I figured this was more of a strategy question, rather than a rules question, since I don’t think I am misunderstanding the exact rules. I am just a little confused at to the benefit of many jobs that have an impact upon particular people. For example (I can’t think of the name of it), but one of the jobs aces the mark if it succeeds. But if you go into a shootout, and nobody backs down, then that mark will be aced in the end anyway, or the leader’s posse will flee, or the mark will find a way to escape. So, aside from giving the leader the opportunity to make bigger posses, and from further away, what is the point of jobs that harm a dude?
Another example, which is most relevant for my deck, is the card #Curse of Failure. My understanding behind it (since I can’t find any clarification for conditions) is that you must succeed on the job to give that card to someone. Effectively the benefit of it is that the mark pretty much becomes useless. So, if the opponent doesn’t have any cards in his deck that can remove conditions, what would be the point of allowing that condition to succeed? Why not just let your mark die in the shootout (possibly even be discarded, and then bring him back later)? It seems to me that it’d be very rare that the job succeeds - it’d only succeed if the mark’s posse doesn’t want to risk any casualties.
Perhaps I am missing some finer details here, but does anyone have any thoughts?
This is a great question. I’m on my phone so this won’t be as detailed as I could be.
Jobs start fights. Even if the target dude could die instead, or could suffer the effects of a condition, the player running the job gets to start a fight. Often in a place they couldn’t catch you to call you out. Advantage goes to the job leader.
Casualties. Usually the player running the job has bodies to spare. A good opponent is going to catch you with a job when you don’t have the bodies to spare. Taking a point of influence off at the right time can win a game. One casualty may be all they need.
They want the goal of the job. Sometimes if the job discards your dude, you might be able to discard that dude without losing the game, but they might need that dude off the table to complete their plan.
Bait. An excellent player will bait you I to a fight. You’ll think you can afford to fight off a few guys kidnapping your dude. Next thing you know, he has the influence to take your deeds while all your dudes are booted at a location and can’t go retake your deeds.
You hit an excellent point too. Sometimes, it’s perfectly acceptable to lose your dude instead of suffering the effects of the job. Be careful though. They might be trying to discard your dude (kidnapping) and you might get him aced if you fought in the shootout.
Early on when I played lots of fourth ring control, I played with so many cheap starting dudes, I’d let them kidnap anyone they wanted. I was safer letting one dude discard than I was trying to fight and lose several dudes if it went poorly.
It feels as though every single other aspect in the game - position, movement, and shootouts - is epitomized in a job. Strategically, you have to consider and weigh the most amount of factors each time you run, defend, or passively allow a job to play it’s course. Some key questions you will ask yourself include:
Is it worth booting out a significant amount of my dudes to run or defend against a job? If I let my opponent succeed and go home booted, can I leverage the new positioning effectively? How many rounds should I stay in a job? Which casualties should I choose before I know if my opponent will stay another round? How can I trick my opponent into overcommitting to a job I run?
When dudes are more spread out, you can also use a job to launch a surprise attack before your opponent can move back up into position to support their isolated dude.
Also, you can make it look like you’re getting ready for a shootout somewhere by moving all your dudes to town square, then sending a dude to take a deed or threaten a call out somewhere. If your opponent starts moving dudes there to be ready to fight you they’ll often be leaving dudes elsewhere without backup, at which point your dudes can ride out on a job to attack the easier target instead.
