Ah yes, good point about reliably spreading bounty around!
Oh! smacks my head All this time I was aiming to create straight hands, thinking they were of a higher value than full houses, and having the mindset of having to aim for all my cards to be in a 5 or 6 value band (ie everything being 5-9 or 5-10s). This was becoming very frustrating as it meant that certain cards I really wanted were just outside of that range. Now I don’t need to worry so much! Haha! 
Okay, so just been having a look through the cards at 3 specific values only. My thinking is to have 4 different values, and aim for around 10 of each value. That way I’m unlikely to get anything above 2 pairs in lowball, but shouldn’t find it difficult to get a full house in shootouts. My starting posse will not count towards those 10. At this stage I have looked only through J, 10 and 5 and have the following. Not saying I will use them all, but these are the ones that currently seem to fit in my plan of attack (ie cards that send dudes home booted, work off bounty, or give me an advantage for having a legal draw hand):
ATTACHMENTS
5: Sentinel and Confession
10: Guiding Light, Gambler’s Gun
ACTIONS
5: Accidental Reunion, Pistol Whip,
10: Someone else’s problem,
J: Law goes underground, Flight of the lepus
DUDES
J: Carter Richardson, Wendy Cheng exp1, Sheriff Eli Waters
5: Father Tolarios, Elmore Rhine
10: Deborah West, Clyde Owens
DEEDS
J: Cochise County Courthouse
5: Hart’s Tea Shoppe, Epitaph Branch Office,
10: Carter’s Bounties, Gomorra Jail
I’m heading off to look through the cards that don’t fall on those values now!
(oh, and Thunder Boy)
Bojanges,
If you are avoiding Straight-Flush and Dead Man’s Hand structure, I would strongly point you towards a “Classic” 3-Value Full House Structure, as it is really reliable. Something around 40+ cards from your chosen 3 Values (5, 10, J for example), plus 5 starting dudes, plus the remainder all cards with different values from each other.
Maybe consider 4-5 Values to start, then “trim down” to 3 Values, putting any “must-have” cards into your Remainder?
Many folks here can re-iterate that “4-Value” decks are so mathematically unreliable in a shootout that you might as well not have a structure at all (at which point you are playing a different strategy altogether).
Thanks for that! I’ll try that 5 values trim down. 
A straight flush is certainly possible, and was my original thought. I imagine it’d be too difficult to pull off regularly though, without having value/suit changing cards, which I feel will then weaken my other strategies by watering them down.
@jordan_caldwell, @Doomdog, @Benni Hey guys! Here is a vague sample of my deck, with a detailed description of how I aim to operate it. If any of you can give me some suggestions, I’d be mucho appreciative!
Test phase law dogs - Amazing Rhetoric or is it Fiery Grace? · DoomtownDB
if you start Law Dogs, you’d have a spare GR to start Willa Mae…
Draw structure is a bit to loose for my taste. A few ideas:
You only need 1 Confession. Skip almost every off value deed and add others on value 9 and 10. Great deeds on those values. Drop Lepus and add another CR on value. 9? Walk the Path is an undervalued Miracle. Consider dropping some of the expensive dudes for cheaper on value dudes like Henry Moran and Rosenbaums Golem. Having some to throw infront of a bullet is priceless.
Bojangeles, I highly recommend you cut either the 5s, the 9s, the 10, or the Qs.
Else, you will likely find that you never get better than a Two Pair in a shootout.
I will also second the request for adding a 5th starting dude, but will recommend Henry Moran over WIlla Mae MacGowan because of his synergy with Philip Swinford (and Justice in Exile).
Thanks!
Yeah, you’re right about the draw structure. I’ll add in more 10s definitely! Walk the Path could fit in there too. With Father Tolarios, it probably doesn’t matter so much if I don’t have multiples of the more minor blessings, as I can just get them back. Good call!
I’ll have to look into some more CRs! My thinking with Lepus is that it’d pretty much allow me to end most shootouts straight away, while still keeping opposing wanted dudes alive for use with Rhetoric later. Also, do Cheatin’ Resolution plays count as “Resolution” plays as far as the rule of “only dudes in the posse can be affected, unless it brings them to the posse”? It doesn’t specifically state this, and I assumed that Cheatin’ cards are different to straight Resolutions, since players not in the shootout can use them. We always play with 3 players, and my thinking was that when the other players are in shootouts, I can whip out a Lepus to make his dudes on my deeds run home booted, even if they’re not in the shootout. Not sure if that’s legal though.
I have always liked Willa and wanted to find a way to use her, although I think Henry would be more useful.
Thanks!
Hmmm… getting rid of the queens might actually free things up nicely… I can have my starting posse be Hattie, Tommy, Phil, Tolarios and then bring in Henry…
If I did that, I could build on the 10s a bit more. Put in a couple “Putting the Pieces Together”, to give me a constant +1 hand rank. With Henry, even if I happen to draw a cheatin’ hand during lowball, it would get nullified completely (that’s the way I read it, since it says “if you would reveal…” and “use the new hand instead”, but please correct me if I’m wrong), so I’d pretty much never get cheatin’ cards used on me…
I’d still need to keep in Amazing Grace and Stevie Lyndon, but I can get rid of Clay and Ebenezer, and the other Qs.
Hmmm… Okay, this seems to be fitting together better, I hope… Haha!
Thanks.
May I recommend for your start:
Tolarios 4/1 @ 1 INF
Stewart Davidson 4/0 @ 1 INF
Padre Ernesto de Diaz 4/0 @ 1 INF
Philip 3/0 @ 1 INF
plus
Henry Moran 1/0 @ 0 INF
Out of Justice in Exile (18/+3), this means you have two skilled dudes (in case you lose one), two stud dudes, two Deputies, 4 influence, a reliable way to generate bounty for Tolarios, and a minimum of 3 ghost rock to start.
Actually, I fiddled with the starting posse, and was already thinking of those exact guys, with the exception of Lucinda 2/1 instead of Stewart. It is an extra upkeep, but with the potential of dealing out several bounty at a time.
I’m thinking that 14 cards in each of my 2 main values, and then 10-12 in another value, with the rest off-value.
And a variant for when I want jacks instead of queens as my minor value card:
https://dtdb.co/en/decklist/3148/amazing-rhetoric-or-is-it-fiery-grace-jacks-variant-
I like the Jacks variant, it seems like some of the cards help your game plan more than the Queens. If your opponent is on your Private deed you can send a dude to contest it. Hopefully they call you out and boot several dudes to join, all getting bounty. You can under-commit, then use The Law Goes Underground to escape from the shootout with no casualties taken on either side. Then have someone run the Fiery Rhetoric job at a hopefully now less-well-defended town square to get some sweet CP. A dude with the Buffalo Rifle could even end up in both posses in this scenario.
2 Likes
Thanks! Yeah, it seems to have a lot more synergy with my existing cards, and more in line with what I wish to achieve. I really wanted Stevie Lyndon (more for the blues feel than anything else!) and Amazing Grace, but I don’t really need Stevie or the other queens as much as I do the jacks. Law and Lepus do sound like they’d be very effective cards! Got my first game with them tonight, so I’ll see how they go!
@jordan_caldwell @Benni I’ll be using the deck for the first time tonight, using the jacks version. I’ll let you both know how it performs! Thanks for all your help so far!
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So, it worked very well in its debut match! One of my opponents uses the Gateway to Beyond starter deck, which has a lot of mobility through its totems, and the other opponent uses a Morgan deck with a lot of horses and gadgets (including flamethrower and forcefield). Both are pretty strong decks. I had difficulty with money for the first 2 days, unable to bring a lot out (although I brought out a couple deeds and Clyde Owens). There was a bit of deed attacks in the first couple days, but not much success for anyone. I mostly camped in town square. It wasn’t until the third day that I started getting any cheatin’ resolution actions too, and was only able to put 2 bounty on among the 2 opponents.
On day three, though, things changed a lot. I was attacked by the First Nations player, but managed to hold him off with cheatin’ cards. We both only lost 1 guy each in three rounds of fighting - my hands were generally lower or equal, but I was able to reduce casualties. By this point, I had managed to put around 10 bounty among half a dozen dudes. In day 4 the other 2 players had a huge fight in town square - the First Nations player lost one or 2 dudes, the Morgan player lose all but one. I then got attacked by the FN player, but managed to pull out a cheatin’ five of a kind (I felt dirty about it! :p) to his 2 pair. Had my hand been legal, it’d have been only a three of a kind. The entire posse got wiped out. After that it was quite easy for me to take over enough deeds from the players to win the game.
Overall it was a very enjoyable game! I did have fiery rhetoric on Tolarios by this point, and was hoping to use it, but all the death made it useless! Better to save that surprise for a future game anyway!
5 Likes
→ Clyde is more of a late game dude.
https://dtdb.co/find/?q=clyde
He is great at flushin’ out turtles and home campers. But 7 is a lot of GR early on, and that 2 GR upkeep is a gift that keeps on giving. It worked out ok, but if it didn’t it can really cripple the economy as most of your income is supporting clyde vs. further development.
Yeah, it definitely was difficult to justify Clyde at the time. That being said, by that point I had the Gomorra Gazette out (that was my first deed), so I was at least gaining some GR from placing bounties. But yeah, I was losing 4 per turn in upkeep. My choice was either him or Gang Yi and, as good as Gang Yi is, I really needed that 3 stud bonus!
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