The Finest Swiss Cheese | HC 7.5k Guide

The Finest Swiss Cheese

I'm continuing my series with a deck each Sunday and using the Drowned City cards. Here Tony uses the Gatling Gun to deal up to 36 damage in a turn, allowing you to put more holes in cultists than the swiss cheese...

CHANGELOG: As Strong-Armed doesn't work with Firearm assets this should be removed (it was the final XP purchase of the deck anyway). Change this for Counterespionage.

Overview

• Gatling Gun allows for +6 six damage attacks, and can deal its damage against groups. This means testing at 11 without any other boosts to combat, and killing six health enemies (e.g. 3 health enemies in two player) in one action. With Haste, Leo and Tony's ability this means you can deal up to 36 damage in one turn (and so you have a chance at killing 9 health bosses single-handedly in 4 player). Finally - a good reason to use something which isn't Switchblade...

• There's nothing worse then getting to a boss and having the chaos bag bully you. Custom Modifications provides some protection on this front, giving you insurance in boss fights and meaning that you're less likely to waste a load of ammo on an unlucky bag pull. Crack Shot helps in situations where you're faced with a large group of enemies and so are testing high (pairing very well to the Custom Modifications' re-do). As you only need Crack Shot situationally, I found there was no need for Extended Stock on Custom Modifications because of Gatling Gun's insane boosts.

• Ammo needs careful management. Contraband, Extra Ammunition and Swift Reload are all solutions to this problem - with Swift Reload in particular allowing you to reload Gatling Gun as a mid-combat. Backpack helps you find Contraband and Extra Ammunition - you'll want use Contraband before taking many (or any) shots and after Extra Ammunition if you can.

• This deck is expensive, so it's crammed full of resource generating cards: Bank Job, Faustian Bargain, "Watch this!", Easy Mark and of course Bounty Contracts. Tony's sole means of clue-finding is boosts from committing cards and Streetwise, so any excess resources can be spent on that (I managed to clue-find off a 5 shroud location several times during playtesting with this). There's a few cards with icons to help vs. the encounter deck, but ultimately the priority is to maximise the effectiveness of the Gatling Gun and so stronger encounter deck management isn't adopted (EDIT: now added in Counterespionage and moved it up higher in the upgrade path due to issues with Strong-Armed, so there is now more encounter management in the deck).

• The last things to flag are Prepared for the Worst and the aforementioned Backpack actually help you find the Gatling Gun (Underworld Market could be used for this purpose but with the latest taboo list it's more XP expensive). I didn't pick additional damage boosters like Vicious Blow or Hunter's Mark as they are a bit of a drop in the bucket with the Gatling Gun. Your sole soak outside of Leo is Precious Memento - use it wisely!

Campaign starter and planned progression

In the Thick of It makes this a 29 XP deck. In terms of side deck, Daring may be a replacement for Crack Shot but I'm still waiting to hear on a few specific interactions from FFG (e.g. you would want to commit Daring against groups of enemies using Gatling Gun for a high difficulty test, but it mentions only committing to a fight test against a singular enemy. Plus, if it causes all enemies in a group to gain Retaliate it won't be worth the risk). 0 XP deck is below (and link here).

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• .45 Thompson → Gatling Gun

• Backpack → Backpack ••

• 1 x Lucky Cigarette Case → 1 x Precious Memento

• 1 x Lucky Cigarette Case → 1 x Well-Maintained (19 XP here for standalones)

• 1 x Liquid Courage → 1 x Counterespionage (this was previously Strong-Armed, but someone noted that only works with Ranged and not Firearm assets. It's past the point of making deck edits or being able to delete and repost...)

• Streetwise

• Perception → Swift Reload

• 1 x Leo De Luca → 1 x Haste

Final thoughts

At long last, a gun which feels worth it on Tony! 6 damage in one action is amazing, in playtesting there was an Aloof Elite enemy who had exactly 6 health (and they spawn during setup, so you can't put a bounty on them). They could also do bad things if they're ready at the end of the investigation phase. With Gatling Gun I could move to him, engage, and then kill them in one action - completely bypassing their end of investigation phase shenanigans. It was great!

More generally, roleplaying-wise it always bothered me that a bounty hunter would be stabbing enemies to death rather than shooting them. Obviously the Gatling Gun feels a bit absurd for a bounty hunter to be using as well, but in a gleeful "I've had enough of your crap" kind of way.

You may ask why this isn't a Michael McGlen deck - and the answer is simple: Confiscation. Confiscation stops ammo build-up on Gatling Gun which is key feature of making it effective (and it gets rid of Custom Modifications too). Overall, this plus Tony's bounty action made him the superior choice. Let me know your thoughts!