Story
Immediately after the news of the Ghost Rock strike leaked out
of Ghost Creek, the Collegium arrived with all haste to stake
their claim. However, they found they were not the first to arrive,
the Blackjacks already had taken over the town, and were using
the center of town as a fortification. The Collegium broke out
every weapon at their disposal to drive the Blackjacks out of
town. The Range Wars had officially begun.
Goal
The attacking player must take over 75% of the total Victory
Points (standard boomtown victory).
Setup
1) Choose the outfit to attack with and decide on total strength.
A 50 pt army should be quite challenging for your first game.
2) Choose the outfit for defense and build it to the same strength
as the attackers. For the defense, you need to build an army of
shooters (rifles are preferred.) Avoid magical units, large (11+
cost) units, or units with special abilities that are pointless
in this scenario (such as Fleet-Footed or abilities that require
specific cards to boot). Be sure to build a strong defense gang
to counter your attacking gang.
3) Randomly choose six Deeds and build a two-player town. If there
are Deeds that are advantageous to the defender's units, be sure
to include at least one for use (such as a Government building
if using Portman's Posse.) Place the Deeds at random, but be sure
to use the Terrain side in the outer most deeds (so only the 4
inner deeds are Buildings).
4) Chose 20 points of defenders. Set them up between the two buildings
facing the attackers Home. To deploy, choose a defender at random
and flip a joker, heads one building, tails the other. Place them
evenly and aggressively, so they can shoot the units coming out
of the attacking Home Deed, but not so close to be ambushed immediately.
Play
Play the game as normal, with these exceptions:
Deal Phase
Do your side's card playing face up. Then shuffle the defense's
cards and lay them randomly over each defender face up. This will
allow you to plan some basic strategy, but give the enemy a chance
to surprise you.
High Noon Phase
When a defender boots, follow these rules in this order:
1) If there is a special ability that can be used, use it. Ignore
it only if it is clearly pointless in the current situation. This
includes using Deeds like Doctors Office.
2) If the attacker is in the building and can be pinned, the defender
will move to brawl. Remember, in a building units may only flip
once.
2) Shoot at the closest attacker in LOS. Defenders never Quickdraw.
4) Flip once (remaining inside the building) to get closer/better
LOS to the closest attacking unit.
5) If the unit is somehow outside (due to the attacking force,
no doubt), move (w/ shoot if needed) to get back inside.
6) These rules should work for 90% of the cases. If you find a
hole, just play the defense as best as you can.
Economy Phase
The defender's production is limited to only his Home (10
pts), plus any PR bonuses his units give him (but NOT the production
of the Deeds he occupies). This limits the rate that units come
out and makes the Home a more tempting target early in the game.
Recruit the most units you can, starting with the most expensive and choosing randomly when there are multiple choices.
For each unit you recruit from the gang stack, choose the closest building that is not controlled by the attackers. Throw a joker. If the joker is dead, put the unit in that building. Otherwise, move to the next closest building, and try again. If a unit does not get placed in any buildings, place it in the Home area.
If the defender has no production (due to the attacker controlling his Home and no other PR modifiers active), the defender may recruit his strongest remaining unit on his Home only.
Again, always place units aggressively so they can start firing immediately, but avoid exposing them unnecessarily. If an attacker is inside a building or Home, you may pin an attacker with the deployment.
Strategy
The attackers needs to decide if he wants to:
- Try to take over the town one building at a time, while the
other buildings slowly get more reinforcements,
- Split the attack to try and take two or more buildings while
they are relatively undefended,
- Move quickly to flank to the lesser protected buildings in an
attempt to get more units out faster then the enemy,
- Make a beeline for the Home and attempt to cut off the defense's
supply early,
- Or a mixture of any of these.