Bring out Your Dead Man's Hand!

I keep Dead Man's Hand in regular rotation. Win, lose or draw, there's nothing I play that generates quite as much color or laughter at the tabletop. Great Escape Games upped the ante this spring with Dead Man's Hand Down Under. This installment takes us to the Australian frontier, along with Ned Kelly, the State Police and Bushrangers.

The Ned Kelly gang are, no surprise, my favorites!  Their cobbled together armor is modeled perfectly with dings and holes throughout. I touched it up with a bit of rust weathering.  

The real deal.

The Bushrangers are tough lot.  In a game that models Hollywood's version of The Western, I love having a tough moll in my gang. Life is tough for a bushranger and they have the worn out clothes to prove it!

The State Police are all about the business.  Looks like a few of them rolled out of bed for the big showdown.

To round out the drop, I finished the prisoner set and Rogue's Gallery characters.

And a small painter's note, I've finally switched over to gray as my primer color.  It's true what they say.  Over time, everyone goes gray.  ;-)

On the gaming front, John S and I got in our annual game of DMH "Dead Again."  Once a year right around Halloween, the dead come back to haunt Coyote Gulch.  For a time, it looked like the Dead had the town in hand.  After two failed Big Nerve tests, both sides fled the town and the game ended in a bloody draw!

If you're celebrating, have a great Halloween tonight.  Game and paint on!

The streets of Laredo

With all my SAGA gaming and painting, I got a bit distracted from my Dead Man's Hand work. Here are some lovely bits of Old West color for the finish line.  First is another great kit by 4Ground. Is there anything their lasers can't do? I don't think so.

The roof opens up so you can put passengers inside.  I did not glue the passengers in as the interior is quite dark and my customer might use them for tabletop color.

These characters are for the 4Ground Gallows.  They're suitable for planned or impromptu Old West hangings. Poor cowboy, where did you go wrong? Don't tell me, you fought the law and the law won.

In DMH, you can't have too many casualty figures.  These prone cowboys went West for the gold and stayed for the whiskey and women.  Looks like that didn't work out for them.

This pair is the DMH Rogues Gallery.  I went for a Rooster Cogburn look for one, and a buckskin suit for his Winchester-wielding partner.

The only thing more fun than painting Old West is playing Old West and I've gotten in plenty of games lately.  I do believe DMH its the most fun you can have on a tabletop with your boots on. With all the rules I play, that's high praise!

Let's exit to The Clash's "I Fought the Law and the Law Won."  Brilliant live performance!

The Quick & the Dead -Dead Man's Hand AAR

Hugh and I got to run the new gangs in DMH. Hugh played the banditos and I ran the Pinkertons in the Judge Barker scenario.  DMH is played in 3 rounds, or scenes, that roughly model classic Western films. The first scene is a small and fast showdown leading to second fight, and ending with a Big Showdown that sees both sides field their full gang.

SCENE 1 Judge Barker Must Die!: The banditos are out to kill Judge Barker as he's sentenced one of their brethren to hang. The Pinkertons must keep the Judge alive and kill 2 of the 4 banditos.  Hugh took to banditos like a duck to water. Plethora of Pistols meant his pistol-armed bandits never ran out of ammo.  Ambush let him remove a bandito from the table and bring him back later in the game. Using Ambush, his shotgun armed bandito became the Grim Reaper. One by one, my Pinkertons fell to the shotgun and then Judge Barker fell too. Scene 1 to the banditos and I do hope the Agency collected in advance for this job!

A sleepy Western town. 

Deploying in front of the Undertaker's Office is never good.  

Banditos pop an ambush. The Judge can run but cannot hide.  

"4 large coffins, please. To go.   "

Business is booming.

Pinkerton down. Pinkerton down.  

"I'm afraid there's been a terrible misunderstanding, Mr. Muerte!" BLAM!

SCENE 2 The Gauntlet:  With the Judge dead, the Pinkertons loaded a witness into a wagon with 2 Pinkerton guards. All I had to do was get the witness off the table.  Easy right?  Well, no actually. The banditos put riflemen on rooftops and gunmen in the livery where I was starting from.  Just as my wagon passed by, a shotgun opened up and down went my first Pinkerton.  They were all to fall in my run to the border, er, other side of the table.

The wagon made it to the table's edge before a bandito rifle dropped my driver and halted the wagon. I sent a Pinkerton agent to replace the driver but he went down in a hail of bullets, as did my witness. With my Pinkertons failing to keep the Judge and the witness alive, I'm forced to change the agency motto from "We never sleep" to "Bad stuff happens!"

Things get hot from the start.  

The well sited riflemen caused us no end of difficulties.  

The banditos sweep the "Whose hat is bigger?" contest.  

Trouble.

Double trouble.

Last Pinkerton standing. 

The "forever" siesta.  

The Big Showdown:  This town ain't big enough for the both of us! Each side put 7 gunmen on the table and quickly, a back ally became a hotspot.  Both bosses and shotgun armed fellows answered the call. My shotgun wielding agent whiffed with both barrels 3 times at short range, earning him the nickname Mr. Magoo. Before he could procure glasses, he was cut in half by the shotgun-wielding bandito, Mr. Muerte. I did manage to kill the bandito boss and that came into play at the game's end when both gangs had to take Big Nerve tests.

Outside of Rogan's Bar, I had a run of good luck when my agent  dropped 2 banditos in cover over 2 rounds of shooting.  

Now you see 'em.

Now you don't.  

I ran my surviving Boss and right hand man to an alley near the outhouse.  Both gangs were below 50% so we started each round with a Big Nerve test.  Hugh and I passed our tests round after round, and we both continued to bleed out.  At the end, I was down to just my Boss and the banditos were down to two Caballeros. Finally, Hugh failed his nerve test and ran. The good guys win but it's nothing to celebrate.  The Pinkertons have 6 new openings to fill and they need to ensure the press doesn't publish the story of Judge Barker and the witness. The shame of it all!

The new gangs were a blast to run and I must say I like Dead Man's Hand more with each play.  It is fast yet challenging with so many options on a well set table.  The 3 scene structure builds a colorful story and energy for the Big Showdown.  The clever activation system keeps both sides guessing and plotting. Lastly, the game goes  well with beer.  What more could you ask for?

This woman means to kill us, boss!

Hiding in the alley by the Thunder Box.   

 A small queue builds outside of the Thunder Box.  

Banditos for Dead Man's Hand

I'm back to the blog after a family vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I filled my days with hikes to waterfalls,  great food and local craft beers. Southern hospitality is alive and well. The locals I met treated me like a neighbor and not a road weary stranger. As much as I needed the break, it is great to be back home again and at the painting table.

Banditos are the last gang off the table for The Legend of Dead Man's Hand. With plethora of pistols as a gang attribute, they don't suffer "out of ammo" results. Ambush allows a gang member to disappear off the table and reappear elsewhere. They can also use hostages as human shields and also toss dynamite. When it comes to camp and color, banditos cannot be beat.

Figures in Dead Man's Hand get roughly used. When a figure tumbles from a 2nd or 3rd floor perch during a game, they can get chipped. I've switched to a Krylon Matte finish instead of my usual sealer to reduce chipping. While providing a bit more protection, Krylon also dries to a satin finish. All of this is to say that the figures look shinier in the pictures below than on the tabletop.  

I was able to expand my palette with this bunch. The Mexican blanket was a bit of fun and the gang leader in black was as well. He could almost pass as the great-great grandfather of Cheech Marin.

Before I paint, I profile my subject by collecting a folder of inspirational pictures and articles.  I found loads of great B & W photos of banditos. Here are a couple of my favorites.