Recent AARs: Chain of Command and Pulp Alley

Happily, I  can report that regular gaming continues. At the last Wyvern Wargamers club night a fortnight ago, Ade put on another well-researched game of Big Chain of Command using his extensive collection, this time representing the second British assault at Rauray in June 1944. I took on a British infantry platoon supported by Bob's Shermans on a worryingly open board. We were tasked with seizing the crossroads, opposed by Ian and Matt with two reduced Germans panzergrenadier platoons and a Big Cat: Ade assured us this was evenly matched!

The ever-fun patrol phase left it something like this:



A last minute shuffle of a marker to the right came up trumps: giving the Geramns no options for a Jump Off Point on our right and forcing them back to the village crossroads. I opted to move in force against the  the right flank where they'd be covered by the roods ahead, using a JOP on the right board edge.

Turn one and the first double-6: half the platoon emerged from the field and started the advance.

The Germans brought out their Panther early to seize the crossroads while a section took up residence in the town.

Bob's armour moves up, the outgunned and out-armoured Shermans looking to avoid the sights of the Panther

My two infantry sections make their move: trading fire with a panzergrenadier section across a road.

In the nick of time, the British mortars opened up, bang on target over the crossroads. Through some terrible luck on the German side and a series of double-6's by Bob and I, the mortar barrage fell again and again, pinning the majority of the Germans defenders and all but one of their Jump-Off Points. This game Bob and I free reign to maneuver and brig firepower to bear where needed.

This was a fine example of a well-orchestrated assault by infantry and armour with mortar support. But unfortunately, it didn't give a good game for either side: the German inability to lift the barrage meant I could rout the Germans outside of the barrage through weight of numbers, while Bob maneuvered his Sherman Fireflies to get both in sight of the Panther for when the barrage lifted. Once it did, the Germans were in no state to repel the assault and their dangerous Panther quickly took a battering (more double-6's and double-phases by Bob) and bailed out.

What should have been a great game ended up being too one-sided from a well-timed barrage and devilish luck from then on. So apologies to Matt and Ian. While I enjoy Chain of Command for the friction that it offers, but unfortunately, if a system builds in friction, sometimes the dice lead to unfortunate, overly one-sided situations. Which is why I think playing it a linked campaign works really well - the dice even out over the course of the campaign  Sorry Ade - but thanks for hosting and umpiring!

Also at the Club, Carl put on a Black Powder American War of Independence game with an impressive collection on the table. The British battalions looked very fine indeed marching through the verdant terrain.

Last weekend brought an impromptu game of Pulp Alley with my brother Gharak. We've not gamed anything beyond miniature board games for a while, but the beauty of Pulp Alley is the speed and ease of getting minis onto the table.

We threw together a fairly simple 'search for the temple' scenario, with two competing leagues of heroes looking to open up its mysteries and explore the interior in a second game. All of the minis and terrain are from Gharak's fine Pulp collection. 

My dastardly League of Nasty People, led by man of mystery 'The Suit'

The heroic Butch O'Sullivan's with today's companions

The two leagues face off in the foreground, with the temple entrance to the North. The kapok represents mist rolling up and down the river, which blocked line-of sight.

Butch O'Sullivan's men, made the Temple outskirts first, taking up good positions to fell the my League of Nasty People as they approached.



With his mercenary allies out of the fight, a dash by 'The Suit' ends in a scrap by the last plot point', equipment left by the last expedition. O'Sullivan takes the prize and enters the temple

Cue eerie music

In true Pulpy fashion, there are traps and puzzles, as well a temple guardians. I used the 'weird' Pulp Alley supplement to make up some rather hard to kill mummies,

The Mexican extuinguishes the first brazier of Flames That Need to be Extinguished Before our Heroes can Advance Further.



O'Sullivan's street kid charges up to face the mummies on their platform, but is quickly felled.

Around this point, we realised that I'd made the mummies rather too tough - they could essentially shrug off most hits and each had as many hit points as a hero. And as they were graded 'sidekicks', they hit pretty hard too (not helped that I couldn't see an obvious way of removing their ranged attack without using more skills slots, so for the sake of argument they 'had magic' and could fire back against the heroes' guns!).

The temple guardians chewed through the heroes, until they cornered Butch O'Sullivan himself. H did manage to take one out, but the other two wore him down - this temple remains un-looted for now!

Phew! Sunday brings the next game in Bob and I's '29 Lets Go!' CoC campaign - here's hoping my American can keep their push up!

Time for a Small Dose of Miscellany

Every so often, I post up a selection of oddments that has worked is way off my painting queue. Here is one such post, not that I'm clearing the desks before the challenge starts, no sireee.

When Gharak and I were debating what to game next weekend, we came up with a twist on Pulp Alley, setting it slightly earlier in the 1920 and adding a Cthulu mythos twist, to tell the ghastly tale of what happened to the Professor's wife in a quiet english village. So off I merrily went to identify minis in the lead pile for a new Pulp Alley league. This giant of a chap is the first and was to be the village blacksmith. He is from the Blackwater Gulch western range. Alas, we've now decided of push around some WWII using the new and popular Chain of Command rules from TFL, so I'm not likely to finish the rest of them until we find a slot return to this genre.

The ever-enjoyable Pulp Alley rules do rely on randomly generated 'plot points' as narrative devices and in-game objectives. So I used some odds and ends that I had around to throw together my first few:

Perhaps a Hidden Camp and Missing Guard...

...and a Damaged Engine

Pulp AAR: The Escape!

The second and final game of last weekend, the Professor and co try to evade the Constabulary, who pursue in their battered old truck.

We played a 'rolling road' game, where the terrain moved back 12" each turn and was randomly regenerated. Tweaking Pulp Alley, the 'plot points' represented our heroes' escape, collecting 3 would be enough to escape completely. The points were randomly distributed on the square foot of road each turn along with a random hazard which was a peril (people, donkey carts, (!?), rocks). The road could also veer, determined by the person with initiative.

The vans were represented with the stats and skills of 'sidekick' characters and could take five hit points before they were damaged beyond use. Each van could move 3" in a combination of forwards or sideways (so could move up the board or sacrifice speed for manoeuvrability. There was also a 'floor it' 6" move with no shooting or plot points allowed. All shooting and collecting plot points/challenges was done as per the rules.

Turn one, the constabulary start as they mean to go on with a cheeky shunt...

Crunch!

Whoa! Out of nowhere a local cart appears and their pursuers shunt them again, forcing our heroes to swerve sharply and career around it. A close one, that.

Screech!!!

With two plot points collected, our heroes fail to collect the third that could be vital their escape, while their vehicle is starting to get battered.

With a cough, a splurt and a bang! our heroes' van gives out and skids to a halt. Detective Adolfo rushes out to take our heroes into custody. Time for the Prof to pay a hefty fine and perhaps pull some strings to get out of this one! India will have to wait.

Cripes

Conclusions

Some fairly simple modifications made a workable game with a different challenge - something of a race against time to collect the plot points before the vehicle gave out! The 12" rolling road took some getting used to, with hazards fast approaching. Pulp Alley took the modifications well to make the game work while retaining all of the key systems.

Next time, I'd be tempted to drop the vehicles to weaker 'allies' rather than sidekicks as they were offensively powerful. Well, the Constabulary were, as evidenced by the result. That and/or giving the vehicles 10 hit points to spin the game out longer. But it was a fun diversion for an hour!

Pulp Alley AAR: On the Trail of the Professor (part 2)

The adventure continues from part 1:

Michaels, still wounded from his exchange with Detective Adolfo, gets into a firefight with Captain Usman of the Constabulary. He pauses to pop open the battered briefcase: Lo and behold - the Professor's papers! He wouldn't go far without them and surely must be close by.



Over in the busy market, Pilot Renshaw dashes over to Abdul the rug merchant, gesticulating wildly. Could he know where the professor is? But without a word of Arabic, he just can't make himself understood. Victoria, holding her own against the Constabulary's finest, knocks Constable Atso down with a single blow.

Victoria nimbly melts away into the crowd, but Atso shrugs off the blow and staggers to his feet - he isn't knocked out that easily!

But before our dashing heroine can speak to the gate guard, Usman throws open the gates and barges her out of the way. The gate guard is flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of the Captain of the Constabulary. Waving his pistol angrily, Usman demands to know where the Professor is. Before Victoria can intervene, the guard tells Usman he thought he saw him just an hour ago - the trail is still warm.

Renshaw, having none of the luck today, is charged by an angry Atso who pummels him to the ground. The Constabulary seize the initiative and have a chance to quiz canny old Abdul.

With Usman having disappeared, Michaels, tries to circle around Adolfo while his back is turned, clutching the briefcase closely...

...before noticing rustling in a copse at the edge of town. Heading over to investigate, he finds a local porter, bleeding heavily.

Continuing the search, Usman manhandles the gate guard away. Seeing the opportunity to find her father slip away, Victoria takes aim at the Captain, but can't draw a bead through the shocked crowds. Pausing to recover her breath, she sets off in pursuit. Meanwhile, our adventurers boat captain, Jenkins, charges Adolfo, who is still in a commanding position on the rooftop. But hardened Adolfo dives out of the way, leaving Jenkins sprawling.

Time is running out and the Professor is still nowhere to be seen. In a last ditch attempt to get solid information, Victoria abandons her pursuit of Usman and doubles back, heading for slow-witted Atso and the baffled trader Abdul. Taking aim, she fires on Atso, who scrambles for cover.

Converging on Abdul, Edo harangues him, threatnening and waving his nightstick, but Victoria pushes him aside and smiles sweetly. Taking Abdul by the arm, she regales him with her tale in fluent Arabic. 

Always happy to ignore the Constabulary and honoured to help a lady in distress, Abdul smirks and turns, arm outstretched, to reveal the Professor, lurking away from curious eyes. Success!

Our heroes find Professor Hemmingway, but the Constabulary are hot on their heels.

Next up: Can our heroes, now (almost) all reunited, escape the clutches of the Constabulary?

Closing thoughts

Another mighty fun game of Pulp Alley. The streamlined core system is great fun and the dual use cards for both random events, perils, encounters and to drive the plot really work well. Best of all, it doesn't need an umpire, it gives you the toolkit to throw together a scenario quickly and easily.  As a fun, light game full of twists and turns in 90 minutes and which gives plenty of fodder to make a ripping yarn, I'd highly recommend it.

Pulp Alley AAR: On the Trail of the Professor (part 1)

Setting the scene

We rejoin our daring adventurers after a disastrous chain of events: en route to India, their airplane crashed in the Egyptian desert, two days from civilisation. Beset by less than friendly local tribesmen. Sq Ldr Michaels and his old RAF buddy, pilot Renshaw swallowed by a sandstorm. Singh captured and Professor Hemmingway escaping by a whisker on a donkey.

Renshaw surveys the bustling marketplace

We rejoin Michaels and Renshaw, who weathered the storm and salvaged enough supplies from the crashed plane to make it to the nearest town. A minor and utterly unmemorable port on the banks of the Red Sea. Here they happen upon no other than Victoria Hemmingway, travelling a more leisurely route to the East on Captain Jenkins's steamer. What a place to stop off for fuel and supplies!


Someone must have seen him!

In town, they start asking after the Prof. You know, pale well dressed gentleman, glasses, about so tall? You can't miss a man like him in a town like this. On top of that, it just so happens that the regional chief of constabulary, Usman, has been trying to collar the professor for some years over a trifling issue over a few antiquities that may have been taken from Egypt without the proper signature on the official paperwork. The constabulary are also combing the town for our beloved Prof.


Two locals languidly making repairs

The Scenario

Gharak and I used a manhunt scenario from the forthcoming Pulp Alley Perilous Island expansion. Our daredevil adventurers must find the Professor before the Constabulary and high-tail it out of town!

The (invented, rather than rolled) plot points were:
-A recognisable briefcase
-The dying porter
-An officious gate guard
-Abdul, peddler of rumours and rugs
-A stolen donkey

After successfully completeing a plot point, each league can place a card representing the Professor into the deck, giving a chance to find him from the next plot point.
Opening Gambits

With both leagues scattered across town in the search, things literally start with bang for Michaels as Usman's sidekick, Detective Adolfo opens up on him from a nearby rooftop. Lightly wounded, he dives for cover and trades shots back to no effect.

Meanwhile, Victoria starts to search the market area, before two more of the constabulary pot her and head off to intercept. Eager to capture the foreigners at the behest of Usman, the Constabulary break out into fire even in the busy marketplace, with little regard for the citizens going about their business. After wounding Detective Chigaru with counter-fire, Victoria approaches to finish him off, before hearing the dreaded 'click' of the hammer on an empty chamber. Curses!

In a quieter part of town, Constable Ebo bumbles through the dockside, happening on an untethered and very dusty-looking donkey. Very suspicious! Reports suggested the Professor ridden into town on just such a beast. As he reaches out to search the load, the ill-tempered mule kicks out, sending Ebo flying. Picking himself up, Ebo manages to grab the load and rifle through, finding an old leather glasses case marked "B. Hemmingway". Meanwhile, in the background Michaels has made retreated to higher ground, coming across a very battered and very familiar briefcase...

The hapless Ebo and the ill-tempered mule

With neither side claiming a clear advantage, there are countless more thrills to be had in part two...

End note: do you like the vintage-effect photos? I've been playing with the options and it seems fitting for pulpy AARs but I've tried to tone it down to show off the minis and terrain too!

Pulp: The Cairo Constabulary

I've ended up with  quite a bit of painting time this week, so finished off this fine crew in advance of feeding the lead addiction at Salute. They are the Pulp Figures 'Cairo Constabulary' set, as usual in their quite cartoonish style and a quite endearing bunch. As always with Pulp, they were really enjoyable to paint, particularly after my recent headaches with the Bashi-Bazouks!

These will be the most of a new Pulp Alley league, which are usually around six figures strong. I've got two more Artizan designs minis to join them and 'Mustafa' the snitch already painted.

First up, the leader of the gang the wily Captain (or more accurately, the rank of Yuzbashi). A harsh man so not loved by his men, but he is respected for his ability to keep his position despite recent changes of regime above him: stability which is appreciated by everyone below him!



The Sergeant (or Shawish), taking another opportunity to smoke his shisa pipe while his Askari do the hard investigating! It doesn't come out so well in the photos, but I added a wisp of smoke to the pipe.



And finally a motley pair of humble constables (Askari).



Next, to write up some stats and names for them!

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.