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.