Clayton Pierce Review
Theme: A cowboy commander has been one of the most requested VC designs over the decade of its existence. It makes thematic sense, and allows for a group of classic figures to be played together, like Kantono did for the Ninjas.
Creativity: The restrained, organized, and simplistic way this design handles uniting the Lawmen is really admirable. I didn't see the previous iterations of Clayton, but I really like where he landed. Sometimes, pseudo-bonding can get overly complex with little gameplay or thematic reward, feeling more like complexity for the sake of difference than for the sake of theme. That's not the case here. The way the Posse moves at the start of each round and then fires as a team when ready plays differently from anything else in the game, but isn't at all hard to understand. I think this may be the best executed commander figure in VC.
Balance: This was by far my biggest concern when judging Clayton. I have been playing a lot of "Once Per Round With Bonding" builds lately (Ornak + Utgar Heroes + Heavies in ScapeCon Main Event, the WIP Janos + Lizard Explorers + Greenscales in C3V Playtest Tournament), so I quickly jumped to a similar style of build here: Clayton, Johnny Shotgun Sullivan, Mad Dog Malone, Guilty McGreech, and Dreadguls x3, with Guilty as the uniting synergy between the Dreadguls and Clayton. Really, just the 245 point core of Clayton/Johnny/Mad Dog/Guilty and then as many Dreadguls as I can get. Once per round powers like Ornak's Red Flag of Fury and Clayton's Shootout can expend all of their army's offensive potential in a single turn, so smoothing out those turns with the offensive firepower of traditional bonding squads allows those powers to really shine. Shootout is particularly powerful because it lets you have four turns at once, and many of the Cowboys have multi-attacks from range.
Initially I was pretty concerned with how strong this build played. Round 1, you can drop one of the best opening blitzes in the game. Start with the "Battle Rush" of Sherriff's Posse to move out Guilty and the Cowboys, follow up with OM1 OM2 on Dreadguls to let Guilty rain death on your advancing opponents as Dreadguls slowroll, and then finish the round with an OM3 Shootout with the Cowboys, and then do another Posse to set up Round 2. I beat Knights/Gilbert/Raelin pretty handily with this strategy. However, this build is completely dependent on the 2L/2D of Guilty McGreech. Any build with a solid ranged component can simply shoot Guilty a couple times. Once Guilty dies, the build falls apart in both directions. Dreadguls can boost their attack by not bonding, but they can't really get away with doing that the whole game. I think pretty clearly the more consistently competitive Dreadgul build is to spend those ~245 points of Cowboys on Pel the Hill Giant as a second bonder, and then more Dreadguls, or even Raelin. The Clayton Dreadgul build is a warped win-more Dreadgul build to smash melee armies.
My final thought is that I think Clayton is ultimately pretty fairly balanced. I'm not certain I've found the best build for him yet and that's pretty exciting.
I will note that I did not test this design with other SoV submission Kate Crawford. I believe she would be a slight upgrade to Johnny Shotgun Sullivan in the core build, reducing the core Cowboys from 245 to 220, freeing up space for other things.
Playability: The Clayton build is really fun to play. New VC figure Mad Dog Malone adds another dimension to the Cowboy build, giving them a Lawman that doesn't mind getting up close and personal. Trying to properly time your Shootout is a fun dimension. I felt like there was a lot I could still learn about playing the Lawmen well after the games I've done with them.
Battle Rush Guilty Blitz is a little bit silly and can feel unfair to play against. I don't think it's any more extreme than Red Flag of Fury To Ignore Eternal Hatred Marcu though. Both get unrealistic value out of cheap filler figures that are already good, but Ornak and Clayton cost a lot of points to get that extreme effect out of these low point figures. There's plenty of counterplay to Clayton: you can try to assassinate him, or more commonly you can just pick off his most fragile and vulnerable Cowboys to limit the potential of shootout.
Vote: I'm really excited about this design.
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