Last Friday, Doug and I got together to play a Robin Hood themed game of Pulp Alley. Rather than playing in the more familiar environment of Sherwood Forest, we were taken by the local legend of Robin in action in North Yorkshire. “An English ballad and legend tell a story of Robin Hood encountering French pirates who came to pillage the fishermen’s boats and the northeast coast. The pirates surrendered and Robin Hood returned the loot to the poor people in the village that is now called Robin Hood’s Bay.”

All miniatures used were from the Sally 4th Legends of Sherwood range.

Special Pulp Alley character cards for them are available as a free download.

Taking the legend as a starting point, we laid out some terrain to represent a twelfth century fishing village set back from a rocky bay in front of some heavy woodland. Looking through the Pulp Alley rulebook, one of the five introductory scenarios, “Dangerous Delivery” seemed to represent the action very well. The French ‘pirates’ deployed within 12″ of one of the inland corners, already in possession of the major plot point and two minor plot points. Two other minor plot points were placed on the table by the defending, Robin Hood player. To count the plot points for victory points at the end of the game, the French player needed to exit with them through the defenders deployment zone (the sea border of the bottom left beach tile). The defenders could not pick up plot points. If a ‘French pirate’ went down, they dropped the plot point and would need to overcome a peril and a plot point challenge to retrieve it.

Apart from the Bishop, the French are all wearing Armor. They have been give the Pulp Alley armour skill which gives them an extra D6 when taking health checks but prevents them from running (i.e. moving more than 6″ per turn)

To reflect the archery prowess of Robin and his men they have taken the league perk “long range” this means they ignore the -1 dice penalty for shooting at long range (over 24″) and if they shoot in there activation and have not moved they gain a shooting dice. Here we see Robin and his Merry Men participating in some long range snipping.

Will Scarlet is more of a close combat specialist so charges forward to engage Sir Guy and his henchmen.

Robins men run across the beach to take up fire positions using the rocky cliffs for cover, ready to defend the right flank.

After a particularly brutal melee, Will Scarlet goes down, taking one of the French Pirates with him.

The right flank is also fiercely contested. The Merry Men manage to get some telling bow fire off as they are charged by the Bishop and his henchmen.

Sir Guy reaches a pile of the villagers treasure, (a minor plot point) and despite the best efforts of the Merry Men is able to overcome the peril and challenge and pick it up.

As the melee on the right flank progresses, Little John and a couple more Frenchmen go down.

The French were encumbered by there armour, but on more than one occasion it saved there lives, and Doug was lucky enough to draw a Fortune Card that extended the game from six to seven turns to give them that extra little bit of time to get to the waiting boats.

Robin confronts Sir Guy, but to little avail.

When the seventh turn ended both Sir Guy and the Bishop had made it to the boats carrying the major plot point and two minor plot points giving them five victory points compared to Robins two for the two unclaimed plot points. Doug had earned a decisive victory. The game was a lot of fun and Pulp Alley worked incredibly well for a plot driven Robin Hood skirmish.

The miniatures used were all from the Sally 4th, Legends of Sherwood Range, designed by the very talented Iain Lovecraft. Click here to take a look.

I have made the Pulp Alley character cards for both leagues available as free downloads. Click here to check them out.