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BANG! FACE OFF

A Wild West game for TWO players, by Emiliano Sciarra
In the dusty town times are ready for a final confrontation among the survivors of previous shootouts. Only the Sheriff and an Outlaw are still standing, but they both have to deal with the Renegade, who depending on the offerings can side with one man or another one. Now the rules of fair play hold no more, they shoot frantically and nobody respects the keeper of the Law. Who will overcome the other?

Game Idea
Players control one character each, moving on the board and trying to kill the other one. A third character is neutral and will be controlled by one player at time. The first player to collect two kills wins the game. Note: in this rules, knowledge of the basic BANG! rules is required.

Materials
A basic deck of BANG! (not provided)

Two boards: (you can choose which one to use before each game) 16 golden nugget tokens 3 character tokens (one Sheriff, one Outlaw, one Renegade)

Game setup
Choose the board you want to play on for this game. Split the blue cards from the other ones and shuffle the two decks separately, putting them on two opposite sides of the board. Each player chooses randomly one character and puts it face up in front of him. Take also a third character and put its card near the board. All characters life points are shown with other character cards, like a normal game of BANG!. One player chooses to take the role of the Sheriff, the other one the Outlaw. The Renegade will be the neutral character. Put a golden nugget on each square with the sign Golden Nugget on the board. Each player takes his own token and puts it on the square on the table featuring the same symbol of his Role card; the same for the Renegade. Each player draws from the brown cards deck as many cards as his starting life points. The Sheriff begins..

The game
Like in BANG!, the game is played in turns: the Sheriff first, then the Outlaw, then the Renegade. Each players turn is divided in the following phases: 1. move your character 2. either draw 2 cards or move again 3. play cards from your hand 4. discard exceeding cards

Phase 1: move your character It is mandatory to move your character exactly by 2 squares, if you are not in Jail. You can move in the four cardinal directions, never diagonally. You can freely choose where to move, with two limitations: (a) you cannot go back to the square where you started your turn; (b) you cannot move on a square occupied by another character or with a wall or a rock column depicted on it. If, during the movement, your character travels over or stops on a square with a golden nugget token, this token is removed from the board and you may immediately draw a blue card from the blue cards deck. If you cannot move, either partially or totally, move your character as far as possible. Phase 2: either draw 2 cards or move again You can now draw 2 cards from the brown cards deck. However, instead of drawing, you may choose, for each of these two cards, to move again your character by a maximum of 2 squares (always respecting the movement limitations above). You can choose what to do with your second card after drawing your first card (or moving your character by 2 squares). So, in this phase you can move your character by 4, 2 or no squares by drawing, respectively, 0, 1 or 2 cards. Phase 3: play cards from your hand After the movement, if you wish you can play cards from your hand as in a normal game of BANG!. However, in Face Off the distance is the actual number of squares between you and your target, i.e. how many squares your character should travel before reaching the square where your target is (always avoiding diagonal movements). So, two characters in squares touching by a corner are at distance 2. Distance - example: the Renegade in the centre of the map is at distance 2 from the Sheriff (the Renegade must travel 2 squares to reach the Sheriff). The Renegade is at distance 4 from the Outlaw, because he needs to travel 4 squares to reach him using the shortest route, avoiding the rock. The Sheriff and the Outlaw are at distance 6 one from the other.

Differently from the basic game, you can play as many BANG! cards as you want. In addition, the Sheriff can be put in Jail as anybody else. Cards can be played on the other player, or on the Renegade. In this case, the Renegade will be momentarily controlled by the other player, who can play the Renegades cards if appropriate (e.g. he could play a Missed! card if the Renegade is the target of a BANG!, or a BANG! card if the other player played a Indians!). He can even play a Beer card from the Renegades hand to avoid the Renegade to be killed out of his turn. Phase 4: discard exceeding cards As in BANG!, if at the end of your turn you have more cards than your current life points total, you must discard the exceeding cards on the respective deck(s).

The turn of the Renegade

After both Sheriff and Outlaw played their turns, it is Renegades turn. To see who will take control of the Renegade, both players choose secretly one of the cards in their hand and reveal it simultaneously. The highest card (according to the ascending order: 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-JQ-K-A, the suit has no meaning) is discarded and who played it will control the Renegade for this turn, as if it was his character. In case of a tie, both cards are discarded and the Renegade skips his turn. If one of the players has no cards in hand, then the Renegade of course will be controlled by the other one, using any one card. If no player has cards in his hand, the Renegade skips his turn. The player who is not controlling the Renegade takes back his revealed card and places a spare golden nugget token (if there are still any) on any free square of the board at his choice, provided it is at least at distance 3 from his character. The Renegades turn is identical to any normal turn, so he is forced to move 2 squares at the starting of his turn: the player controlling the Renegade, however, may use only the cards belonging to the Renegade and can not use cards belonging to his own character. After the Renegades turn, his cards are put face down near his character card. If the Renegade is in Jail and does not escape, the player controlling him can only discard exceeding cards without doing anything else. If the Renegade skips his turn, he skips all of his turns phases, so Jail and Dynamite are not even checked and stay where they are for this turn.

Character elimination
When a character loses his last life point and does not play a Beer card to save his life, he is eliminated. His character card is taken by the other player (even if he was controlling the Renegade), and his cards are discarded in the appropriate deck(s). At this point, if nobody has still collected 2 killed characters, the game goes on. The eliminated player takes another character randomly and replaces the killed one. The new character draws also immediately as many cards as his life points total. The turn of the player killing the other one is not over but continues normally. If a player is killed by the Dynamite, he replaces his character but that character is not collected by anyone. Unlike normal BANG! game, you dont draw the 3 cards reward when you kill an Outlaw.

End of the decks

As soon as any deck is depleted, it is shuffled again with the corresponding discarded pile. Remember to always keep separated the blue cards deck with the brown cards deck.

Notes about the characters

Kit Carlson: if in his phase 2 he chooses to draw at least one card, he looks at the three cards of the deck before deciding which one to draw. Willy the Kid: his ability becomes For each card he refuses to draw in his phase 1, he may move by 3 squares instead of 2. Black Jack: if he draws at least one card, he reveals it: if it is Hearts or Diamonds, he draws another one. He can use this ability only once per turn.

Notes about some card

Indians!, Gatling, Saloon: they apply to both the other character and the Renegade, who is always controlled by the other player. Jail: can be played on the Sheriff also. If a character does not escape from the Jail, he must skip phases 1, 2 and 3 of his turn, but he must still perform his phase 4 (discard exceeding cards). Dynamite: it proceeds according to the order Sheriff Outlaw Renegade. If the Renegade is killed by the Dynamite, who controls him discards all the cards and changes Renegades character and cards normally but the new Renegade skips the rest of the turn. Volcanic: this card is actually useless, since there is no limit to the number of BANG! cards you can use during your turn.

General Store: when it is played, reveal 3 cards from the deck. The player playing the General Store picks one of them at his choice, then the other player performs the same. The last card always goes to the Renegade.

How to play with High Noon expansion

If you want to try playing with High Noon expansion, here is which card must be modified and how: Shootout: during phase 1 of his turn, each player can move by 4 squares instead of 2. Ghost Town: this card has no meaning in Face Off, so it has to be removed before the start. Thirst: during phase 2 of his turn, each player may choose only once whether drawing cards or moving. Train Arrival: during phase 2 of his turn, each player may choose three times whether drawing cards or moving.

How to play with Dodge City expansion

If you want to play with Dodge City expansion, shuffle the green bordered cards together with the brown bordered cards. The rules are the same, only the following characters have different abilities: Pixie Pete: during phase 1 of his turn, before moving, he draws one card from the brown cards deck. Pat Brennan: he may choose to skip his phase 2. If he does so, he may draw a card in play in front of any one character.

Variants
If you want to increase the importance of the Renegade, play with the usual final object of collecting 2 characters, but one of them must be eliminated while you are controlling the Renegade. In this variant, if you kill the second character while you are not controlling the Renegade, the killed character is discarded but the game continues with a new character.

Building more maps

As you can see, maps are made by modular squares. If you want to try out your own maps, cut out the squares of one ore more maps and compose with them a map suiting your wishes.

Thanks to Francesca De Falco, Eleonora Feoli, Mauro Pistola, Dario De Fazi and Alessandro Valle
for their playtesting, and to Silvano Sorrentino and Sergio Roscini for their precious help and suggestions.

BANG! FACE OFF

Game designer: Emiliano Sciarra Illustrations: Eriadan (www.eriadan.com) Art direction: Eriadan + ss

Copyright 2005 daVinci Editrice S.r.l. Via T. Tittoni, 3 I-06131 Perugia Italy

For questions, comments or suggestions: www.davincigames.com - info@davincigames.com

Canyon of Death 1 of 2

Print, cut and join the two parts of the Canyon of Death map.

Canyon of Death 2 of 2

OK Corral Shootout 1 of 2

Print, cut and join the two parts of the Ok Corral Shootout map.

OK Corral Shootout 2 of 2

Print and cut out the three characters and the sixteen golden nugget tokens. Fold in half the rectangle containing the characters and bend inside the base: with a bit of glue or a pin they will stand up without much trouble.

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