I love two games: BANG! and Team Fortress 2.
One day the idea of combining these two crossed my mind, so I decided to make an expansion to my favourite board game.
However I spent much time with it, I'm not a professional, this is just a hobby. It needs lots of testing, and probably needs some modification.
Altought when I created the new characters and playing cards, I didn't take much risk, so it's definitely playable and enjoyable. If you like these two games, you should have a good time with it.
The expansion may work well with the basic BANG! game, though the numbers and suits have been attuned to Dodge City. It also uses terms from The Valley Of Shadows (official) expension, which is a quite new pack, so some may not know it.
TF2 Expansion currently contains 9 characters, 20 playing cards (14 new, 6 ratio balancer), and 14 event cards.
The modding section of bangcardgame.blogspot.com has been a great use to me, I almost made everything, followed every steps according to the information I read there.
Unfortunately I don't have the drawing skills to make individual pictures for every new cards, but I tried my best collecting the best pictures available on the net. :) It'll hopefully do.
Why you should wait with the immediate printing of this pack?
Because it's not ready yet.
First of all, it has not been tested enough. Although as I already mentioned, I don't feel extreme amount of danger why this pack would be completely unplayable.
Some other things that need to be fixed:
- The pictures does not contain the numbers and suits, though everything has already its place.
- Every pictures should have a proper color and contrast correction, which is not going to be an easy job with my TN panel monitor. To be fair, there should be unique drawings for each card, if you are in the mood to create pictures at an affordable level, don't hesitate to do them.
- The Italian translation is on the way.
During design I took much care of keeping balance and sanity (not introducing WWS-like characters). When I drew up the rules, I tried to be sure not to keep hole in the system, and be as exact as possible. Unfortunately even official expansions can suffer from the lack of this, but time will decide whether this can work out.
As the name of the PC game shows, TEAM is a key in that area. In case of Bang!, it's not marginal either, but it is not easy to create characters that do not cause the player some trouble when alone, and the game comes close to the end.
I attached a few pictures about the upcoming pack, feel free to share your ideas!
I don't think I have to introduce them to the TF2 players. It was not easy to figure out the balance, at first I made stronger characters with less life points, but now I feel them more stable like this. None of them are too strong or weak compared to official characters, generally you can find some official "relatives", like the Scout is to Elena Fuente, or the Heavy is close to Slab The Killer (though Heavy's ability is available when using other attack cards (Punch,
Derringer, etc.).
Some characters under different circumstances can struggle and have to approach situations at an unusual way. For example the Medic in the role of the Renegade needs to be very careful, though if he is clever, he can work it out.
It is an interesting task to come close FPS characters and their abilities in a board game, and it brought some new ideas that I haven't seen before. Some words about the characters:
Heavy: As mentioned before, it's similar to Slab The Killer, but only when he is shooting at distance 1. I wanted to express the impressive melee ability of the Heavy from TF2.
Medic: This is a very unual character, and the riskiest part of the expansion regarding game balance. In team the ability of healing can be "deadly".
Pyro: I tried to create a short-range focused character just as in TF2. If he can get a scope, a distance of 3 is not too bad...
[Fanning: a card from the Valley Of Shadows (official) extension. “Counts as your normal one BANG! per turn. Also targets the player of your choice at distance 1 from the first target (if any, excluding you) with a BANG!.”]
Scout: no words needed, thin and agile, faster than a bullet. Close to Elena Fuente, but can use only
brown cards. However he can use them not just as Missed, but as Escape.
[Escape: a card from the Valley Of Shadows (official) extension. “May be played out of turn. Avoid the effects of a brown card (other than BANG!) that includes you as a target”]
Sniper: there are some possibilites to have a balanced character, with 3 life and fix ultimate vision, or the way I did. This encourages the use of blue cards more, what this expansion contains more than the original game's variability would justify.
Soldier: his experience in war and fight is benefetial when it comes to avoid shots from the Gatling. Indians may not even see him because of his camouflage :)
Spy: inspired by the WWS event card called "Lady Rose of Texas", swapping places can make some exciting moments. Let's play some hide and seek!
Demoman: the least creative character. Maybe he can load anything in his old cannon :)
Engineer: a defensive character, just like in TF2. Easy to play.
As some of the characters' names are known, it has not been decided whether they are going to be used. Official game contains generally English names, so I excluded the use of Italian translations even if they fit in the atmosphere better.
English - Italian - Name
Scout - Esploratore - unknown
Soldier - Soldato - Mister Jane Doe
Pyro - Piro - unknown
Demoman - Demolitore - Tavish Finnegan DeGroot
Heavy - Grosso - Misha
Engineer - Ingegnere - Dell Conagher
Medic - Medico - unknown
Sniper - Cecchino - Mr. Mundy
Spy - Spia - unknown
New brown cards:
I just wanted to bring closer the feeling of TF2 without introducing too difficult gameplay. The most interesting is the Dead Ringer which has just a slight similarity with the ingame stuff. This card can be very annoying, and you will surely play it with a big smile.
New blue cards (Italian translation at a very early stage):
Guitar: By far my most favourite card. Do you like being a troll?
Half-Zatoichi: A great melee weapon with a similar ability like in TF2.
Jarate: following the mini-crit effects in TF2 by implementing Slab The Killer's skill in a blue card.
Medigun: Just like the Medic, this is a questinable weapon. I think it's kind of fun, but I understand the doubts as well. It needs many tests.
Teleport: I wanted to save the original game's card ratio, so this is generally a Jail with a new skin. The noob engineer doesn't know where to place the damn teleport!
There could be an option, when player draws spades, he can continue and change place with anybody. Though this would cause too long text.
Trader: Some like trading...why not try it out in Bang! ? Are you an Outlaw? Look, I need 2 Bang! and a Volcanic to kill the Sheriff. And a Cat Balou to release myself from the "load of trading".
This card could exist as a brown card, like Poker in The Valley of Shadows.
Finally, the pack should contain 4 Bang! and 2 Missed! cards to keep the quality of play.
This is how this expansion influences the ratio of different (already existing) types of cards.
The next table contains all the current data about the playing cards. Thanks again for Martin Pulido for sharing these great spreadsheets, it eased my work very much.
All suits from 2 to 4 fills the Dodge City expansion's pack, as it starts from 5 to Ace.
The remaining cards got K and A from all suits.
[The Indians in the data sheet has been updated as a "Mann vs. Machine" card, which has the same effect].
Event cards (aka. Cardwell Farm):
This is at a very experimental level, so take care...it's going to be revised.
The game ender card: Sudden Death - Noone can regain life points.
