"I've brought my new killer deck with me."

There are some sounds of collective sniggering and a few sighs from UnclEvl's shed.....

Well what is there to say? It was a standing joke, until fairly recently that is, when the Doc chucked a huge box of duplicate cards my way. This is a list of all the cards I had before this momentous event(to see the list click here to download an excel spreadsheet of my old resources). I had not been playing Doomtown for very long. To be honest I only got into it about a year ago. Since then I hear it has sort of gone tits up. It also looks like I may have to give up being able to build a turtleing deck like those the Doc and UnclEvl appear with.

So having just received a load of duplicates from the Doc I decided to try out building my very own deck that worked for a change - you know the sort of deck that did what it was supposed to? I aimed to keep it simple and make sure it was a good laugh to play. I also wanted to develop a new angle on the game if that was possible.

Now you won't know what I have been up to in the past but I have had some strange deck ideas. There was one time I turned up with the jail in my Blackjack's deck! The reasoning was that if I played it then no-one else could... OK!

Rangers home: Card art by Tom Fowler, used without permission (at this stage)

I like Doomtown a lot it is a good game and I do enjoy our multiplayer tussles, I also think the artwork is superb. So given all of this it is worth trying to do something with whatever you have, no matter how limited your resources are. This page is about a deck I have finally built which is a good laugh to play in multiplayer. It isn't a sure fire winner - but who cares... I ain't got the resources for that anyway!

After some odd experiences with some really bizzare combinations I had managed to put together (purely by chance) I finally got round to reading what the Doc and UnclEvl had to say about card combos. There is some great advice in these pages most of all I liked the idea of having a concept for a deck. Until recently I just couldn't do that and so the whole game mystified me to be honest. OK so what would I try?

First off I liked the Texas Rangers. For me their home ability indicated that you had an outfit which was good at roaming around very effectively. Take Rails Richardson he can take himself, and a strong backup dude, and basically move from one strike to another without booting. Couple this with the home ability and you already have a group of dudes that can literally 'range' around and support each other very effectively.

Rails Richardson Card art by Tom Fowler, used without permission as yet.

The thing about moving around so much is that at some time or another people are going to get a bit pissed off with all your tresspassing. As a result I felt I needed to be able to hold my own in any shootouts, and aimed to produce as many five of a kinds in shootouts as possible. Risky I know, and the cost of all of this was likely to be that the deck would cheat a lot. I thought for our multiplayer games that this would be worth the risk. For single player games I have been working on a few modifications but maybe thats a point for discussion anyway.

Dudes

I usually start with "Rails" Richardson, Barthalomew Prospectus, Billy No-Neck, and Rex Handlen. In the deck I also have Zeke Beauchamp, Danny Hamilton (experienced), Tombstone Frank, Sergeant Sean Slade, James Hasting, Isaiah "Holdout" Curwen, Far-Away fred, Mad Dog Campbell, Clell Miller and finally for some interesting fun later in the game - The Drifter.

I try to play the game with two posses an in-town posse and an out of town posse. These can be mixed and matched according to how the game goes. In addition the Ranger's home ability allows you a lot of fluidity so you can usually respond fairly well to any need for reinforcements.

Strikes?

I bring "The Thunder Gulch Strike", "Foale's Folly", "Drop in the Ocean Strike", "The Gaping Maw Strike", "Strike Experiment #1", and the "Look Homeward Mine". Yeah, I know they are all cheap assed strikes but there is a logic underlying my choice of these strikes.

Drop in the Ocean Strike Card art by Tom Fowler, used without permission as yet.

Deeds?

For deeds I decided to bring "The Clock Tower", "Penny Arcade", "The Undertakers" (2x), "The Town Well" and "Scooter's Lift Winch". The idea for each of these were that they are fairly innocuous. The Clock Tower would prove useful for the tangles I was going to get myself into. The Penny Arcade and The Town Well have high values for my draws and in addition have one income and one control point respectively, something which is useful for this deck. In addition as the game wears on Scooter's Lift Winch can be used to link your in town and out of town posse's the idea being that if you get into a bit of a fight you will be able to bring your team together fairly quickly.

Shootout Actions

Defendin' What's Yours - The deck has four Defendin' What's Yours.

Defendin' What's Yours Card art by Tom Fowler, used without permission as yet.

So What?

Essentially the idea is to play the game as follows initially you spud out your cheap strikes "Rails" and Barthalomew Prospectus move around the strikes doing what they are here to do. Well all control points are typically based in or around the town square. What if you bring along cheap assed strikes which nobody is going to pay any attention to and spread them all around the place? What if you use Barthalomew Prospectus and Rails Richardson to move to these strikes using Defendin' whats yours? The idea is to build Control Points over time and make sure these are spread out throughout your low value strikes.

But why just stay at home and do this? Why not go ahead and use Claim Jumper to attack the strikes of other players? With Rail's ability and enough of the higher value dudes in play you can usually maintain a fairly respectable defence. Couple this with the threat of claim jumpin and your opponents will have plenty to think about.

Is that it?

It is the basic philosophy of the deck. There are a few variations I feel you can build around this basic philosophy. Essentially here is what else I use at the moment. I bring along two copies of "The Maze Runner" to increase my mobility around those strikes even more. "Termite Infestation" to attack some of my opponents cherished deeds but also because it is a Jack of clubs and remember I am trying to keep using high value cards for my draw hands. The Deck also has "Arson" times two.

I only have two "Cheatin'!" cards in the deck these are "Flight of Angels" and "Jackelope Stampede".

The rest of the deck is made up of noon jobs to attack those in town locations including and shoot out actions. I bring along The Clock Tower so I can use a few shoot out actions like "Burn 'em Down". The Undertakers 'cos I intend to go huntin' as best I can. Finally I have added the lift winch - what better way to link your newly acquired strikes and your various possees than to have the lift winch? This way you could have a hardcore posse in your lift winch ready to move out.

The strikes I use tend to have high suit values so I usually have high end draw hands. Kiss winning lowball goodbye, but thats only for girls with pussy hucksters in their posse anyways! This is by no means a killer deck(which is why it is ironically called that!). It has a lot of weaknesses, the first most obvious one being that it cheats like a bitch! If it is played in a group of say four players however it should more than hold its own and provide some interesting gameplay.

Card List

So thats it - a novice's first attempt at trying to put together a bit of a strategy for Doomtown. Not perfect by any means and I hope to try and tweak the deck to make it better. I also hope to build a less Cheatin' version of it. I enjoyed building the deck and was even more shocked when it actually worked a bit!! I think another weakness would be to face off against the Maze Rats. Although fairly recently Doc and I had a two player game and although this deck lost it was a very entertaining and close fought game going right to the wire.

I am only a young greenhorn so we thought it might be a good idea to what do let the others have their say...