Advanced strategy tips for Bang!

This is a second part of this article about Bang! strategy. The first part focused on giving some really basic tips and was intended for people familiar with the game, but not complete beginners, as those should probably try the game few times on their own. Yes, I doubt there can be a Bang! beginner in 2017, that is why I have not provided a guide for those (also the rules do a that job quite well anyway). This time around, I will focus on some advanced tips, sometimes quite minor things in a greater scheme of things. If you aren't really too familiar with the game, start with the first article and come back to this one later. Bear in mind that those tips are for people who want to do as much as possible to win the game (within the boundaries of the rules). An average casual player might feel confused or perhaps might question himself why would someone ever try to follow those. With that in mind, let's jump right into it.

Know what cards are in the game

This tip is rather an obvious one, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to know this. I need 3 cards to kill my opponent. I have nothing in my hand and I will be drawing 2 cards in my next turn. Can I even hope to kill him? Is there any card that draws more cards left in the deck? More importantly knowing what kinds of effects are there helps you to correctly estimate what you can expect from your opponent. And if you play with any of the expansion, this knowledge's worth increases. Do you know what cards are in the High Noon deck? And the Wild West Show? 

I will be going through those in the future so do not be afraid if you do not know. 

This is also an absolute necessity if you want to utilize the next one.

Card counting

You may have heard of this in Poker or many other card games. There is up to 135 cards in the playing deck in Bang!. This task seems pretty impossible at first, but if you start with certain cards and ignore the rest, and gradually add more cards as you get used to this, you might end up being able to remember all the cards played in the game so far. The cards you may want to start with are those with the biggest impact. Those are the cards with stealing effects (Cat Balou, Panic!, Rag Time, etc.), distance modifiers and weapons (Mustang, Appaloosa, Silver, Hideout, Remington, ...) and cards that force you to keep Bang!s in your hand as a defensive tool (Indians!, Duels). It is also quite useful to keep track of cards that draw additional cards such as Stagecoach or Wells Fargo.

There might also be more decks in the game, such as High Noon, Fistful of Cards, Wild West Show and Gold Rush. All of those (except for Gold Rush) have one card that is always the last card in it's respective deck. By tracking those decks, you may give yourself a significant advantage that comes from knowing what effects are about to come or what equipment card can you hope to turn over when you buy one of those already offered to you. The keen players are able to exactly tell you what the last 2 cards of all three decks with predetermined last card are.

Looking for tells

You already know that it is a good idea to keep an eye on what cards people pick when General Store is played. What does it say about them though? First, you can catch some less experienced players picking up a weapon card that conveniently allows them to Bang! the Sheriff from distance. Look at the diagram bellow.

Let's assume that "A" is the Sheriff and nobody else has given any clue to what role is he playing. "A" plays a General Store card and following cards show up: Wells Fargo, Mustang, Stagecoach, Beer, Remington and Panic!. The Sheriff immediately picks Wells Fargo, as it is arguably the best card. Now player "F" picks Mustang in order to protect himself from the potential Panic! and improve his position overall. "E" picks Beer. "D" suddenly decides to pick Remington (a weapon that allows the player to shoot up to a distance of 3) over some quite solid cards (Stagecoach, Panic). Why would he do so? It's a 6-player game. In a 6-player game there is a Sheriff, 3 Outlaws, a Deputy and a Renegade. If the player who picked up the Remington were a Deputy, what would he try to achieve? It doesn't make sense for him to increase his own range as everyone around is an enemy. It could only be a good choice if he was trying to deny the weapon to player "C", who might be a Renegade or an Outlaw. But it probably wasn't worth the 2 extra cards or the Panic! effect anyway. We can quite safely predict that such player isn't the Deputy. Now the Renegade might potentially want o increase his range but only if he is after a specific target or he is trying to bluff everyone into thinking that he is an Outlaw. Neither of those is a good option because in this game we assume he doesn't have a clue who the Deputy might be. Therefore it only makes sense for him to either shoot someone immediately next to him or wait. That player is probably an Outlaw trying to initiate an attack against the Sheriff. Also if someone else played the General Store, you could expect a Deputy to pass a better card to you, in other words, if "C" played the GS and picked the Wells Fargo, then "B" picked Panic! and passed that Stagecoach to you, there is a good chance that he is your ally (unless you only have the Stagecoach in your hand, because guess what he will do with that Panic! on his turn if that is the case).

Micro decisions
Many people overlook little things that do not even matter most of the time. Since they are really minor, you perhaps didn't even notice some of them. A typical example would be following situation.

Let's say a player has both cards shown above in front of him, active and ready to be played when  needed. He is a target of a Bang! card, he has no Missed! in his hand. Which card do you play? The original and first impression is that it doesn't matter. Wrong! If you play the Cappello first, you risk drawing the second Iron Plate in the future, but if the first one is still on the board by the time you draw the second one, you are suddenly stuck with a dead card in your hand. The only instance in which it is correct to play the Cappello is if your opponent already has an Iron Plate in front of him and you suspect he might have a Panic! card in his hand. By playing the Cappello first, you prevented him from stealing AND using your Plate at the same time. Yes, he may still steal the card, but then it is a dead card in his hand. Another great example of this is a situation where your opponent has both a Hideout and a Mustang card in front of him. You might wish to steal one of those to get closer to him. But which one? They both do exactly the same thing just as in the previous case, but once again, a clever observer will point out, that there are 3 copies of Mustang card in the deck and only a single Hideout. So by stealing a Hideout you prevent your opponent from easily replacing it.

The Valley of Shadows expansion brings some cards that might cause a headache. Cards like Aiming (play this with a Bang! card, the target needs 1 Missed! to avoid it but loses 2 life points if he doesn't) force you to play your cards in a particular order. Let's say you have this, a Bang! card and a Punch card in your hand. Your goal is to kill a player to your right or something like that. If you Punch him first, he will likely use his Missed!, if he has any in his hand. Then you use your enhanced Bang! to make him hopefully lose 2 life points. Note that very experienced opponents who did their homework and counted all the cards that have been played to that point in the game might suspect you have this combination of cards and they might decide not to play the Missed! on purpose. You can use this to your advantage, Punch them for 1 life point and stop. Or call their bluff and shoot them with everything you have. After all, there are only 13 Missed! cards in the deck, 2 Dodge cards, and a Backfire card that also comes in the VotS expansion. Either way, keep in mind that this is a very advanced thing and many people do not really want to go that far in case of Bang!. But I feel that if you were willing to read this up to this point, you could as well try those.

Be calm

Does it surprise you to read this? The final point of this very passionate article about strategy for a seemingly simple mindless game advises you to stay calm. Yes. After all, it is just a game. If you lose, it is often pretty bad feeling, and the odds are sometimes in your favour and yet you still somehow lose. I know that feeling. I have been through that numerous times, dying to my opponents, to an unfortunate Dynamite draw, to an Event Card and so on. But even then, the most important thing is to stay calm. You may point out that it sucks to be unlucky, but it happens, and if you complain too much, people might go after you just so that they can see you explode again. Plus it is a terrible sportsmanship to leave the table enraged without even saying something like "thanks for the game". :D And that doesn't cover the elimination part only. If someone is about to steal a card from you and you know you have 4 cards in your hand and one of them is the crucial Volcanic you have been safeguarding in your hand for the whole game, just shuffle them, put them on the table face-down, and do your best to stay calm and try not to react at all. Sometimes you get away with that, sometimes you do not, but either way it is better than being a loud butthurt jerk. You sometimes just cannot help yourself from complaining and that is natural and probably appropriate in some situations, but keep it as limited as possible and try to enjoy the game instead.

Other than that, all I can do for you is wish you a good luck! Keep those in mind and improve your general game knowledge by playing more games (both games of Bang! and games in general). And most importantly, have fun!

Thoughts on Epic Munchkin

Have you ever played something as pointless yet so catchy as Munchkin? This game, well-known parody of role-playing games, starts as an empty box with little more than 200 cards as this article points out, but before you know it, you find yourself in local store looking for expansions.
I will assume you have taken such step or that you are familiar with the game itself. If that is not the case, there is a whole section focused on reviews of the basic game here. Anyway, let me briefly introduce the good ol' classic Munchkin.

What is Munchkin - If you are familiar with the game, feel free to skip this part.

-Created by Steve Jackson, originally illustrated by John Kovalic
-A game with a ton of jokes and geeky references
-Designed for 2-6 players
-Gameplay time listed on the official website is 1-2 hours

You start as a Human at level 1. Players take turns at kicking down the doors to enter the imaginary dungeon. Now the main point of Munchkin is to reach level 10. To do so, you must kill Monsters, grab the treasure and make your character more powerful as you collect and use new Races, Class and equipment cards, using everything you can from the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment to the Vorpal Blade. The catch is nobody knows, what "Vorpal" is. Okay, I was just testing you. The true catch obviously is that other players may make it more difficult for you to defeat the Monsters by playing buff cards that increase their strength. They may also offer their help in exchange for certain number of treasures or other useful items. There is a pesky kind of cards called Curses, which do bad things to you. Every time you manage to defeat a Monster, you go up a level. There are some other ways to level up, such as selling items of a combined worth of 1000 gold or more, or playing a "Go up a level" card, but to reach the final level, you must defeat a Monster (or pray for Divine Intervention).

That shows the first problem people tend to have with Munchkin. You gain equipment and also a majority of better cards by defeating Monsters. Yes, you can trade with other players, but you must first have at least something useful to have chance of getting what you need from an opponent. Typically in a game, there always seems to be a player who struggles to draw a Monster. He then falls behind, with no real option to come back in the game and the most he can do is he finds himself in a kingmaker position when deciding who to prevent from winning with his remaining cards. There is a catch-up mechanic called charity, which forces any player who exceeds his hand-size limit to give any excess cards to the player with the lowest level. That rarely happens and if it does, the player receives mostly useless cards.

The second flaw people complain about is the "runaway leader". One or two players get ahead, reaching like level 8 or 9 and then it comes up to who draws a Monster first and whether other players can stop that player from winning with what they have in their hands. If they can, then it mostly ends up with the other player winning on the very next turn. Or other people inevitably gang up on you if you take the lead, completely exhausting their resources, wrecking you, and meanwhile allowing someone else to win without much effort. Anyway it is also what makes Munchkin so intense in the final few turns, especially if there is more claimants for the win. Do not take me wrong. Many people, including myself, quite enjoy the classic Munchkin and it has it good points, such as the negotiating it involves, the tension at the end of the game, and so on. But for this review, I need to highlight the bad parts of Munchkin in order to clearly clarify my opinions. Also bear in mind that those problems sometimes arise, but sometimes they don't. You might have had a different and an entirely positive experience with the game and that is completely fine (lucky you tho :D ).

What is Epic Munchkin

Epic Munchkin is a set of rules that lets you play up to level 20 and brings some new mechanics and abilities. After any player reaches level 10, the game continues, and the player is considered "Epic Munchkin". If he somehow gets back to levels 1-9, he loses the epic status. Epic Munchkins turn over two cards instead of one when kicking down the doors and resolve them in a given order. First, any Curses are resolved. Then you may pick up and apply any Race or Class card. The third come the Monsters, which you fight as usual, but if there are two Monsters, fight them both. And any Monster Enchancer card immediately applies to the Monster drawn with it. The Epic Munchkins also get another ability in addition to their standard Races or Class card abilities, called Epic Ability. This usually further improves their current abilities or brings entirely new ones. The object of the game changes to reaching level 20. To reach levels 19 and 20, you must defeat a Monster.

What does it try to achieve anyway?

The goal of this set of rules is to make the game last longer. It also brings the Epic phase of the game during which players become even more powerful and get some new abilities. Those are available on this website for free. They come described in a list that probably is just ok, but it takes time to memorize them and it is pretty inconvenient to look at some kind of a table every now and then during a game like this. But hey, you do not have to pay for this and it is a minor downside anyway.

My thoughts

Having played this a handful of times, I am pretty sure I won't try to do so again in the closest future.
There are several reasons. Once a player reaches the level 8-10 area in a regular game, he pretty much can beat any Monster in the game on his own, unless other players intervene. And they do not do so unless they absolutely have to. So what happens is that an already very powerful Munchkin gets a new stronger ability and more time to gather more equipment, buffs and generally get out of control. Any player in that phase of the game then just draws two door cards, moreless automatically defeats any Monsters drawn and puts a new *insert an item* in front of himself. They fixed the issue of players ganging up on the leader by making the leader(s) powerful enough to withstand nearly anything others can throw at him. The game then becomes a mindless race through the deck between those players fortunate enough to have at least level 10 or so. For the others, it prolongs their suffering and also takes the fun out of the game by simply making it last way too long. It doesn't address any other issue, most importantly doesn't introduce any way to keep all players really involved in the game to the end. And that means something from a gamer like me, who believes that if you fall behind in a game, you deserve it, as you probably played badly. Well, this obviously applies to serious Eurogames with little to no luck factor involved, so it would make sense for me to have a catch-up mechanic in Munchkin. Something like "Watch and learn" rule: "Whenever an Epic Munchkin goes up a level, all non-Epic Munchkins choose to either draw a treasure card or go up a level." This would obviously require some playtesting, but something like this allows those behind to feel like they still have a chance to catch up and maybe even quietly climb up to the victory. And it isn't really all that gamebreaking, as it isn't too rewarding. After all, all the player did was watching.
Last but not least, this little tweak would bring one more decision to make, in form of taking an immediate reward (level up) or try to fish for an item that might prove useful in the greater scheme of things (the treasure). I also like the fact that it doesn't directly harm or slow the leading players.

About those new abilities... some are quite powerful (Elves, Dwarves, Wizards, Thieves, Clerics), while some have little to no impact (Centaurs and Gnomes). I generally like how they are designed, if not balanced (Who cares about Munchkin being balanced anyway? This guy does!). They also stick with the original theme of individual Races. I absolutely wouldn't mind playing with those by default, as it encourages players to use Races and Class cards and makes them slightly more powerful. Or make it obtainable by say "tapping" your respective Class or Race card at the beginning of your turn, then you get the Epic ability for the duration of the round, leave it tapped as you end your turn and untap it at the end of your next turn. This makes it so you cannot just rely on having the ability at all times.

Conclusion

I won't lie to you. When I first saw the Epic rules, I was excited to try them and didn't even think about it being a bad idea. I would tell you not to do the same, to do yourself a favor and play the classic Munchkin or an entirely different game. But by now you have probably stopped reading and played a couple of games using this variant anyway. It is a good one-time modification. If you use one of my suggestions or come up with your own, you might enjoy this multiple times. It is quite sad that such a small "expansion" or set of rules is designed in a way that requires a house rule or two, otherwise it just makes the game almost unplayable for most, even though a small percentage of hardcore fans might still enjoy it. But to be fair, it only deepens the problems Munchkin already had before, and doesn't bring too many new things.
In my opinion, this isn't for regular play, unless you are fanatically devoted to Munchkin. Yes, it isn't a serious game, so it doesn't necessarily need to be balanced, but come on, this game lasts about hour in it's most basic form and I am being optimistic now. Imagine a 6-player game of Munchkin using your average number of expansions (5 in my case) and now add the Epic rules to the mix. The time it takes before you get to your turn and the time the game lasts just make it a frustrating experience no matter who is winning, because guess what? Most players do not even care at certain point under such conditions.

Rating
+ Pretty low price :D
+ New abilities
+ Cool idea of drawing 2 cards at the same time
- Doesn't try to fix problems, makes them more significant
- Makes the game more frustrating, more dull, doesn't let you build the tension
- Time this takes is just too long
Overall: 3 out of 10, worth a shot but not really much more than that

Infinite loopholes in Bang!

In my previous article posted on this blog, I have given some basic tips on what to do in a typical game of Bang!. I was PMed and asked what the first turn game-ending scenario was.
I appreciate the interest. I thought of replying, but then an idea came through my mind... let's write
a whole new article about this! There is only one first turn game ending scenario that guarantees the win  (if you draw what you need, you win, no matter what your opponents do) as far as I am aware, but Bang! also creates some other possible scenarios allowing you to draw infinite amount of cards and likely win the game afterwards.
While they are quite unlikely to occur, it is nonetheless good to be aware of their existence.
Let's see what kind of crazy combos can be pulled off!

A few honorable mentions

This article is about infinite loopholes. That is it. INFINITE. But there are so many other cool interactions and characters who simply do not make the cut because they are bound to eventually run out of cards.

Lee Van Kliff - This character is capable of a single massive game-decisive turn provided the correct cards, but it is by no means guaranteed or infinite. Anyway, he is really one of the greatest damage dealers in the entire Bang!. Sadly that is not good enough for today's list.

Chuck Wengam - His ability is one of the coolest and most unique abilities in the game. Voluntarily losing a life point to draw two cards allows him to do some crazy shit during his turn, especially when at full life. He can draw up to 8 cards a turn if he chooses to drop himself to a measly one life. Any Beer card might be then used as a Stagecoach, simply losing the regained life point again. Gold Rush further increases this potential with cards that restore health or reward you for losing life points. One way or another, the distribution of life refilling cards is too low for him to be even theoretically able of truly infinite combo. 

John Pain - He gets any card a player "draws" as long as he doesn't hold more than 6 cards in his hand. It is the limit of 6 cards maximum that prevents him from getting an infinite amount of cards using a teammate's Barrel in conjunction with Volcanic, Showdown and Blessing cards or the third true combo on this list.

Jose Delgado - Where those infinite combos offer fierceness, this character offers consistency. He literally draws 3 cards a turn in most cases. Sometimes it is only the previously nonexistent limitation to a 2 times per turn use of his ability that stops him from chaining it for incredible amount of cards drawn. Even as he is, he is a force to be reckoned with.

1.) Suzy Lafayette OTK

This combo is very well known, and is the only "true" possible first turn win I am aware of. Other than just getting lucky cards and somehow winning with say Willy the Kid and a bunch of Bang! cards. You need to have the Wild West Show expansion in play, but other than that, it can be done with the basic game only. The idea behind this is that you are the Sheriff and you character is Suzy Lafayette (note that Greygory Deck could do as well). In your opening hand and your two cards in Phase 1 of your turn, you need to get a Volcanic and at least one card that triggers the Wild West Show event deck. You hope to turn over the Showdown card, which says that any card may be played as Bang! and all Bang! cards may be played as Missed!. You put out the Volcanic and then use all your cards in your hand as Bang!. Then Suzy's ability triggers and you draw a card. That card counts as Bang! and you can play any number of them thanks to your Volcanic, essentially leading to you converting the whole deck into Bang! cards. Be careful not to play any Wells Fargo or Stagecoach you draw in the process using their actual effects. You must play them as a Bang! card in order to prevent the Wild West Show deck from changing effect again, as this would end your rampage! Now the bad thing is that unless you are playing a 4-player game, there is also a Deputy in play, so this combo doesn't really allow you to 100% win the game anymore, because killing the Deputy would cause you to discard the Volcanic as a penalty. This can be prevented if you are Greygory Deck and you manage to draw both Suzy Lafayette and Willy the Kid as your abilities for the round. Then you again need to get lucky and draw the Wells Fargo/Stagecoach in order to get the Showdown card on, but from here, you can just shoot everyone without worries, as Willy the Kid substitutes for the Volcanic and doesn't get discarded if you kill your own teammate, the Deputy. Good luck pulling this off, the chance to do so being about 0.165% for the default combo, depending at what sets of cards are you playing with and provided you have already drawn Suzy Lafayette to be your character.

Note that the Showdown card has been errated by the author of Bang!, Emiliano Sciarra, who stated that the correct text was meant to be "All cards may be played as Bang! cards. All Bang! cards must be played as Missed!". The combo is still pretty nice, but doesn't allow infinite Bang's anymore. But given the likelihood of this happening, I like to play the old wording just for fun and excitement that comes from even a hypothetical chance of this happening. :)

2.) High Noon/A Fistful of Cards loophole

This one is a bit of a mystery. Many people have tried to answer the question how to proceed when this actually happens. You need to have both the High Noon and Fistful of Card expansions in play. Now, at the beginning of the round, Sheriff simultaneously turns over the top card of each deck. If there is Blessing/Curse card and the Peyote card at the same time, it technically lets the Sheriff draw the whole deck. The former mentioned cards set the suit of all cards in the deck to Hearts, respectively Spades, for the duration of the round for all effects and purposes. Now what Peyote does is that it makes you guess the color of the top card in the deck instead of drawing cards in the Phase 1 of your turn as usual. If you guess right, you take the card in your hand and guess again, otherwise you go directly into the Phase 2 of your turn. But if the suit of any card is set to be Hearts/Spades, you can keep guessing until you eventually draw the whole deck! There might be a FAQ contradicting this and people usually have a house rule to limit this. My house rule in fact says that you must guess the ACTUAL colors on the cards, because this is not that unlikely of a combo and having a game end like this every now and then is quite unsatisfying IMHO. 

3.) Teren Kill "suicide"

Not only is Teren Kill inspired by a famous Italian actor we all love, but he also is a pretty cool and powerful character. What you maybe didn't know is that there is a combination of cards that allows him to draw the whole deck. You thought the Gag was included only for fun. But in fact, it is a rather unknown loophole enabler. Let me explain how it works. Teren Kill "draws!" each time he would be eliminated. On Spades, he dies. Otherwise he survives and draws a card from the deck. When Gag is in play, anyone who speaks loses 1 life point. So Teren Kill is now able to lose a life point infinite amount of times, therefore able to trigger his ability infinitely, provided he doesn't die. "But he might die!" you say? Add High Noon expansion and the Blessing card shown in the previous case. Now imagine what happens. Teren may trigger his ability infinitely and all cards are Hearts. "Draws" the card each time he would die and it is always a Heart so he always lives and gets to draw a card. Other players silently watch him as he draws the whole deck by talking or scream in agony and die. Either way, you better be talkative when doing this, as a meticulous opponent might demand you really say something each time you want to lose your last life point.

4.) Simeon Picos and Toys

The Gold Rush expansion brought some funny new mechanics and 8 new characters, Simeon Picos amongst them. This inconspicuous character takes a gold nugget each time he loses a life and lets you draw the entire deck using a complex combo of 4 specific cards. Those are the previously mentioned Gag, and three new equipment cards. Let's have a closer look at them. First one is the Lucky Charm, an equipment that costs 3 nuggets and does exactly the same thing as Simeon's ability - gets you a nugget for each life point you lose. The second card is Boots, which costs 3 nuggets and lets you draw a card each time you lose a life. With Gag active, you once again can lose a life point infinite amount of times. Once you have all those cards, you pretty much have the ability "Whenever you lose a life point, draw a card and take 2 gold nuggets."

The third and final equipment card is the Rucksack. It costs 3 nuggets and says "discard 2 nuggets to get 1 life point". So you once you have acquired all those cards (a total of 9 nuggets!), wait for the Gag to get into play, then say a word, lose a life point, get two nuggets and a card, then regain a life point for those two nuggets. This allows you to draw the entire deck. I have never seen this combo in an actual game and I doubt it will ever happen, but one never knows! 

5.) Greygory Deck

Greygory Deck has already been mentioned in this article. He randomly draws 2 characters from the basic game that are not in play and uses them both. This obviously allows him to pull off any combo Suzy Lafayette is capable of, provided he draws her as one of his characters. But there is more to him. Using Gold Rush expansion, he is capable of the most elaborate infinite combo I know of in Bang!. To achieve it, you need to have some previously mentioned equipment cards. Those are the Boots (costs 3 nuggets, whenever you lose a life point, draw a card) and the Lucky Charm (again costs 3, whenever you lose a life point, take a nugget). You also need to draw exactly Sid Ketchum and Bart Cassidy as your character abilities at the same time. On top of that, the Gag form Wild West Show expansion must be in play. Once all those conditions are achieved (and I doubt it will ever happen, but it is not impossible), you simply say a word, lose a life point, get a nugget and two cards, then discard two cards to regain a life point. Repeat until you have a lot of nuggets. Now you need 59 nuggets to be able to go through the whole equipment deck exactly once. As any card bought is immediately replaced by a new one, you now have infinite card draw (thanks to the Union Express card which lets you draw 4 cards), and you can use any brown-bordered card in the GR deck any number of times. In other words, you most likely win. 

The bottom line is that while this is cool, if you intend to draw the entire deck, this can be quite demanding. As I said, you need 59 nuggets to cycle through the Gold Rush deck once. This lets you draw 6 cards. The playing deck has 80, 120 or 135 cards by default. You need to cycle through the Gold Rush deck 13, 20 or respectively 23 times to draw the whole deck. That requires from 767 to 1357 nuggets. Maybe it will be better if everyone just mutually proclaims you the winner.

Summary

Those are some crazy things up there. No doubt about that. Period. What I want to mention though, is whether I think this is good for a game. I have played Magic for quite some time. In Magic, there is currently about 20 000 cards in the game, some of them reprints of older cards or essentially reprints. It comes as no surprise that there are many infinite combos in the game, actually allowing whole decks to be build around those. It probably makes people think it is pay to win or noninteractive and there have been so-called banlists filled with cards enabling some combinations considered unfair or overpowered. I personally do not appreciate existing cards getting banned from the player's perspective, but given the sheer number of cards they have to take into account when designing a new card, I guess it is acceptable every now and then. Now you clearly do not want to buy a non-collectible card game and straight out of the box remove some cards, because they enable some kind of a combo. And as you can see, those combos exist in Bang!. Those are a problem in many games, most notably Magic or other TCGs. Is it a problem in Bang!? I would say no. In fact, the existence of those combinations is in my opinion beneficial to the game in this particular case, as it adds something very difficult to achieve, yet not impossible. You cannot build your deck around the combo, you cannot really do too much to increase the odds of pulling it off. For that reason I am glad to have them included in the game. I am curious what do you have to say about this.

Hope you like those. Let me know what crazy combos do you know about and what infinite loopholes occurred to you while playing!

Basic strategy tips for Bang!

As promised, here is the first and the most basic guide on how to play Bang! the card game.
Before we begin, remember these are my opinions based upon my personal experience with the gameplay. I have played numerous games, but you might have a different playstyle and you will almost certainly play against different people. Also remember that point of the game is to have fun in the first place, winning should almost always come in the second.

First of all, let's answer the most immediate question that you think of.
Why bother to come up with strategy for such a purely luck-based game?
For some people it is fun to try to find the "optimal" way to play the game. That is my case, for example. I know it is a very relaxed game with a lot of luck involved, but there are many seemingly minor decisions that separate the "bad" players from the good ones (or the ones focusing on playing the game in some cases :D ). The second possible answer to the question is that some people simply are competitive and believe it or not, there used to be actual tournaments in Bang! and I think some are still around. Anyway, here are the absolutely basic strategic tips:

When choosing a character, consider your hidden role
This one seems really obvious, but some people forget it and end up with a bad character for what they should be aiming for in the game. The most obvious example would be the Renegade. Imagine you are presented with a choice. You are dealt two characters, the first one being Sid Ketchum, the second one being Slab the Killer. The obvious pick especially for the newer players would probably be the latter, but remember your objective! Your goal is to survive until there is only you and the Sheriff left. At this point of the game, the Beer cards played have no effect, making it quite difficult to regain your lost life points. Sid Ketchum has the ability to convert 2 card from your hand into regaining a life point, making him a solid renegade and giving him more survivability, whereas Slab the Killer only offers good offensive potential.

Now imagine the same situation again, but this time your role is an Outlaw. Your ultimate goal in the game is no longer to survive (well, you still want to survive, but it is not necessary for you to win), but to kill the Sheriff. In this case, strong offensive ability might come in handy, probably making it the better choice. Ideally, you want to survive and win, but both isn't always achievable at the same time. Generally you do not need to do both if you are a Deputy or an Outlaw. You essentially must survive as a Renegade in order to win, but there are few possible tricks you can do with the expansions that let you come back and win. As a Sheriff, you have no choice but to live or lose.
No matter what your role is, always consider which of the two characters synergizes with your goal. Some characters might be powerful enough for you to choose them over a character better suited for your role, but sticking to this rule might help you decide those close calls.

Do not bluff beyond reason
Yes, it can be done. While it is a good idea to be deceptive, if you are a Deputy and make the Sheriff kill you, you are doing something wrong. There is nothing wrong with playing Gatling and making the Sheriff lose a life point, but if you shoot him with you Bang! card right after that, not only he might suspect you are an Outlaw, he might even kill you and lose his Deputy and all his cards! Talk people into making bad decisions or things that help your side, but remember that actions (or bullets) speak louder than words.

An example of this might be when you are a dying Outlaw and you have 1-2 life points left. There is a reward of 3 cards for killing an Outlaw and you clearly do not intend to give those cards to the Sheriff. Now let's presume it is the Sheriff's turn. What you might want to try if there is at least one Deputy left  is talking him into not taking the risk of killing you, because you might very well be the Deputy (assuming you aren't obviously an Outlaw, who shot at him multiple times). Do not be afraid of telling him that you are fine with dying to anyone else and your goal is to prevent the Sheriff from discarding all his cards as a penalty for killing his Deputy. If he doesn't shoot you, either heal yourself or (if your chances of survival are low) unload all you have, try to damage the Sheriff, and hope for the best, which actually might be one of your teammates killing you and getting the reward. But if you keep up to your promise in the previous situation and start shooting anyone else but the Sheriff, chances are you will end up shooting your teammates and wasting your already limited resources, therefore bluffing beyond reason. It might temporarily be an acceptable strategy, but if you stick with this for too long, you are more likely decreasing your chance to win.

Pay attention to the game
Most players have already found themselves in a position similar to the one I am about to describe at some point. During the game, the General Store is played, each player chooses a card and then the player whose turn it is says "it's your turn now" towards you. You have a single Duel card in your hand, which you picked from the cards offered and you draw two pretty useless weapon cards. Your opponent you want to target with the Duel has only a single card in his hand, but you do not really want to lose a hitpoint. If you could only look at his card! But if you paid attention, you would know that the card left in his hand was a Missed! card he picked up from the General Store. Simple awareness can potentially let you "see" some cards in your opponent's hand.

Be realistic
Learn to know which cards seems great and which card should you really steal with you Cat Balou or Panic! cards. While taking your opponent's Barrel seems fine, even more if he has been lucky and he has drawn hearts twice in a row now, taking away his weapon might be more important, because he then perhaps won't be able to shoot you, while you can fire on him and this advantage came at the price of him keeping the approximate 25% chance to avoid your shots.

Another great example of this is when General Store comes in play. You are presented with a choice of either picking the Volcanic or one of a couple of Bang! cards. Everyone knows how powerful the Volcanic can be. But let's say you have no Bang! cards in your hand. The Volcanic is a completely worthless card to you in that situation and you should only choose it over a Bang! card if you want to deny it to the other players, because it almost always has no immediate benefit for you in that given position.

Use your ability
I have seen people forget about their character's unique ability countless times over and over again.
It is what makes every game different and also what gives you something specific only you can do.
This is not a strategic tip but rather a friendly reminder, that with the sole exception of Big Spencer (and possibly Bill Noface), no character ability in the game has a strictly negative effect for the player on its own. Never forget this and see what you can do with your ability. Sometimes, the options are almost unlimited, some characters being even capable of ending the game in the first turn (albeit just theoretically).

Keep those tips in mind during your next game of Bang!. I hope you will find them helpful, feel free to comment and share your results. The next time I will bring you some more tips and also add some not so obvious or maybe slightly more difficult things to do.

Introduction to my blog

Greetings!

It is a pleasure to welcome you all to this blog!

I am a tabletop games enthusiast, history geek and occasional arts experimenter. I also love fantasy and sci-fi, in particular the Star Wars universe, J. R. R. Tolkien's work, MTG stories and so on.

After many failed attempts and a long process of overcoming my significant laziness, 

I have finally decided to create this blog. I will focus on adding new content related

to card games, board games and games in general. I will try to share my thoughts related to 

Bang! the card game, being partially inspired by fascinating work of Martin Pulido 

(his website http://bangcardgame.blogspot.com/), who sadly doesn't seem to be active anymore.

I am by no means implying that I could possibly do a better job, in fact I do not think someone will ever come even close to that, nonetheless I believe it is about time someone actually tried. His strategy guides focused on the characters are a hidden gem and I definitely recommend checking them, but just about everything he came up with is definitely a very high quality content. Unfortunately those guides do not take the most recently published expansions into consideration as they simply weren't around back then.

That is (hopefully) where my future work could add something new to this, as I will try to include those among other things.

I also plan on sharing my random thoughts mostly concerning games. These might range from cool things I encounter to virtually anything, one never knows. I might end up writing all of this just for myself, which actually is one of the main purposes of this blog. However, I will obviously try to share all this with the community, because that is, after all, what makes games, and pretty much everything, more interesting - other people around you. I hope you will find my thoughts intriguing, entertaining and not too insane :). Always feel free to add your comments, questions or criticism and most importantly have a good time.

Without further ado, let's get started!