Perilous Tales is a solo or cooperative skirmish wargame of thrilling tabletop adventures. Beta versions of the rules are available for playtesting at the Planet Smasher website. After last month's playtest with my Dad's Army figures, I thought I'd try it this time with the recently painted A-Team.
I wanted an Amy figure for the scenario but she wasn't included in the A-Team pack I bought, so I converted Crooked Dice's "Ripley from Alien" character. I took detail off the uniform and reduced the massive space gun to something more resembling an assault rifle.
So the full team looks like this:
I made up cards again with Nandeck which I could use to record the wounds taken with some plastic hearts I recently bought (originally sticky-backed for craft projects but an overnight soak in some white spirit removed that):
The objectives for the mission were as follows:
Nuevo Paraíso reflected a typical Mexican town in a typical A-Team episode:
...but of course not with the typical stereotyped A-Team baddies. This time the soldiers of fortune had a Tentacled Alien and her babies to contend with:
I used some Villain and Location characteristics from the Perilous Tales rules:
The threat markers were set up in the Encircling pattern and the boys headed into the town.
A baby alien was quickly revealed, dealing 3 wounds to BA, who defeated it in hand-to-hand combat the following turn. A second alien attacked Hannibal whilst Face and BA fell to the ground following a minor earthquake.
With the wounds piling up, the A-Team started to take a more cautious approach, using their last action of each turn to get their Eyes Peeled, so they could attack the aliens as they were revealed before they had the opportunity to ambush the revealer.
This proved almost too successful. The Mother and the remaining aliens were finished off either as soon as they appeared or immediately in the following turn. By the 6th turn, the A-Team had killed all the Villains and exited the playing area a couple of turns later. Three objectives completed at 3 points each plus a further one for not losing Hannibal and another for not losing any team member, gave a final score of 11, ranking "A" - "a truly heroic performance!"
I reset the scenario and downgraded Face and Murdock to Teammates rather than Leaders and tried again, this time with an Aggressive deployment of threat markers. But got a similar result.
I then wondered whether I was interpreting the Eyes Peeled rule incorrectly as you are not allowed to shoot targets who are already engaged, as the newly spawning villains always are. This was a much more challenging game, although bad luck played a part, with four "From The Shadows" results on the threat checks spawning an additional 4 baby aliens during the course of the game. The Villains were defeated in the end but only at the expense of losing both Hannibal and BA! The final score was still 9 as the three objectives were achieved, giving a "B" rank for "a tale fit for the telling".
This last time was a more challenging and hence more enjoyable game. But then afterwards, I spotted that Eyes Peeled was the only time you could shoot a target who was engaged. So I think I have some questions to take back to the playtest group.
I wanted an Amy figure for the scenario but she wasn't included in the A-Team pack I bought, so I converted Crooked Dice's "Ripley from Alien" character. I took detail off the uniform and reduced the massive space gun to something more resembling an assault rifle.
I made up cards again with Nandeck which I could use to record the wounds taken with some plastic hearts I recently bought (originally sticky-backed for craft projects but an overnight soak in some white spirit removed that):
The objectives for the mission were as follows:
Nuevo Paraíso reflected a typical Mexican town in a typical A-Team episode:
...but of course not with the typical stereotyped A-Team baddies. This time the soldiers of fortune had a Tentacled Alien and her babies to contend with:
I used some Villain and Location characteristics from the Perilous Tales rules:
The threat markers were set up in the Encircling pattern and the boys headed into the town.
A baby alien was quickly revealed, dealing 3 wounds to BA, who defeated it in hand-to-hand combat the following turn. A second alien attacked Hannibal whilst Face and BA fell to the ground following a minor earthquake.
With the wounds piling up, the A-Team started to take a more cautious approach, using their last action of each turn to get their Eyes Peeled, so they could attack the aliens as they were revealed before they had the opportunity to ambush the revealer.
This proved almost too successful. The Mother and the remaining aliens were finished off either as soon as they appeared or immediately in the following turn. By the 6th turn, the A-Team had killed all the Villains and exited the playing area a couple of turns later. Three objectives completed at 3 points each plus a further one for not losing Hannibal and another for not losing any team member, gave a final score of 11, ranking "A" - "a truly heroic performance!"
I reset the scenario and downgraded Face and Murdock to Teammates rather than Leaders and tried again, this time with an Aggressive deployment of threat markers. But got a similar result.
I then wondered whether I was interpreting the Eyes Peeled rule incorrectly as you are not allowed to shoot targets who are already engaged, as the newly spawning villains always are. This was a much more challenging game, although bad luck played a part, with four "From The Shadows" results on the threat checks spawning an additional 4 baby aliens during the course of the game. The Villains were defeated in the end but only at the expense of losing both Hannibal and BA! The final score was still 9 as the three objectives were achieved, giving a "B" rank for "a tale fit for the telling".
This last time was a more challenging and hence more enjoyable game. But then afterwards, I spotted that Eyes Peeled was the only time you could shoot a target who was engaged. So I think I have some questions to take back to the playtest group.
