Attacking in Coffins and Tombstones



Attacking in Coffins and Tombstones, or Let’s Shoot a Cowpoke!

What’s that? You want to shoot something? Well it’s about time! Let’s take a quick look at how to make an attack in Coffins and Tombstones.

1. First a character needs to determine their range. There are modifiers for short and long range and you can’t shoot your weapon past long range.
2. After that the attacking character looks at his or her Shootin’ Attribute. That’s how many Standard Attack Dice they get to roll.
3. Next the defender will look at their Defense Attribute. He takes that many Defense Dice possibly modified by cover or range.

Here are a couple of Standard Attack Dice and Defense Dice.



Now the attacker has an important decision to make. He can take his time lining up the perfect shot, but that might make him slower in future rounds. We call this takin’ a Calculatin’ Attitude. If he doesn’t like that option, he can git Reckless. This is the cowpoke givin’ up his personal safety for more chances to roll a critical result in their attack. Now, each cowpoke has a Reckless or Calculatin’ Attribute. That’s how many Standard Attack Dice they can trade out for Reckless or Calculatin’ Dice (but never both kinds in the same attack).

Once you’ve made that decision, it’s time for some contested rolls. Talk smack to each other before your roll, then both players roll their dice. Here are some interesting die results:



A cowpoke rolls 3 Standard Attack Dice against a cowpoke with a defense of two. The attacker rolls a critical and 2 successes (the Guns) but because they didn’t roll more Guns than Cowboy Hats, the attack misses!



The same cowpoke takes a Reckless Attitude against the defender. This result is a doozy for the attacker. Not only did he roll more Guns than the defender rolled Cowboy Hats, but the one Tombstone result means the successful attack is critical! That raises the Weapon Rating by 1, and if you roll the Damage Dice with a Coffin result, the attack automatically kills the defender, makin’ his destination Boot Hill! The Broken Tin Star is a bad thing for the attacker though. His defense is lowered by 1 until the start of his next turn, making him a very attractive target for revenge!!!



This time the result is two Guns vs. two Cowboy Hats. You have to roll more Guns than Cowboy Hats for the attack to succeed. Therefore, the attack misses. Not only is the attack a miss, but because the attacker rolled Calculatin’ Dice, and got a Clock result, the action has taken him longer than expected. He now has to take and Initiative penalty!

So what’s the strategy in takin’ a Calculatin’ or Reckless Attitude? Well, Calculatin’ Dice get you more successes at the expense of possible Initiative penalties. Reckless Dice get you more chances of critical hits at the expense of rolling Defense penalties. Both dice are better than Standard Attack Dice for successes, but both have possible drawbacks for using them.

Thanks for reading, partner!