Come on in, pull up a seat, and take a load off, pardner. High noon is no time to be wanderin' around Gomorra, and this place is as good as any for takin' a bullet siesta. I'll regale you with a couple o' historical learnin's and a tall tale or two. If you're lucky, you'll pick up an idea or two to keep yourself upright. From Black Hats and White Hats: Heroes and Villains of the West by Harold Rabinowitz A few years before this town turned into the Devil's hootenanny, 1837 to be precise, a man that come to be known as Wild Bill Hickok was born in the fair state of Illinois. Wild Bill grew up to lead the kind o' life most of us can only dream about. Frontier scout Union soldier, and spy, he combined fast hands with dead-eye aim to garner 'im a reputation for larger- than-life exploits. Hickok, it's said, killed a bear with one o'Jim Bowie's pigstickers. He shot George Custer's younger brother Tom dead, in order to break up a drunken brawl. While servin' as a U.S. Marshall, he joined Buffalo Bill's travelin' sideshow somewhere between Hays City and Abilene Kansas. It's there, it's said, he met and began a lifelong affair with "Calamity"Jane Canary. What's interestin' is, even after Hickok's vision faded and he accidentally plugged one of his own deputies (the unfortunate Mike Williams, God rest his soul), his star didn't fade. He found himself duckin' outta gun fights, spendin' drunken nights in jail, and wastin' all his time tryin' to make a livin' gamblin' He married Agnes Lake, owner o'the Wild West circus, and settled down in Deadwood, South Dakota, and here's where his life became less important than the way he met his Maker. For the handful o' Greeners out there that been too busy duckin' lead and dodgin' upturned gravestones to read up on events o' Wild Bill's demise, it was short and not so sweet. Caught with his back to the door durin' a hand o' cards, the cowardly villain Jack McCall, a hundred dollars in the hole from the night before, pulled out .45 caliber's worth o' cold courage and shot Hickok clean in the back of the head. Hickok pitched over holdin' the two pair-aces and 8s that came to be known as the Dead Man's Hand. That's where the history lesson ends and the fussin' over our fair town o' Gomorra begins. Nearly every new Doomtown player gathers up his her first bunch o' cards and tries to build a deck to hold ol' Wild Bill. A Dead Man's Hand, for those o'you who haven't gandered at the hand-rankin' chart in your rule books, is as good as it gets. An A spades, A clubs, 8 clubs, 8 spades, and a lonely J diamonds, exactly, will get you a hand rank of 11. That enough to send four Dudes outta one o' them pesky Full House decks straight to visit ol' Bill himself Now, right off the bat let's be clear about the goal ol "Wild Bill," or "Dead Man's Hand" (DMH), deck. The way the tourney environment stands right now, a DMH will get you about a 3-3 finish in a normal Swiss-format tournament, 4-2 if you've made a deal with the Devil. So what's the point, you say? Whether you're playin' in torneys or playin' with your friends, if you're out to just have fun, there ain't nothin' like seein' the look on the other player's face when you throw down that Shootout hand and his or her posse starts droppin' like eggs outta a six-foot hen. Splat. So let's get to the down and dirty. And who knows, maybe you'll be the one to come up with the wrinkle that makes the "Wild Bill" deck worthy o' the gunslinger it is named after. Gen Con, 1998. My first attempt at a DMH deck started with seven or eight of each DMH value and a handful other cards. I recommend a maximum of seven of each DMH value, as eight doesn't leave you enough room for anything else. I built it Law Dogs (we only had five Outfits to choose from back then, and the Sioux had been out a total o' two days). I started with five Dudes in my posse, and, for the first day, that didn't include Nash Bilton. That was a mistake, 'cause back then, and even now, callin' cowards outta their Homes is an important part of any shootout deck. Back in those good ol' days, I had to make do with a couple of Ambushes and a brand-new card called Throw Down. And I was only able to gather one o' those. So, tip one: get 'em outta their house. While you don't want to play the spades or diamonds that make up your DMH values, usable clubs are imperative for gettin' cards outta your Play hand. And nothin' says lovin' like the classic 8 spades, Kidnapping. That first time through, my strategy involved two or three ControlPoint Deeds, the same value if possible, which, because o' the lower number o' cards in the set, yielded a twofold problem. The first part was gettin' the Deeds and Dudes you put in there into your hand. My first solution was to start with four or five Dudes, to clear as many cards up front as possible. That left a lack o' startin' ghost rock, and since one o' the two main problems with "Wild Bill" decks is losin' a lot o' lowballs, those Deeds had to compete with those 5-ghost-rock Ambushes for the precious stone. Tips two and three: find a way to get your hand clear, and find some cheap Control Points. One o' the best early cards, still underused in my opinion, is Lady Luck. This beauty allows you to discard as many cards as you want at Nightfall, and, if you can believe it, it's an A clubs. While I could only get two that first time, there's four in there now. And with the addition o' The Lode and The New Town Hall, you'll be able to dig for a growin'-Control-Point Deed, drop that sucker, and let'em come to you. The rest o' the deck you tailor to your play style, but here's some tips: Pick your DMH-value Dudes for usable abilities, in case you need to drop one. That sounds like a no- brainer, but what I mean is, don't worry about their Bullet ratin's. That sounds pretty wacky in a shootout deck, but you know what you're drawin' for, right? If you don't have most of a Dead Man's Hand, you're gonna be able draw into a Full House. You can even get Four or Five ( Kind without much effort. A Draw Dude with Influence should win out over a no- Influence Stud every time. An the cheaper the better. Remember, you'll pretty much be losin' 1 ghost rock a turn from gamblin'. You're gonna be cheatin' pretty heavy, which is the other main drawback to a "Wild Bill" deck. Don't forget to pack some Cheatin'! cards o'your own. The 8 clubs Jackalope Stampede goes into a "Wild Bill" faster'n one o' Buckets Nelson's sharks eats chum. And don't forget another overlook a Cheatin' card, Cheatin' Varmit. It's an A clubs that makes your opponent drop three ranks, and if there's anything better'n beatin' a cheatin' Full House with a Dead Man's Hand, it's beatin' a cheatin' Three of Kind with a Dead Man's Hand. The Outfit's up to you. The last on made for Origins was Texas Ranger: gave me the standard No Funny Stuff/Experienced Katie Karl combo (great against the "Take You With Me" cheese) and the ability to move when I wanted. I won one game by bein' able to move into a Collegium Secret Lab. And since I'd just killed all the Collegium player's Dudes, that 1 Control Point was all I needed. Well, looks like it's settled down out there some. I hope you picked up a couple o' usable tips through all this. Like I said, the deck might not win all the time, but I got your tall tale to help you try it out: Gen Con, last year. Poor Cassidy Green sat trapped at Strike against Austin Stoker and a powered-up, RocketPack-wearin', flamethrowin' Gunther Hapworth. That brave girl lured 'em in, then used her 0-Draw Bullet ratin' to a natural five-card Dead Man's Hand. And that's the number-one reason I like the Doomtown game better'n any other TCG: sometimes the little gal wins ... thanks to a drunken, washed-up gambler tryin draw into a Full House. Back to The DoomTown Epitath Issue 3 Table of Contents Back to The DoomTown Epitath List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Alderac Entertainment Group This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com