PULP ALLEY - ONE SYSTEM TO RULE THEM ALL

It is no great secret thatone of my favorite miniatures skirmish game system is Pulp Alley. With its ease of play, character building, and customizeable content it is just so easy to pick up and play. There are so many options available within the game that allow you to play nearly any setting you like that it really does beg the question of whether or not I'll ever need to buy another skirmish miniatures game system again.

If you are not familiar with Pulp Alley, it is a game in which you create a custom team of miniatures, called a league. Your league engages in various scenarios of which their are now scores, either against other players and their leagues or in solo or even co-op play. Characters are built around die codes that are expressed as a number of certain dice from D6 to D12 which coorespond to a character's skills and what ther games would call ability scores. Unlike many games, Pulp Alley doesn't get bogged down in specific skills or equipment, choosing rather to abstract these concept through broadly expressed abilities  that a player selects during the league generation.

Leagues also get perks which are league-wide abilitis and/or variations on league structure or league resources. Through this manipulaton of perks a league may be as few as two characters up to a small army of rank and fire squads. There are even ways to play leagues without top-level characters in the field, making it possible to model up miltiary units, tribal groups or the minions of some shadowy cabal. Leagues also have off-board assets such as contacts, laboratories, specialists, etc that provide them with bonuses when playing scenarios without placing a character in the roster. So, you might have a dynamic duo that benefitted from a high tech lair full of gadgets and a faithful butler who knows things and people. 

The game play is your typical dicing back and forth with some exceptions. Almost never is there a situation in combat where only one side is acting. Attacking somebody generally means they get to fight back, if they choose. The action of the game is further enhanced through the use of cards, held in a secret hand by each player. These cards are dual use, serving as effects to be played on a players own character or against their opponent or as a sort of meta currency when resolving certain challenges in the game. There are even themed decks to add in or substitute out the standard decks for such things as Horror. 

Scenarios are abundant and easy to create once you have played just a few. They are designed to focus in on a particular moment of action, often being framed as part of a greater narrative. Each scenario is expressed with certain guidelines for set up as well as any special rules for play. Most scenarios are settled in as many as six  turns at the end of which the game is over unless otherwise stated in the scenario. Campaigns are avaialble and the game is designed with campaign play in mind. 

While the action in the game is built around characters, it does also include detailed rules for vehicles, squads of generic troopers, super science, magic, and monsters should you need any of those for a scenario.

The game lets you use any miniatures you choose for whatever genre you want to play from  pulpy scifi to prehistoric adventure. No need to feel hemmed in by editions and miniatures ranges. Create and built and colelct in whatever ways you and your players feel is appropriate for the games you want to play and the stories you want to tell. 

So, why is this the game to beat all?

Well, it's not, exactly, but it's really close. 

Pulp Alley is never going to replace games of large bodies of organized troops or games with more detailed, tactical or strategic crunch. Pulp Alley cam be almost anything but it will always be the movie version of things - fast, loose, fun and satisfying on a storytelling and character basis. You're not going to get the depth of tactical choice that you would with a more military-oriented game. But it can do a lot and so I often find myself giving pause when considering a new, easy to play skirmish game. I have to ask myself, "Is this new investment worth it when I already have Pulp Alley?"

A recent example of this came when looking at two games, "The Baron's Wars" and "Pillage", both medieval one later and one early "Dark Ages". I really want to play in this time and even have a crap ton of Victrix Norman foot to work on that I could split across two or more warbands. Both games were tempting and both providing a very similar game even though the focus of their periods of history was separated by hundreds of years. 

But did I need both? Did I need either? Neither game seems to be a cupser crunchy attempt at historical simulation, focusing on histoical flavor and solid game play. This brought me back to Pulp Alley.

Pulp Alley can easily handle the warbands aspect of either game. There are rules for heroes and lesser heroes but more importantly you have the Gang rules which account of squads of "mooks". The various character abilities would allow for a fair amount of characterful individuals to distinguish individuals and, if one wished to venture into more legendary history, there are rules for minor supernatural abilities. So, I eased off getting either of the games, until I see if I can get a satisfying play out of Pulp Alley for these periods.  If it doesn't end up feeling right, the models will be painted up and those other games will still exist. 

I've already successfully played Star Wars games using Pulp Alley, with hoards of Stormtroopers being played using the Gang and Weapon Team rules. Imperial Officers are easily represented as Level 2 or 3 characters while the true badasses can be made reasonably well with Level 4 Heroes. The same thing goes with the good guys, though they are better built using another sort of League organization that focuses more on a few good heroes.

Pulp Alley is very much a simple, one-stop solution to almost any lighter skirmish fun you may want to engage in.