Description

Dinosaur Cowboys is a fast playing (45 to 60 minutes) skirmish game of competing posses composed of up to 5 members and 1 dinosaur. Each character in the posse can be customized to fulfill a different role and purchase weapons and equipment from the many options available. Combat takes place in the futuristic landscape of the year 2285, where a supervolcano erupted and changed the course of mankind forever.

In the general the game is built around D12s and is meant to be light, thematic, and fast playing. Players build a Posse containing a Leader, 2-4 Members, and up to 1 Dinosaur, all of which benefit from some unique mechanics. Each Member has an Allegiance such as Duster or Neotechnoist which helps differentiate them (both thematically and statistically). Otherwise there are fairly standard statistics (Speed, Defense, Hitpoints, etc.) which can be customized by spending Improvement Points to really help define a role for each character. Furthermore Active and Passive Traits are selected to let characters do cool things like Crippling Shot, Speed Reload, Go For the Eyes, etc. Weapons and equipment are then purchased from a list of over 75 items ranging from laser Six-Shooters to plasma Shotguns.

A standard game takes place on a tabletop covered in terrain and uses 28mm miniatures and plastic dinosaur toys. Activation of entities is done on a model-by-model basis instead of the entire Posse at once, so the battles are very fluid with plenty of time to react to the enemy. This is especially true as Initiative is rolled at the start of each Activation "set" instead of staying the same for the whole turn.

Posses battle each other in one-off standalone games or in a linked campaign where further Improvement Points and Neodollars can be used to build and grow the group. Likewise injuries can accrue on characters that were taken out of action during an encounter. Deployment, objectives, and features can be used to add depth and variety to each battle beyond "kill everything".

The full rules are free to download and can be used with any range of miniatures. There is also a free "beginner version" (called Quickdraw) which condenses the core mechanics to under 10 pages, so players can jump into the game very easily.