The GameDaddy Reviews The Shootist’s Guide for Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontiers
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Of the few newer games  purchased over the last few years, the Aces & Eights western RPG ranks at the top of my list. The newest supplement, The Shootist’s Guide is no exception, and this fine quality addition for your Aces & Eights lineup will add additional color for, and a few new choice curses from… your players.

Contents:
32 page Black & White 96# Glossy Rules Supplement

The “Big Game” shot clock

10 Double-sided Varmint Silhouettes including:
Bears, Eagles, Buffalo, Wolves, Sheep, Boars, Deer, Cougars, Dogs, Cattle, and more…

16 New double-sided and one Double-paged NPC Silhouettes  including:
Mounted targets, Additional shooting poses, Indians attack, As well as a few choice silhouettes including a hostage silhouette, and a villain slipping behind a group of innocent towns folk.

The Silhouettes

53 new silhouettes add a wide range of new targets that will handle most situations that will come up in game, for anything else that could possible happen, a pencil, a bit of tracing paper, along with a few choice western art books, and just a few minutes time, will get you any additional silhouettes that you would care to add.

The “Big Game” shot clock

Missing your target is an intriguing prospect with Aces & Eights. The Clear acetate shot clocks (included) along with a deck of playing cards (not included) help determine exactly where your missed shot traveled. In most cases, you’ll miss your target entirely. In some cases you’ll wing your target, in others, you’ll wound them not quite where you intended, and in some cases, you can end up killing a target you might have only intended to scare and/or wound which can be quite inconvenient to the necessities of the moment.  Lawman, you were supposed to take that Outlaw scum into town for a fair trial, now what?

The Newest shot clock, the “Big Game” shot clock is specifically designed to handle mounted targets, and large animals like Bison, Horses, and Bears. This game mechanic ratchets up the tension level considerably for combat during the game, allowing it to faithfully recreate the gun fighting western cinema experience, and can create many additional interesting and entertaining extenuating circumstances for your players on the fly.  

The Rules Supplement

New Rules for Horses, Donkeys, Burros, & Mules. Including Marking, Coloration, Behavior, Temperament, along with additional attributes and types for these critters. Heck, the unique features of your mounts and animals alone, will keep the players entertained for hours, especially if they have to cross some really rugged country.

Authenticity is important when it comes to Westerns, and speaking as a man who learned how to ride a horse, a half-broke cutting horse of all things, from a Lakota Indian... I can attest to the authenticity of the rules as written here.

The Indian you see, first showed me how to saddle my horse, by letting me watch him saddle his own. He neglected to tell me though that I should slap the horse on the flank when cinching the saddle, in order to cause the horse to exhale, and insure that the front cinch of the saddle was really, really, tight on the horse. When we were a quarter of a mile out of the corral the loose cinch worked itself sloppy loose, causing the saddle to slip, and spilling me unceremoniously on the ground. The Indian wasn’t much interested in helping me roundup my unhappy and wayward horse, so I got to spend the rest of that morning walking down my horse, all the while carrying my rifle, gear, and saddlebags that had dropped off the inverted saddle as the horse ran away. At least when I finally recovered my horse, the Indian showed me what I had done wrong. It was a good learning experience, that I wouldn’t want you to have to go through. Oh, and for the back cinch… You should really leave that one loose, as it can kind of chafe in sensitive areas on the horse, Just sayin…

I got revenge on the Lakota though. (Don’t call them Sioux if you meet one, it’s still a serious insult.)

 I had another cutting horse later that summer, one with an extreme inclination to avoid crossing water of any kind. For some reason, the horse just hated getting his hooves wet or stepping into soft wet ground. The smallest of streams, he would break into a full gallop and vault over. There were show horses that can’t vault like this cutting horse could jump. When we got into water or mud wider than he could jump, the horse would start bucking and kicking, and being all kinds of pissed off, and would throw his rider. That was me.

We were out riding fences that day, and the Indian was getting mad at me, on account I kept getting thrown. He was under the impression that I hadn’t learned to ride properly yet (I had, I had ridden every day for about a month, and was actually getting adept at moving small herds of cattle at this point).

So I offered to trade him horses.

And then we rode into the swamp.

And I wouldn’t trade him back.

He got thrown more than me that day, cussed up a storm, and ended up walking (or chasing his horse) until we got clear of the swamp. Remembering a few weeks earlier when he didn’t help me roundup my horse after the saddle loosened to the point I fell off, I kept my distance and let him roundup his own horse. Even though I traded him back after we got out of the swamp, he was really mad at me for about a week after as well. So yes… horses can get aqua phobia.

I had a really smart cutting horse that summer too that would take sudden unannounced short cuts through heavy timber and underbrush to cut off wayward cows he had spotted, but I didn’t. The horse would simply duck under tree branches, and wade right through dense thickets and brush. Only problem was, I was on the horse, and the horse wouldn’t tell me about these low-hanging tree branches, and he didn’t want to stop when he was right on top of a cow or small herd and moving them. Nor would the horse tell me which thickets contained the pine or thorns and brambles. Kind of had to figure that out on my own as we were cantering along after the loose cattle… I learned how to ride side-saddle that day and successfully helped bring our herd of about a hundred- and- twenty that had gotten through a downed fence, through some very heavy timber, and back out into the plains. I was riding as a Flanker.  

By the end of that summer I was riding a young White Mustang that liked to run at a full gallop everywhere we went. He could run for miles and miles, and go much faster than any vehicles in the rugged terrain of the high Rockies.

The new rules in the Shootist’s guide can recreate these experiences, and more …plus there’s a horse trading section.

There’s also a fully detailed roundup of critters in the Shootist’s Guide.

Beavers, and Foxes, Game Birds and Eagles, Mountain Lions and Bears…. Moose, Dogs, Snakes, and Skunks…and much more. All fully detailed and ready for your game.

There’s a couple really good examples in there too. One about running a fight with three hunting dogs and a bear, and the other that outlines how hunting and tracking work, with two hunters named Zeke and Jake stalking a deer. This provides clear and concise examples of how the fighting, hunting, and tracking skills work with animals.

A great addition for any Aces & Eights game