Tin Star Saint (Hartlepool Peacekeeper Winner)

The Peacekeeper series is focused on the Law Dogs, so sticking to form I wanted to represent them at the event. However rather than wheel out my trusty 3/6/8 Bounty Hunters, this was an opportunity to play around with some new and different cards.

With Out For Blood now in my hands, I could build a deck around one of the new dudes. I went with a Deputy who is himself out for blood on the streets of Tombstone: Enrique Dos Santos. Enrique has a really cool ability. He's able to set up an incredibly unfair fight if he calls out a wanted dude. This is definitely something that you can build around. Of course, most opponents will look at the ability and refuse any callout he issues. While this does make him an effective area controller once you've spread a few bounties around, you really want him to be getting into shootouts and bringing a full posse to rain hot lead retribution onto a single wrongdoer. Pinning a Tin Star to his chest amplifies his threat significantly. Once he calls out a wanted dude, that dude has no choice but to fight.

Once Enrique has his Tin Star and is bossing town square, and there are plenty of bounties to pick on, your opponent might try bypassing him by sending a less important dude out to be called out first - do you use the ability and mob the unfortunate spod, knowing if you don't then they can call you out and bring their friends? If you do that then there's always a risk of trickery, and following a successful shootout another can take place where you can't call on Enrique's ability. The deck has got a trick that could come in handy in such a situation. With We Got A Beef! you can call out the sacrificial lamb, React with Enrique and swap in a far juicier target to be the mark, while keeping the posse formation restriction in place.

If your opponent is just hiding at home, then You're A Daisy If You Do will let Enrique pick out a dude to call out, and if they are wanted and he has his Tin Star, there's not a lot they can do about it. Bounty Hunter and Clyde Owens offer some alternative options for going after dudes hiding at home.

While opposing dudes can't join Enrique's shootout during the posse formation step, they can move into the shootout with abilities later. Scoop Hound is there to prevent that from happening, and also keeps dudes from escaping or being sent home from the fight.

Enrique does have his weaknesses. Having a very low value of 2, and total grit of 5, he's a prime Shotgun target and vulnerable to several nasty hexes. For that reason I included lots of copies of Tusk in the deck to provide a measure of protection for Enrique and also Tommy Harden. Mobility could be an issue for him - if he's not in a position to take advantage of his ability it doesn't help you. While I was lucky enough not to have any problems with this on the day I could definitely see situations where you wouldn't be able to get the best out of him. Perhaps adding a Bluetick and a Guide Horse to help get him around town would help in that regard. Opponents who also plan to camp the town square can seriously ruin your plan if they get the upper hand early on.

Switching up my starting posse to include Enrique was slightly problematic, having been spoiled for so long by "Thunder Boy" Nabbe's combination of good influence, stud power and low cost. Starting Jake Smiley isn't ideal for Law Dogs as you want dudes with actual influence to boot with the home ability. This wasn't a massive problem on the day but could give you tempo problems against some opponents. It was slightly problematic in one matchup where I couldn't stick a bounty on Lane Healey early on thanks to his high influence, but thankfully I got Constance Daughtry into play early in that game to help out on the bounty front.

My first game of the afternoon was against Peter's Fort 51 deck that finished in the top four at the Edinburgh European Championships this summer. However Peter hadn't played since that event, and his rustiness showed after we had started the first turn and I remarked "That's interesting. Fort 51 and no Mad Scientists". He had selected the wrong starting posse for the deck and gone with a more traditional bounty hunting start. This error was compounded as he drew lots of gadgets early and had no way of clearing them from his hand, letting me go about my turns largely uninterrupted. This was unfortunate, as I hadn't played against the deck in Edinburgh so it would have been nice to see it in action. As it was there wasn't really much he could do to prevent me from executing my plans - A Slight Modification only helps when you have a Gadget to modify.

Next up was Graham's Morgan Stables Legendary Holster deck - a combination that inspires more terror than any Fearmonger ever could. Thankfully luck was on my side on several occasions during this game. Graham had a slow start, with only one Horse hitting the discard pile for Maggie Harris to fetch over the first few turns. I wasn't suspecting Calling The Cavalry in a Holster deck, but was able to weather it thanks to the paucity of Horses though it blunted my early attempts at aggression before the Holster showed up. I built up my side of the town and spread bounties around while Graham finally set up Lane Healey with a Legendary Holster and then a Pinto a turn later. The time for clever play and dirty tricks saw me avoid getting hit by the Holster thanks to lowball wins and We Got A Beef! switching Lane into the fight Unprepared, however I wasn't able to cause enough casualties to get rid of him. Nearing time on the round after some manoeuvering, I set Gang Yi up to take a Holster to the face, guessing Graham would keep Lane out of the initial posse and ride in on his Pinto to avoid any Unprepared I might be holding. True enough this happened, but he then pulled a Calling the Cavalry so the Holster's one shot all game was a dud round. My plan once the holster was out of the way was to use You're A Daisy If You Do to jump a now unprotected Irving, but time was called during the Gang Yi shootout. The tiebreakers went my way, and I was happy to take a timed win against such a tough deck.

Finally was Ste B's Desolation Row deck. There wasn't really much clever play in this one. Ste was playing full throttle aggro but unfortunately came off worse when he attempted to run jobs against my dudes at home and didn't see any dudes to replace his casualties.