Posse Wild West Justice is a face pace card and dice game for 2 to 4 players. Created by veteran game designer Scott Hansen, the object of the game is to recruit posse members to help bring in the lowdown, no good scallywags harassing your town. The player with the most reward money wins the game.
Set up
Each player chooses a different set of colored dice. Separate and shuffle the Posse, Outlaw and Warrant decks. The number of players will determine the number of warrant cards to be used.
Each player then draws 3 Posse cards, keeping 2 and discard the third. Once all players have drawn return the discarded Posse cards to the deck and reshuffle. Place the deck next to the Outlaw area. Your play area will look like this:
Playing the game
Each turn is broken down into 5 phases.
1. Recruit – During the recruit phase players add new Posse members. The first player may draw 2 cards and keep 1 discarding the other. Each of the other players draws one card and adds it to their Posse. You may only have 4 Posse members at one time.
2. Target – Using the (6) six-sided dice they have available each player places a die on the Outlaw they wish to capture. Play continues until all dice have been placed or all players have passed. You may pass to save dice for the escape phase. If you pass it end this phase for the player and you may not place any more dice.
3. Capture – Each Outlaw has a capture requirement, shown on the bottom of their card. To capture the Outlaw the capture requirement must be met. Any Outlaws that were not targeted during the targeting phase are escaping. If a single player has targeted an Outlaw they roll to capture. If successful the Outlaw is placed in the players capture pile. If they are not successful then the Outlaw is escaping. If more then one player targeted an Outlaw then all players roll. If only one player is successful that player places the Outlaw in their capture pile. If more then one player is successful the players enter a Showdown. Rinse, later and repeat until all outlaw have either been captured or are escaping.
4. Showdown – When 2 or more players were successful in capturing an Outlaw they enter a Showdown. Using the same number of dice used in the capture phase players roll again. During a Showdown the Outlaw will also roll the number of dice shown on the bottom of the card or stated in the ability text. The highest total wins. If a player wins they place the Outlaw in their capture deck. If the Outlaw wins they are escaping. Tied results are re-rolled until there is a winner.
5. Escape – Players may use any dice not allocated during the Capture phase to stop an escaping Outlaw. One or more dice may be used and if more then one player attempts to stop a single Outlaw then the highest roll wins. Regardless of the reward value on the card any Outlaws captured during this phase are worth just 10 bucks.
Winning
Once the last gang has been confronted the game is over. The player with the most reward money is the winner.
Thoughts
The game play is quick taking about 15 minutes to a half an hour. Like most people I don’t have a ton of time during the week to game so quick game play is a plus for me.
The learning curve is very low allowing you you to get right into the game play. We played one clunky hand and then were off to the races or to the hoosegow anyway.
A box of cards and a handful of dice means the game is very portable. When we have our family dinner on Sundays I don’t leave the house without about 4 different games in my backpack and this is a welcome addition.
The art is done by Manolis Frangidis and it’s amazing. Here’s a sampling.
If you’re not into a random draw mechanic then you may have some issues with the game but I feel like it’s more of an asset so that there’s no winning combos that people can squat on every game. It comes down to the luck of the draw and isn’t that how a Wild West game should be?
Check out the Kickstarter here and show Scott some love and tell Legends of Tabletop sent you!