Ajay

Doomtown-Reloaded is a re-issue of the original game which was released in the 90s.

Setting:
There is a total of 4 factions available in this game, each faction represents a powerful group where they face-off against each other and tries to control the area/territory. Each faction has a total of 52 cards in them. The game follows a pure Western style; everything is Western: the card art, the box art, the manual, the slang, etc.. The shape of the card is wonderfully designed and captures the essence of the game. It has an attractive eye-catching graphic design and layout which conveys meaning to the player. Everything is related to the West, the box art, the card art, slangs…

Approach to the game:
The offensive strategy used in the game is through the “dude cards”. Each dude card has a particular influence value and bullet value (the bullet value and the type of bullet are used during shootouts). Using dude cards the player can attack other players and call them for shootouts. If the player decides to play defensively he can build his game by using the deed cards. The deed cards have a certain control value in them. Players can buy deed cards by using moon rocks (the in-game currency). The control value helps the player in winning the game. If the control value of the player is more than the influence of his opponents, he gets to win the game. The key is to strategize on building the control points and simultaneously think of attacking the opponent’s dudes or occupying the opponent’s deeds at the right time.

Poker mechanics in game is interesting:
The game has infused the mechanics of poker in it. The poker like mechanism comes at two stages in the game, the initial stage where the player is allowed to draw up to 5 cards where the player with the low ball gets to start the game. The other stage where poker is used is while resolving various events in the game – from shootouts to spellcasting.

The core and exciting part of the game: SHOOTOUTS
The shootouts in the game is a very short but intense event where a player draws 5 cards. Depending on the bullets of the dude card the player can draw more cards (in the case of a stud bullet) and choose the best of 5 among those cards or replace cards (in the case of draw bullets) where he can discard a card and take a new card from the deck. Each draw can produce up to 11 combinations. Each combination is prioritized and the winner of the shootout is the one having a higher priority combination than his opponent. It’s a tense experience because one tends to lose his important dude cards into the Boot deck if his combination resulted in causalities of the card. This happens if the priority of the player hand combination is two or more levels lesser than the priority of his opponent. Once the card is in the Boot deck, the particular card cannot participate in the game. If the priority of the card is one level lesser than the priority of the other card, he gets to discard his card into the discard pile. He can use this card later on in the game.

Deck Building:
The player can also decide what kind of deck he wants to build for the game, he can choose between either building a strong deck for the poker playable or he can think about building a deck which has a good combination of dudes and powers. There’s nothing worse than building a deck full of killer cards and then pulling a godawful poker hand during a shootout. So care should be taken as to how the player builds his deck to fill in both the needs in the game.

FINAL VERDICT:
Give the game some time, understand the complexities and convoluted set of rules, once you get a grasp of it, you will have one of the best board game experiences with its powerful theme and mechanics. The one good thing about Doomtown is it has a wonderful tutorial series which gives you a walkthrough of each phase of the game and helps you to some level in understanding the game. I recommend you guys to go and try out the game and I’m sure you won’t regret spending a few hours in understanding the game!