Is was Pulp Tuesday, so time for a Pulp game. Since I had just play tested the new Fantasy Pulp rules from Crooked Dice a week earlier, I thought I would stick with the rules for the official game. It would be a nice change of pace for the group and I could better remember the game.
I sent a text out to everyone to ask them to bring two heroes (one could be a mage) and half a dozen troopers of their choses fantasy race.
I pulled out my Siam temple terrain and headed to my FLGS. I arrived and started to set up. First I through down some hills and then placed all my temples and scatter terrain to break things up.
Next I waited for the gang to arrive. I was expecting two or three players, based on the responses I got. Four arrived, so I asked them to organize their forces at twenty points each. I gave them the cards for their respective races. That process started and two more people walked in, but without their own troops. No worries, I assigned them to one of the two teams and asked the players to organize a third force. No longer did that take and two others walked in…. OK, this was getting ridiculous! I did not want to go any larger, so I asked both sides to organize a fourth force with the units already choses. Another person walked in, but I was past my limit!
We ended up with one side having a force of Orcs, with a troll and a Goblin shaman. The other was a strained alliance of Dwarves and Elves. The Orc force was better in close combat and had more buffing characters. The Elf/Dwarf force was much better in shooting and had better close combat characters.
I laid out six objectives and had both sides start on their side of the table. Each side put down one force, then alternated until all the troops were down. I opted to roll on the one of the random events tables when a player uncovered an objective. Players would get points for tokens, killing stars and co-stars and axing castes.
The game started with the Orcs moving fast to grab as many objectives as they could. They used their mage to teleport their troll forward to disrupt the elves. The dwarves moved forward slowly, in order to use their shooting. The shooting was very effective, with four orcs falling early.
The troll on the other hand was able to teleport amongst the elves and totally disrupt their plans. This caused the dwarves to rush forward into combat with the orcs.
The fighting went back and forth, with the orc shields showing to be made out of vibranium (they past eight out of ten shield saves of 5+!). This gave the orcs time to fight their way into the advantage.
At this point, the game turned into a slugfest on one side, while the dwarves that cleared the other side held fast. We ran through the final act and the game was over.
The tally was the orcs having four objective tokens to two for the dwarves and elves. The elves lost two Stars and the orcs none. Both sides had their castes axed (lost 50% of their models). Adding it all up and the orcs ended with a major victory!
- Manteuffel