Pulp Alley AAR: Butch Sullivan and the Lost Idol

The second of our Pulp Alley trial games from last month, once again dual posted with Gharak's blog. Once again, words by Gharak, photos by me.

First, a belated group shot of the our fine French adventurers.

From left to right:
-Gustav, Andriy's dog. Diminutive, but known to bite.
-Veronique Dujardin, rising star of the Societe
-Andriy Shukhevych, Ukranian Exile and sidekick to Captain LeFranc
-Expedition Leader, Captain Jermone LeFranc, once of the Foreign Legion,
-Old Gerard Pelissier, once the LeFranc family gardener, now accompanying his master on more dangerous travels.
-Joseph Arnaud, hunter from the forests of Morvan
-Lastly, occasional member of the group Marie

Butch Sullivan and the Lost Idol

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

Captain Jerome LeFranc 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 statue, tracks in the ground, the stolen baggage and there is rumour missing hostages, whose 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.

Andriy struggles through the thick jungle leading the pack but the effort seems too much and he becomes tangled in vines, injuring himself as he pushes through the think and perilous jungle. 

But his struggle was not in vain as he stumbles into one of the hostages, who 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 on the legends of the area.

Dashing forwards, Jerome investigates the lost baggage train, whose mules are not impressed with the disturbance and lash out. The French captain dodges the flailing 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.

Before he can read further, Kazim rushes Jerome, knives drawn. He almost takes a tumble but manages to regain his footing before going toe to toe with the ex-Foreign Legionnaire.

Not so far away the Andriy's less than fearless hound scampers away, daunted by the size and power 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.

Click, click (its becoming a theme for sharpshooter Lauren Stone...)

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

Gustav might hve more luck with the puny archer

Andriy investigates the loosely concealed chest, triggering a trap. His reflexes fail him and darts shoot out, lacerating 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 and realises he needs to retrace his steps to locate it.

Fancy that, a clue hidden at skull mountain (it is Pulp, after all!)

The race is on to get to the giant statue first, but the Captain sprints ahead of Butch and Lauren to secure the prize and Butch's crew slink off. The Governor will be pleased and Jerome hopes the reward will cover the trouble.

Endgame as our heroes converge on the ever so well hidden statue

All in all, another fun game of Pulp Alley, the cards drive the scenario and to an extent, the characters (Lauren's ever-empty pistols). The scenario didn't quite work as I was able to fiddle the trail by putting the final clue behind my characters, hugely increasing my chance of getting it. Using the recommended 3' by 3' board rather than 2' by 4' would help avoid that and it didn't really detract from the fun.

Pulp Alley AAR: The Tomb of Ahmet Ra

Last month, Gharak and I managed a few test games of the recently released Pulp ruleset 'Pulp Alley'. We both threw together leagues and raided Gharak's extensive terrain collection, with limited prep time. Rather than using the Professor and his chums (who are still mid-story, last played using .45 Adventure), I used my second league: the 'Societe Archaelogique'. Led by Jerome Lefranc, who previously served with the French Foreign Legion and is now an expedition leader for the Societe, with his Hungarian sidekick Andriy Shukhevych. They were joined by the beautiful, young and enthusiastic Veronique Dujardin and mooks Gerard and Joseph. Rounding out the group is Gustav, Andriy's diminutive but unexpectedly ferocious dog.

They were opposed by 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 Indiana the dog.
Our first game took our two groups of adventurers to Egypt, to locate the lost treasure of Ahmet Ra. Butch Sullivan's League of Adventurers have had a tip off from an anonymous caller as to the whereabouts of an undiscovered and unplundered tomb entrance. 

The major plot point for this scenario was the Colossal Tomb of Ahmet Ra, and the minor plot points were; Ceremonial Hieroglyphs, Disassembled Survey Equipment, The Jeweled Orb and Smuggled Explosives.
Writeup by Gharak (lightly edited by me, also available on his blog), photos by me.
Andriy and Joseph move up towards one of the the Orb, Akhmed lives up to his name and takes a shot at Joseph, wounding the Frenchman. Looks like he may be down for a while.

Moving up through a perilous area of old crumbling pillars, Lauren 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 rears up to strike. In a show of reactions and strength, Andriy strangles the beast with his bare hands. Collecting the orb he stashes it safely and takes cover 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 markings on the sides suggesting that the contents are explosive. Likely to come in useful, with a swift boot Butch smashes through the lid and retrieves several sticks of dynamite. Meanwhile, Lefranc aims round the crates he was taking cover behind and downs Kazim with a single shot as he makes his way around the sphinx.



Veronique makes her way over to the crates and 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 comes off better.



Lauren edges along the side of the Sphinx and taking aim she squeezes off a shot against Veronique, with an heart-sinking click Lauren realises that her pistols are out of ammo and the chance is wasted. Nearby an enraged Indiana rushes Gerard and the two engage in a deadly melee.


ReEloading, Lauren moves up to provide cover but Andriy quickly closes the gap and charges,  but the nimble adventuress 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 from the tomb of Ahmet Ra.

Closing Thoughts

I really enjoyed Pulp Alley. It is quite a simple ruleset, using the dice type and number of dice rolled to pass a test to differentiate between different characters. The standard role is to get multiple successes of a 4+ and the dice range from D6 to D10. Combat is done via 'dice-matching', giving one player the advantage of choosnig how to match them up. It has an asymetric turn order, with the initiative sitting with one player, who can choose which player activates a model next. Initiative is passed when wounds are incured or plot points succeeded, which reminded me a bit of a reverse 'turnover' in Blood Bowl, on success rather than failure.

Also, each player has a hand of cards (like 'Stay Down' in the first picture) which serve as both random events and extra challenges that you can play as 'perils' at certain points. Leaders and sidekicks are notably better than lower-grade characters, so you need to concentrate attacks on leaders to wear down their defences and do damage.

It is a better ruleset for two players than .45 Adventure and no need for an umpire. This meant both Gharak and I can run competing Leagues, saving Gharak from his usual role of 'playing the scenario'. The scenario generation is quite nifty, created by a series of rolls on tables to generate the 'plot points'. That serves as an outline from which Gharak and I work out the whys and wherefores. Some of the tables are a bit odd (covering more science and weird than the Indy Jones-type adventuring we do), but we were happy to re-roll a couple of results to get something more suitbale and could easily re-jig the tables themselves to suit our purposes.

Also worth mentioning the great presentation of the ruleset, it has an really neat 'Pulpy' style and is chock full of inspiring sketches. All in all, a really fun ruleset and most recommended. Its ease of play and focus on fun and great scenario generation means it will become our Pulp ruleset of choice.