We interrupt this blog for a Pulp Action report :

Greetings to all readers and ships at sea.

This Pulp Action report brought to you by the makers of Gleem toothpaste, Dentist on the Job.

For this nights action we were in Whiskeyville, where a raid was to take place.

The Dark Fire, GREEDS and The Yellow Peril had converged on the town to gain information about a mysterious item brought back from an archaeological dig.

all is quiet in the small town of Whiskeyville

buildings had interior drawings laid out

filled with all manner of dangerous Pulp characters

once put back over the minis it was hard to tell where everyone was

The three leagues converged on the few bits of information available, in the form of townspeople walking innocently about in the late afternoon sunset.

GREEDS League were gangsters

who turned out to have a few new wrinkles in their action

The Yellow Peril had two minor and the one major plot point in their control at one stage ...

when the Dark fire gang came on with a rush!

Feng-Yi, leader of the Yellow Peril, was first off the mark to reach a plot point person, then quickly learn of the location of the major plot point a mysterious dagger from the dig.

From that moment on it was simply a race to get Feng-Yi out of the area and to cover her movements, the rest of the Yellow Peril took actions to keep her safe.

One member, Tong, even managed to convince old George (another plot point) to help, when George asked a Dark fire man in his read hood to "Just wait here ... I'll get help." and Tong escaped with him!

Not for long though as the gang of Dark Fire faithful set upon him - the sniper Wu Fang shot three of them down, just before another Dark Fire member showed up with a tommy gun to spray fire into the street.

Feng Yi in the center of town with the major and minor plot points in hand

while the Dark Fire did mess up the Yellow Peril gaining another plot point, the situation went from bad to worse for the Dark Fire as they got into a 'sticky situation'

The GREEDS and Dark Fire did have a few chances at gaining the plot points, they were unable to finesse or moxie their way into either controlling them or keeping them.

Indeed the Dark Fire player did overcome the challenges twice ... only to get a ZONK.

Jeff mourning his run of bad luck

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

This message brought to you by Dentist on the Job.

Read all about Jeff's version in his blog On Pulp Street.

Warr Without an Enemie Battle of Whalley take 1

Jeff hosted us to an English Civil War game at his table in the basement of his home in the Comox Valley.

This was to be a second game using the Warr Without and Enemie rules set.

Ideally we were going to get more of the rules used correctly.

the battlefield from behind the royalist line, the white wall in the top center is where the Parliament forces 'pop up' to surprise the Royalists

Royalist forces start the battle as unformed

this is to represent them taking rest etc as the Parliament troops are not known to be present

there are commanded shot ...

... and even clubmen from the town.

Along with some dismounted dragoons and a pike and shot unit that are formed and moving to the rock wall when the Parliamentarians 'pop up' from behind that wall already

The first turn is a wash, as the Royalists can do nothing other than stand still and take fire from the Parliament commanded shot units.

Ultimately only the two Parliament units can do anything on the first turn either.

the forward Dragoon unit takes a pounding suddenly jumping to almost losing stands right off the hop

The smoke from the Parliament shotte units fills the air

By the end of turn 2 now the Royalists are finally free to get organized and start to move, though by this point one unit of Dragoons was ready to call it a day and run off the field.

more fire was exchanged between the two opposing lines

the Parliament Dragoons had dismounted and were moving through building to match the shotte line

while Royalist forces, now organized started to move up to the river line, though only able to reach the crossroads on the start of the turn

by turn 4 the Royalist dismounted dragoons were done and left the field

this left the pike and shotte unit all alone way out front, even with the rushing up horse they were alone against the Parliament shotte line

then the worst happened ... with the loss of the dragoon unit the Royalist commander had to roll a 3 or better to not suddenly put his army into a retreat condition ... of course he failed.

Now at the end of Turn 4 the Royalists had to get a big command die number in order to stop his forces from retiring or retreating from the enemy.

a high enough command die was rolled and so the Royalist commander decided to stick it out and issue orders to stop his men from running away

though the orders came out, some men had still not moved from their starting point

others would now have to fall back

in the meantime Parliament dragoons were now in position to deliver even more shotte fire into the Royalists alone out front

lacking proper dragoon models, a horse unit is used as the horse-holders

Royalist command did not fare well again in turn 5, again rolling a "2" causing another retire order to go out

Still unable to keep control over the skittish men, the Royalist commander again rolled well for command die so as to issue new orders.

many of the command points had to be expended on the clubmen just to keep them from fleeing the field and thus making future army morale rolls harder to overcome

the horse were busy doing a cha-cha back and forth over the river

while the falling back pike and shotte had now drawn out the Parliament shotte and dragoons to keep firing on their target

all alone since the start of turn 4 now the pike and shotte was getting eliminated

over the wall and moving in the open the commanded shot kept up the pressure

During the turn many move die rolls, for both sides, included a dreaded "1", which meant more "Disruption Points" (DPs) for the units so involved.  DPs accumulate up to 5, then start causing casualties (if taken as a result of or under fire/combat).  Both armies were showing the wearing down effects of such disruptions.

the effects of twice having to retire were now really hurting the Royalists chances of achieving any effect

with a full turn to move forward at last the horse of Parliament could start to cause an effect from the Parliament troops

the cha-cha that the Royalist commanded shotte did pushed them to maximum DPs for the duration of the battle

clubmen crawled forward and rolled "1"s in the process adding to their disruption (DPs at "3" in this photo)

the only Pike and Shotte unit had routed, yet still was not out of range and took more casualties from fire

At least the Royalist commander did not roll a "2" or a "1" at the end of the turn, so this meant a chance to inflict some casualties ...

Turn 8, the tide of battle was shifting to the Right wing of the Royalists

with a mighty thunder of shotte the only Pike unit of the Royalists was obliterated before it could cross the river

Royalist horse, though disrupted (indeed at 4 DPs) now hammered into dismounted Parliamentary dragoons

still struggling with low die rolls the Royalist commanded shot was slow to get anywhere and full of DPs

each turn the Royalists rolled for army morale, so did the Parliament, as their commander, Colonel Shuttleworth was only 'average', which meant that a retire order would come if the Parliament rolled a "1".  This did not occur.

Now the fight was getting really serious in the center, as horse and foot were clashing.

the axis of battle was slowly turning from across the river to along it

Royalist horse had crushed the Parliament dragoons

Parliament shotte units were crossing the river and preparing defenses while Parliament pistoleer horse rode deep into the Royalist flanks

The clubmen were convinced that Hessellrigge's lobsters were bearing down on them!

the battle looked to be going well for Colonel Shuttleworth

by turn 10 the Royalist cause had a chance to recover ... yet could not overcome all the accumulated DPs

firing from either side of the fence, both tired commanded shotte units did not dare to go into hand to hand, and were content to trade almost useless shots at each other.  In order to get 'a' hit you had to roll a "6" for 2 hits which were then halved (due to the wall) to 1 hit.

a full volley was fired into this horse in column, yet even with the hits it had limited effect?

another view of the wall volleys

meanwhile the clubmen had reached maximum DPs and were ready to flee from what was most certainly Heavy Armored Cuirassier Horsemen!  (though in fact were pistoleers)

on a knife edge, last chance for the Royalists to strike in turn 11

another volley into the Royalist horse, now charging into the veteran commanded shotte

 Following this charge, while the combat was stuck (it was a tie on the hits 1 each), then the cavalry to the left of the photo had to retire, and there was no room to wheel, thus causing them to crash into the ongoing melee, taking a DP and thus a stand loss, as they were at 5 DPs to start with, in the process.

while under the direct view of the Earl of Derby

Now the Earl of Derby again rolled a "2" and caused his units to retire.

Turn 12 was fast, the horse were killed in melee, Derby had enough command points to keep the other horse in the battle.

in the final actions more DPs were racked up against Royalist units

the cross wall shotte duel amounted to only one hit on Royalists

in the final charge, only one stand of horse survived to reach the veteran commanded shotte

now with more units lost a "1" was rolled for army morale and the Royalists routed from the field

Colonel Shuttleworth held fast and was able to claim the battle as a victory for Parliament

Post game analysis determined that we were not doing ALL of the saving throws, nor had we done the enfilade fire down columns properly.

We decided to have another go at this battle, see the AAR for that battle next.