Aftermath at the Tomb of Shezmu the Slayer...

Mongo's Avengers scour the ruins...

The Sky Pirates find the Scepter in the Obelisk

The Scourge and Jackie Chan square off!

The Man Who Laughs gets pinned!

Snakes! I hate snakes!

The Spanish shooting gallery.

Snakes again!

Hiyahh!

Roxanne's last stand against The Hunter!

Three players were given a chance to test the upcoming Where Heroes Dare! rules from Iron Ivan Games in a playtest game. Each player was tasked with creating a Pulp team worth 700 pts for the Showdown at the Tomb of Shezmu the Slayer. In Where Heroes Dare! there are three types of Characters that make up the teams; Leads who are Heroes or Villains of the story, Companions who are the confidants and right hand men of the Leads, and Supporters who are the minions and allies.
Each player took a very different approach using the rules. Rlee used his points to purchase 13 Characters, 1 Lead, 2 Companions, and 10 Supporters. Sky Pirate Al used his points to purchase 1 Lead, 1 Companion and 8 Supporters, and Mongo used all 700 points on just 4 Leads. Mayhem ensued…
The game started with each team searching for the scepter of Shezmu in the ruins of his tomb somewhere in the Lost Valley of the Pharoahs. Scattered amongst the ruins were the porters of the Professor’s expedition as well as artifacts and phylacteries that serve as Dare! locations in the game. Each time a Character comes into contact with the Dare! location he makes a Dare! test to see he activates a Dare! from the Dare! card deck. The Dare! cards contain everything from sandstorms to clues for the players to find or activate.
The Game begins. Rlee’s Spanish Police advance up the rocky cliffs toward the top of the ruins with Jackie Chan taking the lead using his Man of the Wild Schtick to move quickly through the terrain. Schticks represent abilities that the Characters possess to create the feel of the Pulp and Movie Serial genre. Al’s Sky Pirates fanned out and moved toward the Temle doors as a Sandstorm began to blow through the ruins. Mongo’s Avengers quickly set about searching the Dare! locations inside the ruins with cobras and chanting found inside the walls. The Spaniards took up firing positions on the high ruin walls as a lead was exchanged between themselves and Mongo’s Avengers. The Man Who Laughs used his Eerie Laugh Schtick to scare the Spaniards back earning a reprieve as The Hunter turned on his Disappearing Belt and charged out the ruined doorways into the Sky Pirates that were searching ruins. Bloody melee ensued with The Hunter issuing a challenge to Roxanne, the Captain of the Sky Pirates, and cut her down leaving the remainder of her group to fight on leaderless. The Hunter made quick work of the remaining pirates until the other group of pirates, who were attack by flesh eating scarabs, brought their guns to bear on the Hunter pinning him and eventually taking him out of action. Jackie Chan jumped down into the ruins to fight The Scourge mano y mano only to be torn down in close combat. The Man Who Laughs scaled the ruin walls to search a Dare! location only to be shot down by the Spanish Captain. Finally the remaining Sky Pirates found a lock mechanism on the Obelisk which when several Dare! tests were made, yielded the lost Scepter of Shezmu ending the game.
Players then rolled for their Characters that were taken out of action on the Peril Table to see what afflictions they would suffer and those who came out of battle unscathed rolled on the Fortune table.
All in all the game went very well lasting roughly 2 hours with a lot of fast paced action. Players commented that creating the teams were incredibly easy without a lot of paperwork and that they liked that there was virtually no record keeping needed in the game. Next test will show the vehicle, robot, and zombie rules in action and then it will be a short span before release.

To be continued…

Doc