Pulp Alley Trial Game

Pulp Alley definitely wins the award for least time between receiving the rules and actually getting figures on the tabletop and playing the game!  

This was partly because I was able to download the free rules ahead of time but mostly becuase the rules are elegantly simple and make sense.  Oh, we had the usual questions (actions aren't well defined in the rules so for a bit we thought you couldn't run and shoot) and I made some major mistakes (totally forgot for the first few fire-fights that the attacker has the option to take damage instead of just blocking return fire) but the first game was a blast and we can't wait to play again!

We played the "Hidalgo Fire" scenario from the free rules with one major change -- we set it on a Mars-like planet so that we could use our sci-fi figures.  And we threw in a bit of Rogue One inspired backstory:  Far off in another corner of the galaxy, a weapons researcher working for the Empire has gone missing.  Our leagues (Pulp Alley's name for your army list) have independently tracked down the researcher's estranged daughter at an archaeology site on a red planet and hope that we can convince her to help look for her father. 

(By the way, the reason we threw in the Empire from Star Wars is that we built an Imperial stormtrooper Pulp Alley league as a way of teaching ourselves the league creation rules.   The stormies will show up in future scenarios.)

Since this was our first game, I left out a few things.  I placed the minor plot-points equidistant from the Major plot point (instead of us each taking turns placing plot points) and we skipped rolling for scenario random events because I figured we had enough to do with just learning the game.  

But because I like chaos in narrative games, I added 4 mobile "extremely perilous areas" in the form of various beasts that randomly moved about at the end of the turn.  There were 4 of these, one placed between each plot point.

Some highlights (since this was a learning game we didn't take detailed notes) from my side of the battle:

• "Speedy" the Dalek (a Follower from my league) racing forward on the first turn to reach the Ancient Artifact plot point, only to be immediately knocked out by the Brain Worm swarm (a mobile Extremely Perilous Area).  (Since they were brain worms, the Dalek  wasn't actually hurt -- they just knocked him over and he couldn't get up!)

• Our most "pulpy" moment when my leader had to spend a turn convincing the archeologist (the Major plot point, the weapon engineer's daughter) to come with him while nearly the entirety of Xan's league shot at him.  (He failed his initial Challenge roll so had to spend another turn convincing her, then finally started moving off the table).
• This was visualized as:
• Leader: "Come with me if you want to live"
• Archeolgist: "No"
• Leader: "This way! Wait...what?"

• And Gorgo the Gigant making a pet of one of the other mobile extremely perilous areas -- a giant lizard-like beast.  He was hit twice  by the random movement of this beast but easily passed each challenge -- mostly because both challenges were against his strength!  ("Gorgo not smart but Gorgo strong.")

Final Thoughts - I love this ruleset!  The fun started when we began designing our characters and it kept going throughout the game.  Pulp Alley is going to be getting a lot of play in our house.

Star Wars Armada: First impressions and first game report

Horribly phone pix because the good camera is already packed!

Last weekend my wife and I managed to play a game of Star Wars: Armada amidst the chaos of packing and moving.  It was a blast!

Now let me state that I had no intention of getting into this game.  Oh, I wanted to - the models are beautiful! But the price tag - US$99 - for the core set was just way out of reach.  And then each ship beyond that in the base was another $30-$40.   And I thought GW had cornered the market on games priced out of my reach!

The problem of course is that you aren't buying just the model. You're buying the model, and the cards, and the unique base (why don't the sell the base separately?  Right, because then you could use your own miniatures) and the cards - did I mention the cards?.  I hate the "collectible" aspect of both X-Wing and Armada and I largely ignore it.  (I do like how the Arturi Campaign game starts with basic ships and adds cards as the campaign progresses; I don't like flying a ship well and having it one-shotted by some card combination that I haven't heard of).  My research did lead me to read some re-caps of games that showed that the CCG aspect of Armada was similarly tainted.  However - from what I read it wasn't nearly as bad as X-Wing.

Nebulon B and Victory collide while the corvette
heads around the flank

So two strikes right off the bat kept me from ever seriously considering buying the game.  Maybe if I won the lottery.  Which I don't play.

But then Cool Stuff ran a special right before Christmas.  And what a special it was -- all of the Armada ships were on sale, which was nice, but the kicker was the core set was $39.99.  Whoa.  You could only buy one, but then I found a seller on Amazon who was offering it for $45. 2 for 1 deal?  Plus other ships at 40% off?  How was I to resist?

So I succumbed. :-)  And I'm so glad I did because this is a GREAT game. I love Full Thrust and it will always be my go-to game for fleet actions.  But Armada is definitely in a close second at this point. The unique turning ruler and the order chips, while fiddly, obviates the need for written orders.  Firing before moving adds a really nice strategy element to it.  And fighters are easy, fun to use and not overpowered.

Best of all - you can get a really great game with just the core box set.  Which is exactly what we did.  I took the Imperials with 6 Tie Fighter squadrons and a Victory class Star Destroyer.  She took the Neubulon B and Corvette with 4 X-Wing squadrons.

Rebels flanking the Victory

I was quickly introduced to the Rebel "conga line of death"  as the Rebel ships, with their faster speed and better maneuverability, quickly flanked my Star Destroyer.

In the meantime, my overwhelming fighter superiority (ha!) was dwindling rapidly and I foolishly allowed one X-Wing squadron to lock up 4 TF squadrons.  The X-Wing was lost, but it tied up my fighters for a full turn.  It was about here that I realized that while I had 6 squadrons I only had 18 Ties -- compared to 20 X-Wings!  And my Ties died in droves (as they should).

While I got in some good shots with my Destroyer, damaging both ships, they quickly worked around the flanks to my rear and I was in trouble (6 damage out of 8) by turn 4.  In fact, if I hadn't gotten a lucky critical hit on the Corvette which prevented it from firing through an asteroid field, that would have probably ended the game.  But in my one moment of inspired Admiral-ship, I slammed on the brakes, hid behind an asteroid and tried desperately to repair.   This led the corvette to overshoot my position on turn 5 and park itself directly in front of the Destroyer's overwhelming forward firepower.  Boom! went the corvette.

But it was too little, too late.  The Nebulon B's turn was up but with 3 X-wing squads behind me (one still at full strength) I had Xan roll for their hits first.  Sure enough - 2 hits were enough to end the Victory - and end any chance I had at victory.

X-wings about to put proton torpedoes right up the tail of the Victory

The mark of a good game is how you feel when you lose and what you talk about afterward.  If you feel like you lost capriciously due to vague rules or insane powerups/combinations, then you feel a bit betrayed and you talk about the problem with the game.  But if you lose and still enjoyed yourself and want to play again right away -- that's a well-balanced game.  I was quite proud of my maneuver with my damaged Victory hiding behind the asteroids -- and can't you just see that as a scene from a Star Wars movie?  (or given the quality of recent movies -- a scene in Clone Wars?)  And Alexandra really liked that all the data about a ship was right on the bases so that you didn't have to look anywhere else.  We both liked the turning gauge and how it allowed you to figure out the best maneuver for your ship to take at any given moment.

I'm glad I have the second core set because I really want to try running the Imperials with a second ship.  As it was with the single Destroyer I felt a bit like a tank in a city with no infantry support - easy prey!  And I picked up a few more ships (a Corvette for $5 as an add-on item on Amazon!) during the sale so I'm looking forward to trying those out.  But I'm in no hurry as the core set gives a great game.  Which is good -- because at the astronomical pricepoint of adding new ships, it's probably not going to happen until the next sale.  (I really want an Imperial Star Destroyer but $40...yikes).

And I do wish they sold the bases separately -- how great would it be to run Battlestar Galactica / Star Trek / Babylon 5 crossover battles?  It took them a while to do it with X-Wing so I'm hoping that they will do it for Armada eventually (my fear, though, is that for Armada you also need the shield tokens to attach AND more importantly they come in 3 different sizes.  Even with X-Wing they only offer the basic fighter size bases)

So a big thanks to whoever at Cool Stuff or FFG was able to offer such a great deal on the core set, if only for a limited time.  If your goal was to get new players into the game, you succeeded!  We can't wait to play this one again -- once we get unpacked from our move. :-/

Christmas and January Gaming

Warlord Games Greek Hoplites painted as shades; bases for the warriors created with washer, green stuff and Basisus molds.

There's big moves afoot as I am preparing for a move to a new house which will have...gasp...a gaming room!  With a DOOR!   Which means that I can leave a game set up overnight and not have the pieces become cat toys during the middle of the night.  I'm really hoping this will get me the impetus to finish alpha development and playtesting on Invasion:UFO and get it out to more people to playtest.  My last change completely revamped experience gain and spending and the tactical AI for the aliens, so there's a lot of testing that needs to be done.

A report on the 2016 Christmas Game is coming -- it's written up but I need to get the pictures off the camera (I've realized that a big detriment to the blog is the current friction in getting pictures off the camera, processed, and ready to go up.  I'm looking to see if there are any more efficient processes I could put in place there and I've got a couple I'm experimenting with).

Finally, just before Christmas three events combined to produce the Greek shades at the top of the post:

1. Sekret Project M was set in motion (to borrow Mike Whittaker's naming convention) -- part of which was an ongoing desire to collect and paint the classical creatures of Greek mythology and a kickstarter which fed that desire (which I am going to surprise my wife with when it arrives - thus the sekret part)
2. Our Basius kickstarter arrived -- I love these!  I'll be writing some more about these, but I'm very happy we got in the kickstarter and I know we will be buying more of these soon.  The bases pictured came from the "Tundra" base which is great for anything rocky -- sandy beach, meadow with rocks, or...Tundra, I guess :)  It's a great generic base.
3. And Warlord Games had a 50% off sale for their plastic sprues of Greek Hoplites

The result?  1 set of Greek warriors to paint up for Crooked Dice's 7th Voyage game and 1 set to create the ghosts/shades to oppose those warriors.  Or maybe replace them in a game!  I was thinking it would be neat to have a battle which has a corresponding battle going on in the Underworld.  

I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that the paint scheme for the shades was inspired by Matakashi whose site always serves to inspire me.  (Search on "shades by Foundry" on the page to see the inspiration - there was no way to direct link)