Saturday, February 4, 2017

RT Project - Time to Die - a Pulp Alley Game

The natives at the village said no, don't come here. A cursed place. Shah N'jatnah: 'the place stalked by death'. But what would they know? They still worship the sun and run from the thunder. An ancient and alien place like this would scare them. 

Not us though. We know what we'll find inside. A time capsule. Over fifty thousand years old. No scary stories are going to frighten us away from that.

It is looking a little more complex than we'd have liked. Someone 'misplaced' the teleport homer so we've got to wait for a ship to come and get us. And for all their hatred of the place, those superstitious natives have followed us. It looks like they want to seal us in. But it's nothing that a shotgun and a stick of TNT can't fix.

The exploration team must unlock the alien time capsule (pass three random challenges).
As they work away at the time capsule, the aliens press in, trading shots with the armed members of the exploration team.
The guard with the green carbine was taken out in the first volley of fire.
The exploration team pass the first challenge with ease (one turn), but struggle with the second (three turns!) Meanwhile, unnoticed by anyone, there is a rending of metal and up through the vent...
A hideous predator, disturbed by the intruders!
The juvenile stealer launches itself at the servitor.
Both go down and neither gets back up. The last of the aliens is shot down at the same time.
At this point it looks like mission accomplished. The explorators are still working away at unlocking the time capsule, but there is no threat to them and no real urgency to their task.

Until...
The juvenile was not alone!

The stealer spots the robot, but doesn't quite make it into combat.
Titus Thomas (expedition security) thinks about hurling a stick of dynamite, but then inexplicably decides to charge the vicious monster!
(I was playing with the Pulp Alley solo cards, and they dictated that I charge the nearest enemy: not something I would ever have chosen to do! But it did up the excitement levels quite nicely!)
Titus Thomas holds the monster while the explorators unlock the time capsule (at last!) and begin to flee with the treasure inside.
But he doesn't last long.
And where on earth is that ship?
The monster attacks again!
The explorators are able to flee, leaving the poor ad mech scout with the creature.
The monster pauses and bares it's teeth. ( A card prevented any running or combat this turn. Fortuitous for the explorators, as they could put some more distance between themselves and the stealer.)
At last! Ten turns into the game and the ship arrives.
The last the explorators ever see of the ad mech scout. The treasure is theirs. The scholars of the party have escaped. But they will need a new security complement for their next adventure!
Well, that was a cracking game! My first game with the Pulp Alley solo rules, and they worked a treat, delivering some real moments of tension and excitement. I had both the ship and the stealers arriving randomly. A d6 for each at the end of the turn. The ship arrives when when the ship dice total reaches 21. The juvenile stealer arrives when the stealer dice total reaches 7, the big one when the total reaches 14. Here are the dice!
The timing worked perfectly: the security crew had dealt with the aliens, things were looking cruisy and the big boy arrived! A great game, and a great start to the Rogue Trader project!

22 comments:

  1. Brilliant! Great terrain and figs, too!

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    1. Thanks Gordon! It was a cracking game. Sets a high standard for the rest of the year!

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  2. Cracking AAR Preacher, I noticed you added to the leant of the game, I sometimes feel that 6turns is not enough is that something you find ?

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    1. Cheers Frank! I think that in general a tightish turn limit is good, because it keeps players focussed and prevents the game from crawling to an anticlimactic finish. But there are definitely other times when you need longer for the game to unfold. Probably some of my more memorable games have been longer ones.

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  3. Wow, this is nice! I love the way it all unwrapped!

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  4. Great report. I like the technique you used to randomize the arrival of bad giys and the escape shuttle.

    Very suspenseful.

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    1. Cheers Major! I picked that mechanism up from Peter Pig's PBI rules (WWII). I've used it a few times: it does work well.

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  5. Fantastic! Inching closer and closer to having my first solo run with PA and your AAR's are definitely great motivation!

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    1. Thanks Ivor: glad to be of assistance! This was my first run with the solo rules and I was really happy with the way they went. I think the scenario helped. One side was clearly the 'actor' and the job of the other side was to run interference. That made it straightforward to run them.

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  6. Lovely read. Simple yet elegant scenery, a few miniatures and a cracking rulesset, what more does one need :)

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    1. Thanks Gunbird. It certainly doesn't need to be complex to create a good game.

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  7. I really like this project, think I might go dig out my old hardback copy with the pages falling from the spine and to get cracking!

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    1. Yes, mine's falling to bits too, but it's a goldmine of inspiration.

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  8. Nicely done, a superb board for a fine battle report :)

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  9. Wow, great report, atmospheric and beautiful pictures!

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  10. I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks!

    I don't own Pulp Alley (yet), but may I ask how difficult it is to fit 40k models with respective stats?

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    1. Hi Fincas, glad you enjoyed it. I think it's pretty straightforward to build interesting and varied characters. They may look a little different to 40k stat lines, but I think they reflect 40k character types quite well.
      I'll try to post up some of my character cards over the next couple of days so you can see what I've done for different characters.

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  11. Great stuff! Fun use of those scenarios in the RT book.
    Could you please identify the figure used for the cute little robot?
    Thanks!

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    1. Thanks! The scenario list is a great resource, but I've never used them. I figured this was a good shove to get into them.

      Little BB7 is a conversion using admech bits. I did a post on him here: http://preacherbyday.blogspot.com/2016/02/bb7-droid.html

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