rule: Trailblaze

March 9, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I was thinking of a fun idea of a “Marching Order”, where basically if you are in a safe position you can move further. Now for the sake of fluff I’d probably call it Trailblaze, since marching brings to mind images like the right (which are still awesome, just not very cowboy-esque).
There are two options I could use. Either a Variant Rule OR a new Trait. How I envision it working is one of these ways, which are valid for either a trait or variant:

Trailblaze: Double Speed if no enemy entity is within 24″. Remove Defense bonus until the start of next Activation.
Trailblaze: For this Movement Phase use double Speed if no enemy entity is within 24″. Cannot perform an Action Phase this Activation.
Trailblaze: +4 Speed if no enemy entity is within 24″.

Pretty neat right? I could see this really giving mobility to entities who aren’t in the fight, but need to be. Sort of like if you deploy badly and need to reach somewhere you can. The downside is either the variant or trait could be exploited in some ways. For example a maxed out Runner being 24″ away and getting double Speed and going 10×2″ in one move. A maximum or cap on Trailblaze would help with this, such as “Double Speed up to 12”.

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, March, Trailblaze. Leave a Comment »

Game balance exhaustion

March 7, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

You know what is an unfun process? Trying to balance a game, specifically this one :) You would think by now, after years and development, this game is relatively balanced. And in the sense of “it’s symmetrical, so everyone has the same resources”, you’d be correct.
Where the problem really comes into play is when one strategy dominates the game. This has been especially noticeable in the Battle to Seattle campaign. Initially two posses were focused heavily on rifles. But in yesterdays game the third posse reworked a bit to also try to focus on rifles. In the end this meant 3 players independently decided to bring 300kW Twin Rifles and build a similar character to wield it.
Now this is not technically unbalanced on it’s own, since everyone could buy the same rifle and use the same stats. Where the unbalance and problem comes in is that’s not how I intended the game to be. I never meant for each game to devolve into a “sniper match” where everyone lines up and doesn’t move very much. I figured the mechanics and choices supported this, such as having tons of pistols to choose from and dinosaurs that are only effective up close. But what actually ended up happening is a sniper “arms race”.
You might have heard the term “kill your darlings”, which basically means don’t just coddle an idea because you spent a long time on it. But what’s really hard is killing someone elses darling (which sounds really dark and morbid). What I mean is the initial rifle users enjoyed shooting at long ranges and outdistancing everyone. But because the game isn’t designed around that, it sort of has to change or go.

A few important points have come out of this:

1. Neodollars on their own are not enough of a balancing mechanic. A lot of guns are priced $10-$20 different from each other, with the idea that each player will be strapped for cash. What actually ends up happening is everyone buys the biggest gun they can, regardless of price, and based purely on the stats, and then just builds a posse around that. Either that or they get flush with enough cash, such as halfway through the campaign where we have $1500-$2000 to throw around, and then money is no object. Armor suffers from the same problem, which is why I had to add a Speed penalty to try to balance, because money alone is not enough.

2. Skirmish games are actually pretty hard to balance and to prevent a dominant strategy, especially in a smaller play group. If a strategy doesn’t have a valid counter besides one-upping the same strategy, that’s a problem. But all this thought on balance brought me back to thinking of Mordheim and Necromunda. Now that I think about it people always complained about the balance in Mordheim, saying mass slings were overpowered, armor was too expensive, etc. That is basically the whole idea of the Coreheim fan project. I’d like to be able to achieve a playing field where most combinations of weapons work and are feasible.

3. Playtesting on your own is not enough. It’s like quality assurance for software in some ways. Subconsciously I think when I playtested I might have thought rifles were overpowered, so I tended to keep just 1 in a posse instead of having that be the focus. Similarly…

4. I need more terrain. Now that we have two 3’x4′ games going simultaneously (which was awesome by the way) I realize I need more terrain. I was happy with the amount of terrain I had for ONE such board, but two just means everything is spread way, way too thin. I’m going to try to get my friend to bring over his terrain which should help build some line-of-sight blocking avenues. I think this has helped demonstrate the power of rifles when you can get a pretty clear shot right up to your max range.

So what to do?
Well, tweak. Try to bring rifles to a point where they are support weapons, instead of basically high damage weapons that are always shooting you from further than you can shoot. My ideal situation is a midrange battle in the center of the table, since there are the most guns available at that range, it gives some leeway for close combat to happen, etc. But due to point #3 above I think I overlooked rules and weapons that prevented this from happening. It’s tough because even when I try to build a posse different than what I normally do, I still feel like deep down it’s influenced by my play style and choices.
Which is why public playtests are great, and also why this longer running campaign with friends is perfect. The one-off games we’ve done in the past normally had prebuilt posses from me, so there was sort of a natural balance. Whereas now it’s “winner take all” and everyone understands the building rules well enough to capitalize on any holes or flaws in the rules.

A good related quote from “The Art of Game Design” on balance:
“…balancing a game is nothing more than adjusting the elements of the game until they deliver the experience you want.”
So in summary right now a sniper arms race is not the type of gameplay I envisioned for Dinosaur Cowboys.

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Reworked Panic Speed to remove D4, D8, D10

March 5, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

The image to the right basically sums up the latest change. In other words you no longer required 4-sided (D4), 8-sided (D8), or 10-sided (D10) dice for Dinosaur Cowboys! I had initially included these dice specifically for Panic Speed of certain dinosaurs, so that the random range was fairly close to the base Speed. For example a Runner has a Speed of 10, and used to have a Panic Speed of D10 (1-10).

With my v2.5 tweaks I went to ONLY D12s and D6s. To achieve a similar random range modifiers are used. So going back to the Runner, their Panic Speed is now D12-2. Obviously anything with a modifier to Panic Speed has a minimum of 1, so technically the range ends up being 1-10 still, just with 2/12 chances to end up with a total of 1 (since rolling a 2 or 3 would be modified to 1).

Overall this is a great change as it reduces the barrier to entry to play the game. I figure most players have some history of RPGs in their past so getting D4s and so on isn’t that tough, but there is always a chance there are new players who only have the basics.

I’ll be retaking the “Components of the Game” shot (which the above image was cropped and edited from), which also means I can include some new miniatures in there from my recently painted stuff. I also updated The Saloon code to use the new Panic Speed values (and adjust the font size on PDF export as necessary).

Anyway here are the current v2.5 dinosaurs with this change:

The latest batch of Dinosaur Cowboys changes also included some other big reworks, mostly around formatting. For example now there is a Statistics Overview section before “The Turn”, which I learned from the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game rulebook really helps give an idea of how a character is defined. This was especially necessary because I use a lot of the statistics in the combat section without the reader having much idea of what they do. Similarly I included an example Weapon statline at the start of the Combat section.
I also shifted around the Statistic Improvement Cost page, mainly compressing it by removing (now redundant) descriptive text. I also changed the Quidel “Creating a Character Example” end result to be a screenshot of the PDF posse roster instead of plain text.

So yeah, lots of touchups that should help make the game more accessible to new players.

As I said before, look for v2.5 near the end of this month. In the meantime you can still get the latest rulebook copy synced from my computer on my bleeding edge Dropbox.
But yeah look for the official release after the Battle to Seattle campaign is done. Speaking of which, Lake Tahoe battle tomorrow night woo hoo!

Posted in Rules. Tags: Dinosaur Cowboys, Panic Speed, Rules. Leave a Comment »

Drylands Expedition reworked to v2.5 – Windy River

February 27, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

As you know I’ve been working on some new weapons for the upcoming v2.5 release.

Although the live Saloon version is still using v2.3 (at the time of this post), I’ve been testing internally with building posses using a v2.5 instance of Saloon.

What that means is I got to tweak the Drylands Expedition from my Windy River test campaign to use v2.5. I tried to keep the overall flavor of each member, but was happy to be able to use some new weapons too. For example Quidel changed from a Heavy Pistol (which no longer exists) to a LeDuc Revolver and cheap Break Action Shotgun. Gibson dropped his aging Laserbow to try out a Variable Pulse Rifle. I even used some minor changes like Salve being the same price as Small IRP to buy one of those for Crazy Rhodes instead of his old approach. With all the new pistols available Sarah Love was finally able to get started on a brace of different types. So she has a Volcanic Pistol for up close and a Peacemaker for slightly longer shots. Her old dual Handcannons went to Crazy Rhodes, who has a better RTN anyway, and his figure matches the dual wield look well.
And so on and so forth.

Anyway here is the PDF roster of the v2.5 Drylands Expedition. I just thought it was neat to see such an “established” posse being updated to the latest weapons.

What I hope to do at some point in the future is revisit this campaign. Maybe not to play it for many more games, but one big finale would be great. Maybe the fight at the Night Dagger camp itself is the finale. That’ll be after the Battle to Seattle campaign wraps up of course. So nice to have all this Dinosaur Cowboys gaming going on.

Also I’m away this weekend so no Battle to Seattle game or other posts this week. Back at it with a fun fight at Lake Tahoe on March 6th though!

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New gunslinger painted: “Sarah Love”

February 24, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well I’ve had this mini for a long while, and always loved the dynamic pose and brace of pistols. Back in the Windy River test campaign (which seems so long ago!) I had hired a character named Sarah Love with the intent of using this mini. Well I finally sat down and painted her.
As usual I went with a brighter scheme, since like I’ve said before I get tired of painting brown + metal + black. So she has a nice bright purple vest and dashing blue scarf. Although it’s hard to tell in the picture, her goggles are actually a metallic/shimmery green, and then varnished so they shine a bit. I tried to go for ivory handles on the pistols too. I think her face turned out well too, with the lipstick matching her vest and the vicious scar on her cheek. Then a nice bright base to highlight her on the table and she’s ready for war!

Also no matter how much I look over these figures before I take pictures, somehow there are STILL pieces of fluff and dust on them. So annoying.

Posted in Images. Tags: Dinosaur Cowboys, Images, Sarah Love. Leave a Comment »

Battle to Seattle – Bonus Game – Race track at Pahrump

February 23, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

We had a great bonus game of Dinosaur Cowboys on Saturday, in the Battle to Seattle campaign. I told the players I was more than happy to run extra games outside our usual “games night”, and the response was good enough that we could get a fun “defend the resort!” mission going.
Unlike the last science station battle in Death Valley, this game was skewed very strongly towards the strengths of the player posses. Plus the fact that they did well at target priority and keeping their cool as 10 Savages and 3 Dinosaurs rushed towards them helps too! Fights like this always remind me of the V for Vendetta quote: “What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns”. But that’s exactly how the game is intended to work, and I wanted a fight that was a bit more upbeat than charging a fortified structure like the science station.

Table Setup

Background and Setup
The fluff/background is basically Hadley’s Hope and Dustin Tails left Death Valley out the east side and tried to find shelter to heal their wounds, dust themselves off, and recover for the rest of the trip north. Meanwhile Dustbowl Dusters, who had made a leisurely trip north from the radio tower, heard about a ruined resort at the old Pahrump race track. So they descended on the villa to rest and relax.
Which meant all three posses were together at the resort. But the first two had baggage from their last battle, in the form of angry Savages from the Neotechnoist field team. The Savages gathered their clan mates and local hired guns and set forth to raid the race track.
The posses found a few bottles of whiskey in the resort, which they were intent to defend. They also found enough leftover, well stored, racing fuel to jury rig a Flamethrower.

The setup was pretty simple, and after the complex Feature usage of Death Valley I whittled down the number to the basics:

Deployment: #4 Delayed, from long edges (to represent some of you hanging out in the resort, and not being quick to the front line. On their end it represents the faster elements eagerly coming to grips).
Objective: #8 Defend. You will be the defenders. The objective will be the cask of Whiskey (a single objective).
Turn Limit: 5 (one less because of the long edge deploy)
Features: Weapon Emplacement (Jury Rigged Flamethrower, 8A-0D, 1-8 distance, Fireline). Road (the ruined track). Night (at the start of Turn 4).
Enemies: Bluescar Savages (original field team from science station), Death Valley Ravagers (their allies), Fire Column Bandits (some hired guns).

Quick Report
In general the battle went well for everyone but the Savages. The Savages were almost completely a melee posse, and charging a bunch of good guns with better RTN was suicidal.
In addition a gamble I made didn’t really pay off. Since we were using the Delayed deploy we had to put one entity from each posse “in reserve” to come on later. I decided to risk putting ALL my dinosaurs. My hope was they would come on in turn 2 (or 3, at the worst) on a flank, instead of the back edge, and rush in and distract everyone long enough for the surviving Savages to get to the whiskey objective.
Instead the dinosaurs showed up on turn 4, haha. When they DID turn up the T-Rex one shot killed a Dustin Tails shooter. But it was too little too late.

Pictures During the Game

In the end the three player posses got a TON of IP and ND, which is great for giving them more options to play with. All the kills were shared, and I think they got something like 8 in total.
After the battle Dustbowl Dusters have 150 IP and $1560, Hadley’s Hope has 160 IP and $1630, and Dustin Tails have 170 IP and $1730. Quite a nice progression actually. No real Wounds to talk about.

Next Game
In terms of the next game, everyone chose to go to Lake Tahoe. But this time we’ll be doing two side-by-side simultaneous 1vs1 battles, with a random roll to see who fights the “NPC posse”. Should be a neat setup. I envision them fighting on opposite sides of the main lake.

Campaign Going Forward
Three important items to talk about for the Battle to Seattle campaign going forward.

First of all the posse Hadley’s Hope has been renamed to “New Haven Vigilantes”, so be aware of that.

Second I’ve sent out an invite email to various friends to see if they’d want to drop in and play the NPC posse (instead of me doing it). So maybe we’ll get some guest players.

And finally we’ll be moving to the new weapons from the upcoming v2.5. I know I waffled on this, and maybe even said “We won’t move during the campaign” in earlier posts. But the variety and balance of the new weapons won me over. So the posses will be slightly tweaked to use the new weapons. Once that is done, which will be in two weeks (no game next week), then I’ll probably pot v2.5 and update The Saloon. Expect a v2.6 after the campaign though with any other changes and fixes we encountered.

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, Pahrump. Leave a Comment »

Battle to Seattle – Death Valley science station

February 20, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

This was an exciting but brutal match for the two posses involved (the third player is away on business).

First of all, the setting: The players had heard rumors of a Neotechnoist science station deep in Death Valley who were studying weather patterns. They found the station, and spied on the crew for a while. They learned that a field team was elsewhere, and the Neotechnoists were testing some kind of “Thunderclap Gun” (which was actually a Sonic Gun, basically 4A-0D with the “Terrify” special, meaning 2+ damage = force Bravery Test on target).

Objective: “Smash and Grab” to get two prototype guns and escape off the board.
Deployment: “Center”, with the Neotechnoist lab team in their science station in the middle, and both players deploying opposite each other on the short table edges.
Turn Limit: 6, but we decided to bump this up to 7 during the game.
Features: The idea here was to simulate a growing dust storm and increasingly bad weather. Which meant:
Turn 1-6: Blinding Sun
Turn 1-3: Extreme Temperatures
Turn 2: Light Duststorm
Turn 3: Heavy Duststorm
Turn 4: Light Fog
Turn 5: Heavy Fog
Turn 6: Forest Fire

For some bonus spice the players could choose to team up, which they did. But this meant the Neotechnoists, seeing the large attack force, called their field team for backup.

The “NPC” posses involved were Sandoro’s Lab Rats (the Neotechnoist lab team) and the Field Team Alpha Tango (field team).

The Field Team showed up at the start of Turn 2 from a random long table edge, to keep with the “Center” deployment style. They showed up all mounted on their dinosaur, to represent them rushing to the base with all haste.

Like I said the battle was pretty brutal. The lab team hid well in their bunker, only popping out to take potshots at the Hadley’s Hope posse. The field team, seeing no dinosaur for the Dustin Tails, decided to commit their melee based group to push back that gang. In the end they did so, at a heavy cost (losing all but one member).
Neither player was close to capturing the objective, since the close quarters fighting inside the building was not their forte, and from the pressure of the field team. However they did a lot of damage to the defenders, but ended up retreating into the deepening dust storm.

Next up they will head to the race track at Pahrump, which will be played out this weekend. Should be a fun time!

Pictures of the table setup before the Death Valley game started:

Left to Right: The full table, with the side tray for the building interior. Look at the “four quadrant” hill style of the table. The building interior, with the 3D table being a “Medical Station” providing 1D12 healing per Action Phase using it. Up close of the science station, which is an old cardboard bunker I made when I was a kid. Half game, half game room. A close look at the campaign map, where you can see the splitting route.

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Death Valley, Dinosaur Cowboys. 2 Comments »

Updating close combat weapons too

February 20, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well after the grand overhaul of range weapons the last couple of days, I sat down and brought melee weapons in line too. More variety (well, not quite to the medieval list pictured right), better prices, bigger selection, and a few new weapon abilities unique to close combat.

Lance: This weapon can only be used while mounted. Add +1 damage when performing a Charge with this weapon.
Opportunity: Add +2 Attacks when performing a Snap Attack with this weapon.
Poacher: Add +1 Attack against Dinosaurs.
Sap: On a hit of 2+ total damage the attacker heals 1 Hitpoint (cannot exceed their starting Hitpoints).

Also I used some of the new special abilities for range weapons to make new close weapons, like the Energy Sword which uses Power Settings.

Now we’ve come a long way from knife + broken bottle + hatchet (aka the only close combat weapons real wild west cowboys used), but variety is the spice of life, and it’s fun to have some sci-fi stuff going on. Also if you have trouble visualizing a Duster wielding an Energy Sword, just think of some Neotechnoist in his high tech armor riding out through The Wall mounted on a custom breed of dinosaur, with bright banners everywhere and gun bearers scurrying behind. Besides…it’s fun!

As before the prices for equivalent Attack/Damage stats on close combat weapons is cheaper than range weapons. Because you have to get up close to hit someone in the face with them. For example the 3A-7D Long Sword is $130, 4A-4D Axe is $80, 6A-0D Spine Blade is $40, and the 2A-2D Bar Stool is $5. Compared to say a 400kW Six-Shooter at 4A-4D for $110, or 6A-2D Ultra Repeater for $150.

Anyway here is the PDF snippet of the new close combat weapons. These will be in the upcoming v2.5 release of the main rulebook.

I have another Battle to Seattle game tonight, set in Death Valley. Should be a grand old time! I’ll post some pictures asap. Also we are having a “bonus game” this Saturday, which is a pleasant surprise. It will be at the race track in Pahrump (east of Death Valley), which of course will be ruined.

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, Weapons. Leave a Comment »

Some weapon ideas

February 19, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Dual-Walker See the end of this post for an update!

For a long time I’ve had this item on my TODO list:

- Calculate weapon stats using math instead of off the cuff

It’s a big one though, just because of the sheer number of existing weapons. However right now a lot of those weapons aren’t really choices since they are junk (Throwing Knife) or way too expensive to ever see actual play (Flamethrower). What I’d like to do, besides making sure each weapon is mathematically balanced, is add a bunch of NEW weapons as well, touch up the old ones, and give players a lot more choice.
I’m going to aim this for a v2.5 release, again a slight version jump because of the significant changes. It’ll also ruin a lot of old Saloon links if I remove weapons, but that’s the cost of progress sometimes. I wouldn’t worry about releasing these changes until after the Battle to Seattle campaign, just to not rock the boat too much with the existing players. So that would mean end of April maybe.
Here’s my brainstorm doc transcribed from a scribbled note sheet I wrote very late last night:

– Flare Gun
— Min range 2
— Halve target Defense until start of attacker’s next Activation
— Apply to whole allied team, so you can “mark” a target
— Need high tech version too (Holotargeting Marker?)

– Sonic Gun or Bronto Gun (like Elephant Gun)
— 4A-0D, force Bravery Test on 2+ total damage

– Variable Pulse Rifle or Flux Rifle
— 5A-1D base, but can change before each attack, as long as total is 6
— For example 4A-2D, 3A-3D, 1A-5D, 6A-0D, etc.

– Lever-Action Rifles
— 3A-4D stays, 3A-5D (or maybe 6D) becomes 2A. Current 3A-7D becomes 1A-7D.
— Remember to adjust Reload as well
— Maybe minimum range to 5 (from 4)

– Shotgun
— Can use Buckshot (“Rippershot”) for 4A-1D (or whatever)
— Or can use Slug at 1A-4D
— Can choose at start of game and on a Reload, or manually spend an action to change types

– Different Six-Shooters, styled after real world
— Volcanic for example is 5A, less damage
— eg 5A-0D entry level is equal to 4A-1D six-shooter
— LeMat revolver (renamed to LeDuc or something)
— Can fire buckshot in the real world, not sure how to account for that
— Walker pistol, high caliber (+Damage)
— Peacemaker pistol, long range

– Need more $10 entry level options as an alternative to 80kW Six-Shooter
– Need to remove junk weapons
– Need more close range shotgun variety, instead of just the three types
— Maybe add wattage ratings to shotguns? Or whatever rating plasma capacitors use
– Maybe need a new way to display similar weapons so the list isn’t just 10 different wattages
– General new rule: Avoid anything that does 10+ damage
— Exception are “Heavy Weapons”
— Such as cannon, flamethrower
— Heavy Weapons maybe have “Ponderous” (or something, maybe just “Heavy”) special rule which is -1 SPD, no Hustle, no Charge
– Need slightly more Medical Devices, specifically a $10 Delayed type

Update with a PDF
Well I actually wrote this post yesterday and scheduled it for this morning, and in the mean time I went through and did a first pass at revising the weapons! I’m really happy with the changes. The various pistols provide different approaches to Attack/Damage, while remaining thematic to their true world counterparts. I also like the shotgun revisions, updates to Twin Rifles, tweaks of Lever-Action Rifles, improvements to Laserbows, Throwing weapons, etc. Plus who doesn’t love the name “Bronto Gun”, which is like an Elephant Gun, but for Brontosauruses. In addition the balance between weapons for their cost and stats is a lot better now.
Anyway you can take a look at the revised weapons and items here: Revised Items PDF. I’ll be tweaking these more as I go forward, so like I said look for a full release after the campaign, so sometime in April. Remember of course you can always see the latest rulebook in the bleeding edge Dropbox which is synced with my computer.

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, Weapons. 1 Comment »

Battle to Seattle – Radio Tower in the Mojave Desert

February 18, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well we got in the second game of the Battle to Seattle campaign. I’m not going to link back to the introduction post each time, since I’m sure you can find it by this point.
The first game was a “demo game” with basic posses I designed, and was unrelated to the main storyline. Then my three friends designed their owns posses, and we pitted them against each other in a 3 player free-for-all. The setting for the encounter was the Mojave Desert. Each posse had heard about the rumored re-emergence of Seattle on the coast, so they all went to the local radio station tower to confirm the details. Unfortunately they ran into each other and ended up fighting over the tower.
There was an NPC character at the tower, basically a crazy woman who was said to control snakes and dinosaurs. She was quickly butchered by the combined posses as they considered her a significant threat.

The table itself had a few Features in play, specifically: Gusting Winds (2″ Pushed to all weapons), Hidden Tunnel (a series of them, marked with green doors), and a Road opposite one of the deployment zones. In addition the crates at the base of the tower were Fortified and Ammo, which hopefully would give anyone rushing to the base a better chance at defending.

The objective was to Capture the radio tower, with a hidden turn limit (in this case 4, which was one shorter than everyone expected :) ). Besides the usual bonus for winning an encounter, the player would receive some hidden information from what they heard on the radio tower.

The posses involved, which I’ll post eventually in their own entry, were Hadleys Hope, Dustin Tails, and Dustbowl Dusters. So…lots of dust in their names. Hadleys Hope consists of a two brother sniper team with a Stegosaurus. Dustin Tails is a three person, mostly Neotechnoist gang, with plenty of good weapons. And Dustbowl Dusters has three people and a Thickskull dinosaur, and generally has harder to kill members due to them being Dusters with boosted Hitpoints.

Anyway there was plenty of good shooting all around. Dustbowl Dusters took the initiative on charging the tower, and came under a LOT of fire as a result. Dustin Tails tried to cut through the Hidden Tunnels to get closer to the objective, and ended up disturbing some NPC lizards! These were related to the crazy woman, and basically emerged from each tunnel entrance and attacked the nearest target.

In the end Dustbowl Dusters were able to capture the radio tower, but at a heavy cost. They suffered two losses, one being the Leader, and BOTH of the people took Wounds! To make matters worse the Leader took a “Stunned Head” (which is pretty rare to roll), meaning they have a small chance at the start of each Activation to be Stunned. Ouch. The other out of action member took a Bruised Head Wound, so lots of brain damage all around!

The pictures are a bit shaky, but that’s life :)

Pictured: The table setup and early moves, with the road visible. Then the main radio tower from both sides. You can see the Thickskull aggressively capturing the objective.

So far all the minis are proxied from Warhammer 40,000. But orders are in from each player for some wild west figures. I’m looking forward to seeing them all arrayed against each other. Also notice the Stegosaurus is a non-Papo toy for once!

As for the post-encounter decisions, the route split from the radio tower to Las Vegas (now mostly ruined and mostly run by gangs) or Death Valley (super hot, with a rumored Neotechnoist science base). EVERYONE decided to go to Death Valley, which was a surprise to me!

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys. 8 Comments »

Finally on dinosaurcowboys.com

February 14, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well after a year of humming and hawing I finally decided to take the plunge and get an “actual” .com domain. So as long as I keep payin’ you’ll be able to use https://dinosaurcowboys.com/ instead of the older, uglier, and messier dinosaurcowboys.wordpress.com. This also means you can reach me by email at carlo@dinosaurcowboys.com. Pretty neat!

Also I wanted to self congratulate that the site surpassed 80,000 total hits a few days ago. I know hit counters are so old fashioned, and most people don’t care about views, but I do! :) Coming from a childhood of 5 hits per year on some Angelfire homepage I crudely made with all-caps HTML, this is a nice big improvement. According to the WordPress stats my best day was 475 views. Most of the time it’s around 60-150 views though.

Update a few weeks in: One downside I noticed is the traffic really dropped off with the domain change, I guess because some old posts that were indexed at the .wordpress. address no longer are? Strange since the wordpress address still redirects properly. I guess I’ll just have to build up the traffic and search results again.

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: .com, Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, Domain. Leave a Comment »

Great photo of Crater Lake

February 13, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

From Interfacelift.com

Ah beautiful Crater Lake in Oregon. I like this picture because I like winding roads on hillsides more than I like pictures of lakes.
And actually you know what, that lake sureeeeee seems close to Seattle. What a coincidence :) And right near a main road too! I wonder if we’ll see more of Crater Lake in the future…

Posted in Images. Tags: Crater Lake, Dinosaur Cowboys, Images. Leave a Comment »

Battle to Seattle – Demo Game

February 12, 2014 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Battle to Seattle Start!
Remember my wordily titled Search for the Sunken Space Needle in Seattle campaign (shortened to “Battle to Seattle”)? Well, it officially started last week! I’m very excited to host this campaign for three friends as they battle north from the desert to the fabled sunken city of Seattle.

I can’t post the schedule of cities/events here, in case any of the involved players read it, but I can do recaps of previous sessions.

In the case of week 1 we started with a simple demo game, unrelated to the main campaign. The purpose of this game was to introduce everyone to the rules, show them various strengths/weaknesses of posse styles, and have a fun time. After the demo game everyone semi-secretly built their own custom posse, which I will detail in future posts.
Sufficient to say there are now three custom posses just chomping at the bit to start killing each other. Which will happen this week! We will have an “official” kick off game involving all three posses, then a chance to revise the posses (in case someone really regrets their build choice), and then the posses will be locked in and the rest of the campaign will continue.

Anyway for this first week demo game I created two posses that had identical members and slightly different dinosaurs (Ripper and Ducky). These resulted in the Thunder Valley Gang (Ripper version) and (Ducky version).

The game itself went off without a hitch. We played the simplest objective (Shoot Out) on the simplest deployment (Edge, in this case on the long table edges), with a turn limit of 5, and no Features (how rare!). Every game after this will be more complex and involved, but again I wanted to start with the basics to get everyone familiar with the rules. Since I am aiming to have two simultaneous 1vs1 games going at the same time it’s imperative that each player knows the rules well enough to play on their own, without me overseeing the game.
The posses can look forward to lots of decisions, various scenarios and situations, and (hopefully) plenty of fun over the next month or two.

Anyway we used one of my new 4’x3′ boards. The first picture (above) is of the setup before everyone showed up, and then an action shot a few turns in to the chaos:

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Battle to Seattle, Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys. 3 Comments »

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