Linux commands to combine PDFs

January 23, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I haven’t talked about much computer stuff on this blog, but today I found two useful commands on Linux for combining separate PDFs into a single file. The reason I wanted this is I’m going to try to get some additional outside playtesters and I figured the easier I can make the setup process the better. So I wanted to make half a dozen “starter” Posses and combine them into a single “playtesters package” file.

PDFTK
A very handy utility for PDFs, and a very simple command. This worked perfectly for merging a bunch of exported posse rosters from The Saloon into a single file.

pdftk filename1.pdf filename2.pdf cat output combined.pdf

The above command would combine “filename1.pdf” and “filename2.pdf” into combined.pdf.

Ghostscript
This approach actually left some artifacts in the posse rosters, so I ended up not using it. Still worth knowing about:

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=combined.pdf -dBATCH filename1.pdf filename2.pdf

The above command would combine “filename1.pdf” and “filename2.pdf” into combined.pdf.

generic-pdf-logoExample
I exported every single saved posse currently on The Saloon, which ended up being 19 posses. Then using PDFTK I combined them into a single file that you can check out here. This would be perfect for making a printed folder of available posse choices, and is much easier compared to having a bunch of separate files.

Check out 19 sample posses (PDF) combined from separate files.

Pretty neat eh?

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Deployments, Objectives, Features, Showdowns

January 22, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

As part of the extended campaign rules I also want to codify a bunch of different setups for each game. These would also apply for standalone games. The idea is to extend the options players have beyond the standard “line up and kill each other”. To this end I’m working on a new set of rules for Deployments, Objectives, Features, and Scenarios. I would love more wild west sounded names for these (as well as some of the individual points), but no luck thinking of any so far.
My friend Nathan from the game last Thursday was interested in helping me, so he’s been brainstorming these new rules. He’s played a bunch of tabletop games and I figured it’s hard for just one person to think up enough varied deployments and scenarios.

Deployments: These pertain specifically to HOW the posses are deployed. For example the current deployment is “choose a table edge, deploy 8 inches in, and fight”.
Objectives: These would be WHAT the posses are fighting for. There are two types of Objectives: Public and Private. A Public objective is known and shared by all players, such as “Kill Everything”. A Private Objective would be on a per posse basis and would differ, so that one posse might have “Kill the Enemy Leader” and the other might have “Capture a Cabin”. The players could either choose these objectives or roll for them.
Features: This is HOW the posse is fighting, in the sense that Features would be special rules or terrain that affect the battle. Maybe a saloon in the middle, maybe an underground tunnel, etc.
Showdowns: These are prepackaged scenarios with preset deployments, objectives, and features. Normally there is more of a story or background behind it, and these would be used for a Standalone game. There might be IP/ND restrictions, posse build restrictions (ie: must take a dinosaur), or even prebuilt posses to fight against each other.

I’ll be editing this post throughout the coming week as we brainstorm up ideas for these four categories. Then I’ll format the ideas and put them into the rulebook (although Showdowns may end up as a supplement instead of core).

Read the rest of this entry »

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Three dinosaur video game mods

January 22, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

I was randomly looking around the internet a while back and decided to see if there were dinosaur related mods for various video games. I didn’t find as many as I would have liked, for example I was hoping to find a Left 4 Dead 2 mod that replaces the zombies with dinosaurs, but regardless here are the results:

Left 4 Dead 2 – Velociraptor Survivors
L4D2_VelociraptorsBasically replaces the standard survivor models with Velociraptors. Even has the hands modeled when you’re in first person view, which is a nice touch.
Get the mod

Skyrim – Dinosaurus Era
Skyrim_Dinosaurus-EraGreat looking mod that adds dinosaurs as enemies. So far they have a couple of the standard creatures done. Really nice animations.
Get the mod
See the video
Also I’d love to find out what this cool looking T-Rex is from, also for Skyrim:
Skyrim_Trex

Half Life 2 – Jurassic Life
HL2_Jurassic-ParkBuilt on one of the best engines ever (Source Engine) this map for Half Life 2 looks really immersive and interesting. Plus the project seems relatively alive, which is rare these days for a mod.
Get the mod
See the video

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Variant Rule: Fleeing Facing

January 21, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Shot-in-the-BackHave you felt that failing a Bravery Test and Fleeing isn’t brutal enough? Well fear not, as I thought up a quick and easy rule to make it absolutely horrendous and most likely fatal to Flee.

Fleeing Facing: When a character is marked with a Fleeing token immediately change their Facing to be directly away from the most recent attacker.

In other words, free Surprise Hits to their back, meaning 10+ to Crit! This variant adds an extra tactical option of trying to force an enemy to Flee so that the rest of the posse can shoot them as they run. It’s such a simple and effective way to provide additional vulnerability to a Fleeing target. Plus I was able to achieve this using my favorite approach: leveraging existing rules (in this case Surprise Hit).

This makes Bravery much more important as Fleeing might mean a death sentence now.

This also differentiates Dinosaurs further since they aren’t affected by the rule, being based on Discipline instead and all.

Anyway this will be in the next version as an official variant, but feel free to give it a shot in your next game.

Variant Rule: Melee Disengage
This isn’t an official variant rule (yet, at least) but I was thinking today a good option for entities that wish to safely leave melee combat is to take a half Move which does not provoke a Snap Attack, whereas a full Move would. I also wish I had a better name for “Snap Attack”, but I can’t think of one. D&D did so well with Attack of Opportunity, haha.

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Doc, they got me!

January 18, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Doc-Holliday-PosterMedic!
Normally when I make rule changes or additions I have players and the general spirit of the game in mind. However there is one supplement I want to do totally for myself. What is this mystery supplement? Medics! Doctors! Shamans! Clerics! Okay, not the last one, but that’s the general idea. In online games and tabletop RPGs I love playing the support character that heals, buffs, and protects his allies. In the first Guild Wars MMO one of my main characters was a Monk. The class was exceptional awesome because they didn’t just “push red bars up” (aka flat out restore health), but instead could use protective prayers to negate or deflect incoming damage. Just look at some of those cool mechanics: Incoming damage is reduced to 10% of target’s maximum health, reduce damage by 5 each time an ally takes damage, heal 80 whenever an ally takes more than 50 damage.
This same idea of support classes being more than “healbots” has rippled across the industry. In 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons the Cleric went from having to memorize a bunch of Cure Light Wounds spells to being able to spontaneously cast them, which freed up slots for funner spells like Bless and Endure Elements. Genius!

So what I’m rambling on about is I’d really like to have a Dinosaur Cowboys supplement for healers. Neotechnoists would call them Medics, Dusters and Bandits would call them Docs, and Savages would call them Shamans.
This wouldn’t be a standard hire for your posse. Instead it’d be closer to a “Hired Sword” from Mordheim, aka a prebuilt mercenary. So you couldn’t customize the Doc with additional Traits (although you could change equipment). You’d just pay a flat Neodollar (and maybe IP) cost to bring them onboard.
A Doc would have a list of powers/abilities that act similar to Traits, except they can be used at different times. These would be supporting and motivating shouts and chants, sort of like “Get Up!” and “Inspiring Shot” that already exists as Traits. Some would be interrupts, so you could make an enemy re-roll a single dice, or stuff like that.

Like I said this Doc “class” or mercenary wouldn’t be an official part of the game, but an optional supplement. And it’d totally be a selfish project done simply because I enjoy that type of role. Right now I’m still working on the extended campaign rules, but my next TODO item will probably be the Doc.

I could actually see doing a bunch of these classes. They’d be called something more wild west-y like “Gunslingers” or “Outlaws” or whatever, but the basic idea of a prepackaged, hireable asset with unique abilities would remain the same. I could also see potentially having these abilities as a “kit” that you could buy/train for an existing member of your posse. For example “Doctor’s Bag: Use the Doctor class features. Costs 20 IP to train and $200 to purchase.” I’m actually liking this idea more. There could be a “Gunslinger Poncho” that lets you go all Clint Eastwood on the opponent, and so on.

Heroscape-Ticalla-JungleAfter Action Report of Yesterday
The game I hosted yesterday was a lot of fun! Two of my friends made it out so I let them have a 1vs1 showdown. The posses involved were Copper Ravens and The Runaways. In terms of building the posses the Copper Ravens were the result of a request to have a few higher quality troops focused on melee. The Runaways had one request to include a Horned dinosaur, as my friend had a new Triceratops he wanted to use on the table.
The scenario was a simple “kill everything”, which I find is easiest to introduce new players with. There were a few dinosaur eggs scattered around the table that would give +1 to a single dice roll (could be an attack, could be a Bravery Test, etc.) if you were adjacent to it.
I ended up not getting any pictures of the game, but a brief summary was both posses moved forward, and killed a bunch of stuff. But really, there was some melee in the middle, dinosaurs taking the brunt of the early fire and attacks. A late game flank by the last survivor of the Copper Ravens, who was surviving pretty well with his AR 4, until The Runaways sniper hit him with 2 Criticals. A great time was had by all and I potentially might try a short campaign with one of the players sometime this year.

Jungle!
The picture above are some jungle trees from a Heroscape set. My friend brought a bunch over since he bought them way back and they make perfect replacements for my somewhat non-tropical trees. The actual set is called Heroscape Expansion Set: Ticalla Jungle, and I’d love to pick one up. Too bad they are out of print and go for $200-$250 on Ebay! Can you imagine paying that for 9 trees?! Neither can I, neither can I.

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Post Battle Injuries – Example Table

January 17, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Progress on Campaign Rules
As I mentioned a couple days ago I’ve been thinking of expanding the campaign rules for Dinosaur Cowboys. I took my first step towards that with a bunch of new additions. The biggest was an early version of a Wounds and Injury system that is used after the battle. Also there are rules for bonuses for an underdog posse against a superior force (such as one campaign player who is doing really well against one who keeps losing). I added rules for night combat, since that might happen in a campaign. Also I fleshed out the overland travel rules for difficult terrain (going through jungles and so on) as well as travelling using a Forced March.
But yeah, the most exciting part (and I think you’ll agree, at least based on requests and expectations people have of skirmish games) is the injury system. I think I was able to avoid the death spiral by making the injuries fairly soft and easy to choose. Here is what the process looks like…

For every entity Taken Out of Action during an encounter do the following:

  • Step 1: Roll a D12 to see if the entity is hurt or not. Dinosaurs receive +1 to this roll and Leaders receive +2.
    If the result is greater than or equal to 8 the entity is unharmed, otherwise continue to Step 2.
  • Step 2: Roll 3D12 on the Taken Out of Action Effect table below.
  • Step 3: If the entity has no existing Wounds in the Location specified apply the result immediately as a Wound.
    Otherwise they will suffer an Injury instead. The entity can choose to make the rolled result or the existing Wound a permanent Injury.
  • Step 4: Unless otherwise specified, any old Wounds are healed.

So basically if you roll under 8 you don’t even get hurt from being Taken Out of Action. But otherwise you get a temporary Wound (basically lasts a battle), and then if you get ANOTHER Wound in the SAME Location then one of them is going to become a permanent Injury. I like this approach.

Here is the table that the instructions mentioned. As you can see I went for some flat out stat reductions, but also some funner ones (like starting the game with an empty gun, or having a random Facing). I’m not sure on the names yet, I don’t know if I want to try to keep some consistency, or go for funny names, or what. I wanted to mention I like the organization of the table where the lower numbers are low on the body, and as the result increases the damage goes up to your head, with the top being pretty brutal.

Wound-Injury-Table_first

Obviously there will be a Dinosaur specific injury table as well, which should be interesting.

I’ve decided not to have “positive” injuries, such as “You got tougher from your ordeal! +1 AR” for two reasons. The first is they really don’t work under the Wound/Injury system. Second is characters are taken out often enough that eventually, statistically, you’d probably come out ahead.

Once I get a first pass of the extended campaign rules done I’m going to play on the test hex map and make sure everything meshes well and is balanced.

I’m also waffling around the rulebook structure. On the one hand I like having everything in one place, with all the charts, weapons, sheets, campaign info, etc. in a single PDF. But on the other I think having a 60+ page document makes the rules feel overwhelming to get into. So I might strip out the “core” rules into a smaller, separate document. Or maybe just do a simple quickstart set, with two prebuilt posses and a map of terrain and stuff? I just feel like the rulebook is approaching the level of “everything thrown in!”, especially as the campaign rules climb to 4 or 5 pages.

Game Tonight
In other great news I have wrangled in some friends to play Dinosaur Cowboys tonight. Should be able to get one or two games in. Some of the participants are the same folks that took place in my last four player game, and one is a friend who hasn’t tried the game before (but we’ve played other tabletop games).
I’ll try to take a few pictures and post them here later on.

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Campaign Ideas

January 14, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

firestorm-armada-campaignSo I was working on some ideas for a simple campaign system and map for use with friends in Firestorm Armada. I had created the map you see to the left when I thought, “Wait, why am I going to use all this energy for FSA when I could devote that brainstorming fury to Dinosaur Cowboys?!”. Of course I didn’t actually think of the words “brainstorming fury”, but you get the idea. The star map looked neat and all, and was loosely created using this creating Traveller maps tutorial. I had seen fantasy maps created with the same software before, and knew I could make something nice and jungle-y for Dinosaur Cowboys.
In terms of the software, I’m using Hexographer, a Java based program that allows terrain, features, lines, text, etc. to be placed on custom maps. There are a bunch of other useful features, but the end result can look something like the map below. And just a note, if the map doesn’t make you want to round up a posse and start delving into the jungle the rest of this post might not be for you.
dc-campaign-testmap
So you can see I put some basic settlements, roads (the black lines are paved, the tan lines are makeshift trails), hunting grounds, camps, rivers, jungles, deserts, mountains, and more to make an exciting slice of the shattered USA of 2285.
Now a campaign system has been asked for a few times, mostly from players who had tried Mordheim or Necromunda (pretty common due to Games Workshop’s popularity), and enjoyed the “post battle wrap up” where you get new territory, roll for injuries, etc. Both of these games abstracted the territory management instead of using a hex map with defined movement.
With Dinosaur Cowboys I had been aiming for campaigns to be more like RPG style games, with an overall Sheriff organizing encounters, detailing travel, and basically handling everything the rules don’t. Currently there are some notes for overland travel (recommended using real world roadmaps compared to a custom hex map), encounter chances, healing, etc. But I’d like to expand on these and flesh them out, especially around example encounters and some other details of posse management.
To this end today I’ve made the test map above and I’m going to start brainstorming additional campaign rules.

General Ideas
– To start the campaign would be structured around either a single posse against the Sheriff, in a more open ended structure. The other alternative, that is a bit easier, would be posse vs posse with the victory condition of controlling all the towns/areas on the campaign map. This is slightly less dynamic than a game with multiple armies per player since you’d just be moving a single posse around. The idea of managing multiple posses is fairly interesting though.
– Control of towns would grant bonuses, for example Neodollar income per campaign turn, maybe bonus Improvement Points and equipment and so on.
– Towns and other points of interest would have a preset defense force of some kind. A camp may be protected by bandits, a town by lawmen, etc. The Sheriff would control these entities during combat.
– Overland movement would use the existing “By Ground” travel rules under Campaign Game in the rules, which says “Movement statistic is converted to Miles per Hour in a 1:1 to relationship”. Which means the scale of the hex map would be 1 hex = 1 mile, so 3 MV would be 3 hexes. Currently terrain has no effect on Overland movement speed.
– Encounter chance may be changed to be percent based (currently a D12), and also effected by the terrain that is passed through. For example a base encounter chance could be 30%. If a road is travelled on the chance is reduced by 5%. If a posse moves through a heavy jungle this percent might be increased by 10%. Then the encounter chance is rolled at the end of the travel, with all modifiers.
– After battle injuries are really tough to do well. Just flat out reducing stats (“Leg Injury, -1 MV” for example) can lead to a posse “Death Spiral“. What is a Death Spiral? Basically:
Something that can happen in games where your combat skill is affected by your health (or similar attribute). If you take a hit, your combat skill decreases slightly (making it harder for you to hit the opponent and/or easier for the opponent to hit you).
While there is a certain realism to this, it can often quickly lead to the “Death Spiral” where each hit makes it increasingly unlikely for the loser to come back, as they are getting consistently worse at attacking and/or defending.
In the case of Dinosaur Cowboys this would mean if your posse loses, they get injured, but then they are MORE likely to lose their next battle, thus suffering further injuries, and certainly losing subsequent battles, until basically it’s a gang of gimps incapable of winning.
Financial loss can be similar, since losing 100 Neodollars while the opponent gains 100 ND is closer to a swing of 200, and can significantly reduce a posse’s effectiveness in future combat.
But there should be SOME kind of penalty for losing. In a player vs Sheriff game this is less of a problem as encounters can be scaled down. But in a posse vs posse scenario this is tough to avoid and can make it so early losses can stop a posse from ever being competitive.
I’ve started a discussion on The Miniatures Page forum about this to see what ideas the community has.

Where to Start
I think I’ll start with player vs Sheriff style. What I envision is similar to the old computer game Strange Adventures in Infinite Space or even Flotilla where the posse travels around, has a bunch of random encounters and events, and has a set endpoint (in the case of both those video games it’s limited by game time or number of turns).
In the case of player vs Sheriff the goal could be “completing” a posse, which means reaching the cap of total Improvement Points (in v1.3 this is 400 IP). Since you start at 100 and get 3 IP per kill this would take a massive 100 kills! Perhaps setting a goal IP up to the max would be a better and easier way to customize the game length.
Anyway part of this would be working up stats for generic NPCs and enemies that the Sheriff can throw at the posse. So lots more dinosaurs, bandits, drifters, etc. that can be combined to create an interested battle. I’d also work up some additional deployment scenarios to represent different situations that might come up in a campaign (such as having your camp surrounded).

For now I’ll start small and work on cleaning up the overland movement, encounter chances, etc. All these changes will go into the core rulebook and be part of the next release. Depending on the length of the rules I could consider splitting them, especially if a list of enemies and encounters grows too large and bloats the rulebook. That’s a bit down the road so I won’t worry about it right now.

I’ll try to do more posts here as I develop the campaign system, similar to the volume I had when I was fleshing out the original core rules. That way everyone can see how the campaign system is developing and the choices and challenges I’m facing.

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Merry Christmas and Happy 2013!

January 1, 2013 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Secret-of-SinharatWell we aren’t quite at the year 2285 yet, but 2013 is certainly a step in the right direction. The year just SOUNDS so futuristic, even if we’re severely lacking in flying hover cars, laser pistols, and any chance of dinosaurs coming back.

Considering I haven’t posted since Halloween I thought I’d drop in and say I’m alive. I have been distracted by Nanowrimo (which I completed, woo hoo), the holiday season, a plethora of computer games, and some Firestorm Armada. Sometimes I get in space sci-fi moods, so battling big ships on the tabletop has been quite fun.

I do hope to get another Dinosaur Cowboys game in sometime soon and post up some fresh pictures. Not much to say otherwise, the rules, posse designer, supporting materials, etc. are all at a stable enough point that I don’t have as much to post about anymore. But Dinosaur Cowboys is always in my heart, and with luck I can keep some slow buy steady updates going.

Anyway Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Playtesting Information

December 1, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

This post is meant to introduce potential playtesters to the skirmish game of Dinosaur Cowboys, and to lower the barrier to play by providing some easy support material.

The Files
These files are based around the latest version of the rulebook, as compared to the copy available from the “Download Rulebook” link on this site.

Everything you need in a single file (rulebook and sample posses):

Dinosaur Cowboys Playtest Document (PDF)

Go-WestWhat is this Game
First of all, is this game going to interest you? If the mention of dinosaurs, futuristic cowboys, lasers, twelve sided dice, 28mm miniatures combat, and competing posses doesn’t strike your fancy, this game might not your kind of genre.
Dinosaur Cowboys uses miniature figurines like those from Games Workshop, Reaper Miniatures, Spartan Games, Privateer Press, or numerous other providers. Each player will build (or choose) a “Posse”, which is a gang of 2-5 humans and up to 1 dinosaur. The general structure and play will be familiar to anyone who has tabletop wargame experience.
Once both players have a Posse they will set up a table to play on. Generally this is filled with model terrain (styrofoam hills, fake trees, etc.). The players decide how to deploy their Posse by using the guidelines in the rulebook. They can also choose an objective for the game.
Then the game starts. Each turn players will roll Initiative to see who can activate first. However activation is done on a per-model basis, instead of an entire Posse acting before the opponent can do anything. So playing the game is involved and there isn’t much downtime between getting to do something on the table.
When activating a model they can move and perform an action with it (in either order). Generally the action would be shooting or attacking in melee. All combat is done using twelve sided dice (D12s) and the statistics of the units. There are many examples in the rulebook to help understand how everything fits together.

An idea of how the game looks when it’s being played is below. You can see terrain, various miniature figurines, a dinosaur, some dice, some tokens, etc. This was an actual game in progress, not a staged shot. Click for the full size.

DC-Hills-and-Passes_17
Requirements to Play

  • A first game usually takes 60-90 minutes to play. Subsequent games where you are more familiar with the rules can take from 30-60 minutes.
  • The files above. There is a single rulebook PDF that has everything you need to play the game. If you want to avoid printing the document you can just view it on a laptop while you play.
  • Some posse rosters. The easiest approach is to choose from the provided examples above. Alternatively players can build their own posses (recruit members, upgrade them, equip them, etc.). To expedite this process you can use The Saloon online posse builder (with PDF export capabilities to easily print your creation).
  • Measuring tape, pencils and erasers
  • Miniature figurines, generally 28mm scale. I use a variety of miniature brands. Something to represent a dinosaur might also be necessary, depending on the Posse. I use inexpensive plastic toys (of the Papo brand).
  • A table with some kind of terrain on it, normally 4 feet by 3 feet. Smaller tables favor melee while larger tables favor ranged.
  • Twelve sided dice (D12s), a couple six sided dice (D6s). With certain dinosaurs a D4, D8, and D10 may be necessary, but you can get around this by rerolling a D6/D12 until the proper range comes up.

Overview-Components

Feedback
Both positive and negative feedback is much appreciated and can be done as a comment on this post or by emailing me at dinosaur.cowboys@gmail.com.

I’m generally looking for people to read the rulebook for clarity, grammar, etc. You obviously don’t even need to play the game to do this. Really any additional eyes on the rulebook would be much appreciated!
As for playtesting, actually running through a game (alone or with a friend) would be extremely beneficial and interesting to me. If you could jot down notes of issues or confusion that came up during play that’d be even better.

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New Undead Halloween Supplement

October 31, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Creepy Undead are shambling to life around the old bunkers and farms of the wastelands. Mindless, relentless, and frightening creatures shamble their way onto your tabletop in the first supplement for Dinosaur Cowboys. Pit your posse against four Undead creatures: Pioneers, Cowboys, Savages, and the Juggernaught.

Download the free Dinosaur Cowboys undead Halloween Supplement PDF

See the supplement play out in the Halloween at the Old Bunker battle report (or view the PDF online).

Yes that’s right, I decided to do a fun event for Halloween. I had been ruminating on some simple Undead rules for a while, and I thought I’d run a game last night using a playtest version of them. The basic idea behind Undead is to have a bunch of them on the table at once, not controlled by a player. They just mindlessly move towards the closest target and try to tear it to pieces. They don’t have any Hitpoints to track, which really facilitates putting a TON of them on the board.
What I did instead of Hitpoints was “Dark Power”, which is a dice type. For example Undead Pioneer’s have D6 Dark Power. When an Undead is hit with damage they roll their Dark Power. If it’s greater than or equal to the incoming damage they are knocked down, otherwise they are killed. I represented knocked down as both the Stunned and Stopped condition. On the tabletop I was just putting the figures face down to track this, then I’d turn them face up in their turn, and then the next turn they could move as normal. If a knocked down figure took damage while in this state they were denied their Dark Power roll, so they were outright killed. That made it easy to wound and then finish off an Undead.
With just a MV and MMC or RMC skill they are easy to handle on the board. I already had a 4″ piece of wood cut so I didn’t even have to measure their movement, I could just lay that down and advance each figure.
The variants of Undead are slightly different, with the Pioneer being the most basic (MV 4, MMC 5, 2A-5D melee). The Savage is slightly faster and attacks differently, the Cowboy shoots a basic 12″ gun, and the Juggernaught has quite a bit of Dark Power kicking around.
In terms of playing the Undead I made a simple generation chart for seeing how many spawn each turn. Worse case you get 6 Pioneers or 3 Cowboys/Savages. In my battle report I had them spawn from an old bunker but multiple spawn points could also work.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the supplement and find it fun. It definitely gives the game a different feel when you’re gunning down Undead left and right and half a dozen more are spawning each turn.

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Battle Report: Halloween at the Old Bunker

October 31, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Halloween Supplement
Get the Dinosaur Cowboys Halloween Supplement here, which will allow you to pit your cowboys against a few deadly variants of Undead! Happy Halloween!

Encounter Overview
This game was really fun and light hearted to play. I set out my spookiest terrain yesterday night, grabbed a bundle of plastic figures from Zombies!!!, put my Undead brainstorming ideas to paper, and rocked a Halloween special event.
Why the human posse were by the old Bunker doesn’t matter. They could have been looting scrap or old world artifacts, just passing through, or investigating the strange reports of shambling creatures. Regardless the living dead started to spill from the old Bunker. Their goal was clear: get inside and destroy the point of origin (which turned out to be a trapdoor).
I started the game with the Halloween Hunters deployed in a rough circle by a giant pumpkin. Barrels scattered from blast impacts acted as a crude shelter, and a rusty Cannon emplacement was nearby. The Bunker was in sight, but a seemingly endless supply of Undead rose to block their advance.

Details
Posse Deployment: Deploy first within 10″ of Pumpkin
Undead Deployment: D6+4 Pioneers and D3 Savages start within 6″ of the Bunker on a random side. This ended up being 10 Pioneers and 2 Savages. Each Undead rolled a D4 on Spawning for the direction from the Bunker they started at, with 1=north, 2=east, 3=south, 4=west

Cannon Emplacement: Action Phase to fire. 12″ range, 1A-12D Fireline
Bunker: Objective Trapdoor had 4 HP. Entering the building blasted the entity through a portal and to a random start point (either north or south) inside the Bunker

Variant Rules: Dual Wield
Special Rules: Halloween Supplement: Double Tap (Shotguns have 1D6″ Knockback), Fear of Death (never take BRV or DIS, rise as Juggernaught if killed), I Will Survive (+2 HP to all), Planning (do not roll Initiative to Activate, just alternate Posse/Undead each Turn)

Table Setup
Terribly shaky or washed out images of the table. My camera really didn’t appreciate a dark cloth mat instead of the usual grass or sand look:

Posse: Halloween Hunters: 120 IP, 2150 ND, 3 Traits
I built this posse entirely based on the coolest and most suiting figures. Plus it was a perfect chance to get my new latest two figures onto the table. How suitable is a Priest and a character from Zombieland for this scenario, right?! I basically started picking fun weapons and gear and worrying about the cost later, which is why I ended up with such a high Neodollar value.
First of all was Ronald Gin. Gin is a funny last name. He was my Priest figure, so instantly his shotgun pistol became a Sawed Off Shotgun. I gave him a Hunting Knife and Cloth Armor and called it a day.
His daughter is Alson the Red, and again I tried to match the figure. So she got a Heavy Pistol and Boom Grenades (since the figure has a big pack of grenades on her hip). Plus she seemed like the motivational sort, so voila I assigned her the “Get Up!” Trait.
Then Carl “Coyote” Sternah, my Zombieland figure. Dual Stub Pistols (I realized I don’t have machine gun pistols :( ) were an obvious choice, especially with the Dual Wield variant rule being used. He looked like the Bandit-y type.
Vladizlov and Trista Camus are old classic figures to me, since I’ve used them for everything from post apocalyptic to zombie hunting (see, they are veterans in the field) to my very first Dinosaur Cowboy battle report! Vlad got his usual Assault Rifle, but also a pack of Riot Grenades to represent the demolition pack his figure has. Trista got her usual 400kW Lever-Action Rifle and a backup six-shooter. Bandit for Vlad, Neotechnoist for Trista (poor Trista never gets above 12 HP).
For a dinosaur I chose my favorite one: Ankylosaurus, or in this case “Armored”. He’d be named Mace Mate, and hopefully could stand up to some clawing Undead hands pretty well with his AR 4.
In terms of IP expenditures I went pretty basic. Some -1 RMC here and there, a few extra HP, some faster movement, etc. Nothing too wild and thus why I was fine with only 120 IP.
Here is the result (note that this is before the “I Will Survive” special rule took effect, so they all gained an extra +2 HP beyond what you see):

Ronald Gin (Duster Leader)
MV 3, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 7, BRV 7, HP 12, Escape. Sawed Off Shotgun, Hunting Knife, Cloth Armor, Small IRP.

Carl "Coyote" Sternah (Bandit)
MV 4, AR 0, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 8, HP 8. Stub Pistol, Stub Pistol.

Vladizlov (Bandit)
MV 5, AR 0, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 8, HP 8, Knee Shot. Assault Rifle, Riot Grenades, Axe.

Trista Camus (Neotechnoist)
MV 4, AR 0, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 6. 400kW Lever-Action Rifle, 80kW Six-Shooter.

Alson the Red (Duster)
MV 3, AR 0, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 10, Get Up!. Heavy Pistol, Boom Grenades, Shank.

Mace Mate (Untrained Armored Dinosaur)
MV 3, PMV D4, AR 4, MMC 7, DIS 5, HP 20.

The Undead Menace
Here are the details on how the Undead played, as well as a picture showing who is who (and yes, that is a 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 Plague Marine). The only difference in statistics between my game and the Halloween Supplement is my Juggernaughts only had D8 Dark Power.

Special Rules
Dark Power
– Roll when hit
– Roll >= incoming damage = Stunned and Stopped
– Roll < incoming damage = killed
– Cannot use Dark Power when Stunned or Stopped
Relentless
– Ignore Difficult Terrain
– Never take Bravery Test
Shambling Horde
– When being attack never benefit from the Movement penalty
– Can’t Run
– Can Charge

Undead Pioneer
MV 5, MMC 5
Melee 2A-5D (Slowed on hit)
D6 Dark Power

Undead Cowboy
MV 4, RMC 7
Range 3A-2D (range 12″)
D6 Dark Power

Undead Savage
MV 6, MMC 5
Melee 4A-1D
D6 Dark Power

Undead Juggernaught
MV 4, MMC 5
Melee 1A-7D (1D6″ Knockback on hit)
D12 Dark Power


(Left) The mass of Undead waiting to be used plus an early version of the Halloween Supplement
(Right) A cool ruined vehicle left on the table from years and years ago

Blurry Deployment
Curse you camera!


(Left) The Halloween Hunters deployment. Gin on the Cannon, Trista in the back, Vlad in the middle, Coyote and Alson on the frontline, and Mace ready to distract up top
(Middle) The initial Undead sprawled around the Bunker, 10 Pioneers and 2 Savages! Some were already in range of the posse
(Right) The Cannon actually looks really cool up close, and in focus

Fright Night Begins!
T1: Having seen the shambling Undead arise from the Bunker the various members of the posse grit their teeth and await the onslaught. These are no amateur dinohands though, and four Pioneers drop from the combined fire of everything but Gin (who was out of range). Of those kills only a single Pioneer even got to roll their Dark Power (which they failed), since the rest of the damage was far above 6. Coyote especially impressed me, as he would the rest of the match, with a powerful opening salvo of two Criticals and two high hits.
After dropping their targets everyone moved forward…well, except for Gin. He hung back on the Cannon, just in case a quick retreat was needed. Mace Mate lumbered forward, his slow 4″ Run getting him ever closer to crushing Undead flesh.
Undead: +1 Pioneer, deploys west

T2: The firing continues in earnest. Coyote and Vlad kill a Savage each, easing some of the pressure of impending melee. Alson and Trista keep up without any problem, both killing a Pioneer. Gin feels left out so he leaves the Cannon emplacement and Runs forward. Mace continues his Run, stopping just past a wall.
Undead: +4 Pioneer, 3 deploy north, 1 deploys east


T3: Seeing the advancing horde of Undead Pioneers so foolishly clumped together Alson knew her best course of action. Grabbing a heavy Boom Grenade from her belt she flipped the ignition switch and threw it into the center of the crowd of walking dead.

BOOM! The grenades live up to their name as 4 Pioneers are shredded. Coyote looks on, jealously, then sets his own weapons to work. Along with Vlad and Trista they kill 3 Pioneers total. Gin and Mace continue their trek forward, both Running to keep up with the rest of the posse. The rest of the Halloween Hunters just shift their position slightly, with Alson moving north and Trista edging forward closer to cover. Vlad boldly moves towards to the cleared Bunker door, hoping to get inside and put a permanent end to the Undead horde.
Undead: +1 Juggernaught, deploys south

(Left) The first Juggernaught arrives
(Right) Vlad is almost to the front door

T4: The ground shakes as Mace finally reaches a witless Pioneer. Spinning furiously the Armored dinosaur smashes the Undead into pulp. Guns roar around him as Gin shotguns another Pioneer, while Alson edges into the cover of the rocks and downs a third Pioneer. Coyote levels both Stub Pistols and riddles the lone Juggernaught full of holes for 8 damage. Trista takes some time to reposition, Running forward to get into her optimal range.

Meanwhile Vlad finally reaches the Bunker door and enters. Instantly he is blasted by cold and disoriented, and when his vision clears he’s deep in an underground complex, appearing from the south entrance.
Undead: At this point the Undead in the Bunker were Spawned with three rolls on the Undead Generation Chart. The result was 9 Pioneers and 3 Savages, who were deployed throughout the tunnels.

In addition since the Bunker was breached the Undead started Spawning frantically. Now the Undead got TWO rolls on the Undead Generation Chart at the end of each Turn, instead of just one. This resulted in +4 Pioneers (2 deploy east, 1 deploys north, 1 deploys south) and +1 Juggernaught (deploys east).

Meanwhile the situation outside…

T5: Alson suddenly feels overly exposed, even in the cover of half a fence and a pile of rocks. She misses her shot on the nearest Pioneer and decides to move backwards. Gin on the other hand bravely moves forward, killing the only Juggernaught on his way towards the Bunker (7 damage vs a 4 Dark Power roll). Trista and Coyote both earn their pay, with the woman killing a Pioneer to the right and the man killing a Pioneer to the south. Mace continues his advance forward, killing the last Pioneer east of the bunker (4 damage vs Dark Power 2 roll). The Bunker door is clear once more, and Gin is very close to entering it.
Inside the bunker Vlad knows his situation is desperate. He’s not wounded yet, but the stench of death surrounds him. Easily, almost casually, he kills the first Pioneer in a long row of Undead, and advances around the corner to face the remaining horde.

Undead: The Pioneer nearest to Vlad growls and slashes dirty fingernails at the Bandit. The attack hits for 7 damage, which leaves Vlad with a deadly wound at 3 HP. The Spawn is +1 Cowboy, deploys west and +5 Pioneers, 2 deploy south, and 1 to each other direction.

T6: Gin continues his march forward, ending up right outside the Bunker door. Next Turn he can enter the sordid pit of death. On the way he kills another Pioneer, but empties his Sawed Off Shotgun in the process and needs to Reload! Coyote and Trista continue to methodically murder the already-dead, almost if they were competing for number of kills. Each bag a Pioneer this Turn.
Seeing the effectiveness of her last Boom Grenade and know the Undead tended to bunch up, Alson focuses on Reloading her grenade. Mace is much less reserved, Charging around the corner of the Bunker (since he can’t fit in the door) and trampling the first Pioneer he sees.
Inside the Bunker, Vlad kills the Pioneer that just wounded him and continues to advance. He knows the next foe may be his killer.
Undead: As the Pioneers on the surface advance, the Cowboy rounds the corner and fires his rusty revolver at the first warm target he sees: Coyote. The shot is true and the human takes 4 damage. The Savage facing Vlad easily hits him for 3 damage, which kills the poor soul. The Bunker remains in Undead hands. The Spawn roll was +4 Pioneers, 1 deploying in each direction, and the second Spawn roll was nothing.


(Left) Mace Mate continues to hold his own against the horde of Undead streaming from the bunker.
(Right) The mighty Vlad falls to the blade of a Savage

T7: Shaken by the horrible screams emanating from the Bunker, Trista fluffs her shot and misses the Pioneer in front of Gin (with 3 attacks on 7+ no less). Alson moves closer to Short range and kills the very same Pioneer, keeping her father safe and providing a clear route into the Bunker. Coyote and Mace kill one Pioneer apiece, with Mace’s method being a bit more brutal and gory compared to bullets.
Unwavering in his dedication to sunder the Undead home, Gin enters the Bunker. The entry portal puts him opposite where Vlad died, so he appears in the northern corridor. The leader hasn’t had time to Reload his shotgun so he draws his Hunting Knife and severs the head of the first Savage he sees. His eyes widen in horror though as the Savage merely falls rolling to the ground, hurt and stunned but certainly still thrashing (5 damage vs a Dark Power roll of 5!).

Undead: Even with multiple pairs of claws scratching at Mace’s hide, the Undead fail to hit him at all. The Undead Cowboy is luckier and strikes Coyote for another 3 damage. The first Spawn roll is nothing, but the second is a big improvement with +6 Pioneers (3 deploy north, 2 deploy south, 1 deploys west).

T8: Seeing Coyote pouring blood from two bullet holes, Alson desperately cheers him on with “Get Up!”. Her inspiring words restore 5 HP to the Bandit, and he’s now back to 8 HP. Ignoring the pain he focuses on the Cowboy while the Undead fumbles with his pistol. A loud crack echoes across the blackened land and the Cowboy falls dead(er). Trista regains her composure and shoots a Pioneer who was getting close enough to rush Alson and Coyote, but a lucky Dark Power roll saves the Undead (5 damage vs 6 Dark Power roll). Mace continues his relentless assault on the Undead, his strong muscles and heavy tail never tiring. Another Pioneer falls to his attack.
Inside the Bunker, Gin stabs down at the writhing, headless form of the Savage and kills it. He advances forward to face the next Undead menace.
Undead: Three Pioneers scratch, claw, and stab at Mace, but only one hits for 7 damage. The Pioneer in the Bunker facing Gin misses the dauntless Priest. And with the worse luck for the forces of darkness BOTH Spawn rolls result in nothing!

Both Spawn rolls come up with a 1-2 result of Nothing!

T9: The Turn starts encouragingly with Mace slaying another Undead Pioneer. Trista tries to support the mighty dinosaur by firing at one of his adversaries, but she misses the long range shot.
The spotlight again settles on Alson as she heaves another Boom Grenade at the closest clump of Pioneers. With a perfect roll of 12 on the single attack this…

…turns to this…

Seeing an opening Coyote nods to Alson and Runs through the nearby Bunker door. The entry portal is fickle and the Bandit winds up opposite Gin in the southern corridor. The leader hears his comrade’s feet clattering on the metal floor, and is inspired to stab another Pioneer to death, followed by a slight advance to the next Undead.

Undead: The Undead start strong with a Pioneer hitting Mace for 6 damage, and an underground Undead hitting Gin for 7 damage. The nearest Savage rounds the tunnel corner and lashes out at Coyote for 3 damage. The rest of the Undead in the Bunker shamble forward, eagerly awaiting their turn to rip warm flesh apart. This lucky streak of damage turns to frustration as BOTH Spawn rolls come up with nothing (again!).

(Left) The deadly fight in the Bunker continues, but the Undead numbers are dwindling
(Right) Another terribly unlucky set of Spawn rolls!

T10: Wanting to stand by her father in the fight against evil, Alson Reloads her Boom Grenade and moves towards the Bunker door. Covering her from the cover of a wood blockade, Trista kills the Pioneer blocking the young girl’s path. To the north of the Bunker the Armored dinosaurs tears another Pioneer in half, leaving only a single Undead creature facing him.
Underground in the Bunker both men kill another Undead, with Coyote getting a Savage and Gin getting a Pioneer. Both of them advance another square towards the trapdoor objective, but many Undead still block the way.

Undead: The Bunker forces perform well for mindless minions, with one Pioneer hitting Gin for 6 damage and on the opposite end of the Bunker another Pioneer kills Coyote! One of the Spawn rolls is nothing, but the other is +6 Pioneers (3 deploy north, 2 deploy south, 1 deploys east).

T11: Trista continues to cover Alson, taking aim and killing the recently risen Undead blocking Alson’s path to the Bunker. Alson sees her chance and dives through the entryway. The portal is finally on humanity’s side and she arrives behind Gin in the northern section. Immediately she makes her presence felt by shooting the nearest Pioneer with her Heavy Pistol. The shot hits for 5 damage but the Dark Power roll is 6, so the Undead Pioneer merely drops to the ground. Taking advantage of the opening Gin sheathes his knife and Reloads his Sawed Off Shotgun.
Above ground, the dinosaur wearily misses his attack on the nearest Pioneer.
Undead: One of the many Pioneers clumping around Mace hits the dinosaur for 7 more damage. Mace Mate is down to 2 HP from a towering 22 at the start of the game. All the Undead in the Bunker shift closer to the humans. The Spawn rolls result in +1 Savage (deploys south) and nothing.

T12: Lowering his freshly reloaded shotgun into the face of the knocked down Pioneer, Gin puts the sorry excuse for a life form out of it’s misery. He quickly steps back from the junction after hearing Alson’s hurried command over his shoulder. Just as he gets clear a spinning grenade flies over his shoulder. Alson has thrown another Boom Grenade, this time aiming for the t-intersection. The grenade looks to be sailing short (roll of 4 to hit) but Gin gleefully shouts “Yeehaw!” and the path ends up being true. The re-roll is an 11 and the Boom Grenade decimates the 4 Undead clumped around the intersection. Only 1 Pioneer remains in the Bunker, blocking the path to the trapdoor.

Above ground Trista kills another Savage at long range, while Mace fails to hit any of the four Pioneers around him.
Undead: With a horrible gurgling sound Mace finally drops to the ground, dead. Pioneers crawl all over the falling body, tearing chunks of dinoflesh from the corpse. The first Pioneer had hit for 5 damage which finished off the dinosaur. In total 6 Pioneers mindlessly shuffle towards Trista, who is all alone on the surface now. The Spawn roll results in +4 Pioneers (2 deploy south, 1 deploys east, 1 deploys west).

T13: The lone Pioneer standing between the survivors of the posse and the Bunker trapdoor is cut in half by Gin’s shotgun blast. He moves as far forward as he can, eager to finish his task and destroy the origin of the Undead. Alson Runs to right behind Gin. Above ground Trista kills another Pioneer and starts falling back to the Cannon emplacement. The powerful weapon can send a massive shot rolling right through the ranks of the advancing horde. And it truly is a horde, with at least a dozen Pioneers chasing Trista.

Undead: Massive Spawn roll of +10 Pioneers (deployed evenly on each side)

T14: Trista Runs and leaps over the old sandbags and grabs the elevation wheel of the Cannon, ready to put it to deadly use until the final Undead creature has been slain. In the Bunker, Gin lines up the most important shot of his life. The Sawed Off Shotgun masterfully blasts the trapdoor for 7 damage, destroying the feeble hinges and dropping the iron gate on the dark tunnel below. The new west is safe…for now…

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Lego Posse!

October 18, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy


How’s that for a fun looking posse! My friend sent it to me a couple of days ago. I especially like how the Raptor has studs on it’s back so you could take the legs off a minifig and easily mount them. It’d be easy to swap weapons to match what each member is equipped with. And there are enough wild west Lego minifigs to really get that cowboy look going.
It looks like Lego has a whole new line of “Dinohunters”, and four of the popular dinosaurs (T-Rex, Raptor, Triceratops, Pterodactyl). You can see the official site if you’re interested.
This makes me want to play a game of Dinosaur Cowboys using Lego posses. I think I could even use my original terrain, with perhaps some Lego buildings to keep it interesting and different. I know that there is an unofficial Lego wargame called BrikWars, and other games have been converted to Lego successfully. For example here is a set of photos from someone running Song of Blade and Heroes as Lego. Pretty cool stuff!

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

In terms of the game I’m hoping to get some expansion Undead rules brainstormed before November hits. I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month again…hopefully with more success than last year where I started strong and then totally teetered off and gave up. This year I have a couple more friends than normal writing and I’m trying to stay psyched about my topic (sci-fi space exploration).
Of course it’d be great to get one last game of Dinosaur Cowboys in before November, but we’ll see!

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Video Game: Primal Carnage

October 4, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Update Oct 29 – This game has been released

While perusing various video game sites I came across Primal Carnage, an upcoming (Fall release date) multiplayer FPS game involving humans vs dinosaurs. They title it as an “indie” game but in this case I think that’s a cover to produce a lower quality project…hopefully not though. The human classes seem sort of like a mirror of the popular Team Fortress 2 game, which is a bit of a pity. I’m probably just being negative and pessimistic.

The upside is the game looks good visually and could be simple fun. Sort of like Jurassic Park if the crew had started fighting back. The screenshot page on the Steam site looks like some neat ideas such as net launchers. I’ll have to wait and see what the gameplay looks like as it gets closer to the release date. But hey, at least dinosaurs are getting some more attention, since as they say on the website “Primal Carnage is one of the few games based around Dinosaurs.” Too true, too true.

I think part of the issue is these developers keep doing dinosaurs vs humans, instead of humans + dinosaurs vs humans + dinosaurs, which I think would be better and more interesting (maybe because that’s the type of game Dinosaur Cowboys is). Otherwise you end up in a situation where you’re on the human team and you just want to play a dinosaur, or you’re stuck with limited strategies because everyone on your team is melee based. I think Dino D-Day was one of the better approaches to this since at least the dinosaurs did something more than just charging forward blindly. Plus these games tend to put dinosaurs in the spotlight…which makes sense in a way, but at the same time I find dinosaurs do better as supporting characters and background pieces compared to the focal point. What I mean is if the human vs human aspect (without any dinosaurs) is boring, adding dinosaurs won’t suddenly turn a bad game into a good one.

And since everyone loves pretty pictures:

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Allegiance idea: Canadian Mounties

September 26, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

So I was thinking of some fun variant ideas, and one I came up with is Canadian Mounties. You know, the RCMP up here in the frozen north. In the background story I have Canada covered in ash and turned into a wasteland, more or less, so a small elite group of mounted police sounds perfect for this area. Plus the poster to the left was pretty inspirational haha.

I was thinking their main feature would be the ability to ride Flappers (Pterodactyls). Again in the background I’ve specified that Flappers are too skittish for combat, but maybe the Canadians have a secret training regime figured out to tame the beasts. I thought of this because if the ground was frozen and had three feet of ash covering most places I’d probably want to fly too.
Their weakness would be no wearing Armor since that would crumple their nice red uniforms. Maybe some mods to Bravery as well. It’s always tough to balance against the existing set of Allegiances.
I generally envision a Mountie as a light scout unit. Fast to move around on their Flappers, but without much punch.

I might expand all of this into an “expansion” to the core rules that deals with Canada. Extra rules for ash clouds and ash terrain, new weapons and equipment (pretty much mandatory in an expansion), some new dinosaurs, fleshed out Flappers (with variants), more Traits, etc. We’ll see how it all goes though when I’m back playing games and working on rules in October.

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Reaper Mini’s new Cowboys & Gunslingers

September 18, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

An interesting new initiative by Reaper Miniatures, a favorite company of mine due to their great and varied Chronoscope line of figures. This initiative is to graft their RAGE rules system (used in Warlord) onto a Wild West scenario, offer those rules for free, and then sell a bundle of their best cowboy models. Basically 10 models for $39.99 (at least where I am). They have this package listed as a new game, so I wonder if they’ll expand the rules in the future.
Regardless this is a good collection with lots of variety. There are a couple of torn-from-the-movies figures (like The Man With No Name, one I already own in fact), some generic cowboys, a classier lady, lawmen, bandits, etc. I’m thinking this is just a short term project to generate some easy money, but you never know, it could be the start of another well supported western game.

Speaking of western games it looks like Blackwater Gulch is still chugging along (I had mentioned them before). They are planning to do another Kickstarter soon, which happens to have a really cool reach reward of a D6 with dual pistols on it. Pretty cool! I’m happy to see them doing well since the author is a similar indie designer. Projects like that make me wonder if I should be taking Dinosaur Cowboys more seriously and less as a hobby, but that’s for another day…

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