There Will Be Blood

Here's a few photos from mine and Gary's game of Dead Man's Hand from a couple of weeks ago. I was going to write some sort of battle report but I've left it too long and the details are now too hazy for me to remember much about what happened. They say a picture says a thousand words though, so I've got roughly the equivalent of a dissertation here! 

The Dead Man's Hand rulebook includes several sets of three linked scenario mini-campaigns, each building up to the third and final climatic shootout. Typically, it wasn't until myself and Gary started this third scenario that I remembered I'd taken my camera along, and started taking photos. Maybe I should take that as a sign - the first two scenarios, where I wasn't taking photos, I won; this one, with plenty of photos, I was well and truly beaten!

The Marshall points the boys in the right direction

The opposing gangs at either end of the street; note the element of time travel, where the contents of a
17th Century European village have been mystically transported to Arizona

Gary's gang of Outlaws take up position opposing the Lawmen

Peeking round the corner of the building!

The Sheriff gets outflanked

The deserted centre of town - because everyone's ducking for cover!

The Lawmen boldly (foolishly) take the fight to the Outlaws

Gary's outlaws get the drop on the deputy

Outflanked and outgunned, and with a '2' for his Initiative, this deputy isn't long for the world...

In the end, I suffered an embarrassing defeat in the final scenario, with all but two of my Lawmen falling foul of the Outlaws (Gary managed to score three outright kills in this game!) Losing aside though, it was great fun once again - fast paced and furious, with bullets flying left, right and centre. What's not to like?! As Paul has yet to play a game with his own gang, I expect we'll be playing several more games of Dead Man's Hand over the next few weeks. Maybe I'll remember to take photos of them!

A Trip to the Old West

I mentioned in my Partizan post that we've been playing Dead Man's Hand recently, and that I had wanted to pick up a gang of my own at the show last week. There are four "official" gangs available from Great Escape Games specifically for Dead Man's Hand, but Gary had already bought (and painted) all four sets by the time Partizan rolled around. While they are very nice and characterful figures, I didn't want a duplicate set as my own gang, so I had a look at some alternative figures for use in Dead Man's Hand. Artizan Designs do some very nice Old West figure sets, and luckily for me there were several retailers at Partizan who were selling these sets. So, here follows a quick look at those figures I bought, and managed to get painted in time for last Thursday's game of Dead Man's Hand...

The whole gang - DMH uses a "Rep" (or Reputation) value as a points system for the game,
and all the official sets consist of 7 models with an overall worth of 21 Rep

First up, the Sheriff. Officially, the figure is one of the Earp
brothers, but I'll come up with my own names eventually

The Deputy Marshall - another Earp model

And the final Earp brother

The first of the Pinkertons, armed with a rifle. 

Another Pinkerton, again with rifle

And the final Pinkerton

The only non-Artizan figure in the gang, this chap is actually from Foundry. Although
the model is a bit chunkier than the Artizan figures, he doesn't stand out too much

So there you have it - the Lawmen ready to deal out tough justice and hot lead to all those varmints and critters plaguing the Old West. I had originally wanted to focus the gang entirely around the Pinkertons (Artizan make two different sets) but I could only find the one variant pack unfortunately. That meant the Earps stepped in at the last minute to provide the additional lawmen I needed. The Foundry figure isn't really a Lawman (he's technically a cowboy) but he's suitably generic-looking to be included. The only downside of making a gang up this way is the lack of any shotgun-armed figures. Each of the official gangs has one model with shotgun, and they are horribly brutal in game (provided they don't get shot up first) so I'll need to find a suitable model at some point so as not to leave myself at a disadvantage!