Pulp Alley AAR – The Gate Beyond the Stars Campaign – The Star Vampire scenario part 1

We played a Pulp Alley-game in club last week, a continuation of our home-brewed campaign. I wrote the scenario and this first post will describe that. Next post will be the AAR.

The scenario:

A portal to an unknown dimension has opened over the sleepy New England town of Little Solberga. By a strange coincidence a couple of leagues were in the town licking their wounds from the earlier encounter with a strange meteor. It is rumoured that some of the leagues hold a very low profile due to some unfortunate shooting at members of law enforcement…

By what is probably not a coincidence, there seem to be an awful lot of cultists in the town and as a portal opened over the centre of the town they started to try to invoke a creature from beyond time and space – a Star Vampire.

Special rules:

- Board - 3’x3’. A small town in New England with houses spread over the board. No perilous areas.

- Cultists - Two cultists per player is placed on the board as per the rules for plot points. Each cultist is a minor plot point and is considered extremely perilous as they are surrounded by a vampiric aura. When a cultist-plotpoint is taken it is not lost when a character falls.

- The Star Vampire – The cultist succeed in summoning the Star Vampire, a major plotpoint. It flies from the gate over the town and lands in the middle of the board and then flies 4+1d6” in a random direction.

The Star Vampire is surrounded by a major vampiric zone that sucks the life-force from all living creatures in it. The area 3” around the Star Vampire is extremely perilous and every creature that enters it any time (for example when the star vampire moves by and the character is hit by the aura) will have an immediate peril. As usual characters will also have a peril when they activate and also when they try to solve the major plotpoint.

At the end of each round the star vampire moves 1d6” in a random direction and it will then attack the closest character with vampirism, sucking his/her lifeforce – that means another peril on that character.

- Lesser Vampiric Zones – The prayers of the cultists call forth lesser vampiric zones. Each cultist has a 1/3 chance per round (at the start of the round before heroes activate. Even on the first round) to call one forth. The zones are 3” diameter, extremely perilous and are placed around the summoning cultist. The zones move 2+1d6” in a random direction at the end of each round. They move through walls, houses etc.

The Star Vampire buds a lesser vampiric zone at the start of each round.

Each league places one zone anywhere on the board (but at least 6” from a board edge) before the leagues are placed.

Moving into a zone or activating in one gives an automatic peril.

Zones that are at least 50” off the edge of the board are immediately removed

- A character that has taken a plot point gets the power to eliminate Lesser Vampiric Zones in LOS. This is an action and is resolved by drawing a random challenge. If it is passed the zone is eliminated. This is a one-shot thing – if you miss the challenge you will have to draw a new challenge next try.

An eliminated Lesser Vampiric Zone gives the league 1 Tip to be used in later scenarios.

This scenario is heavily influenced by the excellent scenario and AAR Hildegaard’s Horrible Hex by Rags. Check it out.

Welcome follower Jimboba at Warchest with blog Warchest. It’s a very nice blog indeed and well worth a visit.

Pict Hunters from Conan and some planning

Five of the fifteen Pict Hunters from the Conan boardgame

As you probably know I’m somewhat allergic to painting uniforms or multiples of the same mini, so I usually take a manageable number of identical minis at a time, in this case 1/3 of the pict hunters.

Very simple block painting and a wash and that were that. I like the figs and they turned out well from such a basic job.

I’ve had a couple of days without much painting as I’m upgrading my hobby corner in the garage. It starts to look like I would like it to look, but still quite a lot to do to be finished. More on that in a future post.

I’ve also had my 3D-printer serviced and it is up and running in my hobby corner. Churning out lots of stuff and will be even more productive in a couple of days’ time when I’ll get a dedicated computer for it. More on that soon.

I’m also preparing for a terrain-day this weekend, when me and a couple of pals will have a go at making more terrain. So I’ve prepared a lot of stuff that needs static grass, dusted off all that rubberized horsehair, prepared flock and whatnot. Looking forward to that and you’ll probably find something about it here in the not too distant future

Star Vampire from RAFM

After far too much hassle I finally got the last missing figures from RAFM and their two terribly late and missmanaged kickstarters. Well, it was mostly everything but they failed sending one of the missing figures - after I had waited for three months for them to even acknowledge that they had read my mails to them (one mail per month and not a peep) and they then sent two of three missing minis. Annoying and certainly a company that won’t see me as a customer in the future but I do have quite a lot of unpainted resin and metal from them.

Anyway, one of the minis I got from their Cthulhu kickstarter was this one, a Star Vampire. A very strange creature that I wasn’t even certain I would paint. I let my daughter pick monsters and characters now and then for me to paint just for the fun of it and this was the first of the monsters. Well timed as it turned out.

This is actually a four-part metal model, but I skipped the strange arms that came with it and just pinned and glued the tentacle-foot-thingie in place and did a rather fast paintjob. It’s also pinned to the transparent base from Sally 4^th.

It saw action in yesterday’s Pulp Alley game, of which you will learn more shortly.

Update. I see it is called Star Leech on the RAFM webshop.

Conan: Balthus

Balthus

Not one of my favourite minis from the Conan boardgame, but one of the players wanted this mini as his Rogue-character in the upcoming D&D campaign. So he hit the painting table and was rather quickly painted up.

I think the sculpt is rather boring and flat, but he looks decent with a coat of paint. On the plus side he will be multi-use, both in D&D and in the Conan boardgame (and possibly in other fantasy games).

Zombicide: Black Death – Cadence and Antha

Cadence

Two more finished heroes for Zombicide: Black Death. This time we have Candence and Antha.

Cadence is inspired by the art.

Antha the Witch

I strayed from the art for Antha as she had far to elaborate clothing. I went for a very easy paint-scheme for her, to get another playable hero. Got to play her the other day and we were extremely lucky in that game and just breezed through.

With these minis finished the Marc Simonetti box of heroes is done. Next will be some assorted heroes, I’ll go for the easily painted ones just to get more heroes on the table.

Female Barbarian from Otherworld

Another mini for the upcoming D&D campaign, DAH19 Human Female Barbarian from Otherworld.

This one will work as my daughter’s druid-character.

It’s a fantastic sculpt, as usual with Otherworld stuff. 

A big welcome to follower Mate Lavotha with a great blog of his own – Zorro’s Miniature Sculpting Blog. Mate is a very talented sculptor and I’ve painted one of ‘his’ miniatures and he kindly asked if he could repost a picture of it. Go check out his blog as there is a lot of cool minis there. I really like some of them.

(And please, Mate, get a “Follow” button so I can follow what you’re doing!)

Hangman’s Gallows from 4Ground

Hangman's Gallows from 4Ground

Another piece finished for my Old West games – a Hangman's Gallows from 4Ground. What Western town could be without one?

I painted this one as I wasn’t too fond of the prepainted wood-look. A relatively easy job.

The ropes are provided in the set and I stretched them and soaked with super-glue to get them stiff as they have a tendency to bend if untreated and that looks like crap.

Finally a big welcome follower Leo Donkersley.