GUNFIGHTER'S BALL BUILDINGS; A TEASER

A little teaser for the new buildings.
This is a really simple one from the new line of Gunfighter's Ball buildings (but it's the one I happened to have assembled); it's pretty bare-bones basic because it's going in the new Desperado Deluxe Box Set (a no-frills introductory set). It has no added features like hitching rails, a porch roof, or scrollwork on the crown of the fascade as some others will have. We're even designing buildings that will come standard with cast furniture.

Features to note:

This was designed by a team that includes Lee Beheler, the original designer of the TCL line of buildings, so you will see a certain similarity in style that makes them look good on the table together, even though the new ones are slightly larger. And because Lee designed them, they are dead simple to assemble.

Metal-cast doors and windows with interior woodwork that mates up from the inside to meet the outside frame and glue together (primed grey in the photos). The shape of the sashes and moulding of the woodwork is modeled digitally and cast crisply. Some buildings will have entire panels of resin detailing on the fascade to model the kind of woodwork a bank or other substantial building would have.

The boardwalk has been given proper framework underneath it and floor-level is up a quarter-inch off the ground to simulate a foundation. No more toylike flat-bottomed building as with TCL.

The cedar shake pattern is smaller (although this design does away the woodgrain texturing effect in order to keep the cost down).
Generous proportions to allow room for lots of interior action, and to accommodate the larger figures and bases in use today with games such as Malifaux and Wild West Exodus. We spent a lot of time at the shop comparing the buildings to different sizes of figures, and we found a size that seems to work pretty well with all of them, even the old-school Knuckleduster figures of ours at the small end of 28mm. Since O-Gauge figures have no bases to make them look taller, they even look good in that scale, believe it or not!
In about a week-and-a-half, three of these will be available; a saloon, store (pictured here), and blacksmith, as well as a corral and outhouse. We'll roll them out at a fairly brisk pace after that and hope to have a very substantial selection rivaling the old TCL line by mid-summer.

Cost will be comparable to the TCL buildings, but not that we've figured out how to keep production costs down, we're going to be able to distribute them to stores, which we couldn't do before. This gives you the ability to go to the game shop and do some "tire-kicking."
Pick up your first buildings at Adepticon in a week's time, or watch for the online release at the end of the month!

SON OF DESPERADO!

Later in 2017, Knuckleduster will be launching Gunfighter’s Ball, a new game system with its roots in Desperado. Gunfighter’s Ball will keep the things people have loved about Desperado while smoothing out some rough edges and adding some really useful new rule mechanisms.

The launch of Gunfighter’s Ball will make it easy for Desperado players to upgrade. When the rules are published, two additional documents will be available free online.

·       The first is a Player’s Guide, which includes a reference sheet and just enough explanation to get a casual player up and running.

·       The second is another version of the Player’s Guide which includes additional material to give Desperado players the info on how to incorporate the changes into their games.

The complete Gunfighter’s Ball rules (the Judge’s Guide) will include everything needed to play, and is currently in playtesting.

SON OF DESPERADO FIRE MODIFIERS

Below is a reference sheet entitled “Son of Desperado.” This incorporates a few of the ideas from Gunfighter’s Ball; namely, some re-vamped modifiers.

In Classic Desperado, you find yourself doing lots of dividing and figuring fractions. In order to remove that chore, we’ve developed a super simple list of modifiers.

The only time you have to cut your shot in half is if you moved or are considered Immobile (a serious wound, as found on the Wound Chart).

Other modifiers are simple adjustments up or down. These merely take you up and down the specified amount; if your shot was 65%, a 10% penalty takes you down 10% to 55%.

·       All cover penalties are a 10% penalty. To make things simple, cover is anything that obscures the shooters view of the target.

·       Shooting from horseback is a 10% penalty.

·       A new 10% penalty is doled out for shooting with non-dominant hand (simplified as “left” hand).

·       A brand spanking new modifier is “Blind Shot Through Cover.” It’s a big one: -30%. In Desperado, we noticed numerous situations where you want to pepper the outhouse with gunshots, knowing darned well the bad guy is in there. Likewise, if someone shouts at you from behind a door, you know he’s there somewhere! With this modifier, you can blaze away at a target your character can reasonably assume is behind a door, fence, or wall, but can’t be seen. The shooter must have a good reason to assume the enemy is present within a 3” swath of area, and nearly adjacent to the target surface. It’s up to the game-master to decide if the shot is allowable.

That’s all the changes this time around. Keep a close eye on Knuckleduster.com for updates on the progress of the next chapter in the Desperado saga!