Doomtown Reloaded: The Outfits

Doomtown: Reloaded has given us four factions to play so far; The Law Dogs, Morgan Cattle Company, The Sloane Gang, and The Fourth Ring. Each of these factions currently has one Outfit card that gives you a special ability you always have access to. These abilities don’t force players down a certain path, but they do reward playing to their strengths. This article will examine some of those options to really make the Outfit abilities shine. If you want more thoughts about a factions dudes, check them out here.

The Law Dogs

The Law Dogs get a simple, but very helpful ability to further their cause. It is one of the few ways that you can simply put a bounty on a dude without any previous law-breaking. It behaves like an assist for all the responses you can take in the game if a dude is wanted. Tin Star will make it harder for wanted dudes to hide and Too Much Attention can boot anyone you’ve hit with a bounty. Clyde Owens and a Bounty Hunter can call out wanted dudes no matter where they are on the table. Judge Harry can start a job that will ace a wanted dude if you win.

There are several ways to take advantage of a dude being wanted. The best part about The Law Dogs ability is that you can target your own dudes. If you make your own Wylie Jenks wanted, you can hit him with Bad Company to get his bullets in the 6 or more range. You can use a Bluetick and Back Ways to move around more easily. Once your opponent has been hit with a Bounty Hunter or Judge Harry drive-by, they will start to keep their important dudes closer together for defense, giving you the option to dominate town square while they cower from all those gunslingers.

There is only one real way to remove bounties without losing your dude to a casualty, the B&B Attorneys. The Law Dogs can hand out more bounties than an opponent will be able to remove, especially when you add more private deeds and cards like Tresspassin’. Once you start laying down bounties, don’t try to miss an opportunity for the rest of the game. This ability will tempt you to load your starting posse with influence, but deeds such as Yan Li’s Tailoring and Town Council can improve your influence high enough to drop bounties easily with a 1 influence dude.

Morgan Cattle Company

Morgan Cattle Company can bring deeds into play quickly, using a dude’s influence as a discount on that deed. This allows the Cattle Company to build a starting posse without holding much in reserve. It’s straightforward and is rarely used for any other reason. If you combine Yan Li’s Tailoring and Town Council, even your low influence dudes can take significant advantage this Outfit.

The biggest problem for Cattle Company players is protecting that dude after he helps you buy a deed. Make the Smart Choice is an excellent way to run back home after purchasing a deed. Soul Blast can be attached to Lillian Morgan and save her from nearly any fight, especially if you build your deck to be bad at Soul Blast pulls or just target Lillian with your own Soul Blast. Clementine Lepp can build saloons for you without much fear of getting killed. She will have two influence at a saloon and can’t be called out. There are only a few ways to take Clementine out in the game thanks to her protection.

In a few rare situations, your opponent might start to build up for a move on one of your dudes. You can use the Morgan ability to buy and deed and move that dude to a potentially safer location.

The Fourth Ring

The Fourth Ring Outfit and Sloane Gang are the most specific Outfits. The Fourth Ring has to not be at home to use their ability. Usually, this means a shootout or Town Square. Early in the game, this makes it a little more difficult to pull off. It can be risky to move an important Huckster to Town Square in order to do a magic trick just to make one Ghost Rock and draw a card. Shadow Walk is one of the best spells for this ability since it will also move your Huckster back to safety.

This Outfit is probably one with the least impact to the overall game out of the starting four. It creates a few situations where you can take extreme advantage, though. If you make a pull for Raising Hell and have an Undertaker in play, you can ace a dude from your hand, make two Ghost Rock from the Undertaker and one from your Outfit. This means you could bring Tyx from your Boot Hill when you only have one Ghost Rock when you started the spell.

The ability to discard and then draw a new card helps cycle cards dramatically faster in a faction that prefers not to play with low value cards that normally fill that role such as Lady Luck or Pony Express.

The Sloane Gang

The Sloane Gang has a highly situational Outfit, however it is probably one of the most powerful. It plays perfectly to the fact that Sloane is good at generating control points without needing deeds and good at dominating the Town Square. The thing to remember about this ability is that the dude simply has to be in the Town Square at the end of the turn he activated the ability. This means if your dude is kicked out and you can find a way to get him back into the Square by the end of the turn, he still earns his control point.

You can only earn one control point per dude with this ability, but you can still earn a Ghost Rock in later turns if all of your dudes currently have a control point. This control point doesn’t prevent Lawrence Blackwood from earning a control point at another player’s deed using his ability.

In the Future…

Alderac has promised us that there won’t be a glut of factions like there were in the old game. That likely means that Outfit cards will be designed for some of the sub-themes of existing factions instead. Morgan could get an Outfit for Mad Science or Law Dogs might gain eminent domain and be able to give deeds the government keyword, who knows? Fortunately, the Outfits are rarely make-or-break, but they have proven to be an integral part of the game.

If you’re interested in more Doomtown strategy about these factions just check out my index page where it’s all neatly organized for you.