6 Player Showdown: Those Damn Blood Curses!

Today I was invited over to Hartlepool to take part in one of their six player showdowns, as one of their local regulars couldn't make it. Each player's faction had been drawn randomly beforehand, so all six were represented, and there were some extra variant rules in play: Shared uniqueness (no two players can have the same dude or deed in play or in boot hill), the option for more than two players forming posses in shootouts, and the controller of a deed collecting that deed's production in the upkeep phase were the most notable. The game was also played with elimination rules, and when a player was knocked out of the game at Sundown all their cards were removed from play and any dudes at their deeds sent home booted.

Given the Fourth Ring to work with, I decided to slightly tweak the hex control deck I've been playing since Euros last year. The main changes were that due to the shared uniqueness I didn't want to risk starting Jake Smiley only to lose him, so he swapped out for The Brute who I felt might help against early aggression. I also switched from Full Moon Brotherhood to the base set home, as I felt the card cycling and extra income would be more useful in this game (this definitely proved to be the case).

Aside from Valeria getting jumped by the Law Dogs early on after squatting on their Carter's Bounties and then getting Coachwhipped in lowball, I managed to avoid the early aggression, which certainly helped me build up my repertoire of hexes, making use of Phantasm and Phantom Fingers to mess with other dudes who threatened my deeds while Micah Ryse moved around town being annoying. By the time Sloane and Morgan had been eliminated I had both Soul Blasts, which deterred the low value Law Dogs and 108 decks from rushing me. Thankfully neither drew a Mugging!

As is often the case, a combination of booting dudes through movement (Shadow Walk and Phantasm give you the edge here), Blood Curse's Noon action and Rumors were ultimately what led to a Fourth Ring victory, but this was definitely helped no end by the three way shootout that cost me Kevin Wainwright and a stolen Steven Wiles (thanks, Backroom Deals!) but saw the Eagle Wardens lose some influence to a Shotgun and Legendary Holster before acing the Legendary Holster wielding Mr. Outang who had been giving us all headaches!

The game clocked in at about 5 hours, and was a load of fun to play. I'd definitely be interested in doing it again, and maybe next time I'll bring Lighting The Fuse!