A nerdy gaming weekend at JustJohns

So JustJohn had a few people over for the weekend in his purpose built mancave. In attendance was myself, MrSaturday, Cheetor, The Otto Von Bismark and Craig, who has just moved back to Limerick and I'm unsure if he has a blog... Sorry Craig.

A few games were sampled including Man O'War, Bolt Action, Pulp Alley and a number of boardgames. Most of the games this weekend were to introduce new people to systems already played by others and good fun was had by all!

Unfortunately Inquisitor Thrawn and his retinue suffered from a malign curse and fared rather badly in the Pulp Alley game, pretty much getting wounded in every combat they participated and never passing a single health or recover check. Arbitrator Callaghan and Commissar Holt (both ally characters) even lost their lives trying to climb a wall into the ruined temple. Assassin 46, usually a terror in Pulp Alley game, came a cropper as he tried to snipe opponents from cover. Shocking! Below is a series of photographs from the Pulp Alley game.

Pulp alley 40k style

I've recently started playing Pulp Alley with a few others. Its a skirmish game with a bit of munchkin thrown in. Cards can be played to buff your own units or hinder other players and is a good addition. What I love about the system is how generic it is. You can use pretty much any models for it. There's no equipment, everthing is based on stats and the rules for characters can be individually tailored to fit what the model is armed with. In general it's easy to look at a model and wonder what it would be good at. Is it a shooter? Brawler? Sneaker? Thinker?

While I do have some Foundry English chaps to put together for a 1930s Pulp Alley league I'm also getting good use out of random 40k models I've had lying around for ages. It's a good excuse to put them together and get them painted. You only need 5-10 models so it's a painting project you can accomplish in a short period of time. It is also really easy to put together sci-fi terrain and having played 40k for years that's something I have lying around in abundance.

Recently I put together Inquisitor Thrawn and his retinue from random models I had collected for various reasons. These currently include an imperial fist, vindicare assassin, arbite, commissar and cyberhound. I've a daemonhost and a few old style metal imperial guard yet to finish and they will be added to the warband, although it's doubtful all models will make it on to the table at one time. Unfortunately in their last outing they fared rather poorly as the dice gods were against me that day, but that means they can only get better!