Doomtown

[Joshtheawesome09]

Just received the Union Blue deck I bought off of eBay (thanks Ori!) and now I'm putting it together. Which brings me to one of my points: If you're looking to sell/trade any gadgets, derringers or Sister Mary Jebediah exp please PM me.

Building this deck is a challenge because there isn't an Agency deck posted, and no Agency superstars (such as madscience on the collegium or RichCarter and Dixie Rails, etc.) on the forum that I know of, but if you've got any tips or play the Agency, please let me know.
First Draft:

Starting Dudes: (20 GR spent, 1 upkeep. +2 prod./turn. Inf=7)
6S Benny Hibbs
6S Lord Ripley Scorne
6S Windows Derek
7S Delilah Darby-Scorne
8S Abel Owens*
*= Possibly might consider dropping Abel Owens for the 5 GR starting turn

Dudes
2S Desmond Quentin
3S Benjamin Dean
3S Reggie Cornell
4S Tao Chang ("T.C.")
6S Little Running Bear
10S The Crucible
JS Nelson Roberts
KS Cort Williams

Goods/Events
2H Winchester Rifle x2
4H Riot
4H Joseph's Return
4H Lemat Pistol
4S Bolt-Action Rifle
4H Joseph's Return
5H Shotgun x2
8H Electrostatic Pump Gun
9H Quickdraw Sling
9H Magnum Bullets*
JH Spare Chamber*
KH Slumber Needle*
* = Filler, mainly for their high value for pulls

Deeds
3D New Town Hall
7D St. Martin's Chapel
8D The Mission House
8D Fu Leng's Laundry and Tailoring
KD Hydro-Accelerator
KD Strike Experiment #1

Actions
9C No Funny Stuff
9C Listen Up!
9C Flamin' Barrels
9C His Back Was to Me
10C Refuse to Fall
10C Burn 'Em Down
10C Cover Fire x2
JC My Fight's With You
JC Quickdraw
JC Termite Infestation
JC Take Ya With Me
QC Claim Jumper x2
QC Intimidation
QC It's Just You and Me
KC Clean Up the Town
KC That'll Leave a Scar
KC This Don't Evolve You x2

There's the first draft of my take on the Union Blue. The clubs are mainly for pulls and shootout's. I don't' have enough gadgets to really take advantage of the second part of Union Blue's home, and until I get some more I won't be cannibalizing the New Front deck.

[Cam]

I wont be mistaken for either madscience or Rich Carter even on a good day, but a couple of suggestions for you.
One advantage the Agency has is some good blessed dudes. Since you are running some high pull values, this would be a good way of taking advantage of it. You could easily sub in Sister Mary Jebediah inexp as a starter Abel Owens, saving you a couple of ghost rock and providing a starting Blessed. A Consecrate Armament (or two) would help to further boost your Agency studs, complement the shotguns, and combo with the Crucible to discard your opponents weapons. Windows Derek + Winchester Rifle + diff 7 skill pull with Consecrate Weapon = 5 stud, not bad! And they can stack. Lay on Hands can help save your Agency dudes when a gunfight goes wrong, and its 8 difficulty is very manageable as your deck thins out. And if you have it, Path of Righteousness is a good way of calling out dudes.
With all of the weapons, a Shooting Range or Weaponsmith would be a good boost.
You have lots of shootout cards, but few call out cards or cheatin cards. Get a Rope! fits the values and is a good call out card. You could also consider dropping a couple of Kings to add a couple of eights. This would keep the basic draw structure of pulling for a straight flush the same, and allow for the inclusion of cards like Kidnapping and Jackelope Stampede. The cycleability of the deck if you cannot get into shootouts is questionable, and adding the Pony Express might help this.
There is no substutute for playing a deck, figuring out what cards work and dont work for you, and tweaking to make a deck better. Best of luck with the Agency!

[Joshtheawesome09]

Thanks for the input!

You know, after reading your post and checking my cards, I think I've just about run out of cheatin' cards! I need to balance them over my decks a little bit better lol. I'll look around a little bit, see what I can switch out and trade between the decks. This is the reason pretty much every deck I have is in the double-barreled format. I've got a Consecrate Armament in my Dixie Rails deck that's not very useful, I'll see if there is something I can put in place so I can take it for this deck.

And I agree, as soon as I can play this out a few games I'll be adding and subtracting cards! I'll hopefully play it this week sometime or early next week.
_________________
I'm looking for any Law Dogs, both dudes and homes. If you've got some and are willing to sell or trade, please PM me.

[Korhil]

Auto-incendiary Bullets are one of the best reasons to play Union Blue.
With so few Gagets, the Original Agency home is likely a better option because of it's 4 income.

Delilah Darby-Scorne is a pretty weak starting dude since her influence isn't a sure thing if you have to move her. Josef Nicolai Rocescu costs the same for the same influence.

With the dudes you have in the deck, starting with:
Desmond
Benjamin
Lord Ripley or Josef Nicolai Rocescu (if you can get him)
Windows
Plus a Cassidy Greene or a Charlie Landers (Both are pretty common, Cassidy is better)
That is still 7 influence, but it's more usable. You still have a Mad Scientist.
You have 1 less stud however, unless you get Josef Nicolai Rocescu for Lord Ripley.
You also have 3 starting Ghost Rock, and 2 income.

A stronger starting line up, if you add spells would be something like:
Desmond
Sister Mary inexp
Windows
Cassidy
Lord Ripley (prefer Josef Nicolai Rocescu)
That gives you 6inf, which is still pretty decent. Mary is another Stud, and you would have 2 Ghost Rock left over, but 3 income.

The value structure of the deck, you mention that you have high values for high pulls. What do you need to pull high for?
Your better off being able to pull low unless you have things you really need to pull high for.
Ezzie would tear your dudes apart!

There are some very good spells for reducing influence - Babble On, & First Bowl. You could also run Confession to make people wanted, allowing First Bowl to work more easily. Include lots of Private in town deeds with control points to cause your opponents to become wanted if they choose to shoot at you.

I could post lists, but they would likely be meaningless if you don't have the card pool.

Cheers,
Martin

[Joshtheawesome09]

First off, more gadgets are on the way in the mail thanks to Cam.

Honestly, I don't know how pulls got put into that statement. Although, I will admit that I didn't put Ezzie in the picture when choosing values, and I think I simply went high for the sake of going high. Total brain-fart. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll remedy that tonight and have a lower set soon.

As for starting dudes, I usually follow the pattern of 2 studs, 3 inf. dudes. I choose Delilah because I liked her ability to boot a dude, but I can see where you are coming from.
This deck has 5 studs at this time (albeit that is not a lot), 4 of which I can start. Owens and Windows are the cheapest I can start with, and not too bad to boot.

Cam is also sending me a Sister Mary exp. Even if I'm not running spells (which I might seeing as how my Flock deck doesn't run too well anyways) wouldn't she be a good idea to start anyways? The ability of "Shootout: Ace a Terror in the opposing posse whose value is lower than 10 minus the current Fear level." is amazing to me. A shotgun based on the fear level? Last I checked it was 5 or 6, and with two Lost Horizon cheatin' cards and a few Lazy Sundays, or even having Benjamin Dean do his thing, it can easily be "Shootout: Ace a Terror in the opposing posse whose value is lower than 10"

With a Sister Mary exp I was planning on starting with her, Benjamin Dean, Windows Derek, and an influence dude, probably Lord Ripley Scorne.

More in-town private deeds, got it.

Thanks!
_________________
I'm looking for any Law Dogs, both dudes and homes. If you've got some and are willing to sell or trade, please PM me.

[Korhil]

[Joshtheawesome09]

Decided to post this as a second post as opposed to editing the original to see the transition.

Dudes:
2S Desmond Quentin
3S Benjamin Dean
6S Windows Derek
6S Lord Ripley Scorne
6S Sister Mary Jebediah (exp)
6S Little Running Bear (exp)
6S Benny Hibbs
7S Delilah Darby-Scorne
8S Abel Owens
10S The Crucible
JS Nelson Roberts (exp)
KS Cort Williams (exp)

Deeds
2D Shootin' Range
3D New Town Hall
6D King Willy's Mother Lode
7D St. Martin's Chapel
8D Fine China Shop
8D The Mission House
JD Whiskey Nick's Joint
QD The Undertaker
KD Hydro-Accelerator
KD Strike Experiment #1

Actions
2C Lazy Sunday x2
6C Fanning the Hammer
6C Forclosure
7C Bad Tequila
7C Snakebite
8C Mesa Checkpoint
8C Jackelope Stampede
9C Listen Up!
9C Flamin' Barrels
10C Get a Rope
10C Derringer
10C Cover Fire

Goods, Gadgets, Spells and Events
AH Consecrate Armament x2
2H Winchester Rifle
4H Riot
4H Lay on Hands
4H Joseph's Return
5H Ectoplasmic Calcifier
7H Holy Wheel Gun
7H Holy Roller
8H Electrostatic Pump Gun
8H Mechanical Horse
9H Flamethrower
9H Magnum Bullets
10H Pocket Watch
JH Inspiration x2
JH Prof. Parnham's Miracle Elixer

Based on the values I think I should be able to pull a straight or full house pretty easily early on. I'm running a little gadget heavy right now considering I only have 2 or 3 mad scientists. Flock is no more, it never works and won't work unless I get more game changing spells.

<edit: added a second Consecrate Armament, took out JC Quickdraw>
<edit: added 4H Lay on Hands, 7H Holy Roller and 10C Cover Fire, took out AC Cheatin' varmint and both Lost Horizons>
<edit: added 5H Ectoplasmic Calcifier, removed a Prof. Parnham's Miracle Elixer>
_________________
I'm looking for any Law Dogs, both dudes and homes. If you've got some and are willing to sell or trade, please PM me.

[Korhil]

Here is a list that from the old gamesmeister site.
Eric Jome posted a number of decks in this format, and I found them invaluable when learning to play.
What it should help you see, is that for any shooter, your value structure is more almost more important than the actual cards you run.

Your current list in practise wont actually hit a non-cheating Full House as often as your expecting it might.

[Cam]

If you are going to go the anti-Terror route with running anti-Fear and Inspiration I would suggest adding Requiem from the Whateleys out of house to make your opponents dudes Terrors, and adding Cort Williams or Mitobu from the Maze Rats to help ace them. The original Agency home is a better home for running this type of deck, with the VP bonus for high value Terrors. You could even run the event Dead Walk the Earth to bring back your opponents dead dudes as abominations to ace them again, and use the slaughterhouse to remove the opponents dudes from Boot Hill that wont give you a VP.

I think your straight draw structure is fine, but would add an extra club for each of the values you are pulling for 6-10. The difference between a straight and a straight flush is winning or losing to a full house, repectively, a common draw hand for most Value structured decks. It is hard to draw a straight flush with just 2 of each, especially since when you play the derringer this will drop you down to only 1 10c! I would personally drop the Inspiration/anti fear cards that dont fit the draw structure or current deck type, add Cort inexp and Sister Mary inexp and drop the exp versions, and use these spots to add the extra clubs. Just my two cents.

You have a lot of cards outside the 6-10 current draw structure. The more cards you have within this, the better card draws you will have before the deck degenerates down. As you find cards that dont work as well as you hoped, try to find replacements within your draw structure that may work better. Many deeds have similar cards at different values, and this is a card type I always try to match to the values I am running unless the deed has a special ability I absolutely need (The New Town Hall is one deed I WOULD run out of value BTW, and is a good choice for your deck build).

Best of luck with the deck, and keep us updated!

[Joshtheawesome09]

DECKLIST

Dudes
2S Robert Holmes
2S Desmond Quentin
5S Benjamin Dean (exp)
6S Windows Derek
6S Lord Ripley Scorne
6S Sister Mary Jebediah (exp)
7S Delilah Darby-Scorne
8S Abel Owens
10S The Crucible
QS Mr. Slate
KS Cort Williams (exp)

Deeds
3D New Town Hall
6D King Willy's Mother Lode
7D St. Martin's Chapel
7D Schoolhouse
8D The Mission House
JD Whiskey Nick's Joint
KD Strike Experiment #1

Goods and Spells
AH Consecrate Armament x2
2H Sanctify
5H Shotgun
7H Holy Wheel Gun x2
7H Holy Roller
8H Electrostatic Pump Gun
9H Flamethrower
9H Magnum Bullets
JH Inspiration x2
JH Spare Chamber

Actions
3C A Secret Tunnel x2
3C Fisticuffs
3C Diversion
4C Giddyup!
4C Bankrupt Morals
4C Bucket Brigade
4C Hot Lead Flyin'
5C Bum Rush x2
5C Smith and Robards Delivery
5C Double Dealin'
6C Forclosure
6C Fanning the Hammer x2
6C Nowhere to Run
7C Bad Tequila x2
7C Luck of the Draw
7C Snakebite
TC Derringer[/b]
_________________
I'm looking for any Law Dogs, both dudes and homes. If you've got some and are willing to sell or trade, please PM me.

[Joshtheawesome09]

New and final decklist posted.

Also considering renaming the deck to Zombie Squad.
_________________
I'm looking for any Law Dogs, both dudes and homes. If you've got some and are willing to sell or trade, please PM me.