Dead Man’s Hand: Cowboys

For a look at the changes to this gang in the 2024 release – check out Dead Man’s Hand Redux: Cowboys.

The rest of this post is about the gang under the original rules.

The Cowboys are one of the original 4 gangs for the Dead Man’s Hand Wild West skirmish game available from Great Escape Games.

The rules for them are available for in the original rule book and their stats can be downloaded from Great Escape Games website, and are also suitable for use with characters you can create using either Gunfighter plastics or Gunfighters 2 plastic box set.

Their gang specific cards are included in the Core Card set – which comes with the rules or can be bought separately.

Now I don’t own this set of metal miniatures, but instead used Great Escape Games Gunfighters and Gunfighter 2 plastic sets to create my set.

The Cowboys are described in the rules as

Whether they’re passing through droving cattle or set up in nearby farmsteads, the Cowboys are tough, crafty and won’t back down from a fight.

Sometimes the buckaroos run into town lookin’ to get all roostered up and participate in a bit of whoremongerin’.

Usually they’re hard-workin’; straight-shootin’ folk, but I’ve seem more than my fair share of cattlerustlers and brigands.

Dead Man’s Hand Core rules – Great escape games

There are 4 characters available to the Cowboys

Range Boss – a gang must have 1 of these. Here we see the first main change between this gang and others that is equipment – this character can have a pistol, rifle or repeater. So far lookin’ at gangs this is the first time a Boss can have a rifle.

The “Man with No Name” – mine is known as ‘im over there – as always a gang doesn’t have to have 5 rep point character but can take upto 1, who can then be armed with either a pistol, rifle or repeater.

Cowboys/girls – the gang must have at least 2 of these, they can be armed with a shotgun, pistol, rifle or repeater. Only 1 may have a shotgun.

Greenhorns – the gang can include upto 2 of these, just like the outlaws. These can have either pistols or rifles, and up to half (so 1 if you take 2) can have a rifle.

This is the first gang which DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE AT LEAST HALF THE GANG ARMED WITH PISTOLS – and where most characters can carry a rifle. So why might you wish to take a rifle?

Ok you can only have 1 shot a turn – but you can aim twice, it has a close range 10cm longer than a repeater so less chance of a negative on firing at range. Really the question is do you want volume of fire (pistol, repeater) or quality fire (rifle), or short range death (shotgun)

Their 2 special rules are

• SEE HOW THE CAT JUMPS – so this is an each turn rule. Once all initiative cards have been placed and revealed, the Cowboys player may place a card face down to any model of his choice within 20cm of his boss. The owning player may look at the card and does not reveal it to the opponent, the owning player may then chose to replace the original initiative with this new face down one. Now the way this is written it appears that the card could be played against an opponents model should the player choose – not sure why you’d do this but it doesn’t appear to discount this Will go and double check the FAQ’s
• TOUGH AS OLD BOOTS – once per turn, when a Cowboy character is facing a nerve test that may put him out of actions, the player may use this rule. The nerve test is then taken with no modifiers and is passed on a 3 or greater.

These 2 rules are mutually exclusive – i.e. if you use one in a turn you can’t you the other.

Their Jack, Queen, King and Aces cards also bring some interesting options

• ACE – “The gunfight is in the head, not the hands” – this card can only be used on a character in cover or a building and is played when an opposing model activates and declares at least 1 shooting action at the model in the building or cover. This card gives the model 3 actions to take before the shooting model shoots. The only limit is that at least 1 of the actions must be a move.
• KING – “True Grit” – use this card on a Cowboy model with multiple under fire markers, it causes a recover action to clear all under fire markers rather than only 1.
• QUEEN – “If they move, kill ’em” – this card must be played when a cowboys actions are declared, and TBH you really should be declaring a shooting action as one of them otherwise its a bit of a waste. It allows one obstacle that would block Line Of Sight to be ignored – so long as the target is within 20cm, the target benefits from counting as obstructed so there is a -1 to the to hit roll. This really is where the character knows the coward is behind the wall and so just pumps the wall full of lead.
• JACK – “You boys better move away” – this card is played on an opposing character that has already been activated so long as it has no under fire markers on it. The cowboy player gets to move the model 10cm in any direction, however you can’t move them into contact with an opponent and you can’t make them fall of a building or hurt themselves during the move.

Thats The Law , The Outlaws and The Cowboys done from the Core set, just leaving the Desperados.