Sentinels of...Blackwater Gulch?!

Last Thursday was supposed to be our VS System night but it ended up being only William and I. Neither of us seemed too concerned about playing so we chatted while he sorted through a newly arrived package from Greater Than Games. Seems he had gotten in on the Kickstarter campaign they had a while back to help with the enhanced edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse.

Last year I introduced Sentinels to my group to pretty much universal acclaim. I believe it was some time in August that I was trying to track down a local Canadian retailer that could get it for me. I met with zero success and ended up ordering directly from the publisher. Shipping ended up costing me half again what the game did, but I was the first person around to have it. Shortly after making my enquiries at a few shops, the game started popping up with quite a bit of regularity...so I guess my asking around did have an effect.

While going through the box William put a few things on the table and said that I was to take them home.

An empty box from the enhanced version, with deck dividers and enough space to hold all the cards! The box from the original game barely held the cards, and once they were sleeved I was stuck without a place to store them. The new box has enough room for them all, and will likely fit the second expansion as well. On the downside however, sleeved cards do not fit well in here as the sleeves make them too long. It's still an improvement though.

He had also ordered a copy of the two promo decks: Unity, a new hero...and Ambuscade, a new villain. There was also a set of over-size villain and some nice tokens. I've punched all the tokens and added them to my dice and rule book in the original game box. My Rook City expansion box is essentially useless, so it'll be getting tossed out. Anyway, these are nice additions to a good game...thanks William!

I had brought my Strange Aeons figures with me as well, on the off chance that there would be someone around to play a game with. Sadly there was not, but I had planned ahead and also bought my newly based cowboy figures and the rules for Blackwater Gulch that I'd printed out last week. We grabbed a table and set up some terrain to give the rules a go.

There are no pictures of the game because I relatively busy flipping through the rules while we tried to figure out the various skills, modifiers and other crunchy bits. Those kind of things always come up during a first play. Our table was a little bit too big, so the game ended up being mostly shooting, but I did make a few attempts at melee.

William's long-range henchman made short work of three of my figures, but with the help of my doctor I was able to revive two of them and was able to pull out a win. The doctor profession can be really strong. I'm sure if we'd realized just how good it was earlier on she wouldn't have survived past the first few rounds.

My initial impression of Blackwater Gulch is a good one. The rules are relatively simple, but there is space for good tactical play, and cover is really important. The leader's luck dice, and the various professions and skills add some good depth to what would otherwise be a very vanilla game. I'm looking forward to finding some more Western themed figures and adding to my gangs.

Next thing on my painting table will be finishing up the starter box figures for Pulp City.