Some May the Fourth Pulp Alley

I ran a Star Wars-themed game of Pulp Alley for May the 4th at the club this week. Scott has most recently seen a Star Trek episode (TOS no less) so got to choose gangs first. He picked Planet of the Apes. Craig selected Buffy and the Scooby Gang. Chen picked Klingons. And that left Richard with Han Solo and friends.

Players got points for killing figures, solving minor plot points (which revealed NPCs), and for capturing and escorting their NPC off the board (e.g., Klingons had to capture a Romulan). The setting was the stockyard section of Sunnydale and The One's manipulation of time and space to brought our gangs together.

The Apes quickly ran towards a plot point which set of a flurry of dashing about. (Plot points were tribbles). By the end of the first turn, each side was firmly on the board.

Which is about when the Zeds started crawling out of the sewers (in lieu of a major plot point). This was a surprise to everyone.

The Zeds moved at the end of each subsequent turn (with additional reinforcements appear out of each manhole) towards the nearest figure and seeking to brawl. The players had quite surprisingly bad rolls for zombie entry (everyone rolled maximum zombies for several turns--I almost ran out of zombies!) and great roles when playing the zombies against other players.

Several figures got trapped battling (and basically farming) zombies. For example,  Chen's Uwan spent the entire game calming dispatching the undead in this spot

Scott had a similar experience with Cornelius being essentially taken out of play by endless Zeds. Craig used Buffy to farm Zeds and earn points. I suspect next time there would be more running from the Zeds rather than getting trapped.

The Apes eventually solved a plot point to reveal the Romulan that the Klingon's needed. Scott immediately wanted to kill her. I hadn't thought about such a blood-thirst strategy but went with it. Scott and Chen then battled over the Romulan for much of the rest of the game.

The Scooby gang had a tonne of trouble with their plot point. Xander blew himself up. Willow eventually solved it to reveal the droids needed by Han Solo.

The north side of the board continued to be inundated by Zeds. Han Solo discovered the Ape general by solving a plot point and quickly dispatched him (so blood thirsty!). Uwan killed more Zeds.

Solo and Chewy made a move on the droids with a rebel trooper hitting Willow with fire. Chen quipped "Your archaic religion is no match for a blaster."

This was, sadly, the high water mark for the Star Wars gang as the zombies washed over them shortly afterwards ("ummm, Chewy...").

We called the game at the end of Turn 6. Chen narrowly won on points but was also the only player to recover his objective and be heading towards the exitd. Scott and Craig were close behind in points. The Zombie mechanic was a good idea but slightly over-powered: one Zed per manhole per turn would have been fine.

Thanks to the players for their good humour. I was so happy I remembered almost everything. I left Luna Lovejoy's wand as the initiative marker at home so we McGyverized a solution (a box of paper clips). Thanks also to Red Claw for hosting us.