Innsmouth Gold-Pulp Alley

I have been recently experimenting with the Pulp Alley Ruleset, it is an enormous amount of fun and I am getting figures on the table that have never been there. I am a big HP Lovecraft fan and I was going through the Pulp Alley videos on YouTube a few weeks ago and saw one entitled Innsmouth Gold. Right up my alley for gaming and all the figures I have painted from the Mansions of Madness boxsets.

I went ahead and downloaded the scenarios from the Pulp Alley store and got some figures out, had a look and put the following league together: The Arkham Investigators.

I took the Company of Heros perk, so I could have 2 sidekicks. The names are all from the Mansions of Madness game. I have maybe 12 investigators painted up, so I can rotate out the sidekicks and ally easily, but I decided to send these characters in first. 

The Arkham Investigators

The next challenge was the terrain, and I am certainly not set up for Pulp Alley gaming yet, but I did remembered that I had a bunch of Venetian mdf pieces that I got from the Carnevale kickstarter that would work for the Innsmouth scenario. Could have had some buildings but the excess bases are standing in for the same. I have ordered some more buildings from TTCombat, they are well priced and are quite nice to put together. I suspect that I will be putting some Venetian leagues together in the near future.

This was the ending position of the characters with Joe Diamond making it to the boat. The trick was  for the supporting characters to engage the Innsmouth denizens (NPC's) as they spawn very quickly.

Here are some Deep Ones and a couple of Innsmouth denizens before they have taken to the sea.

Dexter Drake did a great job and must of taken out 4-5 creatures.

They just kept on spawning

Agatha Crane and Father Mateo had a tougher time as their skills were not really up to taking out the Innsmouth inhabitants but they were pretty good dodgers.

Well it took about 20 go's for Joe Diamond to get the Golden Idol on the the motor cutter so he could make his escape but I did learn a lot on how to play the game.

 

More Solo M&T

 

I had another go at the rules over the last 2 days and was able to finish a 250 pt per side scenario in less then a couple of hours.

The Dastardly Brits

Major Joseph Gorham

Gorham's Rangers (6)

Dank's Rangers (6)

Roger's Rangers (6)

British Infantry (8) 

Les Canadiens

Wawanaloath-Abenaki Sachem

Abenaki Braves (6) x2

Coureurs des Bois (4) x 2

Setting

Wawanaloath with his braves as well as the coureurs des bois have been tasked to explore an area of deep forest, there is very little visibility, they want to avoid contact with any enemy units. Unbeknownst to them, a force of Rangers with some British regulars have been asked to indetify and  then sabotage the enemy lines of supply.

The table was set up using the scenario set up rules in the Redcoats and Tomahawks source book (Exploration/Sabotage). The attacker was rolled for and the deployment points were placed. Essentially 2 per side on opposite edges of the table. I put these down blindly. The Brits had to take the 2 Abenaki deployment points while attacking Abenaki have to withdraw at least half their figures from the table at their exit points. These are placed once all units from both sides are on the table.

Table, north to the top, the Brit's entry points are to the south and west.

All figures on in first 6 cards!

Les coureurs des bois and Abenaki coming from the east....

.....and the north

The British infantry and Rangers from the east.....

.....and the south, as you can see per scenario rules the withdrawal points have been placed.

Nothing like volley fire.

and their card comes up, 1 dead Abenaki

 

Midgame Overview

The Abenaki have cut to the south, while the CdB advance directly.

The Abenaki with their chief have made it to the exit, seconadary to clever use of their command points...

Final Actions

....and to the south, half units off table so victory to the Abenaki

Since the game was over quickly, I decided to continue with the CdB.

To avoid the volley fire they decide to attack the Rangers, but the Rangers card comes up first.

As you can see the Rangers have also caught up with the CdB in the north, 6 to 2 in HtH.

The CdB have a distinct advantage in the dice roll, although they have 2 less figures, hitting on 4+ in HtH, while the Rangers hit on 6+. Here they manage to win.

I should mention when playing solo, I deal 3 cards to each side face down, I am blinded to these cards and just draw a card from the top starting with the attacker. If I happen up on a clock card it is placed to the side and I draw the next card from the that deck. Once one 3 card deck is exhausted, I add 3 cards to it. Otherwise all rules stand.


Well another fun game, but I think it would be better to play with some larger forces. I have loaded the shopping cart at Warlord Games; lot of nice figures out there but I think if what I want is available from Conquest Miniatures, I will continue to go with them......I just have to push the buy button.

I am enjoying the solo wargaming but I do look forward to actually playing a game with an opponent.

Here is an excellent introduction to the ruleset. 

Muskets and Tomahawks v2

 

Next up in my solo wargaming adventures is a test of Muskets and Tomahawks version 2. I received this ruleset with it's companion source book for the North American wars (FIW, AWI, 1812) about 6 weeks ago. I have been looking forward to it for some time, I like M&T v1, it is my choice over the other 2 rulesets I have played: This Very Ground (nice but maybe a little too simplistic for me in respect to C and C) and Sharp Practice 2 (I am a big TFL fan but I just find this ruleset a little too clunky for me and boring to play). 

 

One can find numerous reviews online as well as on YouTube and the rules have been generally well received, some complaints about the editing but that is about it. You can find the Facebook group here. As previously noted I think of the FIW in terms of small skirmishes set in a winter wilderness.

 

I was a little challenged to put together two opposing forces as I have a British force only, but with a bit of work I was able to assemble two 250 point forces as follows:

The Dastardly Brits

Major Joseph Gorham

Gorham's Rangers (6)

Dank's Rangers (6)

Roger's Rangers (6)

British Infantry (8) 

Les Canadiens

Wawanaloath-Abenaki Sachem

Abenaki Braves (4) x 3

Milice canadien (4) x 2

Père Latrout

Civilians (4) x 2

Setting

So I thought a nice little scenario would be an attack on a small religious community somewhere on the Quebec border with New Hampshire. The community is small and led by Père Latrout, they have a small sheep farm, there are 2 lay brothers and 6 civilians. They have no weapons aside from their agricultural tools and their belief in God. There is news of an attack by a Ranger force accompanied by some regular British infantry. Word of the attack has reached a local Abenaki sachem who hurries to the community with 12 of his elite warriors and 8 local militia.

The table was set up using the scenario set up rules in the Redcoats and Tomahawks source book (Capture/Evacuation). The set up is below.

The rangers enter at by the river (the west), les canadiens have 2 deployment points, one in the centre and to the east.

The Rangers advance......

.......soon joined by the regulars

Roger's rangers retreat from the Abenaki muskets

Missed taking photos as usual, the civilians have retreated behind the building, they have an exit to the south and to the west, the west looks to be a better option. The Abenaki have retreated north while one unit of milice has been wiped out.

The Abenaki have now fled to the north in an attempt to protect the civilians retreat. The remaining unit of milice is approaching from the south east to attack the Brits from the rear.

Another unit of Rangers is taken out but the infantry are advancing, three of the civilians have been killed in the crossfire. Père Latrout is stuck behind the cabin with the 4 remaining civilians.

The infantry unleash a volley on a unit of Abenaki....all dead. A canadien morale card come up, the civilians are all slaughtered.....a Ranger victory!

Les morts

Well, I have to say that this is a great set of rules. I had 2 goes at this scenario, I realised I was missing a couple of things and asked some questions on the FB group, I then replayed it and easily completed the game in 2 hours with these small forces. Once you get the hang of how the mechanics work things go quickly. 

Another winner from Studio Tomahawk!

Congo: The Jewel of Africa

 

I played another solo game of Congo today, I held off for a couple of days as I had a couple of questions about the rules and it took a day or two to get answers. There does not seem there are a lot of Congo players out there (I subsequently found the FB page), the Studio Tomahawk forum is dying a slow death like all other gaming forums, mostly because of Facebook. I am now a member of 10-12 groups and although they are very useful with nice people I am still just not impressed with FB, the forums are a much better vehicle to discuss rules and games and to be able find previously answered questions. I really have to wonder what is wrong with people, everyone has the attention span of demented rabbits, the language is slowly being destroyed, it is all abbreviations and grammatically incorrect phrasing. But anyway no one is going to listen to me, so I shall just shut up.

Eight scenarios come with the ruleset, so I picked the Jewel of Africa scenario this time. Essentially a African Princess has been captured by an enemy tribe and is being carted off by them with 4 of her slaves. A rescue party has been sent out, they have to stop the kidnappers by rescuing the princess and her slaves. One is also rewarding of course for killing the kidnappers. I will illustrate the action with some photos.

Basic 4x3' terrain. Path down the centre with tall grass on each side with areas of dense jungle. Neither side starts on the table and the kidnappers enter the table at the start of the path at the top of the photo. They have to escape off the bottom edge of the table. The rescuers come in from one of the 6 areas on the sides of the table. The kidnappers just have to be activated to enter while the rescuers have to be both activated and then pass a dice roll to come on. The further down the path the kidnappers have got, the more difficult for the rescuers to enter the table.

I played the White Explorers group as the rescuers, a total of 70 points in 5 groups.

The African Kingdoms group were the kidnappers, they are accompanied by the 4 slaves distributed among each of the groups, there is also a Zanzibare Trader with one of the groups. The Jewel of Africa  is with a group of Warriors, as designated by the red arrow.

The table after turn 2, the rescuers have managed to get 5 of their groups on the table while the kidnappers  have all 4 groups on. The rescuers have yet to be spotted as they are crawling around in the deep grass, they do suffer Terror though!

End of turn 3, the rescuers are now revealed. The Explorer with his Trained Askaris is in the clump of forest in the lower right. The Warriors with the Princess are trying to get down the left side of the table.

After turn 4, the Fanatical Warriors have been all killed and the African is by himself facing off with a group of Ruga-Ruga. A large kidnapper group of Married Warriors is at the edge of the table but decide not to escape in order to cover the retreat of the group with the Princess. They have been whittled down to a single warrior.

After turn 5, on the far left you can see the Princess with a single warrior, they are getting close but the excellent gunfire from a 3 man group of Explorers is causing havoc.

Sixth turn, last 2 action cards, the kidnappers (left have 2 movement activations plus a bonus activation, they move closer to the edge. The rescuers are foiled by having their last card being 4 movement activations but with red feet, meaning they can not move into melee. Remember that I am using Confusion in my solo games, meaning that the order and type of action card that gets played is completely random.

So it was a close game but the Kidnappers won by one VP.

So a marginal victory for the kidnappers! Another fun game and a great ruleset.

So I think I will pack these guys away for a while and have a look at another Studio Tomahawk game.....Muskets and Tomahawks version 2.

By the way.....How to play Congo, excellent you tube video.

And I just found the Facebook page and there are a lot of members!

Congo

I recently finished painting my second force for the Studio Tomahawk game Congo. I had yet to play but over the last couple of days I have had a chance to look through the book. After a good look, it was apparent that this might be a good game for solo wargaming. The game is card driven, but using the option confusion you can blind your choice of activation card.

I picked two 70 point forces, one from the White Man Expeditions and the other from the African Kingdoms. The scenario had a group from each side holding a hostage and negotiating at a sacred area in the middle of the table. Simply put the story narrated that the negotiations would break down and each group would try to escape with their hostage off their respective table edges on the long axis of the table.

Original positions; essentially the Explorers group on the right has to exit the table towards the left and and the African Kingdoms to the right. Each side's groups were positioned about the table not closer than M to the sacred rock and M to each other. It worked well.

Opposing groups with their hostages.

The Expeditions group sent in their Trained Askaris to negotiate, they are holding the African King's daughter. The African King is hoping to exchange Father Marcellin for her.

Expedition's Ruga-Ruga

African King's Askaris, the only musket armed group he has.

Young Warriors lead by the King

Fanatical Warriors

Explorer's Askaris

The Explorer with his Young Warriors

Late action with the Explorer's racing to get off the table, with both Father Marcellin and the Princess

 

Well, I really enjoyed the game, it is quite simple and for solo wargaming it really worked well. I played a full 6 turns in a couple of hours, the card system went well. I am sure I made lots of mistakes but the mechanics are fairly simple with good explanations in the book. I think I might play another adventure today!