Peacekeeper Series- First Timer!

Howdy folks! This was my first event and actual first time playing Doomtown. I've been collecting the saddlebags and expansions for about a year now after discovering the game and absolutely love everything from the theme, the deck building, and the actual gameplay itself.

I found out by checking the Pinebox forums that there's a group of players near me in Raleigh, NC that participate in the series plays when they come out. A great group of guys; they showed me the ropes and I believe took it quite easy on me (I still went 0-3 on the day).

As stated above, I've dabbled with the deck building but never actually played and so I believe my deck obviously has a ton of flaws that become evident as one gets more acclimated to the game. I set out to try my first deck as one that didn't have to worry too much about influence early on as well as mitigated the costs of deeds, dudes, and goods. I knew with this idea in mind that I would run Morgan Cattle Co. as my outfit and other cards that immediately came to mind were Baird's Build and Loan, A Piece of the Action, Max Baine (Exp.1), Serendipitous Arrival and Telegraph Office. With those cards locked in for sure I had to work around dudes and draw values suited for MCC/Entrepreneurs. Maybe for necessity or just because I love the card for some reason I wanted to include Rémy and thus settled on J's as a value then found that a decent number of Q's would give me horses, gadgets and a hex. From there I had this crazy notion of a hybrid gadget/hex deck with Lillian as my dedicated huckster and a splash of the low-cost mad scientists available. Already you can see my dilemma: starting gang woes. Max Baine (Exp.1) would be perfect for these higher value dudes but Lillian Morgan has to be in starting due to her being the only means of using those hexes.

Game 1 - First game ever played and my opponent ran an aggressive Desolation Row deck set up for straight flushes and not afraid to cheat. In this game my starting posse was actually irving, kyle, max baine exp, and "Lucky" with marty attached. My starting influence gave me a little cushion but my opponent started a slew of strong shooters and ran job after job to get his economy robust as well as claim town square without a chance of opposition. As I feared, I drew hexes which couldn't leave my hand fast enough and never got the chance to really bring in any of my decent shooters via max. I did get a few deeds in play but never had a chance at defending them once he moseyed on over. Overall, the heavy action deck really made me fear getting into shootouts and Desolation Row and This is a Holdup! gave him tons of income while mine never got going really. Went out in a blaze of glory actually winning a round or two of shootouts drawing very lucky legal four of a kinds, but ultimately losing all my influence.

Game 2 - In game 2 I decided to make the switch and drop max and lucky from my starting posse, instead opting for Lillian, Irving, and Kyle. This left me with 0 income and 4 wealth but I felt a safe amount of influence so long as I could avoid shootouts. My opponent was running Law Dogs that appeared to be focused on deputies and cheating resolutions. This game actually lasted the longest of my three as both of us were hesitant to be aggressive and move across the street really. I was able to use Lillian with MCC and get quite a few deeds into play and whenever a shootout did occur I was able to spring Serendipitous Arrival or drag my dudes in with Lillian to encourage my opponent to run home and try again another day. I remember getting puppet on Lillian and that made him scared to bring his Xiong "Wendy" Cheng anywhere Lillian was. While my economy was progressing well, he was still able to boot and isolate Irving and Kyle for shootouts, thus leaving me with just Lillian and from there I was unable to draw enough guys to keep him from capturing my control points for the victory.

Game 3 - My opponent in game 3 was also running law dogs but I believe it was a blessed/bounty deck. This opponent also played very aggressively as he saw my starting posse and seeing no studs did not hesitate to start running jobs against my poor shooters. It didn't take much more than a Bounty Hunter and Ol' Fashioned Hangin' to seal my fate fairly quickly. Lesson learned = if I'm not starting any real shooters I better be able to remove myself from shootouts before the damage is done. I actually lasted longer than I expected due to a lucky Flight of the Lepus on a job he started as well as a Serendipitous Arrival or two. Ended much the same as the first game: lost my dudes before I could establish any decent gadgets or hexes.

Overall it was a blast! Glad to have finally played my first games and I'm excited to try again whenever I can find anyone for casual play or an event. The guys were even gracious enough to stock me up on promos they had extras of and let me have the Quaterman Prime playing mat even coming in last place! If anyone has the opportunity to play at Game Theory with Kevin Huang and the guys it would be well worth it as they are all-around great guys.

As for the deck, I was disappointed to not be able to use a single Yagn's Mechanical Skeleton as the only time I believe I found it in my play hand all day was after my last mad scientist had been discarded/aced. It likely wouldn't have changed the outcome really as I still really missed having a stud in my starting posses. I still think it was a fun idea with high value-high cost dudes being the bread and butter and finding creative ways to get them in shootouts for much lower costs was unexpected at times. Anyways just thought I'd introduce myself and show everyone the results of my first attempt at playing. If anyone has any pointers that could make this deck operate better or any tips in general about certain cards or the game I'd love to hear them!