Pulp City Revisited

Pulp City Gazette – June Summers

With the city safe and clean up begun, The Supreme Alliance took time away from their duties to meet with their fans. Cosmic Comics was the scene and the well-known owner, Gary, could not be prouder to host them. Following them closely as a child, Gary had much to discuss about their battles long past and how they will shape the future of Pulp City. No fan was left disappointed as the team hung around until all candids were shot and autographs signed. It was a moment of calm in the turbulent recent times for Pulp City.

The arrival / return of The Supreme Alliance tipped the balance in favour of the forces of good. As villainous teams were dispatched or destroyed, a vacuum existed that called to some not previously seen in Pulp City. Enter the Red Republik, led by the nefarious Professor Hammer, this team appeared almost overnight and began to consolidate their power in the Pulp City underworld. Few rival factions had the power to challenge them, but the Red Republik did not wipe out their weakened competition, comfortable in their position at the top and their ability to maintain it.

The forces of good have yet to meet the team at full strength, only encountering a member or two in quick skirmishes before they withdraw or disappear behind their growing legion of minions. They seem poised to make a move soon. What their ultimate goal entails is not known.

Believed wiped out in the recent struggles, the architects of the near fall of Pulp City, the Jade Cult, seem to have secretly returned to the height of their power. The mysterious Green Emperor has returned, reborn in all his mystical might. With his daughter at his side, they have amassed a strong cohort to challenge again for supremacy in Pulp City. It is yet to be seen where they fit into the new dynamics of the Pulp City underworld.

The Jade Cult is familiar to the denizens of Pulp City. They have existed in one form or another for all of memory. As their power waxes and wanes, the only constant is that they will be back, even from their worst defeats. It is said the Green Emperor is immortal, it is said he is reborn. What is known is that he is ruthless and will go to any lengths to solidify power and increase his control over Pulp City.

Green Emperor – the Jade Cult leader has mystical powers that make him a dangerous foe. Although his real power comes from his abilities to support and enhance his followers. Though if cornered, he can quickly summon the power of his dragon spirit to phase from reality, blink away, or supercharge his attacks to devastating effect. If nothing else, he is not to be underestimated.

Green Serpent – the beloved daughter of the Green Emperor, she is also his biggest threat as she covets the throne he sits upon. She is a creature of the shadow, able to operate far in advance of her team, accompanied by her ninja minions. Green Serpent hits from afar, using her speed and stealth to weaken her foes before lunging in for deadly strikes.

Tanuki – a mystical creature of unknown origin, Tanuki is a gifted magician whose collection of potions, charms and regeants lets it conjure suitable effects at will. Its modus operandi is to stay close to the action, protected by the team and its spells while continually making those close by stronger. In attack, Tanuki can weaken and stun opponents from range, making them easy targets for other team members.

While some in the Jade Cult rely on stealth and deceit. The foot soldiers of the team are brutal and deadly. Unrelenting and powerful, the strong arm of the Jade Cult draws a defender’s focus giving those who work in the shadows more freedom.

Yeti – an immense creature from the frozen wastes, Yeti is a powerhouse of great strength and speed. His close attacks are brutal, quickly stacking damage on the helpless foe. Yeti can also project directed attacks of ice and snow or affect all those around him causing damage and bone-chilling fatigue.

Terror Cotta Warriors – a solid team member, the Terror Cotta Warriors sometimes appear in multiples, identical, emotionless and bent on carrying out their master’s will. Able to absorb punishment, they shuffle forward to tie up opposing threats to free their team up for concentrated attacks elsewhere or to accomplish other goals.

Jade Oni – a mythical construct, the Jade Oni and its Obliterator Sword are a danger to all Supremes. There is little nuance to this hulking beast’s approach. It closes, overwhelms and pummels all who stand in its way.

Shadow Mask – a creature with one foot in the shadow realm, Shadow Mask blinks seamlessly from spot to spot, taunting his foes from a distance. While relatively weak, his deceptive powers mean many a time a foe believes they will strike him down only to see him disappear in a wisp.

Shadow Double – an aspect of Shadow Mask, Shadow Double appears his twin in every way until an enemy closes. If they chose the real Shadow Mask, he will shift locations with his Double leaving his attacker’s action wasted. When Sahdow Mask next acts, he can bring forth another Double, keeping his true form safe from direct harm.

The Jade Cult makes use of many minions to overwhelm their foes and tie up threats. Little match against a Supreme, their numbers are endless and their obedience absolute.

Ninjas – trained foot soldiers of the Jade Cult, these warriors work to spread influence far and wide. Commonly seen as part of any Jade Cult team or specifically accompanying Green Serpent, these troops can close under a cloak of stealth to attack and harass their enemies.

Hovercats – a strange hybrid of feline guile, flight packs and rotary cannons, these nimble tabbies skirt the battlefield to attack the flanks. Their appearance provides some answers to the dearth of cats in the Jade Cult’s territory.

A quick narrative battle with two teams of 8 levels – 4 models each plus a rank of minions.

Supreme Alliance – Spybreaker, Battlesuit 7, Sabotage, Arquero and June Summers

Red Republik – Prof Hammer, S.P.U.T.N.I.K., Snieschinka, Red Robot, Sentry Bots

The Supreme Alliance’s moment of calm is interrupted by the appearance of the upstart Red Republik – a new super team to Pulp City that have grown unchecked in power as the city rebuilds after The Fall.

Playing this as a straight Smackdown scenario (most levels KO’d after 4 rounds) with no agendas.

Have also added one houserule – flimsy walls – with the recent reconstruction of most of the city, corners were cut. Any knockback that brings a Supreme into contact with a wall will not stop them and inflict 1 structure point of damage to the building.

The close quarters of the starting positions jumped everyone right into the action. Spybreaker has a reactive defensive ability that lets him avoid damage at the expense of using up his action points. Some blows were exchanged, then bodies started flying.

S.P.U.T.N.I.K. used his psychokinetic ability to send a table (and Arquero) through a wall. Prof Hammer followed up with a Rocket Fist attack on Spybreaker that got through to send him outside. Battlesuit 7 advanced on Prof Hammer and, using more furniture, a charge and his size, sent the Red Republik leader into the parking lot, bringing the building to the point of collapse.

**Certain abilities allow you to use terrain pieces at hand to add extra dice to your attack, increasing your chance of success and of generating EFX, extra effects. Battlesuit 7 with a charge, his bounding movement type, larger base size, picking up a table, and throwing in some power up dice, rolled 7 dice vs. the Prof’s 2 doing 4 damage and a knockback of 4″

Directed attacks and area attacks were getting through to drop everyone down in HP. The Red Republik quickly lost the low-level Red Robot and their minions. The Supreme Alliance were seeing damage inflicted on Sabotage and Battlesuit 7. Some more knockback effects separated the teams, and S.P.U.T.N.I.K. succeeded in a timely mind-control attack to force Battlesuit 7 to target Sabotage with his Barrage attack. This pushed her over the edge and knocked her out along with June Summers, who was caught in the blast.

**Leader cards were played on both sides to generate more action points. S.P.U.T.N.I.K. also mind-controlled Sabotage, to use her support ability for some timely healing on the Red Republik side.

Some early success for the Supreme Alliance knocked out Red Republik members with their action pool unspent. The tide quickly turned with a mobbing of Prof Hammer he could not escape from. Snieschinka, the Snow/Ice Witch let the full power of her area attack loose, but could not overcome the numbers. It was a decisive Supreme Alliance win – 8 levels knocked out to 2.

**First time trying this everyone-in-contact setup and it worked well for a small engagement like this. Most of the 3’x3′ table ended up unused, but a fun and quick engagement, nevertheless, that ended in Round 3 of 4.

Pulp City has an alternate game mode where one or more teams of Supremes battle a single monster. We played through our first one, shown over the coming posts. The chapter in the book on this mode is fairly light with a page or two of additional rules and stats for 3 types of monsters – Beasts, Elders, or Robots – each with 3 power levels and all with different stats and abilities.

We played this as being before the current timeline in the Pulp City lore. The Fall occurred 1 year past when the Green Emperor’s sorceries unleashed monsters on the city. The Supreme Alliance, a team from a generation gone, mysteriously returned and helped turn the tide. This was a scenario based on one of those battles…

A trick with this game mode is finding a suitably imposing monster model. Luckily we could dust off our old Balrog from the LoTR Combat Hex TMG by Sabertooth. It made a great stand-in for a rank 1 Elder Fire Demon. The ranks are given an equivalent Supreme team level for balancing  – Rank 1 – 12 levels, 2 – 24 levels, 3 – 36 levels. This foe was paired against a Supreme Alliance team of Spybreaker (lvl 3 leader), Battlesuit 7 (lvl 2 tank/blaster), Sabotage (lvl 2 support), Perun (lvl 2 brawler), ECTO (lvl 2 support), Arquero (lvl 1 blaster), plus a minion – June Summers (reporter).

Setup changes in this mode with the monster starting in the middle of the board and Supremes deployed within 12″ of any board edge. We used a 3′ x 3′ table. We considered a larger table, but this worked out well. Citizens are deployed per normal rules – number of citizens equal to encounter level (12) – and they try to move off the closest board edge every turn unless it would put them closer to danger.

In this scenario, we assumed the demon rose from a construction site … as they do. Under the monster rules, they have their own Agendas (objectives) and for this one we chose the simple Rampage – Destroy Pulp City. The monster has to destroy 4 or more structures for full points and we decided we would play it as targeting buildings first before focusing on Supremes.

A Rank 1 Elder starts at 48 HP with 30 Action Points to use. They move with an Overrun attack (Fiery Walk) of 5″, with an AP point cost that can do damage to everything along the path. While normal Supremes can only do 2 moves per turn (controlled by fatigue tokens), monsters can do 6 (!). Generally 2 or 3 solid hits were knocking down buildings and the demon could cover the board at will each turn – very stompy. As the monster takes damage, its available action points drop which starts to slow down how much damage it can deal out, but is always formidable.

The Supremes have special goals focused more on containment. The only way to ensure victory is to achieve all 4 objectives – knocking monster down to half HP, have more than half your team survive (by level value), get all citizens off of board (either by own movement or by tagging), and KO-ing the monster.

With everything sorted, the battle began with a plan (that didn’t survive first contact…)

The enormity of the task was clear, if it wasn’t before, at the Action Point calculation step. The demon gets an enormous pile of 30 tokens while the Supreme Alliance could only muster a normally impressive 17. This amount goes down each step, if the heroes can knock the demon’s HP down in 25% steps.

The demon took a quick charge from its spawn point towards the nearest building. The Monster Plot/Agenda for this game was to destroy buildings, so it was played with structures as the primary target. Monsters move by their Overrun ability which lets them travel a set distance, damaging everything in their path, the width of their base. Small objects, which we didn’t count as objective targets, were destroyed outright. This ended up being a good functional choice as the size of the monster’s base wouldn’t have fit well with a lot of scatter terrain.

The demon got stuck straight in to the apartment building, while the Supremes closed or unleashed their ranged attacks. Damage was dealt, but slowly and the Fire Demon’s strong attacks made quick work of the building. 1-0 for the monster so far.

With alternating activations and a monster’s ability to take 6 fatigue tokens (6 movement actions each round), it quickly became clear it could move at will, leaving Supremes behind. It became hard for the brawling specialists to close with the demon as it worked its way quickly through buildings. While blows continued to land on it, there was not enough damage to knock it down a step this first turn. As its action points drop with damage, this demon would enter Round 2 just as strong as at the start.

Round 2 saw some more quick work by the demon and a move on to more buildings. The Supremes furthest from the action concentrated on tagging citizens (base-to-base contact) to remove them from the board for objective scoring. Those in close continued to peck away, dropping it down a step on the HP track, but it would still have 25 action points for next turn. With its movement ability costing 2 AP and its main attacks 3 & 5, it could match the Supreme team blow for blow with its AP pool. At the end of Round 2, it looked like the demon would get tied down in a corner of the board…

As monsters always get to roll at least 3 dice, plus start a round with Power Up dice and can easily gain more from actions, they toss a lot for any roll. 6’s and sometimes 5’s generate Extra Effects (EFX) that generally pump up the damage dealt. The demon quickly worked through 2 buildings at the start of Round 3, which meant it had already scored full points. The only way the Supremes could win was to achieve all objectives.

The last scoring building on the board was the large warehouse, a multi-part structure with 2 sections to destroy. Again, it was quick work by the demon and it finally turned to unleash its full wrath on the heroes, even though it was reduced to less than half health.

The Overrun ability, dropping an attack on everything along a path the width of its base was effective. As was its fiery breath, a Ray attack that dealt high damage across a broad swath. Supremes started to fall, but were forced to close in for their most effective attacks. Carnage ensued.

Battlesuit 7 stood firm, switchting to his Tank mode to lend some defense to those in BtB with him. It wasn’t enough and Supremes were KO’d. Those remaining continued to lay into the demon and the cumulative damage and drop in available Action Points finally caught up to it. It reached the point where it was out of actions and the Supremes could pile on the attacks to bring it down.

Slightly game-y, Arquero used his last move to tag the lone citizen left on the board to secure that objective. Final score was:
Demon – 3 – full points for destroying 4+ buildings
Supremes – 3 – dropped monster to half HP, KO’d monster, no citizens left on board
They missed out on the extra point for a full victory when Battlesuit 7 fell.

As a first stab at a monster scenario in Pulp City, we found it quite fun. I even think we got all of the rules right! It would be interesting playing it at the higher ranks though. A Rank 3 Beast – Ging Gong for example – has 100 HP with 36 starting Action Points and formidable stats. That would be matched off against 15-18 Supremes. You would have more luck at hemming it in with more Supremes on the board, but it hits so much harder.

Now just to find some suitable models for Terrorsaur, The Dread Sleeper, Proto-bot, Byte Dragon…

Back into Pulp City after a long break! Kitbash Games ran a couple of small Kickstarters in 2019/2020 that produced some new material. Leon of Kitbash was a key player in the last Pulp City iteration (Supreme Edition – 2015) and is leading efforts for the next update – Full Effect. Kitbash has a separate line of super hero minis to go with their Supers Unlimited skirmish game. Both of these Kickstarters provided cards and profiles for both games, but I’ve only focused on Pulp City.

The 2019 Kickstarter had a large range of minis that filled gaps in the Super Unlimited line. The 2020 Kickstarter, or Teamstarter focused on one new team – Team Aegis – comprising of 9 models. The team composition is a little different from others in Pulp City as there is no Blaster role and two Speeders. Lots of synergy across the team and with pairs of characters. The full team comprises 16 levels of characters, which gives plenty of options for small and large games.

Team Aegis consists of:

• Star Phantom, the Leader
• Nighteagle, a caped crusading Infiltrator
• Autodog, his robot companion, a Support
• Sunwing, an archaeologist, turned Star Stone infused Speeder
• Sunhawk, her bodyguard saved by the Star Stone power, also a Speeder
• Primor the Powerful, a Brawler from another world
• Robokid, the boy genius Support
• Big Bot, his sentient creation, a Powerhouse
• Mep the Space Monkey, a Mascot – a new character role

Star Phantom has typical stats for a leader, with lots of Action Points to use in a turn (5), Flight movement type and decent hit points. His Exclusive abilities are quite flexible with Stellar Blast allowing him to select from an array of effects and Phantom Mode, that lets him turn Spectral to avoid physical attacks. His powers let him gain dice and work best when close to other team members.

Nighteagle is a Batman-esque character who relies on equipment and tactics to gain advantage. One new mechanic introduced with this team is a Utility Belt, which provides 3 slots of consumables for use as needed. As an Infiltrator he can deploy anywhere on the table outside of the enemy’s DZ, but also has a power that lets Autodog plus one other friendly Supreme to deploy with him. Very useful for starting the game with table control.

Big Bot is a Powerhouse model that is quite strong and works well alongside Robokid. The action resolution in Pulp City is to roll a pool of dice based on the action’s listed traits (Attacker v Defender or Target#). Pools of dice are generated from abilities, conditions or stored up dice. The highest result from the pool is added to the ability and results compared. Extra effects (EFX) can be triggered by high rolls in the pool. Standard traits (grey on the character card) trigger EFX on a 6+. Trump traits (red on card) trigger on 5+. Powerhouse Trump traits trigger on a 4+. With a healthy pool of dice to roll, Big Bot can turn into a very stompy robot!

Speeders are fairly rare in Pulp City and this team has two. Speeders are allowed to take 3 movement actions when most characters are restricted to 2. The Mascot role is new to the game and doesn’t add to th team cost. It generally has a supporting role, but the whole team suffers penalties if it is ever KO’d.

Next up, I put a few team members through their paces in a solo-mode Invasion! scenario …

As with many games in 2020, a solo mode was provided for Pulp City. It gave options for Team vs Team, Team vs Horde and Team vs Monster. I went with the horde battle, where groups of invaders enter the map through spawn points. The Supremes deploy in a 6″ zone at the centre of the table. One spawn point per 2 levels of Supremes (for this game 4 spawn points) are spread a random distance from deployment into table quarters. At the start of the game and the start of each round, new enemies enter through he spawns until the points are destroyed. Games last 4 rounds. Supremes victory scoring is 2 victory points per Spawn Point destroyed, Horde scoring is 2 VP per spawn point remaining + 1 VP per level of Supreme KO’d.

From Nighteagle’s vantage, the initial enemy forces deploy. The solo horde rules give options for Robots, Soldiers, or Zombies. Robots & Soldiers play roughly the same, though the Champion Robots are a little tougher requiring 3 points of damage in one attack to take them out or else they shrug it off. My Supremes will need to roll large pools of dice to do enough damage in one go to take down a Champion. Robots also fill the Blasters role, which give them +2 dice to their attack pools when attacking from range.

Champions are on a 40mm base. In melee attacks, base size matters (Size Matters rule) and a model on a larger base gains +1 die to their attack or defend pool. Core Space Purge filled in nicely for the standard robots while some Afterlife models take on the role of champions. All horde models act as minions in the game – a single move and activation and they have a simple script to act as an AI. All horde models activate before Supremes.

Star Phantom and Sunwing deployed in the centre of the table. Both have Flight-type movement and have ranged attacks. As a Speeder, Sunwing can also move 3 times instead of the typical 2. Nighteagle, used his Infiltrator role to deploy out of the DZ. His special power allows Autodog to deploy with him as well as one other Supreme – Mep the Space Monkey. They aimed for a cluster of weak robots with the hope of taking them and the spawn point out early.

Round 2 opened with some more spawning and all Robots closed in. Nighteagle took a few knocks as Autodog and Mep supported him. Star Phantom and Sunwing focused on another group. Sunwing has a Ray power that affects all models along a line that was used effectively to take out some level 1’s. Star Phantom used a large dice pool, a proximity buff to Sunwing and picked up some street furniture along the way to deliver a knockout blow to a spawn point.

By the end of the round two, 2 spawn points were down, but some tough challenges remained.

Round 3 saw the Supremes of Team Aegis on track, but with a tough battle ahead with some heavy spawning from the remaining two points. Star Phantom has a start of round power that allows him to gain a Power Up die or become Quickened (+1 to his Action Point limit). He chose Quicken as it would let him use his Stellar Blast up to 3 times. A cluster of new level 1 Robots advanced on Star Phantom and Sunwing, doing some minor damage. Sunwing’s well-placed Solar Ray ability knocked out a line of advancing robots, while Star Phantom’s Stellar Blast ability did enough to take out the closest Champion. Their combined efforts got them through the next foes and destroyed a third spawn point at range.

Nighteagle took a beating from the CC attacks of two Champions, reducing him to a single HP. With some buffs from Mep and a charge in from Autodog, they were able to get past the attackers and advance towards the final point.

Despite the cover, Nighteagle was KO’d by a fusillade of fire at the start of Round 4. Mep and Autodog advanced to dispatch of the closest minions, but ran out of actions to affect the last spawn point … “Who’s a good boy, Autodog?”

Star Phantom was too distant to reach the point and only Sunwing’s Speeder movement allowed her to swoop in close enough for a final attack. It was too little for a complete victory, but the Supremes came out on top in the scenario with 6 VPs to the minions 4 VPs (1 spawn remaining, Nighteagle (lvl 2 Supreme) KO’d).

The other members of Team Aegis returned to mop up. With Nighteagle revived, they had time to meet some new fans – happy that another team of Supremes was on hand to save their city.