Pulp Alley: The elusive Anastasia

 No pictures, so I will try out my story-telling.

 Pulp Alley solo game. Scenario was Dangerous Delivery.

The Shadow's Agents (me) vs. Anastasia's Heroes (the game AI)

Prelude:

Lamont Cranston looked over his paper as Miss Lane entered his kitchen.

"You should knock." he remarked, fully prepared for a sassy reply.

"Why? You didn't lock the door." Margo teased, "Besides, you always know when it's me!"

She sat at the breakfast table and picked up a croissant, dipped it in his coffee, and took a bite.

"Why on earth..." he began, but was cut short seeing his ring blink, indicating a waiting message. 

***

Some time later, Moe pulls up to the outskirts of a small town, The Shadow and Margo Lane exit the vehicle with him. Three others are waiting, summoned by secretly delivered messages. The Shadow gives further orders.

"What we know is a group of Russians, fugitives of their own country, will be passing through this area. They have in their possession official plans (main plot point) for a potentially dangerous device, stolen no doubt. Our task is to delay them and capture the plans."

"There's an armed guard (pp1) to the north of us, by that building." Officer Burbank, in plain clothes, adds, "We should be careful around him, in case he's got an itchy trigger finger."

"I'll look into that, unless our main target shows themselves first." says the Shadow, "Spread out. Keep your eyes open. They're probably close."

Turn 1:

The Shadow's agents start in the south-east on a crossroad.

Anastasia's Heroes Start in the north-west, behind a building. Anastasia carries the plans, Mikhail has a broken rangefinder (pp2). They activate first. Victor and Yarina both hesitate, must have a bad feeling about this place. Ana and Mikhail run down the west side of the building and cross the street. Igorek makes her way across the north end.

Margo and Dr. Tam head west along a collection of outbuildings, keeping an eye on the open area with an old well in the middle of it just the other side of the sheds. The Shadow and Trixie go north, toward the guard. Moe and Dr. Tam hang back, in case someone gets past.

Turn 2:

I choose AH to activate first again. Mikhail is held up and Anastasia's card instructs that cards be drawn for all characters. Yarina runs around to the east end of the building and spots something odd: an ancient falcon (pp3) statue sitting on a stone protruding from the side of the building. Victor chickens out and runs the other way (fails a challenge, health saves and is out of the game).

The Shadow and Trixie stop just behind a row of trees. They can see the guard, but he can't see them. Moe tripped over a barrier and knocked his head, Dr. Tam gets disoriented in the dark and goes the wrong way, both are out of the game. Margo rounds the outbuilding at the end of the row and spots a very old looking document sticking out from under the door.

Turn 3:

Anastasia and Mikhail make a run for it across the clearing, past the well. The Shadow sees them and rushes Mikhail, but Mikhail's momentum upends the Shadow for a minute. Yarina snatches the falcon statue from the building as Igorek catches up.

Officer Burbank moves to head off Anastasia's escape. Margo carefully pulls a parchment through the crack under the door. It's a map, but it looks quite unfamiliar (pp4). Trixie takes a shot at Anastasia and misses.

Turn 4:

Mikhail, locked in a brawl with the Shadow, calls out, "Ana...keep going!" Then he throws a punch that gets blocked by the Shadow. The Shadow counters and knocks down Mikhail.

Anastasia makes it to the south-east intersection, knocking down Officer Burbank. The Shadow won't let her go so easily, he causes her mind to think she sees a great bear standing in her way. Unfortunately, Anastasia quickly sees through the fearsome image.

Yarina and Igorek stay to the north, headed toward the guard, who is casually watching what he can see of the pandemonium he can see from his post.

Trixie and Margo both run back to where the action is.

Turn 5:

I try to get Margo to Anastasia to stop her getting to the goal, but the card I draw immediately switches initiative to the opposite league and Anastasia gets away with the plans. Igorek and Yarina reach the guard, and through some artful cunning, Yarina relieves him of his weapon and Igorek opens the door of the building to find a small cache of guns and ammunition, which she loads up on.

The Shadow succeeds in getting the rangefinder off of Mikhail, but the game is over. 

Aftermath:

Anastasia has escaped with the plans and her team has two other plot points. The Shadow got the rangefinder and a mysterious map, but has to accept the he was outsmarted and out-fought by these Russians.

Epilogue:

"I wonder if she's a little like me," Margo as she drove Lamont and a recovering Moe back to the city, "You know, able to see through your mind tricks."

"Perhaps" is the only word a defeated Lamont utters, lost in thought wondering if this was a new threat he'd have to worry about facing again.

More words:

Reminded again of how quickly this game can be played. 5 turns took less than an hour. I've had the table set up for a month waiting for some time to play the game in. Almost seems wasteful.

I had the thought that Maybe I'd like to keep this table set-up a little longer and play a few of the different rule sets I've accumulated. I know that I've used the same Idn Kar Wastes battlemat for two or three different games, but it was far enough apart and without the intent of comparing game rules across them that I can't really compare the experiences. Maybe comparing rules on the same map doesn't matter, but it seems like an interesting enough exercise that I want to try it. If nothing else, it will get me to be a little more active in my gaming. So, I'm off to decide which set is next.

Here is the set up I used for this game and what I'll use for the other rules I decide to apply.

Update 20/05/23: I tried playing similar scenarios using other rule sets. Each scenario was the AI side trying to make it from top left to bottom right and me trying to stop them. I used Swordplay 2015, Star Breach, and Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt.

I don't know how comparable Star Breach is to the others as I had to play both sides where the other games used some level of automatic decision making. At any rate, Pulp Alley was the only one I lost. In the end, it was getting harder for me to want to stick with the same layout and the same scenario. I've go no really in depth analysis on similarities and differences. So all I really accomplished was to pull out and dust off rules I hadn't played in a long while. And that's okay.

Summer Summary

Computer problems and then summer business kept me from posting since May. But I did get a couple of games in and do a couple of crafts. 

Full Sail

I made up a scenario for Full Sail involving three pirate hunters pouncing on five pirate ships anchored in a small bay; again using ships from the Pirates of the Spanish Main game. I'm experimenting with translating thrust and movement rules written for spaceships to suit sailing ships. Haven't quite hit something that I feel works, but I think I'm on the right track.

Anyway, the pirate hunters consisted of a single-mast, a two-mast, and a three-mast headed to the mouth of the bay with the wind advantage (entry side, wind direction and speed was set randomly). Pirates were arranged at random with random facings inside the bay, all starting at anchor (4 two-mast and one single-mast). I rolled for each to see if they notice the hunters coming in, three succeed and try to get underway. Hunters have to capture or sink as many ships as possible. Pirates just have to get away.

Mid-game (the only picture I took). The three-mast hunter is about to fully engage and board one of the pirates (background). During the previous turn, the small hunter in the middle had just dropped off a boarding party to that capsized ship behind it, which was immediately sunk by the dark-sailed schooner making its getaway.

Of the five pirate ships, one is captured, one is sunk, three get away. One of the escaped ships loses almost all of its crew while repelling boarders, before breaking away from the grapple.

5 Parsecs: Bug Hunt (2nd mission)

Nik and Gwisom (Treen is in the infirmary) led a fire team and science team out to investigate an abandoned cargo ship and an alien plant causing problems in a storage compound. Nothing incredible happened, the mission was low priority so razor lizards came at the troopers in easily manageable intervals and numbers. Only near the end did one one of the fire team soldiers fall prey to the aliens.

Some razor lizards eye up the party of troopers and scientists trying to get to the extraction zone.

Full Thrust: Star Wars fighter craft

I got to introduce my two brothers to Full Thrust via the Star Wars fighters modification. They enjoyed it. They took Imperial TIE fighters (2 each) and I had an X-wing and a B-wing. Scattered a bunch of asteroids to make things interesting. They slaughtered me in 5 rounds.

ACW gaming

I used the paper American Civil War soldier stands I made for a simple battle using rules found in One Hour Wargames. The battle over a bridge ended in a stalemate after heavy casualties on both sides. I still want to try playing using more detailed rules. I'll get there.

Miniatures

My D&D group is starting a new adventure and I'm trying a halfling cleric. Modded a Heroclix Puck sculpt to represent the character.

Painted some more Tyranids and a Tusken raider I located after a couple years of being lost. Also started painting some computer kiosks for terrain/objective markers. Also there were some other minis prepped for painting. Pictures likely to show up later.

Not game related

I volunteered my time to make a wooden sign for our local village-owned ice cream parlour. Used a found piece of plywood. It had two coats of paint on it; a kind of cream over a really light blue. Sanding revealed some of the bottom coat.

First Play: Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt

During early pandemic days, I purchased the Five Parsecs From Home rules (2nd Edition?). It's been upgraded and is now available as a hardcover. Either way it's worth checking out. I played set up a crew and played one battle, wrote up an AAR and haven't played again.

Last month, I bought the spin-off Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt. This game is a little more similar to the Vanguard title I wrote so many AAR's for; try and get something done before the alien threat gets too great. Only this title adds that higher level of off-table crew management I enjoyed in Five Parsecs From Home. I rolled up a team (you get a team of three to keep track of in Bug Hunt, but they have a chance at pulling in special teams or weapons to assist in each battle).

I started a spreadsheet file to keep track of everything happening off-table. Will it help me get more games in? I don't know.

So the first mission is on an Earth-like planet and takes place at a historical commemoration site where a couple of old buildings are preserved along with a working lumber yard. Reports come in stating a disturbance in the area. The Anti-Xenomorph Extermination Squad (A.X.E.S.) is sent in to investigate. They are Nik, a space fleet marine; and Treen and Gwisom, two infantry soldiers. 

Our sleepy little out of the way museum of olden-days construction and forest exploitation. Image is pre-generation of objectives (secure west building and hack museum kiosk on south side of display enclosure).

What a good scenario I had: over the course of the game I must have rolled in a grand total of over thirty aliens (used my trusty Tyranids). I rolled well to set up a team of my three heroes, the customary fire team of 4 soldiers, a sergeant, and a team of two engineers (high Tech score for hacking). Also got an incinerator, which I gave to one of the soldiers.

I didn't keep track of turns nor did I get any pictures until it was almost over.

The team encountered aliens right away as they came in on the south east and crossed the road toward the kiosk and the large building. Two blips located among the buildings turned out to be around 11 aliens (I rolled razor lizards). Treen did an outstanding job holding them off while Nik tested a tactical location that opened up a force shield and he and the engineer team got in it. Treen was wounded and put out of play.

Gwisom went for a tactical location among the lumber piles. All he found was a device to distract the six aliens he found for a while. But it gave him time to make his way back to the fire team. They decide to run to the museum courtyard to help clear a path for the engineers to get to the kiosk (a vital objective). 

At this point, Treen, the sergeant, and a fire team soldier are out. The engineers (bottom-left) succeeded in hacking the kiosk and the fire team are about to secure the west building. The dark circle is the marker for the triggered force shield that kept everyone alive while they cleared away all the aliens that were hanging out among the buildings. So many more blips coming from the north!

West building secured! Evac called in! It's a race to the jump ship!

That incinerator is a welcome addition to this mission.

Post action line-up: (left to right) Engineers, surviving Fire Team, Nik, Gwisom, and casualties Treen, sarge and trooper.

In the post-mission phase Nik and Gwisom got their XP and Treen rolled up a torso injury landing her three days in recovery, but I awarded her the bonus XP for her mighty stand against overwhelming odds. Can two agents accomplish get through the next few tasks? We'll see next time on Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt!

This was a great and engaging game! The blip system keeps a person on their toes, I didn't dare approach them because I kept rolling high numbers on contact. The only thing I can think of at the moment that is lacking is a battle area generation system like one sees in Five Klicks from the Zone (which I've yet to play) as I find it hard to just come up with a battle map.

First Play: Warstuff

The following is an old entry that was being drafted as the motherboard went kaput on the computer I was using. Played in November, I'm just getting back to it now.

Looking through lists of free wargame rules, I was really looking for air combat stuff, but I ended up on One Page Rules. Their new starship combat rules (new to me, have not been on the site for a long while) had come up in a list of free wargames I found. Scrolling through the sight, I happened onto Warstuff. So, where their other rules are pretty much written as alternates for some well-known popular wargames, Warstuff is a very generic game to be used for any models or toys one might have lying around their house.

The game is very accessible; needing only a print-out of the rules, some minis or toys for combatants, some six-sided dice, and a pencil and paper for writing out the army lists. I made a 150 point army in about 15 minutes then helped my 9 year old son make one in about 20 minutes. I set up a table and we played a game in less than an hour.

Building units

Warstuff is a points-based army builder. The rules suggest a game of 150 points and provide a very easy unit building process. 

Start with a model/toy/minifig you want to use in your squad. Choose a unit quality level for it; what number does the unit have to roll on a d6 to succeed at something, mainly shooting and dodging or landing hits in melee, but easily expanded to include testing for other perils. It costs though. For example: a low quality grunt costs 5 points, but only hits on rolls of 6+, where a higher quality troop succeeding on 3+ is 20 points.

Next step is to assign up to three of the 26 special features, which also cost points, to your units. Features consist of things like Frenzy (reroll a failed melee roll) or Shooter (make a ranged attack). 

Mix and match quality, features, and number of units until you hit the game's point level. So you could have a force of ten low quality (6+), medium range shooters (call it a squad of Imperial soldier goons). Or go for two high quality (2+) guys with the max number of high-cost features (perhaps some armed and armoured bounty hunters). Hmmm, that's a game I should try running myself - Does quality stand up to quantity?

Rules

Super simple rules provided for movement, shooting, and melee. Easy to add on anything more you need. The download on the website now is actually different than what I downloaded, though I haven't compared the two versions.

Gameplay

As mentioned, I played with my son, who's 9. We had two games using Lego minifigs as our combatants. I played both games with a team of five: a dwarf warrior, Maui, an undersea being, and two random gun-men. It's been long enough since I started this post, I don't remember any stats except that Maui had the Large feature.

My glorious Warstuff team.

My son tried two different teams. Team one was Sith Anakin and a collection of clone troopers. Second was a pilot Anakin and some Ninjago guys.

He really liked the game, even though I won both rounds. We'll probably play again soon.

Lord Garmadon perches himself on the building, ready to huck some dynamite my way. This is where we had to improvise some rules for jumping/falling off of things.

We had some morale rules and Anakin's team lost a morale check at this point. I think only Master Wu and R2-D2 remained standing. Besides the dwarf, seen here, I had lost one of the gunmen.

First Play: Pulp Alley with Solo Deck (Part 1)

As sometimes tends to happen here, I'm going to ramble about how I came to actually play this game before I actually show anything about the game. To see the game, skip until you see pictures.

During the Christmas break, I downloaded and put together a bunch of stands of American Civil War figures from Junior General to try out one of those types of games. Had it all set up on the table, watched videos on how to play the rules I had chosen, moved some of the Union soldiers forward, and quit because I just felt confused by what I thought should happen next compared to what the rules said I should do compared again with how the person in the video did it (in exactly the same scenario, no less). I just felt dense. 

I hope to revisit ACW gaming in the future, perhaps with a different ruleset. But as I put the soldiers up and out of the way, the old blue Pringles can beckoned once again to be brought out to play.

"Why a Pringles can?" you may ask. Well, that's where all the figures and cards I printed and put together to play Pulp Alley have been sitting since I made them back before we moved into our current residence 4 or 5 years ago.

I purchased the rules for Pulp Alley about seven years ago because I thought it looked cool: rolling different dice types, custom characters, pulp stories theme, easy to learn and play, and more. Got cards and figures put together and it all went into a Pringles can and sat. All this time, the can has sat, begging me to play. The one time I did take it down was to add the Solo deck after purchasing that PDF and printing it out.

Well, it's finally happened! I finally played Pulp Alley. Did it with the solo deck, which comes as part of an add-on package sold separately from the core rules. 

What I quickly found is that this game is as much about the story around a scenario as it is about playing it. The solo deck comes with a campaign to use, complete with ready-made leagues for you to use, but I went about starting my own story.

My first move was to put together some leagues. A couple of leagues came together nicely using the paper figures in the can. A couple others needed some additional figures and I went on a hunt for the same ones that I printed out so long ago. Well, a person can no longer get those figures. At least not in the same image quality. I could only find a link to the archived pages of the now defunct website. So the additions I made look fuzzy compared to their friends. I might have the files I downloaded so long ago, but they'd be on one of my external drives, which I cannot conveniently access since my laptop died and we are only running on a Mac right now (wrong format). Oh well, we must go on. So yeah, the leagues. Well, I got four completely assembled (the Leader being the left-most character followed by the Sidekick, then Allies and Followers):

The Shadow's Agents - Cranston and Miss Lane head up Moe, two agents from the '90s movie, and Trixie is a Follower I made up to fill the spot.

Anastasia's Heroes - as in the surviving Romanov girl, now in her mid-30s, with a band of displaced Tzarist troops hiding from the Bolsheviks and making their way in the world as mercenary adventurers. A Russian A-Team.

Military Occultists - The ones we all love to hate. They're bent on seizing something that will help them achieve world domination, even if it means waking some ancient horror.

The Fortune Hunters - Most comfortable in a cockpit and raiding some luxury zeppelin, but there's more than one way to make a fortune and sometimes it doesn't require a plane.

There are other leagues in the works, just not fully assembled yet. Each league also has a League Perk.

I started up a spreadsheet to keep track of things. So using the resources I had at hand and the scenario-building tables in the core rules, my first scenario was born. I randomly chose the contestants and it ended up being me playing the Fortune Hunters against the Military Occultists and this short narrative came to mind:

Nathan Zachary receives a telegram from an old army buddy he knew during the war. The telegram begs for him to come to Casa Blanca with friends. Once there, Nathan learns that his friend had recently returned from a trip, part of his return was aboard a zeppelin crossing the Sahara Desert, during which he saw strange ruins uncovered by raging winds. He marked the location and noticed a shady-looking man in strange military attire doing the same. Sitting close enough to overhear the soldier whisper to his female travel companion, he deduced that they are part of an occult relic-hunting team and they were obviously planning to return there. 

Feeling that he couldn't trust anyone else with the potential importance of whatever the occultists could be interested in, Buddy turned to his old squadron-mate. Nathan's response: "I learned to always trust your instincts during the war. If you feel like something's fishy, we'll go investigate. At the very least, we'll make sure there's nothing for your creepy couple to find."

Pulp Alley uses objective markers, called plot points, to drive the game. It's a contest of who can grab the most plot points before game end (turn 6, under normal circumstances). There's always a main plot point. The main plot point here was the Purple Death Receptor. The location of this objective would be revealed at random in one of three possible locations after someone acquired the plot point "exhaust valve". Two plot points were treasure ("smuggled diamonds" and "booby-trapped diamonds"). The final plot point was a torn letter. I think the letter and/or the receptor could lead whoever possesses it at the end of the game into another scenario.

To be continued...

Or desktop computer crashed and it's a doozy. Symptoms point to motherboard fault. So I'll just stop this write up here and tell the game story a little later on.