Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Dead Man's Hand Game & Gang Sheets

I pulled out my Dead Man's Hand stuff yesterday to play a game with Roy Scaife.  We played through The Dawn it Will Come scene ... more on this shortly.  I setup the town with the standard crossroad configuration.  This was the first showing for the old west town mat I purchased from Terrain Mat.  The mat worked out great and the added space allowed me to use all of my buildings I have built - with some space to spare (yay, I can build more buildings).




One of the things I've been meaning to do for a while is to make some sheets to remove the need to put the activation cards on the tabletop.  I did up gang sheets for the gangs I've painted so far.  You can see pictures below (and a link to download if you choose after the pictures).

I place the cards just under the picture of the figures.
When you pick the card up you can see the statistics
for the figure being activated.

Desperados

Lawmen

Outlaws

Pinkertons

US Cavalry

You can download the gang sheets pictured above here.

I always forget how much fun it is to play Dead Man's Hand.  We don't pull it out nearly enough to play and that is something I will be fixing in the near future.  I also still have the remaining gangs to paint (civilians and casualties as well).  Anywho ... on to the game.

The first scene was In The Silence Of God.  I played the Pinkertons and Roy played the Outlaws.  In this scene one of my good guys sees a no good dirty bad guy sneaking around a wagon.  He checks it out and things turn bad.  Both sides have a single figure with another single figure in reserve.  Neither of our reserves made it onto the table as the scene ended when my good guy blew that no good varmint out of his boots with a 19 on the die roll!





Scene two was Like Blood Across The Sky.  The early morning events have roused the rest of the gangs and they are not happy about what happened.  I was able to draw an extra card into my hand for winning the first scene.  This scene ended when either side lost two figures.  We used our full gangs but without the leaders (so six figures a side).  I was able to pull the victory off here as well ... but just barely!











The final scene was Dawn It Will Come.  It is now full on warfare in the streets!!  One gang ambushes the other in order to end things once and for all.  We both had our full gangs and I was able to once again draw an extra card into my hand.  As I also won the first scene I was deemed the ambusher and Roy's poor fellers the ambushees.  All of Roy's models had to start in the open (essentially out in the middle of the street) while my guys all started in the buildings (with the exception of one guy that had to be out with the rif raf.  This was a bloody encounter.  Apparently Pinkertons make horrible ambushers.  We both lost over half of our gang ... with Roy pulling out a big swing in the last two in two hand-to-hand combats that forced me over the half way mark.  We both owed big nerve tests in the last turn and I managed to pass mine while Roy failed his.  Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good!




























In all it was a great game from start to finish - and bloody!

24 comments:

  1. Great report and pictures. I need to try this game.

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  2. It sounds like a very fun game. Great pictures!

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  3. I don't know the game but it looks to be cool. The terrain, the buildings and the painted figures are very goog.

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  4. I just recently started playing DMH with my son...and it really is one of the most fun skirmish games out there!

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  5. Exellent pictures Jay

    Happy new year!!!

    Best regards Michael

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  6. Great game and love your board!! I too love to play this game.. just curious if you have stumbled across an easy way to tell what gangs are what suit in the cards... the basic game does not spell it to well....oh, and LOVE the gang sheets, mucho handy for this game! :)

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    1. Thanks Chris!! I should add the card suit to each of the gang sheets. Revision 2 on the way ;-)

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    2. Thanks! Also, ever experiment with more than 2 gangs playing? Like 3-5 players? I have been thinking about how to make that work... I guess you'd need multiple card decks... Be interested in your thoughts on this.

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    3. We've done 4 players with two decks. Didn't work very well. The only thing I've been able to think of is you use the gang sheets, but only assign cards to one of the gangs per side, then as you activate a particular model, the model from the 2nd gang sheet in the same "position" also activates at the same time.

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  7. Great report jay, and the board looks great! What book are these scenes in?

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    1. Thanks Chad! Those scenes are from "The Legend of Dead Man's Hand" (the first expansion book).

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  8. Great idea about the player sheets. Brilliant terrain and figs that bring the scene to life. I love the little stories that seem to emerge in DMH. Makes for a great game.

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  9. Bit late for the party here Jay, but got into the DMH just now. Anyway to get the Gang sheets for the Curse too?

    Very nice report, and one reason for me to get this game as well.

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    1. Hello! I don't have any of the curse stuff :-(

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    2. Just got the book, mostly about zombies and stuff, but two gangs for 'normal' games. Mountain mens and the 7.

      I love the original movie Magnificent seven, so had to get the Seven gang.

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