Pulp Action - Mandalorians in the great South Seas!

Rob's new addition to the pulp island board.

The Mandalorian League called "Deathwatch", having been mis-identified as robot men and appearing to support the Chinatown League "The Yellow Peril" in a recent encounter, have decided to re-group at their hidden, though damaged, transport ship.

They made this choice because a strange man had been found to have a truck filled with parts from their ship, drawings of systems of their ship and he went down before he could be questioned.

The Deathwatch League had captured another apparent member of these strangers and she was willing to inform on them ...

The Yellow Peril had determined to find out what these strangers were up to and booked passage on a steamer to follow up on the clues that they had found, which were telling them an island in the South Seas was going to be a hot spot.

Meanwhile the Adventure League RODIO (pronounced Rodeo) newly led by Fang had also found clues leading them to this strange island in the South Seas.

overall view of the table

a known 'major plot point' was in a perilous area in table center

while other plot points were in other areas

The jungle table always puts on a good show

The leagues then closed in on the little clues they had for follow up ...

Yellow Peril arrived in boars

Rodio had been moving across the island

a definitive action was planned by Yellow Peril

The Yellow Peril's captive provided information which brought them quickly to a plot point

moving with caution Deathwatch League were using al available cover

This was a combined action scenario, with a need for both combat and non-combat skills.

the 'Parley' card was played to keep the action focus only on the plot points

Cards were fast in action this game, with the first turn done (one 'cartridge' removed)

Local natives, often termed 'ooga-booga-men' jumped out when disturbed by The Yellow Peril

Deathwatch League were fast in getting their first plot point and allowing them to engage the major plot point.

Upon closing up to the entrance of a strange region, the first Mandalorian is engaged by an agent, with good tech ...

The Mandalorian "Deathwatch" were now becoming aware of an opponent that appeared to have at least equal tech ...

another Parley card played brings the combat action to a halt

this caused a cautious standoff to build up for The Yellow Peril

more ooga-booga-men bring the Deathwatch to a similar stand off

while the captives, the redhead in the lower right, were busy looking for ways to get away

The Yellow Peril captive also has taken action to escape, though failing to really break away

 The game got a 'spare' turn with a card play and this was enough to permit, one member of each league to enter the dimension doorway before it closed and shifted away from the South Seas Island ...

Rodio had already lost a League member to this strange dimension doorway in Chinatown

Now the adventure will shift to a more 'role-play' focus with one member of each league holding a captive from the strangers and the strangers holding one of each league ...

While each League has started from their own background and had only a few points for development, now these leagues are going to combine into their own new 'title' or line.  I am going with Planets of Peril as a new 'logo' over the 'covers' used on their character cards.

The new adventure series logo.

Pulp Action - The New tales of Mandalore?

In a one-two series of games my middle son's desire to get his Mandalorians out into pulp action games came true.

a quick sample of the leagues being used this game

The first encounter was a 'clue-finder' as the Mandalorian League had a bounty go missing on a low-tech world that they, the Mandalorians, did not want to be 'riled up' about their being present.  So that the target could be easily tracked down.

The clues led them to an urban area, where the Mandalorians would need to use lots of stealth and skills to track down any clues to what had happened to their quarry.

the city was the scene again, now with the new railway!

filled with characters ... none knew for certain which was the critical one

there were many that had a certain 'familiar feel to them'

big open spaces and a warning about going into a gun battle ...

this was gang territory, The Yellow Peril being one of them, had a mystery of an arson planned that they needed to stop

lots of potential interactions

with a busy street ...

along with their vehicles

The Mandalorians took up observation positions ...

Then the action got going, this was a hard one for the combat focused Mandalorians ...

strange visitors ... their 'weapons' appear very modern

while Yellow Peril seemed to just know who to chat up first

The Mandalorians were stuck with tracking the conversations and actions of others in the bright street, lest they be revealed.

my NEW turn counter was put to use!

about 1/2 way through the situation and the police are doing a 'patrol', hence the keeping a low profile needed ...

The Mandalorians had figured out they were not the only 'high tech' visitors to the world ...

the rival gang activates due to the gunfire in the street

Mandalorians break cover as they spot someone with 'tech' FROM THE MANDALORIANS SHIP!

This break of cover started a gun-battle (suddenly from the strangers across the tracks) and the local police and many others ran for cover or ran away!

a Mandalorian takes one of the 'visitors' prisoner

The Aqua-Lotus League came out to challenge the strange robot-men.

The Mandalorians were confused as robot-men and attributed to working for or with Yellow Peril, as they took shots at and conflicted with Aqua-Lotus.

The quarry of the Mandalorians was alerted to their presence on the world now though ...

ECW Black Powder Game - playing action in time-lapse

Setting up the troops:

First move:

Second move:

Third move:

Then my power was running low ... I did not have the portable booster, nor a cord to extend the charger I did not have either.

So I needed to change the setting for my phone camera.

Fourth move:

I needed to move the camera during the turn, so that we could get the cavalry action right at the edge of the table.

Fifth move:

This would be where the battery power ran out.

The further turns I still kept on doing the still photos:
Sixth to Eleventh moves:

This then formed our first 'meeting engagement' game of Black Powder.

Tell me what you think of the time lapse?

Would you prefer to have a AAR to go with still photos?

Would it be better to have a spoken track covering the table action?

I would like to have a second time-lapse camera to handle the 'top down' angle of the game.

Any other thoughts?

Table Setup for ECW meeting engagement

As promised in an earlier post I now present a time-lapse video of the table set-up from an ECW game played at the start of November.

Now that I finally have a working video editor system I can get on with more videos like this, from the game itself and future encounters.

Let me know if this sort of content is of interest for you.

Now a Mappe, for ECW Campaign for the South West in 1643

Waller and Hopton had a number of engagements with each other in battle over the course of the English Civil War

These started in 1643 after the Battle of Stratton.

The series of engagements in mid 1643 after Stratton are detailed by Robert Giglio in a Campaign Scenario booklet put out by Caliver Books in 2014.

a piece of the South West that was busy in 1643

Rob and I shall take on this series in the next few months (perhaps a year before we are done) and play out the campaign.

I am looking forward to this action series now that I can see how it all links up.

With the map here, the scenarios from the book are detailed in on the ground to show where they took place.

A good primer on the Spanish Tercios

A decent little video about the development of Pike and Shot warfare.

Time Lapse coming for next AAR - ECW

Rob and I did an ECW meeting engagement game last night and I have still to process the pictures and new time-lapse video of the game.  Here I present a 'teaser'.

a common occurrence on the tabletop, open rulebook

Plus this will be a test of the upload of this video ...

Dr Who Chess Set and more in the Trading Post

Time ...

A new chess set and more production miniatures are on the Trading Post NOW!

See the Dr Who selection.

A changed Star Wars chess set.

New Glass board and image for Star Wars set

With more to come in the form of a new Star Wars chess set and the long anticipated SUPERS!