Review: Pulp! - Osprey Games

 

My faithful readers know, that I always get the latest Osprey Wargaming Series books.  I have every single one, starting with #1 Dux Bellorum.  I also make it a point to get every single one that comes out.  Why?  Am I some sort of crazed fan?  A completist collector?  Addicted to wargames rules?  Well, maybe.... but the real reason is very simple.  If they do not sell, they stop being made. I want them to keep being made.  

Pulp! is the latest "blue book" and I of course have it!  In the books own words, the rules are "a scenario based, skirmish wargame where players take on the roles of heroes and villains inspired by the pulp fiction of the 1920's and 30's."  There are some great miniatures out there for this genre, and it is a popular niche for skirmish wargaming.  That means you can play characters like Doc Savage, The Shadow, Flash Gordon, and Dick Tracy.  The Pulp game has to be able to cover a wide variety from crime thrillers, to space opera, to horror, to historical fiction, and beyond.  That is a tall order for any game system to cover such a spectrum of potential game types.  I am interested to see how the game manages the abstractions.  

So, let's lead into this review with both fists swinging......

Things I Liked

To help give the Pulp heroes and villains a bit more of a punch, they can use Special Points to buy advantages and special rules.  However, it is interesting that each one is a single use only, so the only way you can continue to use the advantage is to buy it more than once.  This is very different from other games, and I liked it as a nice way to balance some of these unusual rules.  It also feels "Pulp" as the heroes frequently use some special skill to save the day, or avoid a cliffhanger; but typically they only use the same skill once in a series.  

This book has some really great pictures of minis on some really great tables.  I think they are mostly PULP! Miniatures and Copplestone Castings with a lot of paint work by Kev Dallimore.  They really make me want to dive into a few Pulp style games. 

For attacking, they use a "firepower" style mechanic where you roll dice based on the weapon, and look for the skill of the shooter to score a hit.  Modifiers apply such as cover, LOS etc.  Targets that are hit get a Protection roll to avoid getting hit.  A hit causes suppression, and a second hit causes a wound, and a second wound causes a Knocked Out.  That gives our "heroic" characters some resilience.    In melee, there are no suppression hits, only wounds.  

There us a short list of some particularly PULP style weapons like Death Rays, Glue Guns, and Hypno Rays in the rules to add some 1930's Sci-Fi flavor.   

There is also a RPG Lite element as you can give your single model Heroes and Villains access to Life Experience that give different benefits, as well as some Traumas and Phobias.  This makes your main characters unique and is a MUST for Pulp! style adventures in my book.     

Things I Did Not Like

Most Heroes are single model units, but henchmen are in small groups of 2-4.  That is fine, but they seem to activate and take actions individually.  This seemed a bit cumbersome.  However, you typically only have 1-2 groups of henchmen.  If they were going to resolve actions individually, you might as well let them pool their dice and all take the same action at once anyway.  

The dice used are d6, which is fine by me.  However, a 1 always fails and a 6 always succeeds.  No mods can be made above or below these values.  Therefore, the pool of dice results in this game is low, and your ability to influence the results via mod stacking is also relatively low.  

The rules do not have any simple rules for vehicles.  I think this is a big miss, as car chases and the like were a staple of the genre.  There is a lot of discussion about animals in the book though.  

A big selling point of the book was Co-op and Solo play.  However, the book barely touches on the subject, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the activation rolls.  Osprey recognized this and quickly put out free-rules for solo/co-op play on their website.  They seem to be a combination of random dice roll for result and order of operations for the enemy AI.  Nothing is really detailed on deployment or scenario modifications.  Therefore, I would suggest that this game works best as a Versus affair.     

 

Meh and Other Uncertainties

A typical game is 1 hero/villain single model, 1 Elite single model, and a handful of henchmen squads of various skill level.  More skill level typical adds access to Special Points and stats.   

The game makes use of an Activation roll.  If failed, the model/Unit can only take partial actions.  These are typically passive, defensive related actions.  So, the model is not helpless but also not doing much.  Activation rolls are like Marmite.  Some like the Friction it adds to a game to be overcome, while others see them as an annoying hinderance.  I personally do not have a preference, but prefer to be able to take a free action, and then dice for additional actions instead. 

Since this is a skirmish game, there are all sorts of movement related stuff you can do.  Most of them are all lumped into the rules under movement, so they might be hard to find later when searching for the exact way to do it.  However, they are there and that is good.  You will want your hero to jump from rooftop to rooftop at some point! Interestingly, the action you choose on activation also will impact how much you can move.  

The book spends several pages on Scenario design.  It only has two sample scenarios though.  I appreciate the effort to lay-out different deployment types, and ways to add chrome to a scenario.  However, I feel like many gamers will find this section of the book dissatisfying.  However, given the large swathe of game types this book is trying to cover, it makes sense to take this approach over hard and fast scenarios.  

There is some cursory talk about campaigns and the RPG section has a discussion about character progression.     

Final Thoughts

PULP! is a perfectly serviceable set of rules.  However, if I was new to the genre and wargaming in general this set of rules would leave me a bit bewildered about how to proceed.  It is a really good tool box, but how these tools go together is not always 100% clear.  I appreciated the RPG-lite elements and the Special Points, but it was not clear to me how I should use them to make a great game or game units.   

Also, I think the ruleset is a bit too generic and it ends up feeling a bit flavorless and missing that two-fisted hero of action that it needs to pop off the page like a purple-prosed serial or early comics panel.  It tries to be all things, to all people when a tighter focus like Flash Gordon style space adventures, The Shadow-esque crime heroes, or Back-of Beyond adventures would have netted a tighter, more flavorful game.

I think this one would shine with a solid GM/host setting the theme, and with players putting together some appropriately themed groups of minis.  This could also make a good show game, as you hand the players the stat cards for minis that all ready match the theme of the board.  Clubs and gaming groups will be able to have fun with this, but one-off games seem less likely with this set.  You can forget pick-up games entirely, but this genre normally does not do pick-up games.    

This one won't set the world on fire, but like all Osprey Wargames Series it has some great little gems of ideas and mechanics that I can take away into my own designs.             

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Review: Pulp Alley- Pulp Alley Publishing

Pulp Alley is a skirmish game designed to recreate the adventure of serials and cheap paperbacks.  This is commonly referred to as Pulp Gamin, and often takes place in the inter-war years between WWI and WWII.  In addition, Pulp Gaming often takes place in exotic locales, have two-fisted men-of-action, villainous scientists, gangsters, and femme fatales.  It is the stuff of Sam Spade, Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, and Doc Savage.  With that you have an idea of what the game is trying to recreate. 

I was first exposed to Pulp Alley after playing some games of Super System 4thEdition.  I briefly toyed with the idea of picking up Chaos in Carpathia or Chaos in Cairo.  While researching these two titles I stumbled across the Pulp Alley game.  I heard people mention some interesting mechanics in the game system, and I became very interested in learning more.  It seemed like it had some of the mechanics that I enjoyed.     

Each [layer creates a League of characters for the game.  These can have some generic archetypes that give League wide bonus, and then there are a few character types of different skill levels.  Each League is typically run by a Hero.  The Hero then has a collection of followers and sidekicks.  Think of Indiana Jones, Short Round, Professor Brody, and Henry Jones all working together as a League. 

This sounds like fun to me, so let’s dig in and see it if delivers.

Things I Like

This game has an interesting Initiative system.  The player with initiative can choose if he will activate a model or the opponent.  The player maintains it as long as the opponent does not complete an objective (plot Point) or outright win in a fight.  If one of those things happens then initiative passes to the other player.  If you want the other player to activate they can choose any model in their league so there is an element of risk.  Go first and do what you need to do, or let your opponent and possibly lose the initiative.  Decisions are good!

Models use a dice poll with a dice shifting mechanic.  This is similar to Force-on-Force.  A 4+ on any dice size is a success, but some things will require more successes than others.  For example, to solve a peril or Plot Point you might need to roll more than one success.  In addition, a model’s Health is also a Dice size, as you are injured the dice size is reduced and no dice pool can be used with a dice larger than your injury dice.  If you dice shift below a d6, you are unconscious or out-of-the-fight.  This is a clever mechanic to give models more than one injury but reduce effectiveness due to injury. 

Finally, the game uses an opposed dice roll called Dice Matching.  Both players role the Model’s opposed dice pools and compare the number of successes.  However, if you roll a success with a result equal or better than an opponent you can cancel the result.  Typically the attacker can match, and that allows him to decide how many wounds he wants to try to inflict at a cost of receiving how many back.  Therefore, you are forced to make decisions about how much punishment you are willing to take vs. receive.  Decisions are good.  Dice matching is also used in other opposed tests as well. 

Things I Do Not Like

Each player draws cards from a Fortune Deck.  These are used when an opponent activates a model.  You can use it to force them to make challenge rolls.  If succeeded, the model may continue but if failed they make take damage.  This could be anything that fits the narrative.  It can also be used to make terrain features perilous to cross without a test, securing an objective (Plot Point), or complicating an action. 

This is a good way to force decisions on both players and keep them engaged in the game.  So, why do I not like it?  There are three reasons. 

1.       The game uses a number of different dice sizes to resolve actions.  A deck is just another form of resolving or forcing actions and clutter up the mechanics away from the core mechanic.

2.       I didn’t buy the deck when I bought the rules as I did not know I needed it.

3.       The challenges are rather abstract and boring.  The detail needs to be added by the players. 

This game is designed to be played player vs. player and the Fortune Deck is the mechanic that allows it.  However, this game would play best with a GM.  That way the abstract perils and challenges could be defined by the GM.  This would ideal, but most gamers are lucky to find a single likeminded individual much less a GM too.  I can see why they tried to bypass needing a GM.  Personally, I think this game would be really cool as a League vs. the GM type game too. 

Meh and Other Uncertainties

The game comes with a number of scenarios in the book.  This includes plot point placement, special events, deployment, terrain, etc.  Everything you need to get playing.  There are 6 scenarios and give you a good idea of where to start.  However, I think this game would shine with custom scenarios instead.  The scenarios recommend 5 plot points, but this seems like too many on such a small boards.  However, season to taste.

The scenarios also allow for some basic campaign enhancements.  I am sure the supplements go into this in much greater detail, but the main books gives you a basic system to get you started.    

The rules themselves are bound like a comic book.  This is a neat little gimmick to bring home the pulp nature of the work.  The art is stylized and peppered with photos of models in black-and-white.  I enjoyed the design touches to keep with the Pulp feel of the rules. 

Final Thoughts

This is a very clever game, perhaps too clever!  It combines dice pools, dice shifts, matching, opposed rolls, deck building, card playing, and an innovative initiative mechanic all in one game.  I will be honest it is a bit overwhelming and feels like it may actually get in the way of the game play.  The dice mechanics alone would make me want to play the game but the deck aspect feels like too much goodness layered on top.  I tend to prefer games that choose a core mechanic and stick with it.

This game would be ideal for a small group of dedicated players who were rotating GMs to make a sort of wargame/RPG hybrid.  That being said, I look forward to trying these rules out using some of my Inquisitor 28 guys.  The system seems like it would be a great system for Oldhammer as well as Pulp Action.  The small model count and board size seem to make it ideal.  Plus it covers investigation on and light RPG on the tabletop too.

If that is the type of game that interests you, then I recommend picking up the rules.  Be sure you also get the Fortune Deck as well.  The rules come with some in the book, but I am sure the deck from Pulp Alley would be worth it. 

I am very glad to have read these rules.  There was a variety of great mechanics to look at and think about.  As a designer, it is a good toolbox for game mechanic ideas.    

Review: A Fistful of Kung Fu- Osprey Wargame Series

This is another of the Osprey Blue Books from their war gaming series.  The focus of this one is to try and capture the feel of Hong Kong action movies. I have to admit, that seemed pretty broad to me as Hong Kong action movies range from Wuxia, to Kung-fu, to Heroic Bloodshed, and many points in between!  I found it difficult to believe that one book could cover all of that ground!

Then I read more and realized that the game is simply another re-skin of the [i]Song of Blades and heroes[/i] rules a system long on special rules to create flavor, but broad in scope.   Therefore, some of what I have to say about this ruleset covers the parent one as well.  Each of them have a few of their own twists and turns though.

What I Liked
I really enjoyed the fact that this game had a lot of detail about the setting of the games and how to “use” the settings to create more dynamic action.  In miniature games, it is all too easy to simply move forward and fight!  However, in this game there are all sorts of cool and cinematic things you can do with setting itself, all culled from the big screen.  For example, you can take a block of Ice at a fish market, and use it to extend your movement by using it as a skateboard.  Not bad fitting those rules into a 64 page booklet!

I also liked the fact that combat results are on a scaled basis.  The combat is an opposed roll, which is my preferred method.  However, the effects of the attack are on a sliding scale based on how well you out-performed your opponent.  Therefore, the more you beat them by, the better the result.  Plus, it allows you to do more than simply take an enemy model out of the fight.  You can stun them, knock-them back, wound them, pulled down their pants and humble them, etc.  In fact, in a few scenarios, you must Humble your foe before you can finish them off!

Finally, the Song of Blade and Heroes initiative system is a decent Risk vs. Reward and Push Your Luck style system.  When you activate a model, you can roll 1 to 3 dice.  For each success you gain, you can act.  For each failure your opponent may react.  Plus, too many failures results in a turnover of activation.  I would like to see this in practice, but in theory it means you have to weight how much your model really needs to do and choose accordingly, AND both players are invested in the results of the roll.

Things I Do Not Like
I hate the level of abstraction in these rules.  I know it is cool and in vogue to limit stats and use Special Abilities instead, but man this game take sit too far in my opinion.  You use your Quality rating to do anything that isn’t fighting, and Combat to do anything that is fighting.  Therefore, your Hero Cop can shoot and do Kung Fu as well as a Wuxia master, and your Wuxia master can theoretically shoot just as well as the Hero cop.  Plus, models who are Q2, C2 will be better than everyone at everything all the time.  I can sort of let that slide in a game like Fistful of Kung-fu due to its cinematic nature, because Extras in movies die by the bucketful.  However, as an overall mechanic I just can’t stomach it.

Plus, that leads me to the other drawback of the system.  Pages and pages of special rules!  They all have cutesy names too!  This seems excessive to me and an overreaction to the over complicated stat lines of ages past.  There is a balance between the two extremes and [b]Fistful of Kung-Fu[/b] does not have it.  You will want detailed notes for your models to make sure you know what does what, but you also need detail notes on the terrain (as it all has special rules too), weapons,  and know what your opponents can and can not do.  I know this is the fashion at the moment, but it really is a trend I do not like.  Every model doesn’t need 4 special rules to make it unique!  If you had a differentiated stat line you wouldn’t need to have so many special rules.

I feel like they are using special rules to create flavor instead of making mechanics to add flavor.  For example, the mechanics for combat allow you to do many things to your opponent in a flavorful way by outperforming them with degrees of success.  No special rules (as they are baked into the mechanics) are needed to add additional flavor or capabilities.

Also, what is the deal with only straight line movement allowed?  If you are moving blocks of troops around, sure that makes sense.  These are individual people doing things.  The straight line only movement is weird and ‘gamey’ to me.

Finally, I love the use of terrain as a “prop” for the action and more than just cover.  However, that means this will be a very terrain heavy game.  Thankfully it is only 3x3.

Now, to be really shallow, the game had a very limited selection of terrain and models for the photos.  This is true in other Osprey books in the series, but it really stood out to me in this one.  The shots were of the same 4 miniatures with the same car over and over again.  The Northstar Miniature range for this game is pretty cool and more of it deserved to be highlighted.

Meh and Other Uncertainties
The game has several scenarios again ripped from the silver screen.  They are relatively broad. Have complications, and a small campaign element to them.  They seem to be rather re-playable if a bit generic.  The fun is how you use your models to interact with the terrain to achieve the objectives.

You can use a CHI Level as a resource to perform certain actions like CHI Leaps, re-rolls, and avoid injury.  However, it is a limited resource and must be used wisely.  However, winning games allows the winners to earn more CHI points in a campaign.  

Like many of these short Osprey Games, the end conditions are pretty straight forward and lack nuance.  Kill or be killed, with the Morale rules being kind of just there in a sentence or two.

The game has some basic campaign rules and some sample retinues.  Most importantly, it has rules for building your own custom warbands for the game.  So, if you really want to recreate the Eastern Condors or a scene from The Bride with White Hair you can!

Final Thoughts
A Fistful of King-Fu seems like it would be fun to play for an evening or two, but just doesn’t have the chops for serious play.  I have a feeling it would get old and kinda samey feeling pretty quick.  I just can’t see this being a staple game that you replay over and over again.  I think a creative and free-wheeling group of players could have a lot of fun with the system for a short period of time.

Ultimately, the two stats and large list of Special Rules that are the staple of the engine end up being kind of shallow and uninteresting.  The rules lack a depth of mechanics and try to replace depth with chrome.  I don’t see that as being a winning combination for repeat play and the game itself feels all sizzle and no steak.

There are some cool ideas that I will steal for my own games, but overall I was unsatisfied.

Ultimately, it tries to do too much and be all things to all people instead of just being its own game.  I am unsure if this is a criticism of the engine  or specific to A Fistful of Kung-Fu.  I will have to see as I will be looking at Of Gods and Mortals next.  That game uses the same game engine.    

Review: Strange Aeons- Uncle Mike's Worldwide

I just picked up this interesting little title after reading a nice review of it online as I was looking for good campaign systems.  I would call this a rare entry into the category of “Narrative Wargame”.  A narrative wargame differs from a Campaign Game in that it has campaign elements, but only one group actually uses it, while the opponents are controlled by a GM like player.  Technically, the “Lurkers” or bad guys are supposed to be controlled by alternate players, but I foresee one player creating a linked series of games while the other runs the “heroes”.  Another interesting bit about this game is that it is set in the 1920’s and is firmly placed in the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and his ilk.

The game does not really have any design notes, but there are a few things you can surmise about the writer’s intents.  Instead, the forward is a bit of semi-in-character ranting about unspeakable and nameless horrors encroaching on the mind that led to the rules.  The game reminds me a bit of Frostgrave because the mechanics of the game itself are simple, basic, and few; with the bulk of the rules are based around the campaign and development.

Things I Like
I am always a fan of campaign play, and this game delivers it.  Each model starts with basic stats and skills and equipment.  As they play, they will gain injuries, equipment, and skills.  The two most interesting features in this game are that the injuries are not just physical, but psychological as well.  Characters will gain phobias, madness, and Black Marks.  These represent their exposure to blasphemous, hideous monstrosities; and the corrupting and wicked things they need to do to face them.  This is a nice change as most campaign games focus on physical damage only.  I also liked how when terrible things happened to your compatriots, such as being eaten by a Gibbering Horde your models would need to take insanity checks.

In this game, both players do not have a warband like in many camapign games.  Instead, one player hasthe warband of threshold Agents and they are opposed by the GM who controls the “lurkers”.  The lurkers are expected to get killed off in each mission, but try to stop the Threshold agents from accomplishing their missions.  The game has a huge list of “Lurkers” to choose from to oppose your Threshold agents.  It has most of the basics with a heavy dose of Lovecraftian evil.  This means the opponents will be varied and range from the alien, undead, beastly, and to corrupted and mundane humans.  Typically, the number of points spent on Threshold agents would translate over to the number of points spent on “lurkers” to create a “balanced” game.  

The “Lurkers” had some interesting campaign related objective they could attempt and that Threshold agents could attempt to thwart, my favorite being a re-enactment of the play The King in Yellow.  This touch makes sure that the GM can do some interesting plots with his “Lurker” and not let the Threshold agents get all the advancements.

Finally, there is a “generic action” that allows you to do things like consecrate a grave, interact with an object, do a bit of role-play, etc.  This generic action could really open up the door to some cool scenario/light RP elements in the game.

The game has a variety of scenarios.  My favorite are Quest scenarios that can only be activated by finding Map Pieces in regular scenarios and turning them in to play a Quest scenario.  That is a neat mechanic.

Things I Did Not Like
This is a relatively lethal campaign game.  As I read various battle reports and Campaigns, it seemed like Threshold agents were getting killed left and right.  I am not opposed to a lethal wargame, but it defeats the purpose of a campaign game if before your characters can get interesting with injuries, phobias, skills, and gear they are dead.

In addition, there is very little reason for the “Lurkers” to run-away or flee the battle.  They always seem to fight to the death.  Again, this seems unrealistic as if the Cult Leader and all his henchmen are killed, how do they continue their evil plans?  The game has a set of Nemesis rules for enemies thwarted continuously; but from my readings of the rules it looks like no-one would survive long-enough to have a nemesis.  There are no rules for Lurkers running away and ending the scenario, they fight to the death.

Despite the focus on Insanity and terror, the morale rules need a bit of work.  They are a bit unpredictable with agents freezing up, running, or going crazy and attacking.  For a game based in the Mythos, they seemed to be a bit random/not important enough.  Again, I felt like both sides would just fight until one or the other was wiped out and any momentary insanity would quickly be passed by.

The core game runs smoothly enough, but I do not feel like there are many opportunities for decision making.  It runs on Nominating 1 model per turn, but if that model has the “Command” skill or similar they can allow a couple other models to activate as well.  In theory, this seems okay but what it does in practice is to bunch up your investigators and not allow them to move freely about the board as individuals.  Models are forced to act a bit as a “unit”.  If models do not stick together, they will end up getting isolated and the “Lurkers”/Threshold Agents will close in and quickly overwhelm them.  It makes some sense thematically, but reduces some of the open-ended possibilities of the game.  

Meh and other Uncertainties                  
The core mechanics for shooting and injury are pretty basic.  Roll over stat to succeed.  However, the more you succeed the more you potentially wound when attacking.  That is a nice touch.

Each model gets two actions when nominated.  However, each turn only allows 1 model to be nominated so Characters with the ‘Command” skill become critical as mentioned above.  Actions are moving, shooting, charging, and Generic action (Like read a book, cast a spell, use a psychic ability, etc.)

Threshold Unit creation is straight forward and simple.  Personnel Points plus Equipment Points with four model types is the cost of the unit, with starting units being 15 points.  The four types are Characters, Agents, Civilians, and Children.  Each also can get a single skill to start with.  Choosing Lurkers is pretty much the same, except they change every game.      

Map pieces are the resource of the game.  They are discovered by winning scenarios.  Map Pieces can be turned in for Quest scenarios or to hire Threshold specialists that remain part of the team for 2-5 missions.  They are a good way to juice up a team with some specialist power.

I get the impression that there are few differences between this second edition and the First edition, but I am unable to speak meaningfully on this topic.

Final Thoughts
This was a game system built to support a campaign mechanic; therefore the in game rules are relatively light and emphasize ease of play.  It would be easy to run through an entire 3 game mini-campaign in a single night.  In addition, you can’t beat the campaign setting for coolness.  However, I am unsure how sustainable it would be long term as the rate of Threshold Agent turnover seems to be high enough that by the end of game 5, none of the original agents would be left alive!

I am really glad I purchased this game as I think it has gotten me excited about Campaign play again.  However, I think I can only recommend this to folks who really like the Lovecraftian Mythos and don’t mind being the GM once and a while.  I think for more standard wargamers, they will want to stick with a more straight forward PvP game.