Fantasy Alley

Morning all, its been a quiet period for me in gaming land, a combination of summer hobbies, hot weather and the desperate need just to sit and chill out a little means I've done little painting and modelling over the past couple of months.

I did however manage to introduce a friend of mine to wargaming, he's a D&D role player normally but has been increasingly interested in picking up miniatures and making terrain so I though it was about times to show him a proper game.

Pulp alley is my current favourite set, rules are simple enough to play, the card driven system if random events adds flavour and its perfect for small games.

As a big fantasy fan, I worked up a quick bit of fluff and background and after a half hours force selection and board set up we were ready in the garden beer in hand for an epic clash.

Our story starts with Akhmed the mad, a sorcerer of great power. He has been raiding Orcish villages for months, his black clad warriors carrying off anything of value. It would appear now he has all he needs to start some great sorcerous plan. It is now the Orcs decide to strike back, while he is distracted with greater plans the Orcs gather a handful of veteran warriors led by the half ogre Boris.

Akhmed's warriors must retrieve at least 3 of the items required for his sorcerous plan and return them to the circle of power in the middle of the board.

I only took a few photos unfortunately but they do illustrate some of the key points of the game:

Akhmed's warriors scatter to collect there items required for the ritual.

Akhmed summons a beast from the depths and turns the bridge into a perilous area.

The donkey sacrifice is more than a match for the orcs and several more join in to help get it under control.

Kazim bravely squares up to "big" Boris the half ogre.

The game seems to work really well in a fantasy setting, most of the pulpy cards still seemed to make sense and Neil and I had a great afternoon and I seem to have another fan of pulp alley.

Next up there will be some steampunk Alley as another friend of mine got some  miniatures from north star recently and wants to put them ton good use.

Butch Sullivan and the Lost Idol - A Pulp Alley AAR

Our fortune hunters find themselves in French Indo-china, Butch and his party have been third by a local tribal elder to recover a ceremonial statue lost deep in the jungle. After many days hacking through the bush it would appear that Butch and co are nearing a possible resting place for the revered idol. Two local guides lent to Butch have followed a trail of old clues to this point, they however have reported of another group in the area who appear to be looking for the same statue.

Captain Jerome has been summoned by the local regional Governor to ensure that the dastardly Americans do not remove the idol from the country.

Our heroes must follow a train of clues to discover the Ceremonial Statue, tracks in the ground would seem to indicate that there is a stolen baggage train in the area and there is rumour of hostages lost in the jungle, this local knowledge could be invaluable.

Butch and his crew make the first move, splitting their group Butch heads off with Indiana, whilst Lauren and Kazim follow the two local scouts.

Meanwhile the French group move up, heading towards the missing hostage.

Andre struggles through the thick jungle leading the pack but the effort seems too much and he becomes tangles in vines, sustaining light injuries escaping from the perilous area.

His struggle was not in vain as he stumbles into one of the hostages, the man appears to have knowledge of some papers which were stolen in the raid against the baggage train, the chest of documents included several cryptic papers which talk of the legends in the area.

Jerome investigates the lost baggage train, the donkeys are not impressed with the disturbance and lash out. The French captain narrowly escapes the dangerous hooves as he moves to calm the beasts. Stashed in the equipment is a journal detailing an ivory skull carved with texts describing the now abandoned temple where the Statue was housed. Perhaps it may also detail its fate.

Kazim rushes Captain Jerome knives drawn, he almost takes a tumble but manages to regain his footing before going toe to toe with the ex-military man.

Not so far away the Captain's not so brave hound tries to escape from the deadly jaws of Indiana.

In the centre of the old temple complex one of the local guides let's loose a hail of arrows and wounds old Gerard.

Lauren moves up to a vantage point to help out but once again appears to be out of ammo.

Gustav charges towards the local to avenge his fallen comrade, whilst in the background Jerome and Kazim trade blows.

Andriy investigated a hidden chest, deadly spikes shoot out causing lacerations across his hands and face, unperturbed he opens the chest and draws out the Ivory Skull, reading the ancient inscription Andriy has discovered the whereabouts of the missing statue, he better retrace his steps and try band locate it.

The race is on to get to the giant statue first, but the Captain sprints ahead of Butch and Lauren to clam his prize. The French Governor will be pleased, Jerome hopes the reward will cover the trouble his crew have been through.

Post game comment.
Another great game, it would seem that the scenario was against Butch and co, the French group steamed through the plot points leaving little for the Americans to do but try and chase them down.

Some good use of the fortune cards on either side this game, none of the uses seemed overpowered and all weekend to play out quite well. I really like the duel mechanics of the fortune card/challenge, it adds a neat unexpected level to the game whilst also powering the storyline and character development (see Lauren "empty chamber" Stone.)

We also used more perilous areas in this game, the larger jungle bases were uses to represent particularly thick jungle and it was goods to see some characters power through whilst others had to take the long way around.

Overall really happy with the game, and now my printed cards and paper rules book have arrived up from the other side of the pond to added another level to the game. The cards are particularly nice, on decent weight card and in their own box to keep them in good condition.

The Tomb of Ahmet Raa - A Pulp Alley AAR

Our first game on of the weekend takes our two groups of adventurers to Egypt, to locate the lost treasure of Ahmet Raa. Both groups have had a tip off from an anonymous caller as to the whereabouts of the tomb entrance and the fortune in treasure that lays within.

The Major Plot Point for this scenario is the Colossal Tomb of Ahmet Raa, and the minor plot points are; Ceremonial Hieroglyphs, Disassembled Survey Equipment, The Jeweled Orb and Smuggled Explosives

Our adventuring parties include:

Butch Sullivan's League of Adventurers, featuring the brave, talented and ever ready Butch Sullivan, his partner in crime Lauren Stone and regular adventuring buddies, Kazim of the Umbaku tribe, Marcus, Akhmed the eagle-eyed and finally Indiana the dog.

Société des Antiquaires de France led by Captain Jerome Lefranc, ex French foreign legion and now leader of the society's expeditions, Andriy Shukhevych the eastern European muscle of the party, Veronique Dujardin our dangerous same and mooks Gerard and Joseph.

Andriy and Joseph move up towards one of the the Orb, Akhmed lives up to his name and takes a potshot at Joseph, wounding the Frenchman, looks like he may be down for a while.

Lauren moves up through a perilous area of old crumbling pillars, she deftly dodges out of the way of some falling masonry and makes it through safely.

Andriy reaches out to grab there sacred Orb, a snake slithers out from among the trinkets and attacks him. In a show of strength Andriy strangles the beast with his bare hands. Collecting the orb he stashes it safely and takes up position behind the plinth.

Butch make his move forward and stumbles on something buried beneath the sands, kicking the dirt aside he uncovered a discarded crate, the marking on the sides suggest the contents are explosive. With a swift boot Butch smashes through the lid and he retrieves several sticks of dynamite.

Captain Lefranc steps out from a stack of crates and with a single shot downs Kazim as he makes his way around the sphinx.

Veronique makes her way over to the crates and with deductive cunning she reassembles the surveying equipment and she soon moves away back to cover.

Gustav makes a brave attack on Indiana but the larger dog clearly has the advantage and savages poor gustav.

Lauren bravely moves up weaving along the side of the Sphinx and taking aim she squeezes off a shot against Veronique, with an uncomfortable click Lauren realises too late that her pistols are out of ammo and the chance is wasted. Nearby the taste of blood enrages Indiana who rushes Gerard and the two engage in a deadly melee.

Lauren moves up to provide some cover but Andriy quickly closed the gap and swings and the adventuress, Lauren has some moves of her own and deftly breaks away from his attack.

Butch seizes his chance and makes a dash for the tomb entrance, lighting the dynamite he steps out of the way and a mighty explosion destroys the seal and grants entry to the treasure inside.

Butch and his team recover the lost treasure of Ibis hidden within Ah met Raa's tomb.

End of Game roundup:
This was my Brother and I's first real game of Pulp Alley, generally it all seemed to work really well, I love the added fun the cards grant and the mechanism of the perils seems to work well.

We did find that sometimes the challenges seemed a little easy due to the random draw and so for more major plot points we may draw 2 cards or some such.

The only other thing we struggled with was remembering who had the initiative and when you took it from each other, I suppose we'll just get used to it over time.

Butch Sullivan in Escape from the Lair

With my wife out at a works do and my daughter safely tucked up in bed rather than crack on with more painting I decided to have another run through of Pulp Alley and try and figure out some more of the rules. 

I plucked out another pre-rolled scenario from my stash and set out to play a Race Against Time scenario. The background is as follows:

Our heroes are stuck deep within the secret lair of Oberst von Klinkerhoffen and disaster has struck, it would appear that utility station 42 has been destroyed, this station controls the main hanger doors and without it our heroes cannot escape.  One of the electrical conduits is damaged and requires replacing, looking about it would appear that all the parts our heroes require may be available in the immediate area. 

The Major Objective for this scenario is repairing Utility Station 42.

The minor objectives of which our heroes require any 3 are; A pile of electrical conduits, electrical blueprints, some machine parts and an abandoned generator.

The initial setup with out heroes in the center around the Utility Station and the forces of Oberst von Klinkerhoffen coming in from the higher level. 

Our heroes quickly spread out in the first couple of turns making a dash to look for the equipment they need.

Meanwhile the Germans advance, Lauren Stone and the vicious hound Indiana move into a position to cut them off, Indiana leaps straight into the action and mauls one of the German guards.

Kazim makes a move to engage the German guards but under the watchful eye of Klinkerhoffen he is gunned down by the German guards.

Butch rummages through the paperwork in one of the offices and comes up trumps, it would appear he's found a set of electrical blueprints for the utility station.

Markus has made his way back to the utility station with a set of electrical conduits but he is ambushed by Hans Gruber, in the resulting firefight Markus goes down whilst the sly German officer keeps himself in cover around these large pipes.

Lauren moves into a better position and takes out one of the guards whilst Indiana is taken down by another guard with the help of Klinkerhoffen. Kazim meanwhile appears to have crawled off and fallen unconsious from the loss of blood.

Butch manages to start up an old generator  which can be hooked up to the doors and help get them moving.

 With everything they need in their control it would appear that our heroes can make their escape. Klinkerhoffen vows that revenge shall be his our Butch and co disappear into the night.

Again I ended the game a little early as I'd been at it on and off for a couple of hours and wanted to get cleared up as it was getting a little late.


End of Game Debrief.
Overall it ran smoother this time, I'm still getting my head around the flow of the rules, at one point I completely forgot who had the initiative and essentially had to roll off again to allocate it.

Low level characters appeared to get up an awful lot, this contributed to a bit of a bottle neck at the bottom of the stairs which lasted several turns with the 2 groups trading shots and melee and then recovering.

In the end it was enjoyable and I picked up on a few mistakes I'd been making by not reading the rules properly. Another game or two and I should have this down.

Test Game of Pulp Alley

I thought I'd run a quick solo Pulp Alley game to get myself accustomed to the rules, I spent one of my evenings last week on a train back from London and armed with my tablet and a number randomiser I'd pre-rolled a number of scenarios already and added some flavour to them based on miniatures and terrain I already owned. I've also statted up a couple of Pulp Leagues over the weekend to try out those rules.

So with an hour of free time I whipped out some terrain and miniatures and set too it.

First off the Background.

The renowned explorer Professor Jonathan Granger has stumbles into our heroes camp desperate for help, he must save his reputation. The professor has been travelling back through this dangerous areas of North Africa when he was ambushed by local tribesmen and in the resulting firefight he fled and managed to escape. 

It turns out he was transporting the fabled Tome of Sir Elrik of Lincolnshire, a jewel encrusted book chronicling much of the early crusades.

Our heroes scramble to help, and rush to the location of the Professor's convoy to begin searching for the professors missing equipment and the Tome and securing it before it it gathered by local scavengers

The forces in question are:
Butch Sulivans League of Adventurers:

Suliman's Desert Raiders

The Tome of Elrik is the major plot point and placed in the middle of the board. The rest o the professors equipment and convoy form the rest of the minor plot points which were: An old map, camouflaged rifles, a stolen rangefinder and a talkative officer.

The trucks formed the convoy in the center of the board and the black markers note the plop points. I didn't bother with any perilous areas for this test run but if I run this scenario again I'd probably make the area around the flaming trucks perilous. I was also playing on a 2'x2' board and started the two groups in corners on the same side of the board to speed up getting to the action. 

Once the game began Butch's Adventurers took the initiative and started moving towards the objectives, Markus makes a brave move towards the opposing side armed with his trusty SMG.

Unfortunately in the resulting firefight he's downed by the 3 Desert Warriors on this hill.

Old Hamza and Eagle-Eyed Akmed move towards the stolen range finding equipment and Hamza successfully heaved the heavy boxes onto his shoulders to make off with them. 

The following turn and Suliman's Raiders take advantage of the initiative, Hamza rushes Indiana, Butches faithful hound, with a swing of his mighty blade he downs the mutt in one blow. 

Akmed makes a rush for the Tome whilst Suliman collects an old map of the professors. 

Malik the Thief finds one of the convoy guards is still alive, in the following fistfight Malik beats some useful information out of the poor man, leaving him for the desert to finish off. 

With Suliman's Raiders in possession of several of the Plot points and my hour of free time drawing to an end I called it quits there. 

Overall opinions are fairly positive, I always find it hard to judge a game by solo play, I like the fortune card concept and the multi-dice type combat seems to work alright, though I certainly need some more dice to make it easier. 

Compared to .45 adventure its a fast game and non heroic characters seem to drop real fast with just a couple of poor rolls. I could do with printing some of the rosters out as relying on having the rules and both rosters on my tablet was a bit of a pain in the backside. 

Now to find someone willing to give the rules a try for a proper run through. 

Attack at the Professors Office.

Background:

England somewhere in the 1930s, Professor Hemmingway and some friends are gathered at his flat late in the evening to learn of the contents of a troubling telegram. The telegram is a stark warning to the Professor to stay clear of his investigations into a hidden Templar treasure.. As our heroes sit down to discuss what to do next the sound of breaking glass is heard followed by footsteps up the stairs. This doesn't bode well for our heroes...

Setup:

The board is a 2 foot square, the main building represents the professors office, outside it is dark with some illumination from streetlamps. There is a small bit of woodland outside along with another small building.The professors car is parked across the road from the entrance.

There are encounters spread around the professors office and these represent various items of the professors which may come in useful throughout the adventure.

Our heroes start within the office building and the villains anywhere outside the building.

Objective:

The Heroes objective is to escape to the Professors car, with or without the professors stuff.

The Villians must capture the Professor or his diary.

It starts with a bang, Mr Templeton and his gang of cronies storm into the building weapons blazing with little regard to the racket they make.

Outside the police have arrived to investigate the ruckus, after a poor attempt at arresting this dodgy character this bobby was quickly dispatched with a swift blow to the head by one of the notorious Finn Brothers.

The heroes take the back way out of the office, onto the ledge of the building and all make attempts to jump onto the handy bins below. Most of them fall and hurt themselves. It was lemmings in miniature form.

Hawkins the butler explains the situation to the Police Sergeant investigating his companions attack. The Bobby takes a shine to the smart well spoken butler and agrees to help them on their way.

As the heroes move out of the alley the other Finn brother makes a dastardly attempt to handbreak turn into the heroes, Hawkins makes a spritely leap out of the way whilst the Professor is thrown into the air. With time running out, his boss injured Paddy Finn makes one last attempt to grab the Professor and drag him into the car. Unfortunately the Professor resists and Paddy has to make a run for it without his prize.

Martin Brown the least effective enforcer in this town finally gets taken down, he spent most of the game spraying hit tommygun in every which direction and wildy missing all targets.

Outcome:

Escaped by the skin of their teeth, The Professers crew were a little bruised and battered and decided to take the time to switch around their crew a little on the way, Captain Jenkins was dropped off at the hospital to recover from his wounds and Squadron Leader Michaels was picked up.

The Villains came off worse, Mr Templeton suffered leg wounds, 2 of his crew were out of action and Martin was with the police, time to hire a new crew of ne'er-do-wells.

In light of this the Heroes would get a few turns head start at the next encounter as the villians gather their strength again. The heroes also managed to collect most of the professors kit which will come in use in later games.

Final Game - Into The Temple

Slight delay in posting this, I've had a busy few weeks and only now had time to sit down and pit finger to keyboard.

Background:

The heroes descend a flight of moss covered steps into the cool underground tomb. From deep within the cavern the heroes can make out an ominous roar. Perhaps it is just wind rushing through the tunnels, the heroes unperturbed push onwards, keep to discover the tombs secrets.

The first 100 paces or so goes well, the heroes stumble across an abandoned camp and rooting around in the leftovers manage to find some medical supplies to patch up their wounds.

Jasper always keen to get our heroes into trouble takes the lead and begins to sniff around an old doorway...

Out of the shadows beyond the doorway steps a sole jungle warrior, possibly one of the tombs guardians. The warrior was clearly far from dangerous and was dispatched with little effort by our heroes.

Onwards they push until the captain stumbles across not one but two problems, several mighty sections of masonry fall from the roof, narrowly avoiding the Captain, who in his haste to leap free caught the trigger for a lethal spike trap.

Not only was the Captain injured by the spikes but he also now appears to be trapped behind the rest of the heroes.

Dirk searches around for something to help his old companion out with only to stumble upon two deadly giant centipedes. This time they are not so easily dealt with and the centipedes chew rather large holes in both Dirk and Jasper. Eventually the good Doctor deals with the situation but not before poor Jasper of heavily wounded, the poor dog falls to the floor blood gushing from a dozen bites.

Dirk pushes on, knowing that it could all be for nowt if he fails to find anything of value.

As Dirk rounds the corner the source of the ominous roaring presents itself. The Heroes appeared to have triggered an ancient trap and the temple is beginning to fill with water. With 2 Pedestals with ceremonial ornaments in sight Dirk throws caution to the wind and rushed over, dangerously close to the water.

Filling every pocket with these valuable items Dirk waits for the last possible second before escaping.

The Captain, freed from his situation makes his way down to Dirk, on the way he spots several tunnels Dirk failed to notice in his haste. Giving several of them the once over he feels a slight breeze coming from one tunnel, yelling to Dirk to head this way our two heroes make their way out of the temple. Poor Jasper was left to his fate.

Post Game Report:

Considering this was the least planned game, that I forgot to introduce 2 more villains half way through and that the water filling the tomb was made up the day before the game was ran I feel that it went fairly well.

The main comments that came out of our after game chat was about more RP elements, and multiple solutions, much like the fast lane/slow lane from the previous game.

In this instance, a broken bridge to jump across, some vines for our heroes to clamber up etc.

Personally I was mostly disappointed I'd not done something more with the temple guardian concept and put together some other warriors who could have been the boss characters for our heroes to beat. Thus is the problem with planning these games, there's always something you come up with either when it's too late to do anything about it or more usually mid game.

Going forward the squared terrain worked wonderfully, it's  handle traps easily, works with ranges well and takes away pesky tape measures meaning you can just get on with the action.

All this new terrain is multi-use and much of it will see action again in future games.