First Game of Dead Man's Hand

There was a great deal of rootin'-tootin' and no little shootin' going on up at MacSver's battle shed this weekend. He was running me through my first game of Dead Man's Hand (by Great Escape Games).
It's a skirmish level West Wild game with randomised figure activation (by way of a card deck) with extra cards held by the players to play "events" on any of the figures, which is fun.

 

We played the first introductory scenario, where a gunslinger is "greeted" by 3 local dudes.

Not liking the odds, the stranger ran for cover behind a building and fence. The local toughs flanked round.

The stranger stepped out behind the fencing and took a shot, but missed. Fortunately his movement and the slight cover saved him from any damage.

Things were looking bad though when a local ran round the corner looking to fire his shotgun at point blank range. Fortunately the stranger literally had a card up his sleeve that made the man stumble and lose the rest of his actions that turn.

Confident behind his cover, the Stranger took another shot at the poncho local. He only managed to worry his target with an "Under Fire" mark. These act as minus modifiers for the receiving figure and can be removed using an action on their turn. Every turn a figure gets 3 actions (eg move, shoot, aim, etc). They also act as hits. Each character has a number of Under Fire markers they can receive befoe they are out of action.

The confidence of the Gunslinger was ill founded though, as the final local man took careful aim and took him out.

This all seemed pretty straight forward. The randomised activation order helped the experience of the chaos of a gunfight (not that I've been in a real one obviously), and the event cards in your hand also give the player some extra tactical depth, not to mention the glee of scuppering your opponents expectations.

We played most of a more even more sided game afterwards:

Sometimes the cards can encourage rash
actions...

...sometimes too rash...

...with fatal consequences!