Components:The cards are of a good sturdy stock and the artwork excellent as well as being very thematic.
The board looks really great but it is a shame that the circles on the board do not match the size of the player tokens.
Gameplay:I will start by saying that I have only played the basic game so far. This game fits it's theme perfectly and the addition of the board compared to the other games of this series makes this stand out for me. Players take on the role of a cowboy in the ultimate bar room brawl using a variety of weapons from chairs to guns.
There is a huge variety of cards with weapons, fighting bonuses and defences all with great art flavour text that add to the theme well.
This is a last man standing game so there is a potential for players to be knocked out early on but I have found, on the games I have played, that groups have tended to hit the cowboy with the most health which helps keep the play even and the game enjoyable for all.
The players have a number of actions on their turn:
Scavenging Phase: Where they get to discard cards from their hand and/or draw cards upto a hand size of 7.
Weapon phase#1: Where you get to place a weapon in you hand or holster and/or swap weapons between your hand and holster. For each new gun you draw an ammo card to determine how many bullets it has. You can also play reload cards from your hand at this point.
Jump phase: Where you get to move into the no cover area if you choose too.
Fighting Phase: Where you get to declare a gun fight which can be against any player on the board or a melee fight as long a you can "reach" another player. On the board yellow lines show where you can or can not reach for these attacks. Attackers declare a gun or melee attack and play any number of appropriate attack enhancement cards the defender gets to play one defence card then takes any left over damage. The various areas on the board provide defence and/or attack bonuses.
Hunker down phase: Where players get to move anywhere on the board unless they have restricted movement, where they only get to choose between the orange circles.
Weapon phase#2: Where they player had the same choices as the first weapon phase.
On the very first turn players just play weapons into their characters holster or hand and then place their character token on the board.
This is a quick fire game with plenty of chances to produce some very cinematic style fight combos.
There is a lot of replayability here as you have the advanced rules where characters have different special abilities and the game can be played as teams with special team cards that are added to the deck.
ConclusionsThis game oozes theme and scales well with any number of players but works better with more. When playing this players do tend to get taken into the theme with merriment, cheers and jeers as the results of all the fighting pan out.
The game is very well balanced with enough there to provide for gamers, whilst still being suitable for non-gamers.
This is a joy to play and teach and will see a lot of table time. Really worth a look for anyone's collection.
