Perilous Tales: Storm Warning

 With my wife Gina's encouragement, I got the table set up tonight for another game of Perilous Tales from Planetsmasher Games. With the release of the rulebook at long last, a return to this solo game was long overdue. Somehow I'd gone more than a year without playing Perilous Tales, with the last game being cartel soldiers vs. gargoyles in July 2023. 

I set up an urban table with a battlemat from Mats by Mars and a mix of 3D-printed and precolored MDF buildings. Selecting my villain, I got inspired and added a few ponds from Monster Fight Club to represent flooding in the streets. A few vehicles and some scatter rounded things out, and my heroes would be the five armed civilians I posted yesterday. Perilous Tales now offers team templates you can apply to a group of heroes, and I chose "Thrown Together" -- the leader can no longer use the "Pep Talk" or "Call Over" actions, since the rest of the crew doesn't have a history of trust with them, but the group gets +1 victory point when the game is over and results tallied. 

I chose objectives, instead of generating them randomly, and gave myself "Call For Help," "Obtain Evidence," and "Escape." So my heroes needed to reach the pay phone and call for help, take a photo of the Villain, and then escape off the villainous board edge. 

And who is that villain? The Swamp Fiend, here portrayed by a Reaper Bones Gator-Man. He'd previously appeared in another game of Perilous Tales. Tonight, he was less a Swamp Fiend and more a Sewer Fiend. 

With the streets of Anyville, USA flooding and a torrential storm rolling in, Jean-Baptiste and a handful of fellow citizens cautiously began to investigate strange shadowy shapes lurking and mysterious bellowing noises. 

Unfortunately, Cliff the mail carrier triggered a profoundly noxious belch of trapped gas from the sewer (peril, "Putrid Stench") that hung over the bingo hall. As he staggered back from the smell, he drew the attention of two shadowy figures...

An alligator and, worse, a hulking alligator-humanoid hybrid, lunged. Cliff was dead before he hit the ground. Jean-Baptiste shot the alligator twice, killing the brute, while Larry took a shot at the Sewer Fiend. Billy Ray, the mechanic, charged towards the Sewer Fiend with his wrench, and Maria tried to skirt along the front of bingo hall to reach the pay phone to call for help. 

Another alligator spawned and attacked Maria; she managed to slip out of combat and try to make it to the pay phone despite being injured. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste tried to take a photo of the Sewer Fiend but fumbled it, and Billy Ray tried his best against the Sewer Fiend in hand to hand combat. 

With Maria in trouble, Larry tried to make it to the pay phone as well; more alligators spawned, and Maria was quickly eaten while Larry (possibly protected by the stench of BO and despair radiating off his stained undershirt) managed to make it to the pay phone.

Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste managed to snap a photo of the Sewer Fiend and tried to sneak past it to safety.

"Yeah, hi, I'd like ta report some big bitch gator-man in downtown Anyville..." Larry's phone call was interrupted by a humanoid figure in white coveralls and a respirator emerging from the shadows.

"The experiment must not be interrupted," the figured intoned in a muffled voice. 

"This just ain't my day," Larry thought to himself as the alligators convened on him.

(I needed to spawn two additional minions when Larry called for help, but all my painted crocs were already on the table, so I improvised. What experiment is he talking about?)

A second coverall-clad figure appeared in the doughnut shop and began silently observing Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste gave him the slip and managed to take only a glancing hit from the charging Sewer Fiend. Escaping from combat, Jean-Baptiste took off running for safety. But will it be enough?

So let's add up those victory points, shall we? Jean-Baptiste successfully took a photo of the Sewer Fiend and was alive at the end of the game, so that's 3. He escaped off the villainous board edge, so that's another 1. We called for help and not everyone was dead at the end of the game, so that's another 1. And my leader was alive at the end of the game, that's another 1. And +1 VP for the "Thrown Together" team trait. So that's a score of 7, which is "Adequate!"

I always enjoy Perilous Tales, and I'm so glad to see Mike Hutchinson return to it and put out a finished version. I like the addition of team templates, and I like that Perils are now officially randomly determined instead of tied to specific battlefields. I miss some of the Villains that didn't make it into the final book, but I can recognize the utility of restricting it to 10; maybe there will be a supplement at some point to bring back villains like the Blob, Triffids, the Witch and the Robot Master. 

The idea to have the streets be flooded - even if it was largely just a cosmetic thing - came from my favorite horror movie of the last decade, 2019's CRAWL. A fairly "simple" but well-done killer animals film, it's the story of a woman and her father trapped in a rapidly-flooding house during a hurricane, menaced by voracious alligators in their efforts to reach safety. Once I knew I wanted a city streets battlefield and I'd be facing alligators, I immediately thought of CRAWL and nearly derailed my plans to play tonight in favor of giving it a rewatch. 

Gina has suggested I keep the table set up and play another game tomorrow - and yes, I agree, I did marry very well! I've left the scenery in place, though whether I get a game in tomorrow night or not remains to be seen. It might have to wait until Friday. 

Either way, this was an evening really well spent, I'm happy to be playing Perilous Tales again and I'm very happy with the finished rules. I highly, highly recommend taking this game for a spin.