AAR BATTLE REPORT pulp PERILOUS ISLAND - SCENARIO 4 - THE MISSING GUIDE

Fourth game played of the Pulp Alley campaign called Perilous Island, playing it alone. I have to say that the game adapts very well to the solo game, very much in the Rangers of shadow deep style, with very detailed scenarios. The truth is that this is a very fun and entertaining campaign.

From the original scenario I have not changed anything, only, and as always, I have changed the plot points and the peril areas for point of interest tokens (or plot point) and when revealing one of these tokenswe will make a dice roll in an event table made for every scenario.

So here we go ...

PERILOUS ISLAND - SCENARIO 4

THE MISSING GUIDE

(aka Soerabaja manhunt)

After a boat trip, the members of the Carlyle expedition arrive to Alexandria, and from there they are taken to a small boat that, going up the Nile, takes them to Cairo.

There they meet with Steve Mayers, a British archaeologist who works at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in the work of cataloging and restoring the tutankhamun treasure discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

Steve Mayers was in constant contact with Lord Donovan Darrow, and was aware of his investigations, so after learning of his disappearance he feared the worst.

In his office at the Egyptian museum, he serves them a coffee while explaining everything that happened to the famous missing archaeologist.

Lord Donovan discovered a kind of key that guided him on an enigmatic map, and the destination he located was none other than Irem, the city of a thousand pillars, the so-called Atlantis of the sands, a rich and prosperous city with a source of primal energy that disappeared swallowed by the sands.

Thousands of archaeologists have searched for its location, and none of them managed to find the cursed city ... Until Lord Donovan Darrow arrived.

After being able to point out on a map the possible position of the city, he began to organize an expedition, but it was not easy because he had to enter the Rub Al Khali desert, on which a curse threatens everyone who dares to enter.

Expeditionary groups, camel caravans and any group that ventures into the desert avoid the Rub Al Khali desert for fear of disappearing among the cursed sand dunes.

But Lord Donovan managed to find a native guide who claimed to have managed to get out of that desert a year earlier, and who after promises of countless wealth, managed to convince him to guide him to the Rub Al Khali desert.

So Lord Donovan's expedition headed out for the Rub Al Khali desert in search of the lost city of Irem.

A month later without hearing from the expedition, the guide and two of the members of the expedition appeared in the outskirts of Cairo, completely crazy, they wandered around begging for food.

According to his acquaintances, the two members of the expedition have disappeared. They told him that some very well dressed Europeans were looking for them, and it could be that they had found them ...

According to Steve Mayers, there is a group of people interested in the investigations of Lord Donovan Darrow, it is a German group that works under the name of The Brotherhood, with vast resources and possibly close to members of the German government.

They arrived in Cairo months ago and are meddling in a lot of excavations and investigations, looking for differents relics and ancient objects.

After the interview with Steve Myers is finished, it is clear that they must find the guide who returned from the Rub Al Khali desert before the Brotherhood members find him.

And with that idea, they head to the Al Zaif neighborhood, the last place he was seen wandering.

Our heroes, the members of the Carlyle expedition: two followers at the sides, our hero Roger Carlyle dressed as Indiana Jones, and his ally Madeleine Carson, torch in hand.

A group of German members of the Brotherhood, consisting of three followers (with long weapons) and an ally (with two pistols).

We deploy randomly in opposing areas, and we have six Plot points, which we must check to find the desert guide.

In the first turn, most of the members of the Carlyle expedition advance, reaching plot points but not being able to reveal them.

Not so Roger Carlyle, who reaches a Plot point, revealing a group of three Egyptian soldiers who patrol the area to avoid problems and disturbances.

The enemies advance and take positions, arriving next to plot points but without yet having the option to activate them.

On the second turn, one of the followers reaches a Plot point, revealing 1+1D3 more members of the Brotherhood.

After seeing how many there are and where they are displayed on the table (all randomly), 4 more followers of the Brotherhood enter right next to the character who has activated the Plot point.

Another Follower and ally Madeleine Carson activate another plot point, collapsing a small nearby scaffold, falling on top of Madeleine, injuring her.

On the enemies' turn, the ally reveals a Plot point, part of the wall of a terrace falls, although it fails to hit him, so he advances taking positions.

Our hero has advanced through the terraces sure of himself, and on the enemy's turn, two followers advance towards him to attack him, both advancing and making their attack rolls right, leaving our hero seriously wounded!!!

Another Follower of the Carlyle expedition is surrounded by members of the Brotherhood.

At the end of turn 2, the guards race toward where the shots were fired.

On turn 3 the members of the Carlyle expedition come face to face with members of the Brotherhood.

Madeleine and a Follower face two followers without achieving results, and our hero, Roger Carlyle, seriously injured tries to kill another Follower, without achieving it either.

On the Brotherhood's turn, a Follower and the ally take down two Egyptian soldiers.

A Brotherhood Follower takes down Roger Carlyle with a hit with the butt of his shotgun, and after that, he advances towards the other members of the Carlyle expedition.

Another Brotherhood Follower climbs up to the terrace and checks the plot point, revealing another Brotherhood Follower...

Of all the negative results that could come out in the events chart, they have ALL come out.

The rest of the Brotherhood followers who appeared the previous turn attack the members of the Carlyle expedition, knocking them down with their superiority.

The only member of the Carlyle expedition still standing, facing alone 9 members of the Brotherhood, decides to flee the board. There is no point in continuing.

The members of the Carlyle expedition assume their defeat in the alleys of Cairo.

Don't miss the next episode !!

Will the members of the Carlyle expedition find the guide?

Will the followers of the Brotherhood take the lead?

Who will arrive first to the lost city of Irem?

Will they find Lord Donovan Darrow alive?

AAR BATTLE REPORT pulp PERILOUS ISLAND - SCENARIO 3 - AT DEATH´S DOOR

And here we go with the third episode of the Pulp Alley campaign called Perilous Island, this particular scenario is "at death's door" and is set in Greece.

I have played it alone without making many changes to the original scenario, I have simply changed Perilous areas and Plot points  and instead of them I have used some plot point markers (or points of interest) that when checked by any character we check a chart (dice roll), and the result can be clues that help the investigation, events, small scenes, enemies, reinforcements ... and even nothing!

I hope you like it...

PERILOUS ISLAND - SCENARIO 3

AT DEATH´S DOOR

(aka at death's door)

The characters, members of the Carlyle expedition, after a boat trip arrive at the port of Athens, once there they look for the friend of the famous archaeologist Lord Donovan Darrow, according to his daughter this friend could have clues about the whereabouts of her father.

Once they locate the archaeologist's friend, they find him seriously injured in a hospital, apparently he has been attacked by unknown persons.

When they visit his office they find it completely ransacked... everything that could be of use has been stolen, so the daughter of the missing archaeologist and our characters leave the office without having any reliable clue to follow.

And it is just at that moment, when they are leaving the office, when a messenger appears bringing a notification to the archaeologist's friend.

This notification is a letter from the Greek Customs Service informing that there is a package sent from Cairo by Lord Donovan Darrow himself to his friend in Greece. 

When the Customs Service is contacted, the characters are informed that the package is in a specific warehouse in the Greek capital but that it can only be picked up by the owner (Lord Donovan's friend) 

Given that the owner is in a hospital, it is impossible to recover the package sent by the missing archaeologist.

So the only option left for our heroes is to plan a night raid to the Customs warehouse, locate the package and retrieve it without being caught by the guards. 

And with that plan in mind, they go to the Customs Service facilities under the cover of the darkness...

The warehouse is guarded by a guard with his flashlight, and we will have 6 Plot points inside the warehouse. We will also randomly decide where the characters will deploy. 

In the event that a character is located by the guard and enters the range of his flashlight, that character will have been discovered and will be taken out from the warehouse immediately, it will count as ko and won't be used during the rest of the scenario.

After quietly entering the dark warehouse, members of the Carlyle expedition deploy to check nearby Plot points.

When checking the first plot point, a second guard appears near our heroes, who inadvertently watches over the area.

A second plot point reveals a clerk that is going through the warehouse packages and doing bureaucratic paperwork.

After being pressed by our protagonist, this clerk gives to Roger Carlyle the location of the package that Lord Donovan Darrow sent to his friend.

(Until they reach the package, we do not perform the skill test to pressure the clerk to know if he has given us the true location of the package or if he has given us a false location and what we find is a guard)

Meanwhile, the other members of the Carlyle expedition continue searching the plot points and dodging the guards.

After reaching the point where the clerk has located the package, this information turns out to be true, so our heroes seize the package, fleeing in a hurry through the same door that they entered.

A little reference to a mythical film series in the pulp genre... Let's see if you guess which one...

Once they flee the warehouse, they go to their hotel where they review the package to have new clues to follow.

In the package they find photos, maps, field diaries, annotations... And everything about the recent discovery of the missing archaeologist.

Apparently, while conducting excavations and investigations in Cairo, Lord Donovan Darrow found data and clues about the location of a forgotten city swallowed by the sands.

According to legend, Irem, the city of a thousand pillars, was located on the lower Nile, and was rich and prosperous, but they were seduced by false deities who promised them unlimited power, so they decided to build a temple to the Black Pharaoh, obtaining a great "force" that would help them to subdue all the country. 

But turning their backs on the true gods caused them to rage, and they buried the city in the desert sands.

According to Lord Donovan Darrow in his diary, he would have found a way to find Irem and recover the immense power they discovered before disappearing under the sand.

In the last entries he comments that he has found a local guide who will take him and his group through the desert to the city of a thousand pillars, that he is organizing the expedition and that he is nervous about the discovery that could make him world famous.

In his diary, Lord Donovan Darrow specifies that his safest and most reliable contact in Cairo is Steve Mayers, a British archaeologist who works at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo on the work of cataloging and restoring the tutankhamun treasure discovered by Howard Carter in 1922...

So with this new information, the members of the Carlyle expedition set out for Egypt in their search for the archaeologist Lord Donovan Darrow, wondering if he managed to find Irem, the city of a thousand pillars... 

Don't miss the next episode ....

Post gameplay opinion:

The game was very fun, at times it reminded me of the pacman, fleeing from the guards through the corridors, the events have been very good and I have been quite lucky with the dice rolls. 

One thing that I like about this campaign is that it is not the usual in skirmish wargame games, since I have played the last two games without fighting, although they have been really fun.

I see that the scenarios are balanced between combat, stealth infiltration, obtaining objectives... And I like that...