Pulp Action Monday

Each player plays a gang of typical pulp hero’s or villains for example Nazi Soldiers, Mobsters, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Cthulhu Cultists. The game revolves around a plot line that has a major plot and 4 minor plot points, which are locations on the board that each gang must go to, pass a test and receive a clue and a reward. Once a gang has received their clue they can proceed to the major plot point where a more difficult test will take place and they normally have to defeat something, or in true pulp action style rescue someone from certain death.

In our game we were trying to retrieve a secret tome from a Cthulhu cult that was raising up a great old one or something along those lines.

The scenario was called Strange Happening in Goat Wood. Essentially a Cthulhu type situation that we all loved as we all play Cthulhu the RPG.

Every turn each group receives a fortune card that gives them either a boon or a bane the boon is a boost to your own party or the card can be played as a bane to another party modifying their ability to pass whats called a peril check. these checks take place when a character from the payers party moves into over or near dangerous terrain or scary monsters or tries to collect a clue from the minor or major plot points.

The peril checks can injure or delay a party’s progress to the end game which can be quite bad when there are only 6 turns in the game. after taking a new fortune card the player with the initiative selects a group to move and or take actions. Typical actions are to attack with range or Melee and or investigate a plot point.

Combat is handled by rolling a number of Shooting or Brawling dice based on the skills of the character, typical characters will roll 2/3 D6 all rolls of 4+ are hits and all hits must be saved with a dice roll of 4+ using the health dice of the character which again is normally a D6. Some more powerful characters will roll D8, D10 or even D12 dice and 4+ is always a hit.

In addition to better dice and more dice each character in a players gang also has skills which define his or her abilities skills include the ability to re roll misses, extend the range of weapons get really angry in a fight and roll extra dice or always pass Peril checks. This mixture of skills and dice make each gang unique and give it a flavor.

At the end of each game the gang then assesses their Reward cards from investigating major and minor plot points each card then gives then a bonus point in 1 of 6 areas like Contacts, Gear, etc which in turn can be used to purchase bonus’s in future scenario’s. We have not go into this much yet as we have only just started playing.

Overall its a great fun fast game with lots of Pulp action flavor to it, I can recommend it to anyone who likes Indiana Jones films, Alan Quartmain, The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Cthulhu mysteries etc.

The Gangs close in on the Dunwich horror ! Lady Agatha has a flat Tire and information regarding the cult gathering in the woods ! very nice of her but a shame shes a snotty cow ! Dutch Shultz and Franco Detorio scope out the sinister looking woods and strange Zombie creature ahead Heinrich the Surgeon leader of the evil Nazi gang slips past the cultists and their abomination to gather the sacred tome from the summoning circle Chris considers his options as Phil looks for inspiration in the rules as his gang are being whittled down by gangster gunfire near Lady Agatha’s Saloon Image showing the Gang Rosta and play chits that show who has fired, punched Ran and been taken down !