Valeria Batten Rescue Party

As the name might suggest, this deck was a decision informed by the Servitor Series scaring me about some of my favourite story characters. And so the #SaveValeria campaign began. This was nowhere near the original idea I had for turning up at the UK season opener, something more huckster-ish being my first plan but it felt uncomfortable for me, so I decided to bin it and throw something together the night before. I mostly stuck with high values, though reckoned I could probably get away with one Legendary Holster, and thought I'd try one or two of the new cards, mainly Black Owl, Disarm, Taff's Distillery, Mausoleum and Nightmare Realm. Think I liked some better than others, but everything that turned up in my hand served me well.

Four games today with numbers and time as was, first up was a game against Mr Avery's gadget Regulators, under the dark guiding hand of Darius Hellstromme. I got a chance to get far closer looks at the Decimator Array than I might have liked. However this wasn't until a few rounds in as I was concerned about having to deal with a gradual stacking of horrendously shooty gadgets. Thankfully, I was packing Muggings, and thankfully they turned up pretty quickly. Between that and FMB slaps to the traits, I managed to keep things steady for a while, and got away with blowing a chance to claim the game with a play error of moving to the wrong deed. A brace of said Decimator Arrays came in and created a swing of influence which almost ruined my day, as did the hand rank punch in one shootout fair clearing me out. But the Brotherhood held firm long enough to get into another spot with the Decimator Arrays, catch a hand amended into a cheatin' 5 which might have ruined my day had I not managed to field test a timely Disarm. That concluded a challenging game.

Next up was David Woof's famous 108 Righteous Bandits. A little familiarity told me to expect an onrush of land slide. I was happy enough with the starting posse, so pressed on with the only plan I could make, which was to go sit as soon as deeds hit the table. Just as I got rather fortunate in the previous game with seeing Muggings when I needed to early on, I was delighted to see the one deed I had which I felt safe to drop in the Dead Dog Tavern, and was thus relieved that whilst my dudes were going to be tied up on a squatting operation, there was the ability to gather some economy still. I was just shy of being able to sit on all of them on the first day, so was further relieved to have made it to another. Happily, an affordable 1 Influence dude ( Absalom Hotchkiss I think?) turned up and helped out a little more. Despite the initial lowball Flight of the Lepus resetting my board position, I had time, I suspect due to a little economy minimising and perhaps not as many deeds as my opponent would like in hand, I was able to get into a nice state soon enough, and sitting on Pettigrew's Pawnshop meant it was easier to drop the Bowie Knife as a standard rather than a sneaky move in shootout and get some cash back! Marking Jake Smiley for hunting became enough to force the 108 to come for me and by this time, there were just enough little things out to make life difficult for the low bullet adventuring party whom, it was fair to say, were not killers. One by one, the plucky quartet of a storyteller, a salesman, a shopkeeper and a baby, were picked off by a combination of not-terribly-legal hands on my part, and a well-placed Coachwhip! when things weren't quite happening elsewhere. The Full Moon Brotherhood claimed the town for their own and I got my first win against a slide deck ever. Half time and I could already go home happy!

Game three was a proper head-breaker against a seriously tough deck and a seriously tough opponent in @whizzwang and a Protection Racket deck I did not immediately see for what it was. In continuing with some unusually good luck (for me) in a starting hand, I had Allie Hensman show up before I had any idea how much I was going to need her in this match. Despite the first of several lowball losses, I got to work getting dudes into the town square and started grabbing her daily control point straight away. Lucky break the second was getting Yan Li's Tailoring down early on. However Dan K managed on that first day to get THREE consecutive Fiddle Games out in a row. Wasn't a lot I could do about that level of brutal economy injection, so just had to ride it out and hope for the best. By Day Two, dude after dude dropped, and between Clementine Lepp, Barton Everest and Ulysses Marks, amongst others, it was very difficult to decide exactly who to mark with the Brotherhood most of the time. So I ended up not doing so and went to sit on deeds, as I had the previous game, but also to rack up some control points of my own in town. I very nearly conceded when I found myself in check and forgot that Leonardo "Leon" Cavallo was actually sat on a 0 - control deed in The Joker's Smile , which I'd been using quite happily to both fish a lowball Devil's Joker (Red) from a lowball Boot Hill and get some coin for one taking up valuable hand space. He vacated for a 1 CP deed, which sorted that problem out, and then I was faced with another in Ulysses Marks using his trait of gaining an effective control point by sitting in the Smile himself, a saloon. A trait, luckily, so he would become the target of Full Moon marking for the rest of the game, lest the control point finish me off. I kept giving Christine Perfect an influence through fancy threads as the deeds increased in the streets over from mine. Rumors rumbled in the Nickel Night Inn which booted my 1 - influence fresh dudes on a couple of crucial occasions, but the Brotherhood hung in there. Eventually, Pancho Castillo wandered over to the 2 control points I had down from the 2nd Bank Of Gomorra and though I had a booted dude or two with no influence of their own ready for a shootout, I instead called out Rabid Rance Hitchcock in town and started some trouble there. Managing to whittle down a vital couple of influence dudes with the shootout and cheatin' resolutions I had been holding in my hand for a rainy day, the tide swung just a little bit. Both in check, the last shootout we had saw that trusty Disarm find an opportune moment to be played and just enough damage got done to safely run home, and we counted up, within time. Thanks to Allie's diligent work in town and getting my bank back, the Brotherhood edged it on points. I spent seven days sweating on Allie getting discovered and called out for her troubles, but thankfully the Sloanes had bigger fish to fry elsewhere. Had we time for a final, I expect the rematch would have been interesting.

Finally, I got matched up with one of my most regular sparring partners on casual Thursdays in Amit. I'd briefly seen his Protection Racket deck before, but as mentioned earlier, the entirely different FMB deck I was running made it a very different game from the last time we played each other. I once more got a couple of breaks in my starting hand, in that I was able to get a deed down quickly, Yan Li's Tailoring once more, and also a Shotgun I was itching to put on Christine, but of course decent hardware isn't cheap, so I had to wait. The Sloane Gang aren't known for being patient, however, and Barton Everest and Lawrence Blackwood were on the move to shake down the tailors. In a slightly different day to any I'd seen thus far, I remembered Leonardo "Leon" Cavallo's ability when Blackwood showed up, and ensured he was too busy to use his own. Meanwhile, the mark got dropped on Barton which stopped him being able to give a natural edge to a cheatin' hand. A turn one shootout dealt with him with the help of some bullet punishment and by turn two, Christine got her toy. Silas Aims was getting quite the bounty though and soon became the centre of attention for the Brotherhood on account of a Bowie Knife or two showing up. That lost him a lot of bullets. Leon repeated his party trick on Lawrence and then Ms Perfect aimed true. With Jake Smiley succumbing to an Ambush and an unforgiving Coachwhip!, the Protection Racket was disbanded and the Full Moon Brotherhood ran the town.

Even whilst putting the deck physically together after sorting the general shape on the DTDB, very last-minute changes happened. Most of all, I took a chance by changing the regular Joker (red) to a Devil's Joker (Black) and it turned out to be a very good call. The Disarm was incredible for me, and The Stakes Just Rose actually replaced Burn 'Em Out just due to me finding my copies of the card first and thinking about it for a second. Definitely no regrets there. Not 100% sure I got the best out of the Nightmare Realm, but I might learn my way around it and see what happens. Didn't see the Legendary Holster all day except in draw hands, but I suspect I will if I play this deck again. All things considered though, I couldn't be happier with it really.