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

Considering an update to Equipment

March 22, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

So the current (v1.9) Equipment list has been carried forward since the early, RPG focused Dinosaur Cowboys days. And I feel that these items might need to be revisited. There are 38 available Equipment choices, but of them only 8 have any listed, in-game effect (in this case all the medical equipment).

I had made a note a while back to consider changing these items so that they all do something. Here is that chunk of good ol’ brainstormin’:

Split the Equipment lists into “Common” and “Combat”, maybe call it Gear instead? Or something more flavorful
Helps for campaigns so that players have more disposable things to buy
Need a new framework for consistent timings. Like “Use Once”, “Once per Encounter”, “Constant”, etc.
Basically like buying Active Traits, since some of the effects would be similar
Items like Bugle (re-roll 1 dice), Banner (+2 to Initiative once per game), etc.
Tobacco, can choose to be chewing for the whole game at the start of each game. +1 BRV -1 HP
Alcohol to reduce damage from first shot

So let’s look at this in terms of pros and cons:

Pros of Reworking Equipment
– Provides more options per turn, per character
– Could potentially restrict the number of items to ease rules confusion
– Fun and flavorful and a bit less abstract than Traits
– Can be a useful way to advance a posse with Neodollars beyond just better weapons
– Good money sink, especially for veteran posses and those in campaigns

Cons of Reworking Equipment
– Easier in campaigns than one-off games since players will know their posse better, so they won’t get overwhelmed with choices each turn
– May water down the effect of Traits by duplicating or replacing some of the functionality (for example Rope providing the same bonus as “Climber”)
– May add unnecessary extra special rules, again using Rope as an example it might be “Roll a D12, on 8+ move up a hill without penalty”
– More rules to potentially forget, as sometimes happens already with Traits in the heat of battle
– Hard to track on the roster
– Additional complexity around duration of items, etc.

My biggest concern of all that is: Traits getting watered down and less unique, and more rules that might be forgotten during a battle.

The other (nearly unspoken) alternative to this is just remove all the items, or trim them down to 5 or 6 choices. Right now it feels like I’m sort of on the fence since a few items have effects but most don’t. And although some of the items provide good choices for roleplaying in a campaign, in general I don’t think they’d come up that often. So it might be time to trim the fat instead of revising the list.

But if I WAS going to revise the equipment, here’s a general idea of what I would do. I’m not going to bother with prices at the moment, more just getting a feel for the number of items and their effects…

…Haha, so when I started typing (beginning with the effects) I realized I was basically listing Traits. So that doesn’t make sense to me. In the interest of completeness here were some of the ideas before I stopped:

Ignore Difficult Terrain from slopes (hills, cliffs, etc.), +1 to Initiative, Ignore Difficult Terrain once per encounter, Ignore Difficult Terrain on 9+ on D12, Reduce Falling Damage in half, +1 to Hustle distance once per encounter, Re-roll a Charge dice, Mount or Dismount a dinosaur for free (some kind of Pony Express saddle)

What I’ll Try
So here’s what I’m going to try instead! I’m going to remove Equipment, add a Medical chart (to the right of Armor items in the rulebook), and add a bunch of new Traits. New Traits are always fun, and I’ve considered updating that list for a while. I’m also going to revisit the Trait formatting since right now the big page long list of items is overwhelming. I might break them down by categories or something. I also want to change how they are used to be a bit more clear, so some will be “Before Attack”, others will be “Start of Turn” and so on…maybe.

I’m also going to rename the Medical equipment. I don’t know if I like “IRP” anymore. We’ll see though.

Anyways look for more on this topic later!

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, Equipment. 2 Comments »

Intrepid Expeditions Jungle Hunt – Windy River Day 2-3

March 21, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Overview
I was able to get another campaign game in recently, and am hoping to keep up a pretty steady pace going forward here (my schedule is a bit more clear now). So as you might remember I’ve been starting the Windy River test campaign featuring the Drylands Expedition (PDF).

Previously they had visited Watterson and fought an escalated battle with the Etchglen Hunters, due to the drunk leader attacking Quidel in the bar after she misinterpreted a comment. The fight started in The Dusty Claw, a saloon owned by the Warner family. After victoriously overtaking their enemies, the Drylands Expedition was summarily kicked from the saloon for causing trouble, and found there way to the Eight of Diamonds hotel. The hotel is owned by Conrad and Ortiz, two brothers who don’t look kindly on the Warner family taking their business. After hearing about the bar fight the brothers offered a free room for the night.

The next day Quidel and friends happened to cross paths with a man named Grogan, who owned and operated the hunting outfit “Intrepid Expeditions”. Unfortunately he had fallen ill with malaria, and was confined to the hotel. Grogan was desperate to find a replacement crew that could take his most recent customers on a safari in the small patch of jungle south of Watterson. The two customers were aiming to depart the following morning.

Gibson wanted to continue to the mountains to the east and explore them, as surveying was still his primary goal. But Quidel, Amp, and Rhodes all voted for the easy payday taking some tourists on a safari would be. So they spent the day equipping the caravan and planning a route. After another restful night in the Eight of Diamonds they gathered everyone and headed south into the jungle (day 3).

The Hunting Safari
The guests were Gordon Glenbrook and his wife Cecilia Glenbrook. The young couple were fresh from The Wall and had taken a Flapper to the larger city of Cheyenne to the south east. Now they were flush with excitement at the thought of hunting a dinosaur. You might remember Gordon Glenbrook from The Great T-Rex Hunt, which was near the end of his impressive life. I thought I’d have the campaign be before those events, when him and his wife were just married and starting to hunt. Their stats, totally off the cuff, are:

My newly painted safari figure that I used for Gordon

Gordon Glenbrook DEF 1, RTN 6, CTN 8, BTN 7, SPD 4, HP 13

Cecilia Glenbrook DEF 1, RTN 7, CTN 7, BTN 8, SPD 5, HP 12

As you can see they don’t carry any weapons. The reason for this is, in true Victoria era style, they have hired porters from the local populace. The two porters follow:

Kwabena DEF 0, RTN 10, CTN 10, BTN 9, SPD 4, HP 10 Bolt Action Rifle, Blunderbuss, Bola

Tendaji DEF 0, RTN 10, CTN 10, BTN 9, SPD 4, HP 10 Double Barrel Shotgun, 100kW Six-Shooter, Riot Grenades

You’ll notice throughout this report that I used a lot of off the cuff rules made up on the spot. Well, the porters were no exception. The both act under a single Activation, and cannot attack in any way. Their Action can be used to Reload weapons, or transfer equipment to or from an adjacent ally. The idea was Gordon or Cecilia would reach a porter and take the necessary rifles and other weapons from them, and hand them back when they needed to be Reloaded. This ended up working really well in the game, and gave a great thematic feel.

In terms of Overland Travel everyone headed south through the jungle. I missed my Light Jungle terrain roll so they could only go 2 hexes south from Watterson, as shown on the map. As they travelled riotous hooting and hollering were eventually heard to their eastern flank. Some kind of Savage bandits or raiders had found the caravan.

The Target Dinosaurs
Now for more seat-of-my-pants rules. I decided to use the Line Deployment to represent the safari being spread out in typical caravan style. I also randomly placed two dinosaurs (Horned and Terror), both weakened versions of their archetype to represent younger, less experienced beasts. Their stats are:

Horned Dinosaur (Young) DEF 1, DIS 6, CTN 6, PANIC D4, SPD 4, HP 16, 4A-1D close

Terror Dinosaur (Young) DEF 1, DIS 5, CTN 5, PANIC D6, SPD 5, HP 14, 1A-5D close

For the two “non-player” dinosaurs, I created a simple chart and set of rules to randomize their behaviour:

Passive Dinosaur Behaviour Table (D6, add +2 to the roll if the dinosaur was attacked in the last Turn) 1: Add 1 Panic Token 2: Do nothing (pass Activation) 3-4: Random Standard Move followed by random Hustle. If they come into contact with an enemy, attack. 5-6: Move to attack the nearest enemy. - Passive Dinosaurs Activate at the end of the Turn, after everyone else

The Savage Horde
For the enemies I figured I’d use the lore of the Windy River area I created before, specifically the mystery surrounding the lone hut and brothel called Matron’s Den. I figured a Savage raiding party sent to capture female prisoners wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities. I wanted to follow in the Victorian theme I was going with so far, so I had a bunch of poorly armed, aggressive Savages attacking the caravan in waves. There were two types: Clubbers and Tomahawkers.

Clubber Savage DEF 1, RTN 8, CTN 6, BTN 8, SPD 5, HP 8, Club (3A-3D close)

Tomahawker Savage DEF 0, RTN 7, CTN 8, BTN 7, SPD 3, HP 8, Tomahawk (3A-2D, 1-6/7-10/11-13, 1x1R)

I went for a gentler implementation of the Tomahawk so the Savages didn’t have to Reload every throw. There would be 7 barbarians to start with (4 close, 3 ranged) and as they died there was a chance more Savages would enter the board.

At the start of each Turn, roll 1D12 for each dead Savage. If the result is 8+, redeploy the Savage (with full HP) in their original deployment zone

This would continue forever, so basically a massive wave of endless Savages.

Deployment, Objectives, Features
In terms of deployment the Savages ended up getting the left side of my kitchen table, which was from the East (which made even more sense in relation to Matron’s Den). I used a modified Objective that combined Defend and Escort. The Drylands posse had to keep Cecilia alive for 6 Turns, but they didn’t know that (as you’ll see when she aggressively engages the enemy), while the Savages either had to capture Cecilia or take her out of action. The reason for this goal will be evident later.

For the entire campaign I’ve been using two Variant Rules: Last Man Standing and Dual Wield.

For this specific battle I thought some bad weather was in order. There would be Gusting Winds (2″ Knockback from all ranged attacks) and a Light Fog (no Long Range attacks). So visualize a windswept jungle with fog blocking out the looming trees. The caravan quietly picks their way through the undergrowth while exotic birds chirp and squawk at their presence. The porters curse and mumble at their heavy loads, and Gordon often breaks the silence to talk to his wife or other members of the expedition. Then they hear drums, beating and pulsing in the mist. Just as Quidel is about to speak loud yelling echoes from the trees to the east, and a wave of rushing forms approach.

Some Initial Pictures
SO! After alllllll that I had an interesting and unique battle setup to play. This was also probably one of the larger and more complex matches of Dinosaur Cowboys I had played.

The initial table setup, with some older trees I chopped up to make more vegetation

Here is the caravan and the Savage attackers:

And finally a smattering of deployment pictures to give you an idea of how the scene was set:

Quidel leading the caravan, the Line deployment, the Savages approach, Horned between the caravan and the Savages, Terror to the west in sight of Gordon

The Line deployment order was Quidel, Gibson, Amparo, Gordon, Cecilia (riding Dwaal), Tendaji, Kwabena, Crazy Rhodes. The Savages deployed from the top down with Gladiator, Pike, Bones, Hench, Redbeard, Purple, Pirate.

And with that we are off to the races!

Turn 1/6 – Barbarians in the Mist
Gordon had desired Cecilia was a comfortable as possible on the expedition, so she was riding Dwaal. Upon hearing the shouts and seeing enemies approach she spun the dinosaur towards Tendaji and ordered the porter to hand over the Blunderbuss (Note: I actually got the porters confused right off the bat, and accidentally mixed up the weapons each was carrying. That’s what I get for using similar looking Skaven figures!). Rhodes tried to draw a bead to the Pirate, but couldn’t quite line up the shot in the Light Fog (ie: target was at Long Range). Gibson had more success, swinging his weapon around to bear on Pike. After a flurry of shots the Savage was Fleeing. Quidel continued the solid shooting by hitting Gladiator. The lead members of the caravan, experienced from many days on the road, instantly reacted in unison and basically swung their line to face the oncoming horde. Amparo followed suit and fired at Hench, who was now also Fleeing from the pain. Gordon called to Kwabena, and the two moved towards one another so the man could arm himself.
The Savages yelled various bloodcurdling cries and moved forward as far as possible. With the fog and distance their Tomahawks were useless, so no return fire happened initially.
The Horned dinosaur, hearing the commotion and seeing the rapidly moving shapes, roll a 5 and would attack the nearest target (who was the Savage named Purple). Unfortunately he failed his Charge and couldn’t reach the target. The Terror also attacked nearest, which meant he Hustled towards Gordon but couldn’t quite reach the man.

Cecilia moves quickly on Dwaal to grab the Blunderbuss from Tendaji, the Horned dinosaur fails to Charge Purple, already the Savage lines are breaking, Tendaji and Gordon try to meet up, another angle of the Turn

The table near the end of Turn 1, Amp and Gibson easily adjust to pour fire into the oncoming threat

Turn 2/6 – The Whites of Their Eyes!
Cecilia again lead the Drylands turn by trying to fire at Pirate, but the massive Blunderbuss was unable to connect. Nearby Rhodes hit Purple with his dual pistols. The withering hail of fire continued at the head of the caravan, with Pike, Gladiator, and Hench all dying to the combined fire of Quidel, Amp, and Gibson. Unfortunately Gibson emptied his 200kW Six-Shooter in the process and would need to Reload. Luckily he had his backup Laserbow.
The return fire was somewhat feeble, however Amparo did take a Tomahawk to the face and is marked Fleeing. In the middle of the convoy the porters continued to distribute weapons. Kwabena gave the Bola to Rhodes, while Tendaji met up with Gordon and passed him all the weapons (Double Barrel Shotgun, 100kW Six-Shooter, Riot Grenades).
Seeing the mighty Terror looming in, Gordon hurled a Riot Grenade at the young dinosaur. With a lucky roll he hit and pushed the Terror back 4″ (2″ Knockback from Gusting Winds and a further 2″ from the 1D6 Riot Grenade hit).
The dinosaurs responded eagerly. The Horned dinosaur randomly moved directly into Purple! Confused and angry, the young dinosaurs trampled the hapless Savage to death! Terror had a bad Panic Speed roll of 2, so ended up Hustling towards the nearest porter.

Cecilia lining up her shot at Pirate from the back of Dwaal, Rhodes incredible all-hit roll on Purple, Gibson and Pike face off, the Savages move in, the battle lines are drawn, Gibson needing a Reload on his pistol, the Horned randomly attacking and killing Purple

Gordon and Tendaji begin their hunt, the table at the end of Turn 2 (many dead Savages)

Turn 3/6 – More Are Drawn In
Of the dead Savages only Gladiator made his roll to return, and deployed opposite the end of the caravan and as close as possible to Cecilia
Running across the uneven jungle ground, Bones steadied himself for a throw at Amp. The Tomahawk sailed true and took the Drylands member out of action. Nearby Redbeard was inspired and moved forward to throw a far Tomahawk at Gordon’s back as the hunter busied himself shooting the Terror. The sailing weapon, using the Shot in the Back bonus, managed to hit for five damage.
Meanwhile Cecilia, noticing the leering faces of the Savages, spun Dwaal around and moved west, away from the advancing horde. The rest of the Drylands posse was generally ineffectual, and settled for adjusting their positions.
Focused in his own world Gordon drew his revolver and fired at the approaching Terror, hitting enough times that the dinosaur was already down to 5 Hitpoints. The man quickly holstered the weapon and instead shouldered the powerful Double Barrel Shotgun, although he was hesitant to shoot in the fog (really hard to get that weapon into Medium Range).
The Horned dinosaur stomped over the already dead body of Purple (table result was Do Nothing). The Terror moved forward and tried to Charge the porter Tendaji but failed to reach him!

Another Savage (who looks exactly like Gladiator) returns to the table, Gibson preparing to miss his Laserbow shot on Bones, Gibson in the jungle, the mighty Tomahawk throw that took Amp out of action, the narrowing distance between hunter and hunted

Gordon focuses on shooting the closing Terror, while Redbeard capitalizes on his distraction by throwing a Tomahawk at the hunter’s back

Turn 4/6 – My Wife!
Of the dead Purple came back on the board, redeploying in a similar spot to Gladiator last Turn
The Savages seized the initiative and Gladiator moved and heroically (for a villain!) Charged 6″ to reach Cecilia! She had already been wounded by a Tomahawk, so Gladiator was able to hit for 1+3 and take her out of action. The Drylands posse had failed their objective of keeping Cecilia alive. Now to see if they could hold out for two more Turns.
A hill had blocked Gordon from seeing his wife fall, so he continued to focus on the Terror. He edged behind a nearby cliff covered in overhanging vines, and lined up his Double Barrel Shotgun. The Terror slavered and almost looked to be grinning as Gordon squeezed both triggers (using Both Barrels). The massive attack hit for 9 damage which brought down the dinosaur!
To the front of the convoy Gibson was nearly killed by another Tomahawk from Redbeard. Safely behind a tree Quidel took his time to line up his Heavy Pistol, and managed to kill Redbeard in response.
To the opposite end the Pirate ducked behind a hill and lined up a devastating shot against Rhodes. In response, having retrieved the Bolt Action Rifle from Kwabena, Rhodes fired and killed the Pirate.

Quidel hangs out behind Cover to use the superior range of his Heavy Pistol, Gladiator before his Charge and the scene at the end of the caravan, Pirate lining up his attack, the phenomenal Tomahawk throw, Redbeard harassing Gibson, Redbeard being killed by Quidel

Gladiator impressively reaching Cecilia with a 6″ Charge, the deadly Club blow is struck

Gordon unloads Both Barrels on the Terror, the beast is down

Turn 5/6 – Savagery Grows
Of the dead both Redbeard and Pirate come back, redeploying in the middle near Gibson
Seeing more Savages pour from the jungle fog, Gibson fires a bolt of energy at Redbeard, missing his shot. From behind the tree Quidel lets out an inspiring Yeehaw!, and the re-roll is a hit on Redbeard. Unfortunately the fresh Savage could withstand the 6 damage, and moves forward to throw a Tomahawk and Gibson. The weapon hits the wounded man and he crumples to the ground, not even the sturdy cover of the hill preventing his defeat. Quidel tries to finish off Redbeard but fails to hit from behind the tree.
Dwaal, now unsaddled, hits and kills Gladiator in a lucky roll against the fierce Savage. Then Dwaal moves towards the head of the convoy to try to lend a claw. Meanwhile Rhodes manages a kill, this time bringing the deadly Bolt Action Rifle to bear on Redbeard, who doesn’t seem the attack coming and dies.
The Horned dinosaur randomly moves again, and with another stroke of luck for the Drylands posse ends up in close combat with Bones. The fierce dinosaur hits the man for 3 damage, while Bones returns the favor with his Club doing 4 damage to the dinosaur.

Pirate and Redbeard join the fight again, Gibson falls to a Tomahawk from Redbeard, Dwaal moves down the convoy with his bounding speed, Rhodes lines up a sniper shot on Pirate, Horned dinosaur and Bones locked in deadly combat

Turn 6/6 – Back Into the Mist
No Savages return to the board due to some incredibly bad rolling
Sensing that the Savages morale is about to break, the Drylands posse tries to push the advantage. Rhodes begins by firing his dual pistols at the Horned dinosaur, but only manages a single point of damage. He didn’t want to risk missing with the Bolt Action Rifle which is why he reverted to the pistols. Running high with adrenaline from his last dinosaur kill, Gordon tries to hit the Horned dinosaur with a Riot Grenade and knock it out of close combat (plus his Double Barrel Shotgun needed to be Reloaded). Unfortunately the grenade sailed wide without effect.
With deadly efficiency Quidel kills another Savage, this time downing the Pirate. Now the only living Savage left is Bones.
Dwaal swings around and easily Charges the Horned dinosaur, scratching desperately for 3 damage. In response the Horned dinosaur (randomly choosing a close combat target) stays on Bones and his for 4 more damage.
With a muffled scream Bones breaks from combat and runs into the jungle. Having lost interest in the battle, the Horned dinosaur also shambles off.
At the end Bones had 1 Hitpoint remaining while the Horned dinosaur had 5.

Where’s Cecilia?!
Remember how at the start I mentioned the Savages goal was to capture or take Cecilia out of action? Well, they achieved it. And in the hustle and bustle of the battle no one noticed that her fallen body had been dragged off into the jungle…

For what purpose? Well, given the reputation of Matron’s Den one can guess at the grisly reason.
After recovering and recuperating the Drylands posse and rest of the caravan manage to find Savage tracks heading south. Among them is a bloody trail that Gordon swears is from Cecilia. As the Drylands posse are still in his employ, they agree to help the man track down his wife. Besides, everyone liked Cecilia and wouldn’t wish her possible fate on anyone.

The Savages have a bit of a head start as they move Cecilia deeper into the jungle. The beauty of a campaign is the next battle will continue the story!

End of Encounter Process
First of all are Wounds and Injuries. Both Amparo and Gibson were Taken Out of Action, unfortunately. I rolled 1D12 each, with a result of 7 for Amparo and 9 for Gibson. So Gibson is safe but Amparo will suffer a Wound! I rolled 3D12 next with a result of 8+7+1=16. Consulting the Taken Out of Action Effect I see that Amparo’s “Arm” location will be injured with a “Broken Elbow”. So he cannot get Critical Hits while the Wound lasts. Hopefully he can survive the next encounter and the Wound will heal up. At least it wasn’t too bad of a result though. If it does get upgraded to an Injury I could always return to Watterson and fix him up (after getting paid by Grogan for escorting Gordon, of course).

Next up are the rewards for taking enemies out of action and completing objectives. The Drylands Expedition and friends managed to kill 9 Savages and 1 Dinosaur. I didn’t feel that each Savage was worth +3 IP, so I settled for half. So 9 kills = 24/2 = 12 IP, +3 IP for the dinosaur. This +15 IP also worked out to +$150, and an additional +$30 for surviving the 6 Turns (unfortunately no additional Neodollars as Cecilia was taken out of action).
With the posse’s previous IP and ND and these new spoils they now have 24 IP (121 IP Total) and $210 ($1270 total).

As I mentioned last game I wanted to wait until I could buy really nice guns to re-equip Rhodes. Now was that time! So he got 2 new 300kW Six-Shooters ($80 each, $160 total). He gave one of his old 80kW Six-Shooters to Quidel (always good to have a backup weapon) and the other to Amparo (since he previously had nothing to do if someone got inside his minimum range).
This left the posse with $50, which they spent to buy Amparo (who had no Defense) a suit of Quilted Armor ($50, +1 DEF).

Quidel received an improvement using the 24 IP. By spending 15 IP his RTN was upgrading from 7 to 6.

The posse is left with 9 IP and $0. At the end of day three they look like this: Saloon Link.

—
So all in all that was a super fun game of Dinosaur Cowboys. Everything worked out really well in terms of the new rules and various mechanics I tried. Having a couple of Features really added to the feel of the game, and the Line Deployment fit in perfectly for what I visualized. Losing Cecilia was definitely a downside, but it does provide me with a good chance to continue the story (and probably end up raiding Matron’s Den).
The Drylands Expedition posse have worked well so far, and I’ve been happy with my choices. I’m glad I went for a fast dinosaur instead of a meatier one, since mobility matters a lot when you don’t know what the objective will be like. I could use a few more HP on everyone, but that might come after a bit more IP. In terms of equipment everyone is doing very well, and all I could see doing would be getting more versatility (maybe Grenades?).
Anyways you probably noticed I failed at doing a smaller write up :) This was still a lengthy process unfortunately. I’m going to hopefully play a game later tonight, or this weekend, and I might work on writing that one up smaller. Anyway, lots of fun with the v1.9 rules and still getting to see the posse grow. I should have enough IP next time to grant me a 4th Trait, and maybe +1 DEF to Amparo (and then I can shift his armor off to someone else). We’ll see though!

Posted in Campaign, Game Sessions. Tags: Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, Game Sessions, Windy River. 2 Comments »

Art: T-Rex Extinction

March 11, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Posted in Images. Tags: Dinosaur Cowboys, Images, T-Rex. 1 Comment »

Another 4-player game and some minor fixes

March 8, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Recap of 4-Player Battle
Well yesterday I played a nice lengthy 4-player free-for-all game of Dinosaur Cowboys using the latest v1.9 rules. Unfortunately no pictures.
We introduced a new player to the game, and they seemed to take to it well enough. In terms of setup we used a 5’x4′ table, so a bit bigger than usual. There were some dinosaur eggs scattered across the middle line (giving +1 DEF to all entities within 3″) as well as each posse putting an additional dinosaur egg somewhere in their deployment zone. The idea was to try to motivate people to move to the center and not camp, but that ended up not being necessary since everyone was in for a big firefight. Each posse deployed in a 10″ square in their respective corners, and we started the game.

The posses involved were:
Nathan playing Crevan’s Outriders, a posse he designed that focuses on a low number of high quality troops. Nathan has helped me a bunch with brainstorming a lot of the objective and deployment rules as well as general help leading up to the v1.9 release.
Timmy playing Tribe of the Blood Pact, an old posse that I revamped for v1.9. They are melee focused which hurt him a bit in the showdown. Timmy had played once before a few revisions ago.
Paul playing Drylands Hunting Party who are basically a current version of the posse I use in the Windy River campaign, so they tend to be fairly versatile. He was the new player.
I was playing The Death Snakes, who you might remember from the old Across the Street battle report. They of course have been updated for v1.9 as well.

(From Interfacelift, alas horses instead of dinos)

Nathan took the north west corner, Paul the north east. I went south west and Timmy was south east. Basically the board split into two firefights, with my Terror (fully mounted with everyone in the posse) rushing east towards Timmy. Meanwhile Nathan and Paul maneuvered their snipers towards each other. Timmy eventually mounted up with everyone on his Plated dinosaur and headed to meet me.
The south was a big messy melee, but I was able to dismount my characters while Timmy kept them on the Plated, which meant he was basically losing Actions since his big, burdened dinosaur activated as a single entity. Eventually I was able to overcome his posse, but he took my Terror down to 4 HP.
Up north Paul started strong but eventually lose the momentum due to Nathan’s extensive use of some line-of-sight blocking cover to fire and then duck back into safety. Paul also was uncertain about committing his fragile Runner dinosaur to try to shut down Nathan’s snipers.
Eventually I headed north with the rest of my scattered forces, who got peppered on the way in as Nathan and Paul allied to face my fresher force (I had two characters with their full 16 HP). Paul eventually shot Nathan’s leader in the back, which threw a wrench into their allegiance.
As the battle wound down we ended up in a situation where Kallas of The Death Snakes (me) and Mirax of Crevan’s Outriders (Nathan) had empty guns and were within Charge range of Quidel of Drylands Hunting Party (Paul). So we both Charged in with Brawl type Kick and Punch attacks. This turned into a big fisticuff match until Paul eventually swung his sniper Trista in and shot Nathan down. Seeing that the fist fight was over I killed his Leader with Jordana who was approaching.
Then a big cat and mouse game ensued between the only three survivors of the grand battle: Trista (Drylands), and Kallas and Jordana (Death Snakes). Eventually we headed back south on the board, and had some crazy rolls. Paul rolled 3 Critical Hits with Trista against Jordana. So his 3A-4D weapon did a smoking 10 damage. Kallas moved around the hill Trista was by and replied with 2 Critical Hits of his own, which turned his 2A-5D Double Barrel Shotgun into a 9 damage killer. The last survivor was Kallas, with 8 HP (after having two Small IRP’s used on him).

Fixes and Changes
As a result of the game there were a few “duh” changes I made to the v1.9 rules, since (as usual) actually playing the game exposed some issues that weren’t obvious from reading the rules.

– Changed the Posse roster to use the abbreviations for each stat. The main reason for this was there was “Range” (for Range Target Number) BUT also “Range” for the weapon range. This was very confusing. Hopefully now by going to “RTN” people will say that over two Ranges. I had considered renaming something to “Distant” or “Distance”, but decided to keep the stats and weapon brackets as is.
– Brawl and Beast type attacks now specifically have a note that they cannot be used in a Charge OR for Snap Attacks. The main reason for this is Snap Attacks, since otherwise everyone gets a free shot as someone moves out of melee, instead of just people with dedicated close weapons (as was intended). This also prevents people from using Trip (which has the Stopped special ability) to lock down someone who is trying to leave combat. To keep consistency Charge was also affected by this.
– The Saloon now has “Passive” in small font where the Trait checkbox is, so that people can easily see at a glance if their trait is Active and can be used during combat, or if it’s Passive and already has the bonus applied.

So nothing major, but every little bit of polishing helps.

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

Release of Rulebook v1.9 with massive changes

March 6, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

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.

Posted in Rules, Saloon. Tags: Dinosaur Cowboys, Rules, Skirmish Game, v1.9. 1 Comment »

Brawl at Watterson – Windy River Day 1

February 27, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well I finally got some time to sit down and play my first game in the Windy River test campaign featuring the Drylands Expedition (PDF).

The posse entered the map in the top left corner, simulating them continuing their south-east journey from Hope to the remote corner of Wyoming that contains Windy River. The scale of the map was 1 hex = 3 miles. Quidel had the slowest Movement of 3, which put them at 3mph overland speed, so 18 miles per day (or 6 hexes). Quite a range! Normally a larger map would have a scale of 1 hex = 1 mile, but for convenience sake (since Quidel has 3 MV) the 1 to 3 ratio was used for this campaign.
They walked along the broken and cracked pavement, stopping for a brief lunch outside of the town of Watterson. The flat plains around them didn’t affect movement at all, so the Drylands Expedition reached Watterson in the afternoon.
Quidel planned to head to the only saloon in town called The Dusty Claw. Gibson was in charge of Dwaal, so he went to the stables with the dinosaur. Crazy Rhodes took out a bottle of whiskey from his seemingly endless supply and headed to the jungle at the edge of town to drink. Eager to be “rebellious”, Amp also went with him.
Here is how the town of Watterson looks:

Most townsfolk were still out hunting, patrolling the roads, gathering supplies, wrangling dinosaurs, etc. so the town was fairly empty. The barkeep (and part owner) Ortiz was available to talk to Quidel about the area. A stablehand helped Gibson with Dwaal. And a few rough looking characters were around town.
One named Pickaxe Pete was helping load barrels at the Warehouse. Although unknown to the Drylands Expedition, his friend and ally The Smecker was busy harassing a girl in the small house directly north of the stables. And the leader of their little gang was Ruth Storm, who had been drinking all day in The Dusty Claw after losing a new recruit to a rampaging Horned dinosaur.
You can imagine how this will go.

Campaign Variant Rules: Last Man Standing, Dual Wield
Local Variant Rules and Features: Clear Day, Town, Road, Out of Supplies (represents a loose no weapon policy in the town)

Pictured above are the Etchglen Hunters, a local posse that poach dinosaurs in the jungle south of the town. Download their PDF posse roster

Turn 1 – A Fight Breaks Out

Inside The Dusty Claw, Ruth misinterprets a comment Quidel makes to Ortiz, which she reasons out to be an insult to the town. Smashing her half empty glass on the table, she starts yelling at Quidel. The debate turns heated, and unknown to the two posses outside, Ruth takes a swing at Quidel with the remnants of her glass.
The Etchglen leader misses the Drylands leader. Quidel is quick to react, but doesn’t want a big issue with the town, so he opts for a Brawl attack called Trip (which would apply Stop to Ruth). However he misses, and settles for moving out the front door of the saloon.
Here are the positions of everyone outside:

Left to Right: Jungle Fang, the Raptor of Etchglen, is just returning from hunting food outside of town (since the posse are too cheap to pay stable fees). Gibson talks to the stablehand with Dwaal nearby. Amp and Rhodes drink in the thin jungle near the edge of town. The Smecker in the house north of the stables, unknown to Gibson.

As Quidel emerges from the saloon, his brow furrowed in anger, Gibson notices from across the road and calls out to him. “Just a crazy drunk woman in there. Better round up everyone, she might have friends,” Quidel shouts back. His complaint is loud enough that Pickaxe Pete, at the nearby warehouse, hears the pair. The man is desperately defensive of Ruth Storm, and instantly drops the heavy barrel he was loading and tries a long 6″ Charge at Quidel. Unfortunately he didn’t roll high enough on the distance so is left aggressively posturing a few inches away.

Gibson sees the man approaching, and even though he isn’t too enamored with Quidel, he at least doesn’t want to see some local drive a pickaxe into the Duster Leader. Luckily the “Out of Supplies” Feature doesn’t affect Gibson since his Laserbow never has to be Reloaded. So he pulls back on the charging string and lets a blast of energy fly at Pickaxe Pete. Perhaps subconsciously wanting to avoid a lethal confrontation, Gibson misses his shot.
Following his friend’s lead, Dwaal snaps free of the stable harness and tries to Charge at Pickaxe Pete, but also fails his distance roll.

Hearing the laser blast, The Smecker drops the girl he’s harassing and slams out the front door, loading charges into his double barrel shotgun as he approaches.
Meanwhile, stirred by a dinosaur aggressively moving towards it’s master, Jungle Fang boldly strides up the road and easily succeeds at Charging the unsuspecting Quidel. The Raptor lunges and lands on top of Quidel, clawing and tearing wildly. Quidel takes 7 damage from the attack and fails his Bravery Test!

Seeing a commotion further down the road, Rhodes and Amp put away the bottle of booze and advance across the pavement. Along the way both unholster and Reload their weapons in preparation for trouble. Meanwhile the stablehand dives for cover, and Ortiz hastily tries to kick the angry Ruth Storm out of his saloon.
That’s the end of turn 1. At this point I should mention the Objective, which is Strike Fear. Although this was a random roll the Objective seemed well suited since neither posse wants a bloodbath on their hands, and are really just trying to route and shoo away the other gang.
The first Posse to cause 4 Bravery Tests against the enemy wins. Note that taking an enemy out of action counts towards this goal. So you could cause three Bravery Tests then kill one of the people that took it, and that’d be enough to win.

Turn 2 – Conflict Escalation

Pressured by Rhodes, Amp lines up a long distance shot (possible thanks to the “Clear Day” Feature) at Pickaxe Pete, who is clearly in line to attack Quidel. Amparo’s steady hand lets him land the impressive shot, hitting for 7 damage (2 hits, one of which was a Critical). Suddenly awash in searing pain from an unknown direction, Pickaxe Pete fails his Bravery Test and will Flee.

Still growling and viciously snapping at Quidel, Jungle Fang continues his relentless assault. The dinosaur hits again for another 7 (that 1A-6D on RMC 6 is brutal!). Before Quidel can even react, he is taken out of action. Can you imagine leaving a saloon and having a Raptor leap on you and claw you nearly to death? Jungle Fang finishes his impressive Activation by moving towards his next victim: Gibson.
Since Quidel was the Leader and was taken out of action, every other character in the Posse needs to take a Bravery Test. And guess what? They ALL fail! Luckily Bravery Tests incurred by a Leader dying don’t count towards the number needed to win.
Hearing Quidel’s pained yells and seeing the blast of energy from Amp’s shot, The Smecker moves closer to the unsuspecting Gibson and unloads a single barrel of super heated plasma. The attack benefited from the “Shot in the Back” rule (10+ would Critical instead of just 12), but unfortunately the shot misses.

As he’s Fleeing away, Gibson sees the blast of energy from The Smecker fly over his shoulder. Quickly the man turns and fires his Laserbow at The Smecker, hitting with a Critical for 7 total damage, which causes the coward to Flee.

Furious at seeing his friend hurt, Dwaal screeches and Charges at Pickaxe Pete, who was already marked Fleeing. Unfortunately the flailing, small dinosaur fails to connect with any claws.
Pickaxe Pete, disorientated and still Fleeing, heads his Movement of 6″ directly away from Dwaal. Desperately the man tries to Charge back in, but fails the distance roll and stays where he is.

Rhodes completes his mandatory Fleeing movement down the road, then reverses and Runs back towards the fight. Ruth Storm drops the rest of her glass and stumbles outside to see what the fuss is about. She nearly trips on the prone, bloodied body of Quidel. Shaking her head to try to sober up, the Etchglen Leader reloads massive batteries into her Handcannon.

At this point Quidel had failed a Bravery Test and was taken out, so Etchglen has a score of 2. Pickaxe Pete and The Smecker failed Bravery Tests so Drylands also has a score of 2.
Etchglen: 2
Drylands: 2

Turn 3 – Blood in the Streets

Ruth Storm edges behind her loyal dinosaur Jungle Fang, using his tail both as cover and as support for her shot. Aiming she fires at Dwaal, who is exposed after Pickaxe Pete fled. The shot connects and wounds the dinosaur for 9 damage, which adds a Panic token.

Further up the road Amparo, still Fleeing from Quidel being taken out, completes his mandatory movement then does an extreme distance shot at The Smecker, who is busy menacing Gibson. The shot hits for 8 damage and takes the man out of action. Amp has been consistently impressive so far this battle. Drylands now has a score of 3.

Having calmed slightly at having Ruth so close, Jungle Fang still knows what it must do. Moving forward from being The Dusty Claw, the carnivorous Raptor Charges Dwaal, hitting once for 7 damage which takes the smaller herbivore out of action. Now Etchglen also has a score of 3.

Gibson edges forward, keeping close behind a crater in the old pavement. Thanks to the “Clear Day” (+5″ Long range to any weapon) his Laserbow is able to reach Pickaxe Pete at long range. Steadying himself with two calm breaths, the Neotechnoist charges the bow and lets fly at Pickaxe Pete. The blast of energy hits the main square in the chest for 6 damage, which takes him out of action. This brings the Drylands Expedition score to 4, and wins the battle!

The remnants of Etchglen slink off into the fading light, hoping to avoid any further abuse.
Etchglen: 3
Drylands: 4

End of Encounter Process

Since this is a campaign, tracking IP, ND, and injuries is very important. The first step is to determine if any of the Drylands members suffered Wounds from being taken out of action. Quidel and Dwaal are the only two affected, so they have to roll 1D12. Luckily Leader’s get +2 to the roll and Dinosaurs get +1, and if they get 8+ on the roll they are unharmed. With crazy luck I rolled a 12+2 for Quidel and 11+1 for Dwaal, so there are no lasting effects from being mauled by a Raptor.
Next the posse receives rewards based on the encounter. In this case they took two enemies out of action (Pickaxe Pete and The Smecker) which gives +6 IP and +$60 ND. They also won the encounter so they receive an extra +$30 for a total of +$90. Since they had some leftover IP (3) they have 9 IP and $90 to use if they wish.

I considered getting 2x100kW Six-Shooters for Rhodes, since he’s leveraging the “Dual Wield” Variant Rule, but I think I’ll wait to upgrade him until I can go dual Handcannons (because that would be awesome) for 3A-6D. Instead $60 will be spent on a 200kW Six-Shooter for Gibson. His Laserbow is nice with never having to Reload, and against low armor targets the single attack isn’t too bad. But I got lucky with some rolls, like against The Smecker (who had AR 2) where Gibson needed 10+ to hit. In those cases I’d rather have a backup weapon, so a 4A-2D six-shooter sounds like a perfect alternative. Plus it’s technically similar damage to the Laserbow (1A-5D) so he can interchange them without any loss.
The remaining $30 will be saved.

As for the Improvement Points, all 9 will be saved for the time being. If I can get 10 IP then Quidel could have +1 MV, or I could give +1 AR to Amp.

So after their first victory, the Drylands Expedition looks like this (Saloon link).

Even though I’m only one game into the campaign, I’m already excited to see the growth and evolution of the posse. Hopefully I can get another game in this week (Wednesday), and then maybe next week. Not sure if I’ll be able to keep doing such fleshed out battle reports since they take close to 3 hours to write up :)

Changes and Notes From Play
– Change Saloon PDF export to not use decimal places for Neodollars
– Make “Strike Fear” objective not include Bravery Tests due to Leader death, since otherwise it becomes “Assassination”
– Note only 1 Panic token can be added per single attack (currently confusing with “multiple” wording)

Posted in Campaign, Game Sessions. Tags: Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, Game Sessions, Windy River. 2 Comments »

Old rulebooks now available

February 27, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I’m a big fan of looking back at the progression of a ruleset and seeing how it evolved over the many months. So I combed through this blog to find every Dinosaur Cowboys release I’ve done, and have now linked to them on the main download page. For easy access here is the list repeated as of the v1.3a release. These are links directly to the PDF file. I definitely like perusing those pre-v1.0 releases and seeing all the big TODO chunks. Also fun to see what sections I’ve rewritten and a few of the sentences that have made it all the way from the first version.

Old Versions: 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 0.91b, 1.0, 1.1, 1.1b, 1.2, 1.3, 1.3a

Speaking of rules the development version of v1.4 was generously edited for typos, grammar, and structure by a fellow Boardgamegeek website user named Grusome99. I’ve rolled his changes into the document so those nine or ten fixes will be part of the next release.

In terms of the next release I am thinking sooner is better. This has been one of the larger gaps between releases, but more importantly v1.3a is getting fairly far behind the current v1.4. There were enough changes with campaigns, objectives/deployments/features, Gutless, etc. that you can expect a new version early March.

Posted in Brainstorm, Rules. Tags: Archive, Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys, Rules. 5 Comments »

Problem with the Bravery stat

February 26, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

The picture to the right is about Courage, but I figured it fit well enough for Bravery. In Dinosaur Cowboys the Bravery stat is used to see if a character will run away after having overwhelming damage dealt to them. Sounds great right? Higher is obviously better. The downside is…dun dun dun…rolling LOW on the Bravery Test is the way to pass it. So if you roll a 12 you actually fail and run away for your next activation.

Originally in 2010 (has it really been that long?!) I had this mechanic as a “Fear Test”, and each character had a Fear stat. Then the idea was rolling >= Fear resulted in a failure, although it should have been >= success. Back then having a higher Fear stat was better (should have been lower). Obviously in the old implementation (of high = fail) Fear didn’t make sense, so I changed it to Bravery. The downside of high stat = better means low roll = better. I’d rather have a high roll be better, like for RMC and MMC, with the downside being you want a lower stat for it. I was able to get around this for those two by having “Miss Chance” in the name. Fear worked okay as a stat, but it felt more like a condition than a built in facet of a character.

Currently this is the only roll in the whole game where lower is better (even including Charge distance, healing, everything). So I’d really like to get it changed. But that means figuring out a good stat name that conveys lower = better, sounds good in a sentence (“Now take your XYZ Test”).

So basically the ideal would be:
Fear Test: Roll 1D12, >= Fear is a success. Lower Fear is better

But I don’t like Fear as the stat, so I’ve been trying to think of some better alternatives. Here are some ideas:

Exhaustion
Weariness
Fear
Cowardicy
Craven
Scared
Scare
Gutless
Spineless
Faint
Meek
Fright
Terror

So far I think I like Faint, Gutless, and maybe Cowardicy (although that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue). Hmm.

Exhaustion, Weariness, Fear, Scared, Fright, and Terror all seem like conditions that would grow over time during a battle, as compared to an inborn stat.

Scare and Spineless are good, and sound okay in a sentence, but I’m not sold on them.

Craven is cool but is more of an insult than a stat.

So anyways, I know I didn’t plan on making any big changes after v1.0, but this is an annoying enough issue that I’d like to change it. The only other larger change I’d want to make is figuring out a way to remove the custom non-D12 dice from Dinosaur Panic Movement, while still keeping the underlying feeling.

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Bravery, Dinosaur Cowboys, Fear. 3 Comments »

Custom Game Sheet

February 25, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I recently played a game using the new Deployment, Objective, and Feature rules. We had a “Clever Girl” deployment with an “Assassination” objective. The Clever Girl deployment is supposed to mimic the namesake situation in Jurassic Park. So the defender has to split their posse and deploy between the back and middle of the board. Then attacker deploys at the back and puts two entities to either flank of the defender’s forward element (ie: the flanking Velociraptors from the movie). This was already a fun deployment, but the Assassination objective meant the defender (who had unknowingly exposed their Leader as a forward element) was immediately on their toes. The game looked like it’d be over in a few turns as the defender’s Leader was down to 2 HP! But they managed to get into cover and push back with the rest of their force, eventually driving the attacker back and winning the game. Quite a good time.

Anyway during this game we also had planned to use the “Carnivorous Plants” setup Feature, which basically meant vegetation could attack people standing beside it. However I forgot to use this rule the entire game.
So what I decided to do to is create a quick Custom Game Sheet. The purpose of this is to help remember what Variant Rules and Features are used in the heat of a battle. Silent Death had a similar approach, and with the growing number of Variant Rules and massive number of Features I figured such a tool would be very handy. So I made a one page sheet and inserted it in the latest rulebook (which I’ll release after some more testing and editing of the campaign rules).

Here is how it looks:

And here is the download: Custom Game Sheet (PDF).

I also added alternating shading to the various item charts. I am honestly not sure why I didn’t have that right from the start. Reading wide tables without any color differentiation is rather tough. I also added a splash of green color to match the blank posse roster. Anyway a quick preview of the old vs new chart:

Now that I looked at the lists from this view I realized the name should have a trailing space or padding to break it up a bit from the divider.

I’m busy travelling for a while here, but I do want to sit down and play some campaign battles for my test Windy River setup.

Posted in Images, Rules. Tags: Custom Game Sheet, Dinosaur Cowboys, Rules. Leave a Comment »

Lego Lone Ranger set for alternative figures

February 15, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I briefly touched on the possibility of using a Lego posse in the past. But the upcoming Lone Ranger sets from Lego seem like they’d make such an alternative even easier (mainly because they have some prebuilt terrain).

Related: Dinosaur Cowboys battle report using Lego posses! Read the Thermopolis Outpost Raid with Lego.

I think the shootable cannon in the cavalry set would be a neat way to play one of the original wargames, Little Wars by HG Wells, the way it was intended (with actual shooting over rolling to shoot).

Here are a bunch of box shots for the set Lego aims to tie in with the upcoming 2013 Lone Ranger movie remake:

Posted in Images. Tags: Dinosaur Cowboys, Images, Lego, The Lone Ranger. 2 Comments »

The Windy River Campaign – Setup

February 6, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Above is the campaign map for the Windy River area, a semi-fictional location that I’m going to try a solo test campaign in. I loosely based the area on a southern section of Wyoming (Google Maps view). Generally mountains to the north east, an old road leading NW-to-SE, and a slight river to the south west.

Compared to my original campaign map while brainstorming the Windy River is noticeably smaller. That’s an intentional choice so that I can flesh out the few locations without too much effort. The smaller the barrier to entry, the quicker I’ll be able to try out the rules.
I’ll try to update this blog with reports of each campaign turn, what the posse encountered, how everything went, and so on. My general hope is to have a fun time while putting the rules (especially post battle injuries) through their paces. Everything will be under the new Campaign tag/category, so check back in the future.

Before I talk about the Windy River locations and points of interest, I want to introduce my Posse that will be tackling this wildland…

Look at those cool dudes! I also had a version that used my “egg stealer” dinosaur (which you can check out here) but I opted for the first dinosaur I got for this game: my little fluffy non-Papo fellow. He’s a great size and style for a Runner.

Origin of “Drylands”: Anyways they are called the Drylands Expedition. Why do I always use the name “Drylands”, you might be wondering? Well, you might NOT be wondering, but I’m going to tell you my fascination with it regardless. See before Dinosaur Cowboys, I had worked on another game called Drylands. So I sort of pay homage to it by naming the odd Posse along those lines. The old game wasn’t that great, and tried the same RPG/skirmish split (I just never realized it would also have worked better as full skirmish). But I did have an interesting (but clunky) system of D20+XD4s where you would add D4s as modifiers, instead of flat numbers. If all this history sounds intriguing I actually have uploaded a copy of the Drylands rules. That was even before I used ODT format, or exported to PDFs, or merged all my rules into a single document.

That’s enough reminiscing though.

Drylands Expedition Background
Here are the statistics for the Drylands Expedition posse, and then I’ll talk a bit about each character, their motivations, and overall goals.

Overall, the Drylands Expedition was sent on an expedition (who would have thought) from the central Neotechnoist city of Hope (situated by the volcano and surrounded by The Wall). Their goal was to provide up to date scouting reports in the quadrant of land around Windy River. They were given eight months to do this. The plan was three months of travel each direction, although any chance to use Flappers for speedier transport was highly recommended, and funded up to a certain point.

The leader of the expedition is a Neotechnoist named Gibson Crawford (using an old metal 40k Space Marine shotgun scout figure). I figured he’d have high tech weaponry, so he got a Laserbow. His close friend Amparo (also a 40k figure, this time a Tallarn guardsman) accompanied him. Aside from six porters (in true Victorian era jungle style) the Drylands Expedition was alone.

The two Neotechnoists walked south east, following the overgrown and cracked pavement of Route 26. After a solid week of marching, losing a porter in the process to disease, they stopped to rest at the small hamlet of Dinwood. Gibson knew the further they got from Hope, the more dangerous the country would become. So at Dinwood he started looking for a local to help guide them.

He found Quidel, a Duster busy using his Heavy Pistol to disembowel two dinosaur thieves. Amparo was impressed by the display of violence and aggression, and swayed the tentative Gibson into hiring Quidel.

Over the next month Quidel became more and more influential to the Drylands Expedition. He fired one porter for falling asleep on sentry duty. Another porter was killed by a roaming Terror dinosaur. And through it all Amparo began to listen more and more to the Duster and less and less to his close friend Gibson.

After another month Amparo had taken the nickname “Amp”, and was working very hard at forgetting his Neotechnoist heritage. At this point his Allegiance effectively became Bandit (unaligned). Quidel was pleased to see this transition, finding Amp easier to get along with than the snobby Amparo. The Duster didn’t have anything specific against Neotechnoists, he just found that, generally, they were boring, dim witted people with huge naivety streaks.
Amparo was already a great shot in Hope, but after weeks on the road he was able to perform trick shots that left most townsfolk dazzled and amazed.

The expedition headed off the main highway and into wilder territory. At this point the rest of the porters were captured or killed in a raid by heavily armed highwaymen. Quidel and Gibson were both wounded in the attack. After such a close brush with death everyone agreed to expand the expedition to increase their protection and chance of survival as they trudged deeper across Wyoming.

So when they came across the town of Buelah Belle everyone was eager to find additional muscle. Using most of his remaining Neodollars, Gibson was able to hire a rough Duster named Rhodes and his pet dinosaur Dwaal (which Google Translate told me means “wander” in Dutch). Rhodes had travelled all over the southern United States, and was quick at cards and on the draw. For all his skill, he still only carried two rusty and dented 80kW Six-Shooters.

After leaving the town, the Drylands Expedition attempted to procure Flapper transport. However during the night before their flight, everyone was awoken by the ground heaving and shaking. The launch pad was in the path of migrating Ducky’s. At this point Gibson and the rest of the crew learned that Rhodes had a nickname too…”Crazy” Rhodes. While everyone dove for cover, the Duster stood alone against the incoming dinosaurs, laughing wildly and firing his Six-Shooters into the Ducky’s. No one was sure if his persistence paid off, or simply confused the dinosaurs, but he was able to turn the stampede from destroying the camp.

Now the Drylands Expedition has just landed a few miles outside of the Windy River area. Gibson is busy balancing preparations with trying to convince Amparo of the importance of the mission. Quidel, now fully in control of the group, is always ready for more adventure and excitement. Amp is spending his time mimicking “Crazy” Rhodes, twisting stories out of the Duster, and generally having his head in the clouds. And Rhodes is a mixed bag of extreme laughter and crushing anger. Behind them the wandering Dwaal easily keeps pace, looking for a delicious plant or bug to snap out of the air.

The Windy River Area
There are several points of interest in the Windy River area. Below are the general descriptions and guidelines for what to expect in each named location on the campaign map. The idea here is to provide a few adventure hooks for a Posse

Town of Watterson: This town is beside the ruined highway, and has many well preserved remnants of the old world. Originally Watterson was a single gas station, but eventually fast food restaurants and hotels were opened once entrepreneurs saw how popular the location was. After Eruption Day the town was abandoned. Eventually the Stanton family (Dusters) rediscovered the location, cleared some of the rubble and jungle growth, and started providing services to travellers. Instead of a gas station the central hub of the town is a watering hole, dino stables, and feed lot. A few more Duster, Bandit, and Savage families moved in.
Two brothers, Conrad and Ortiz, renovated and reopened an old hotel now called the “Eight of Diamonds” (previously a hotel in the Super 8 chain).
A second family, the Warners, cleaned up and converted a local restaurant into the only saloon in town (called “The Dusty Claw”), and are considering renovating a second hotel to compete with the Eight of Diamonds. Obviously Conrad and Ortiz are not exactly pleased at this, considering the Warners to be greedy land grabbers.
Aside from being a waystation, Watterson has an extensive hunter community due to the light jungle south of the town. The hunters forage for old world relics, hunt and trap dinosaurs, and also protect Watterson from any raids. There are a few scattered Savages in the jungle that will steal livestock every now and then.

Town of Dustdale: Far to the south east and situated beside a patch of scorched desert, citizens of Dustdale have a tough existence. The town is built around a single street, and provides the usual services of a cheap hotel (called “Woody’s House”), two rough saloons (called “Lips 66” and “Rexjaw Place”), a low grade stable, an understaffed post office, and a run down bank.
Visitors are recommended to keep their weapons handy in this treacherous place. Dino theft is not uncommon, especially since offenders can sneak into the desert and hide out in one of the numerous caves until their target leaves town.
There are constant rumors of an old, abandoned gold mine in the desert, and numerous expeditions have tried to find it.
When the citizens of Dustdale are struck with motivation they may set up a toll roadblock on the old highway, but generally they leave traveller’s alone.

Hyran Mine: This mine is owned and operated by Lynn Hyran, a hard woman eager to make her fortune. Using a team of Dusters and indentured Savages, Lynn has been mining silver and coal (generally for stoves and fires) for almost a year.
Ironically her operation was so successful that it attracted a group of bandits who constantly raid and harass the mine. Even with bounties posted in both Watterson and Dustdale, Lynn has been unsuccessful at rousing a posse to clean out the bandits. Their camp is on the other side of Icepeak Mountain. The bandits have some support from the unsavory elements of both towns, so bounty notices are often torn down or defaced. And travellers tend to just pass through the area without stopping to meddle in local affairs.
The mine also suffers random attacks from carnivorous dinosaurs which have nests and hunting grounds to the north west and south east. Between the bandits, dinosaurs, and stifling heat of the jungle, Lynn is finding fewer and fewer Dusters volunteering for work and has to rely on indentured Savages (normally serving a sentence for a crime in either town).

Outpost of Crail: Off the main highway and down a rough trail, Crail is little more than a collection of tents and campfires. The camp will take wealthy Neotechnoists and Dusters into the hills to the north or swamp to the west on various dinosaur safaris and hunts. Run by Benny Church, a slick Neotechnoist with an eye for profit, the camp is either bustling with preparation or nearly empty once an expedition starts.

Matron’s Den: A lone wood shack sits on the edge of the swamp and marsh. Inside lives a scrawny old woman named Matron Francine. Seeing herself as some kind of voodoo priestess she provides remedies and “spells” of questionable quality. There are two tribes of Savages in the nearby swamps, and both revere Francine as some kind of mystic.
Most travellers would avoid the Matron’s Den entirely except that Francine runs a brothel in the lower floors of her shack. Francine is always on the look out for new working girls, and whispered rumors say she will even kidnap travellers or locals. Somehow she has avoided any trouble from the local law.

Red Oak Tower: At the base of Sixgun Mountain, named for it’s roughly cylindrical shape, sits Red Oak Tower. Originally the Tower was a natural gas refinery. When Otto von Nash discovered the location he quickly cleaned it up and moved in. Otto came from a small town inside The Wall, but forgot his Neotechnoist ways after years in the wilds. Now he is an eclectic mix of pampered living (fine glassware, extensive library, etc.) and absolute barbarism. Otto has a special relationship with dinosaurs, which are the only other living creatures at Red Oak, and will often feed annoying travellers or wandering townsfolk to his pets. The man seems to be able to communicate quiet easily with the beasts, which have caused some to label him as “Mad Nash”.

Night Daggers Camp: A rough hideout of bandits and woodsmen who regularly raid Hyran Mine, aggressively hunt and brutally trap dinosaurs, and generally cause misery throughout the hills and mountains in the north east of Windy River. The gang is lead by Alfonso, Nicky, and Wendell, who are a varied mix of backgrounds and goals and often conflict in their ideas of how the Night Daggers should proceed. The number of bandits in the gang fluctuates between a dozen and fifty, depending on the season, lawman pressure, etc.
The Night Daggers Camp has an exterior location, which is a collection of ramshackle huts slung between the thick jungle trees. Beside the homes and huts is the yawning maw of a cave entrance. Originally a tourist destination (called “Spring Sprinkle Caves”), the extensive sulfur caves wind for miles and miles into Icepeak Mountain. The Night Daggers have only performed a cursory exploration, and generally use the caves for shelter and stashing their loot.
Townsfolk whisper of a back entrance to the camp through these caves, but none has been found or spoken of yet. They also gossip about strange albino dinosaurs living deep in the cave.

Dinosaur Symbols: There are two dinosaur locations noted on the map. The first is 2 hexes south east of Hyran Mine, and the other is 4 hexes north west. These denote carnivorous dinosaurs that frequent the area, both as a breeding nest and hunting ground. Posses entering this area should expect encounters with Ripper, Terror, and King type dinosaurs. There are even a few sightings of Titan dinosaurs roaming the deeper sections of jungle.

—
That should give you a general idea of the posse I’ll be using to tackle Windy River, and also what the area is like. Onwards to campaigning!

Posted in Campaign. Tags: Campaign, Dinosaur Cowboys, The Windy River. 2 Comments »

What is needed to play

January 31, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I took the above picture yesterday night, and am quite happy with how it turned out. The colors are nice and vibrant and I was able to fit in all the important game components. My intent is to put this at the end of the Game Overview section of the rulebook.

As a reminder, here is the list of items necessary (straight from the current rulebook):

• 30-60 minutes of time (more terrain or larger, stronger posses will increase playtime)
• This rulebook and one Posse Roster per player
• Pencils and erasers
• Measuring tape or stick
• A flat surface to play on with representations of terrain
• 28mm character figurines or miniatures
• Multiple 12 sided dice (referred to as D12s)
• A few 6 sided dice (referred to as D6s)
• One of each 4 sided die (D4), 8 sided die (D8), and 10 sided die (D10)
◦ If these dice are unavailable you can substitute D12s through rerolls or compressing a range of numbers
• Token markers for Moved, Acted, Fleeing, Panic, Reload, Stunned, Slowed, Stopped
◦ These can be simple scraps of paper, colored beads, discs of wood, or custom made plastic tokens

I still would like a way to cut out the D4, D8, and D10 and just keep the game to D6s and D12s. But Panic Movement is currently built around those dice and I can’t think of another flavorful, fun mechanic as a replacement.

Of course if the above picture looks like the hobby supplies you have lying around, and you want to give the game a shot, feel free to either check out the playtesting information or download the latest rulebook.

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

Two rulesets and two miniature ranges

January 29, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I’ve had these four items sitting around for a while, but I thought I’d link them and talk about them.

First of all two miniatures ranges that could be used for Dinosaur Cowboys.

Foundry Old West Miniatures
Foundry has a great variety of realistic miniatures. I’ve purchased a couple in the past when I was playing The Sword and The Flame (phenomenally fun Victorian era stuff). The miniatures themselves are a little “flat”, in the sense that they feel very 2D and don’t have a lot of depth to them. But for the price, variety, and accuracy they can’t be beat. The image to the right are some of the Mountain Men line, but they have a full range of cowboys, indians, etc.
http://wargamesfoundry.com/historical_ranges/single_packs/old_west/

Spartan Games – Dystopian Legions
I’ve played Firestorm Armada from Spartan Games, and have read about Dystopian Wars (a large scale steampunk naval game). Well the company has just recently released a 28mm skirmish game that “zooms in on the action” of Dystopian Wars. This new game is called Dystopian Legions. They have four unique looking armies available. I particularly think the Kingdom of Britannia and Federated States of America figures would work great. Britannia are steampunk Victorian era, and the American ones are a mix of cowboys and civil war style troops. As with most figures that try to combine old west with modern technology they ended up going the steampunk route, which you either like or loathe. No idea how the game itself plays, but the miniatures would be a great addition to a posse.
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/unboxing-dystopian-legions

And then two rulesets that involve either cowboys or dinosaurs. Again this is still a very niche genre, so I’m happy to find anything even roughly related.

Wild West Exodus
This company is creating both a ruleset and a miniature line. The miniatures are styled in an extreme steampunk manner. No dinosaurs in sight, but you never know with this type of game. I think some of the figures (like the one pictured to the right) would work well for Neotechnoists. I read the beta document of their rules and wasn’t overly impressed. The system seemed clunky and seemed to take all the bad elements from Warhammer 40,000 without adding or innovating. Different statistics for every troop type, entire turn based UGO-IGO, etc. Maybe in the future they’ll clean up the rules, but as of this writing I’d stick to the figures and stay away from the game.
http://www.wildwestexodus.com/

Wildly Heroic Action Pulp (WHAP) Cowboys vs Dinosaurs
No idea what this ruleset plays like, but from the product description I’d imagine light, fast, and fun. They have an adventure based around cowboys hunting and fighting a dinosaur using a similar plotline to Valley of Gwangi. No picture for this one unfortunately.
http://www.perytonpublishing.com/WHAP.htm

Posted in Brainstorm. Tags: Brainstorm, Dinosaur Cowboys. 2 Comments »

Art Feature: spohniscool

January 25, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I generally try to keep an eye open for any art vaguely related to dinosaurs and cowboys. Compared to fantasy or sci-fi this genre is so narrow that any pieces are rare.
I lucked out recently when I found an artist called spohniscool on DeviantArt (the name can be offputting, but the site is well known and popular for aspiring artists).
So I combed his gallery and found anything Dinosaur Cowboy related, and figured I’d post them all here.

All the links go back to the original page, which has the full size version. If you get a 500 error on their site try refreshing, as it sometimes doesn’t like a bunch of rapid hits (which I assume is how you’ll be clicking the links as you holler “More dinooosaurs!”).

But first, my favorite piece from the entire collection, just for the way it evokes my imagination but remains so simple:

A close second thanks to the dynamic pose and perfect fit it’d be for the melee combat section of the rulebook:

Now…release the thumbnaaaaaaails!

And of course what would a dinosaur picture be without some comedy:

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

Preview of upcoming v1.4 rules

January 23, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Yesterday I had mentioned me and my friend were brainstorming Deployments, Objectives, and Features. Well I finished formatting what we came up with, and now there are a bunch of new pages in the current rulebook. Also I had done some campaign extensions with injury tables and other neato new stuff.

So I thought I’d let everyone take a look at the progress. I exported an excerpt of the changes which basically ended up as the Standalone Game and Campaign Game sections. These rules have (hopefully) been edited, but haven’t had any rigorous playtesting yet. I’m going to play a few games using them in the upcoming weeks, as well as try to get outside playtesters involved (most likely from BGG).
With luck there will be a new rulebook release late February. Although I’ve been using v1.4 as the next version, I might bump it up to v1.5 or v2.0 because of how much additional content and changes were added.

But for now take a look at the most recent changes, and be sure to let me know what you think: New Features Preview PDF which contains 10 deployments, 11 objectives, 40 features, night fighting, forced march overland travel rules, difficult overland terrain, underdog bonuses, and wounds and injuries including 2 new tables. Lots to check out!

(Photo Credit)

Posted in Rules. Tags: Deployments, Dinosaur Cowboys, Features, Injury Table, Objectives, Rules. Leave a Comment »

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