Bang! The Bullet! - Tips & Strategies

The secret identity part of Bang! is not meant to last long, however for outlaws (particularly) and renegades (and sometimes even the deputy) I encourage you to prolong the mystery as long as possible.

Too often players are eager to start flopping down Bang! cards in the first round which quickly reveals what role they have. Instead, when the Sheriff starts shooting blindly to begin the game, if you are an outlaw, try to convince him you are a deputy through verbal manipulation. When it is your time to play, look to get down better weapons, horses, barrels and the like rather than actually firing your gun at someone (you can always apologize for not shooting by claiming a bad draw or occasionally perhaps even fire at an outlaw ally to “prove” your loyalty). The goal here is to keep the Sheriff and his actual deputy confused and consequently not working optimally as a team (and sometimes you can even get the sheriff to unload on his own deputy – which is hilarious).

Even more importantly though, rather than immediately painting a target on yourself, by slow-playing you will usually be left alone while you set up your hand. With a couple of unmolested rounds under your belt, you should be set to do some serious damage when you reveal yourself through an ambush (you typically have made yourself harder to hit as well — a good thing since retaliation is now on its way). By compiling perhaps a volcanic gun, a duel card, Indians etc. combined with a Bang! or two you can do serious damage to any target you decide to bring down.

The suprise attack also causes discombobulation in your target as they have to quickly readjust their thinking and plans – this frequently allows your new found allies to finish the job as the sheriff distractedly changes plans and splits his efforts.

I’ve suggested before that allowing players to select their character can aid in the enjoyment of the game. However, especially with new players this can lead to analysis paralysis in getting the game started. A better option then especially with new players is to deal two character cards to each player and then allow them to pick the one they like best from the two they were dealt. It adds a fun element to the game for experienced and non-experienced alike, allows for an embrace of the role, and avoids “ap” — Bang!

Of all the colorful characters featured in the game Bang! El Gringo is one of the absolute best! This is because of his hand denial ability… whenever El Gringo gets hit, he draws a card from the hand of the opponent who hit him. When you’re only holding a limited number of cards, that becomes a very powerful ability. To balance his ability out, El Gringo only gets 3 hit points which makes him go boom a lot easier and obviously makes you think twice about absorbing several hits, but despite this he can still capitalize on his ability. He changes how his opponents have to play just about all the offensive cards in the game. Volcanic, Indians, Gatling all suddenly lose their punch against El Gringo since the power of those cards is to draw out misses and pummel your opponent with multiple cards in hand. If you get a barrel in front of him, you open up all sorts of strategic options. Now you can opt not to use the barrel to start his hand denial ability but have it as a backup defense. Beer also becomes a particularly useful card because you can purposefully take additional hits knowing you can drink away the pain. Lastly, if El Gringo gets the tin star and is the sheriff… watch out! He’s now back up to 4 hit points which gives him some protection from dynamite, and has the extra hit point for card denial and can really start to manipulate the table!

So, you drew the outlaw… Your options:

Be an Outlaw!!!

1. Shoot the sheriff as soon as you can. This lets the other outlaws know where you are and they are likely to follow suit in a barrage of bullets.

2. Play cards that impact the entire group if you can’t reach the sheriff.

3. Make the sheriff discard. Less cards for him is less ways he can resist your attacks.

4. If you can’t reach the sheriff, shoot whoever you can that has shot at another player and not played any mass impact cards (gatling, indians, etc…). If you kill another outlaw, well, they should have let you know who they were. It is unlikely that a deputy would play gatling or indians before playing a bang card on their turn.

Pretend
1. Shoot people next to you. This leaves it open. Are you an outlaw who is just trying to kill others? Are you a depute doing his job? Are you a renegade trying to thin the herd? Almost everyone with any job will normally resort to this, but it’s important to consider the message you are sending. If you get any Indians or similar cards that impact everyone, you should consider using them “after” shooting someone next to you. Don’t lead with those because it shows that you have no regard for anyone else, including the sheriff. A deputy would not likely lead with that sort of card.

2. Pretend to be a deputy and shoot people who have outed themselves. This will leave doubt as to your job. Make sure to act happy if you kill an outlaw and get more cards. Remember, if you manage to do your job, all outlaws (even dead ones) win.

3. Shoot whoever others have targeted until they are dead. If you target the same person as another player and don’t let up until they are dead, there is no way to know what your intentions are.

4. Think about the cards you play and how they make you look. If you have to make everyone discard a card and you are trying to not look like an outlaw, consider having the sheriff discard a card from his hand at random. This suggests that you don’t want to disadvantage him by having him lose one of the items he has in play, but it is quite likely that a card in his hand is even more important as part of his next turns strategy.

5. If the sheriff shoots you, or makes you lose a card, make sure to not seem overly upset about it. Remember your demeanor. You should only seem upset when players other than the sheriff act on you. Make sure there are visible differences in your reaction.

This game is all about psychology… Think “how does this make me look”, or just blast away until you are surrounded by corpses.

Just some tips, hope they help

One house rule that my friends and I play with, is when someone uses the general store the cards are lined up as normal and the person who played the card gets first pick.

However, after the first pick has been made, everyone grabs a card they want at the same time. This adds more chaos and hilarity to the game.