Allie's Barton Army (York 30-09-18 Winner)

Probably the first, and hopefully the last, deck title reflecting the chequered history of Scottish football....

This is the deck with which I rode my luck to a 4-0 finish at the splendid Random Encounter games cafe in York, amongst a friendly field of 11 Doomtown aficionados.

My first and only idea when putting this together was "wouldn't it be fun/evil to play an Outlaw deck in which both Sun in Yer Eyes and Unprepared are on value". I then flung in all of the other cards I always use, as I knew that keeping it simple would play to my lack of strengths.

My matches swung on the following lucky card draws, and howling play errors gotten away with:

Game 1, Dave A's Arsenal - A town square shootout on day 2 saw an Unprepared Dave reveal a cheatin' hand in round 1, whilst I had the good fotune to be holding a Disarm, losing him a Yagn's Mechanical Skeleton and saving me some casualties. The next shootout round went my way, and I was able to sneak an early win having accrued 6 CP by the end of the second day.

Game 2, Mark's Protection Racket - I've been playing a lot of Protection Racket decks on OCTGN recently, so I know how irritating it can be to watch your opponent discarding deeds while you find none of your own. So, being a total jerk, I did just that. I then took the jerkliness a step too far, and made a ridiculous attempt to run the Des Row job with only Marion Seville and another draw dude, hoping Mark would consider this an obvious trap (Bowie Knife etc) and let me away with it. Mark, being smarter than that, called my bluff only for me to get unreasonably fortunate in drawing a legal 4 of a kind, surviving to fight on and pinch another early win. Shocking stuff.

Game 3, Vince's Beyond the Veil - My chronically bad decison making against Mark was a mere appetiser to the howler I made next. Early in this game I somehow managed to conflate the Legendary Holster effect with that of Shotgun, two cards which I play regularly and have no business forgetting. Vince had attached the Holster to Sarah Meoquanee, so I merrily sent Barton Everest to the town square, safe in the "knowledge" that he would be fine. One short shootout later the Outlaws somehow walked out mostly alive, carrying Barton's remains in a small bag. The First Peoples had no such good fortune, Vince having lost the shootout by 5 ranks, against all odds.

Game 4, Robert's Regulators - Early on in this game it was my turn to get a little unfortunate, losing Willa Mae MacGowan in a shootout despite having reduced Robert's bullets and studliness considerably beforehand. Then again, that's what Willa's for, and I was able to regroup and try again on day 2. This time Robert overcommited while taking out an isolated Barton, who was squatting on his Nickel Night Inn in an attempt to make the town square safe for Allie. Not unreasonably, Robert had considered that a competent Doomtwon player might have played out his deeds earlier in the round. I, on the other hand, had held on to the Carter's Bounties which might have saved Barton's life moments before. All that remained was for the Best Dude In All Of Doomtown, Buford Hurley, to run the Des Row job for the last control point I needed.

At least I think that's what happened.