Doomtown Reloaded: Double Dealin’ Spoilers

With all of New Town, New Rules spoiled and coming out next week, it’s time to move on to the next expansion. Strange Assembly got their hands on a preview card for Double Dealin,’ Doctor Emanuel Ashbel of the Morgan Cattle Company. AEG gave us their first direct preview with story about Lula Morgan, the step-daughter of one Lillian Morgan. Run4Games and Meeple Monthly have also spoiled a few cards. More cards are spoiled here. There wasn’t enough room in one article for them all!

Fetch

Fetch is another Hex that can pass itself, making it an easy choice in any deck with Hucksters. It finally gives us a spell that can be used on Cheatin’ hands. It isn’t “offensive” in nature like Coachwhip, but it can narrow the gap when you are beat badly in a shootout.

You get to take a card from the draw hand and put it in your play hand. That alone will allow you to get important cards out of your deck and on to the table much more quickly than normal. If you’re resolving this during a shootout, you also take three less casualties. Combine will Arnold McCadish and you could easily take no permanent casualties in a losing shootout. This also allows you to tie in a shootout and you won’t have to discard anyone thanks to Fetch.

Fetch has already brought up some interesting scenarios from players. Current rulings allow you to pull a Joker into your hand after using it to modify your draw hand, effectively getting to use a joker multiple times. If you want to make it even more effective, you could use Ace in the Hole to put the joker into your draw hand, only to have Fetch pull it back out at the end of the shootout resolution. You can’t use Fetch to take cards from an opponent if they played Bottom Dealin‘ on your hand. You could also use Ghostly Gun to improve your hand and then Fetch will pull him right back for you to use again next turn.

Gina Tailfeathers (from AEG)

Gina becomes the second dude with the Grifter ability. Travis Moone has been our only experience with this ability until now. Gina offers the opportunity to have an extra card in hand at the start of the game at the cost of booting her and discarding one card from your first five. Her ability will likely get used more than Travis, but she only lets you look at two new cards where Travis would let you get a whole new hand.

After using her ability, she will likely fall into the same role as Travis and become an extra casualty in shootouts.

Dr. Emanuel Ashbel (from Strange Assembly)

Dr. Emanuel is another low bullet, high influence, dude for the Morgan Cattle Company. He has a cheap initial cost of 4, but his upkeep is a 2, making him to likely be your only significant dude if he’s in your starting posse. He has a react that lets you attempt to save a dude from an ace, much in the same way Arnold saves dudes from a discard. Difference is that the doctor doesn’t need to boot to trigger his ability. He will fit well into Mad Science decks that already look for pulls of 6 or more. Several of the current Mad Scientists have lower values that are perfect for the doctor to save.

Good Stiff Drink will work well with Emanuel, potentially saving multiple dudes in the same turn. They will still be discarded. The doctor can’t keep you in the game the same way that Arnold can. The real question will be how he can interact with cards such as Ace in the Hole and Raising Hell. If he can save a dude being aced from hand, he will be able to mitigate some of the costs on those cards.

He can target any dude, not just friendly. He could save dudes that don’t fit into an opponents draw structure, potentially ruining an important shootout hand later or interfering with an attempt to make money off their Undertaker.

Surveyor’s Office (from Run4Games)

The Surveyor’s Office has been spoiled by the French Doomtown fansite, Run4Games.

The office competes with the Bunkhouse and Morgan Research Institute for a value 9 deed. Certain decks may wish to hold on to the Research Institute if using Mad Science or Hucksters. The Office counts as adjacent to all out of town deeds, including those that belong to your opponent. If the office is adjacent to your Outfit, you can launch a character like Lawrence Blackwood to an opponent’s out of town deed and use him in the same turn. You can get your dudes out of town to control a location belonging to your opponent and use Lula Morgan, shown below, to make some extra cash from it. The strongest advantage is the ability to use a Buffalo Rifle or a spell that targets adjacent locations, making it almost as effective as dominating Town Square.

Tallulah “Lula” Morgan

Lula follows the Morgan trend of having more influence than the other factions. For only four Ghost Rock, you’ll be able to have three influence and an additional way to make more money.

The Cattle Company normally has to sink a significant investment in characters such as Lillian or Max Baine to really take advantage of their Outfit. While Lula doesn’t have the high value that both of them do, she is much cheaper. Add the Town Council bonus to her and she is more effective than Lillian at buying deeds.

Her reduced cost versus the Morgan King and Queen will allow you to spend more on security such as Jarrett Blake or Remy Lapointe, since you will already have the influence you need to stay in the game with just Lula and Irving Patterson for just six Ghost Rock. Lula’s ability lets you gain Ghost Rock from deeds that you’ve taken control of from your opponent. She is an offensive version of Androcles and behaves like an Extortion that you have to pay 1 Ghost Rock for. Abilities like those two can deter a smart opponent from running over just to take a deed from you, knowing that the money you could earn might allow you to play another card from your hand.

Meeple Monthly Spoilers

Meeple Monthly has released an advertisement for the next Doomtown: Reloaded expansion, Double Dealin‘. Only two cards are completely visible with one easy enough to guess.

Jose Morales

Jose is the second Huckster to be affiliated with the Sloane Gang. The first Huckster, Jonah Essex, seemed like an excuse to add the Huckster skill to the faction. Jose, on the other hand, is an incredible Huckster that would make the Fourth Ring jealous. Morales turns his bullet rating into bonus on his Huckster skill while in a shootout. As long as his bullets go unmodified, he will have a skill equal to Ivor Hawley, the best rating in the game.

Using cards that buff Jose’s bullets will work twice as well, because they will improve his Huckster skill at the same time, making those low ranked spells like Ace in the Hole and Soul Blast a little easier to use. Beware, Sloane players, when Bobo is played against you, his bullet rating will go up as high as Morales’ skill goes up. It would be an even better idea to use Bobo on your side. You can’t put Bobo in your starting posse, but he can be used to drop in for a turn for one Ghost Rock. If you want to run Raising Hell, you could bring back Bobo several times to wreak havoc with a potentially sky high bullet rating.

Jose’s Huckster rating only increases if he is participating in the shootout and he loses the bonus as soon as he is no longer in that shootout. It could become a lot harder to Shadow Walk him back into the fight. Playing a card like War Paint will increase the bullet and Huckster rating for Jose at the same time. If Bobo is on the table, his bullet rating will jump as soon as a fight breaks out.

Gang Yi

Gang Yi’s ability resembles the ability of Jarrett Blake from the Morgan Cattle Company. You can swap him into a shootout where there is a wanted dude. Yi’s bullet rating is lower and his influence is higher than Jarrett’s, making him more risky to send him into a shootout. However, if you fix up Gang Yi with cards like War Paint, Hiding in the Shadows or even a Flame-Thrower, he can sit at your home, providing a threat to any fight your opponent may start.

A great strength behind these “swap” abilities is that you can start a fight and swap your dude in. You could also use this ability as a safety net. Let’s say your best shooter gets stuck in a fight and then his bullet rating is knocked down to a useless 1 Draw. Yi can change places with your weak dude after your opponent has played several shootout actions against you. That way your opponent has likely used all their bullet de-buffs and won’t have any to throw at Yi. When a dude is booted, he can’t normally call out an opponent. You could call out a dude with someone like Travis Moone and then move Gang Yi into the fight even if he was booted earlier in the turn.

More on the way….

The last two cards are too obscured to really speculate at the moment. Check back here often to see any new cards spoiled for this set and better images when they are available. Also, feel free to check out my other strategy articles and spoilers.