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Review of The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand / Mountain Men / The Baron / The Malevolent Seven / The Seven
Blurb from the publisher: 'Notes from DMH, October 6th
On 22 April 1865, as the Civil War was nearing its end, the USS Black Hawk reportedly accidentally burned and sank on the Mississippi near Cairo, Illinois.
An eyewitness report from Seaman Thomas E. Avery was dismissed as the ramblings of a drunkard. The ship was moored with a skeleton crew when it was cut adrift and suffered its demise. Avery claimed that the crew was beguiled by a gentleman and his companions, a "tinman" and "witch", who turned the crew into raving beasts that "ate their fellows". He said that he and a few others fought as well they could but that all they could do was set a fire in the engine room and abandon ship and swim for shore. Avery was the sole survivor. On the morning of the disaster, a photograph was claimed to have been taken of the Black Hawk with a mysterious figure of a man stood atop it.
It appears that this may have been one of the first accounts of the Baron...
There's an evil moving through the land, a curse.
Communities large and small alike are being destroyed. Towns are being torn apart, people are being killed, and worse. The few people who have managed to escape its clutches are seen as mad and crazed. The stories they tell too disturbed to be true, the visions of which they speak too hideous to be believed. Others of saner mind have visited the remains of towns which have been overcome and return to tell of ghost towns. The buildings destroyed and derelict, each facade carrying the scars of decades of neglect. Towns which had recently been alive and vibrant are now as dead as the people who used to live there. Few of those residents are to be found, those that are, are ripped and torn beyond recognition, the remains the bones and playthings of the scavengers of the land. Wolves, cougars and other creatures now prowl the streets that they would once have feared to tread.
The stories as to the cause of this curse are as varied as the people who tell them. The destruction comes at the hand of God, cleansing the land of sinners and unbelievers. Some talk of the Indians, the dark native magic being used to bring down vengeance on the people and their towns. Others talk of a great dust storm stripping the towns of the people and leaving only the shattered remains of a life gone by.
The last story is only whispered, muttered, the story itself is mixed and confused, people fear that to give it a voice will be to bring the evil to them: they speak of The Baron.
The Curse has finally come to Dead Man's Hand.
Get together anybody you can, time to put petty rivalries aside and stand together against an enemy who shows no mercy, who will take it all and leave you with nothing, not even your soul.
The Curse of Dead Man's Hand and its contents can be used in several ways. The gangs contained within can be added to the normal roster of gangs in the usual way to play games of DMH. Each gang comes with all the information that you need to use it in a standard Legend of Dead Man's Hand campaign. The Baron's gang has to be used in a slightly different way as he is not interested in the petty rivalries of men, he is only interested in one thing, the destruction of mankind and the swelling of his host.
The other option that the book contains is a two player narrative campaign between the Baron and whichever gang feels that it is brave enough to try to stop him. The campaign follows a storyline with the combatants trying to wrest control of DMH from the other. Each game leads to another and the result of each game has consequences and directs future game play.
One thing is for sure, now that the Curse has arrived nothing will ever be the same again.
The reclusive Mountain Men rarely venture into town but now have become more frequent visitors, using their talents to hunt the ungodly creatures victimizing Dead Man's Hand. The Mountain Men box set contains 7 Mountain Men figures, bases, and the Mountain Men rules card.
Nobody knows who he or what his motivation is, but it is a sure thing that The Baron brings an ill wind to Dead Man's Hand. The Baron and his host are hell bent on the destruction of Dead Man's Hand and adding the town's inhabitants to his cursed cabal. The Baron box set contains 12 figures from the Baron gang, bases, and The Baron gang rules card.
The Malevolent Seven are clouded in as much mystery as the Baron. This ungodly gang brings terror to mortal men but its true aim is to destroy The Baron, and they will kill anyone in their way. The Malevolent Seven box set contains 7 Malevolent Men figures, bases, and the Malevolent Seven rules card.
A group of the most dangerous men ever to set foot in these parts, are these men here to seek redemption, justice, or personal glory? Or all three? The Seven box set contains 7 figures of The Seven gang figures, bases, and The Seven gang rules card.'
What you get: The present review is a thematic review of the third wave of products of the Dead Man's Hand game line. These would be:
- The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand, the game's second 32-page softcover source book that also includes a deck of mini-sized playing cards with additional effects on them, costing GBP 15;
- Mountain Men, a faction box set (GBP 20);
- The Baron, a faction box set (GBP 30);
- The Malevolent Seven (or Malevolent), a faction box set (GBP 20);
- The Seven, a faction box set (GBP 20).
Each item can be purchased separately. However numerous deals also exist for those who want to buy more items in one go. The review is thematic in that, even though additional factions and rulebooks exist (and we will see them all), the present source book describes these four factions only, and conversely, these four factions can be played from this source book alone. As usual, there is no shadow reviewing. I have perused all the items described here. It is worth noting that The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand also introduces creatures, namely six ungodly ones and three forces of good. These will be examined later, in a separate review.
Gameplay: There comes a point in a historical game's life where magic and the fantastic are added in the mix. The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand is that point in the DMH western game line. The game is still played in the Wild West's frontier towns, forgotten outposts, and dust trails, magic however is now in the air.
New rules are added for 'ungodly' and for 'terrifying' models. As expected, these have to do with automatically passing nerve tests or with inflicting nerve tests on their opponents.
There are four new factions in the game, two of which are undead-related: The Baron and the Malevolent Seven. Like before, factions are self-contained; each box set contains everything you need if you want to field that particular faction; there is nothing more to be purchased for them. With the exception of The Baron that contains 12 individuals, each faction's box set includes seven individuals each of which may belong in the four different categories described in the basic rulebook. Mountain Men and The Seven do not have undead powers, and are thus easier to incorporate in classic, pure-breed historical scenarios. As expected, each of these factions works slightly differently in relation to the previous ones, even though their stats are fairly similar. As an example, The Seven gain experience differently to everybody else. Idem for The Baron gang, where the only figure gaining experience is the Baron himself. That, of course, is easy to explain; everybody else in his faction is a cursed, an undead under his control. These things are not easy to kill. Kill the Baron and you instantly defeat his faction. Instantly! That is easier said than done however. The Baron can perform all kinds of rule-breaking tricks, like forcing enemies to lose their activation, fix the order of the cards in the deck, or even bring more undead into the game. The Baron also has a Lieutenant, the Witch, who has her own supernatural abilities.
Rules cover the divergent nature of some of the miniatures here. As an example, playing normal DMH games with The Baron is not that straightforward; it is recommended to tackle particular scenes from the narrative campaign. Rules have to be tweaked in both DMH as well as The Legend Of Dead Man's Hand; even certain cards should change, in order for other gangs to have a better fighting chance against The Baron. There is a lot of power in that deck, with cards that resemble magical effects like force fields, simultaneous faction movement, automatic fails on nerve tests for all opponents and so on and so forth. A cool example of a rule change is target priority: when facing undead a character is obliged to shoot the undead closest to him, instead of aiming for the boss far away. These things are scary. Ungodly creatures like the Corpse Carrion, the Storm Crow or the Haunted Bear can be used either as a part of The Baron's gang, as part of a scene, or as random creatures in DMH games. More on them on the review that will follow shortly.
The Baron is at the spotlight of the present product; the whole campaign is structured around this gang. Campaigns have nine new, thematically-appropriate episodes like Some Kind of Monster, Dust 'n' Bones and The God that Failed, they still work however with three cycles where scenes can be picked from a list. There is even a multiplayer Town Against the Baron game, where the gangs unite their firepower in order to bring these monstrosities down.
The strong points: What does the insertion of putrefaction and undeath bring to Dead Man's Hand? Even more asymmetry. Fighting the undead is vastly different to targeting foul-mouthed cowboys and godless Indians. The rules have taken a whole new turn in order to deal with this, and the deck's new, obviously more powerful cards are instant proof. I liked how no mini ever gets used into fighting terrifying characters, or that you cannot ignore the undead next to you in order to go for their leader. The increase in power however is not bad design or a power creep that the designers failed to notice. The game has been purposefully built this way in order to show how, all things being equal, the supernatural is mightier than hot lead. After all, more than one gangs are needed against The Baron in The Thing That Should Not Be, the out-of-the-campaign all-against-The-Baron scenario. I found it very interesting that the two undead factions are nowhere near friendly to one another; they are (im)mortal enemies, even though they are unlikely to be pitted against one another in that mega-scene.
The Curse campaign keeps the basic principles behind The Legend campaign, and adds its own twists. You have to care about your characters, lest that backfires if you lose them the more the campaign progresses. There is variety in the endings of the scenes, even though many tilt towards the kill-them-all concept that is prevalent in horror irrespective of genre. The progression of The Baron is a character is rather terrifying and totally fitting with the theme.
Just like the previous minis in the series, all of them are metal, yet their bases are made from laser-cut MDF. If you want to field a particular faction, all you need to buy is a single box and nothing else. This allows for quite the diversity, seeing how with a rather small amount of money for our hobby's standards, one buys all the factions covered in the source book. Not many wargames do that. Other Wild West miniatures from other publishers are also perfectly usable, if they fit the aesthetics of the faction. All of the miniatures are of a very good standard, some of them however are outright drool-worthy. Quaintly, the Baron himself is not one of them, even though he is caught in great pose, as if he were a rock star waving his microphone towards the crowd. This is still topped by the cursed native American stumbling around with a bleeding stump; the bear of a man wearing not a bearskin but most likely a full bear on his shoulders and head; the Northern soldier still holding his broken trumpet; not one, not two, but seven skull-headed figures; a cursed with an arrow having pierced his skull... through his eye socket. Just looking at them gives me dozens of ideas when it comes to scenarios for this game, or their insertion in others. If you tell me that you can't find good use for zombie-like regulars in other games, I won't believe you. I would be hard-pressed to choose between the Mountain Men and the Seven when it comes to more standard western looks. The Seven are practically iconic, seeing how they are the clean shaven cowboys with the spotless shirts and hats. The Mountain Men however are rough, men of the wild, the kind of pioneers you would expect to find in untamed lands without any civilization in sight. Not many publishers make minis like those.
The weak points: Some might be put off by the sudden influx of the supernatural in Dead Man's Hand. With all the rules (and even card) changes it requires, it is definitely an unbalancing force. On the other hand however, and even though this is the main thing that this expansion covers, it is not the only one. If you are a purist and don't want any supernaturals in your game, the two new more standard gangs are perfectly capable of refreshing your historical scenarios.
Just like with the basic game, customization can only happen within the confines of a gang, not when it comes to the miniatures themselves. On the other hand, nothing prohibits you from using miniatures from one faction as if they belonged to another one. The miniatures from The Baron and The Malevolent Seven cannot be ported under any circumstances since they are either zombies or skull-headed cowboys. Everybody else is fair game.
In order to be interchangeable with the deck from the main rulebook, the deck of cards has the same small size. My comment about the main rulebook's deck stands. I don't know how much it would have increased the game's price, but it is just too small. I understand the reasoning behind it. Free space for card play is not always available when one tries to create a diorama, on the other hand however this size of cards makes the game feel cheapened. In the least, I would have expected a standard sized deck with the special effects on it, even if it were an optional luxury purchase.
Each of the four packages continues to be as tightly closed as a vault, requiring multiple dexterity checks if you wish to open it without destroying its folder-like cover. For someone like me who treasures both his minis as well as the box they game in, this is demoralizing; it takes a good five minutes to open each box.
The miniatures could have used more definition in certain cases. I would have been happier if their appearance was more consistent throughout the four sets. In a departure from the minis in all the previously published factions, some of them need minor assembly in order for you to first prime and paint parts which will later become unreachable. They also need clean up and straightening work before you start priming them. Some rather thin elements like the muzzles of guns feel a bit dangerous to handle. There are bits and pieces of residue here and there that need cutting. In the quirkiest of all, there is an enormous metal piece on top of the Baron's rod in my package, which looks like a quaint effect coming out of it. I actually pondered for a while whether I could use it somehow, before it went the way of the dodo.
Conclusion: The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand is a pleasant departure from the historical campaigns of the basic game, but only to the extent that you want it to. Be it because you want to use half of its factions in your pure-bred western games, or in undead infested extravaganzas, there is a bit of something for everybody here.
For more info on The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand, visit the Great Escape Games website at http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk.
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