I've been planning for this campaign since 2022 (!!!) but I've never gotten down to play it, until now when I decided to get off my butt and just DO IT by painting the minis needed to play.
BACKGROUND:
Bosche Station is a hot, dusty trading outpost near the Mos Entha Crossroads — halfway between the cities of Mos Espa and Bestine on Tatooine. Situated at a three-way junction of sand trails, Mos Entha serves as a waypoint for moisture farmers, prospectors, mercenaries and anyone trying to get from one place to another across the Dune Sea.
Control of the Crossroads shifts constantly between the rival crime families that run operations on Tatooine: the Hutts, the Black Sun syndicate and local upstart gangsters. With no single authority having a firm grip, the Crossroads is a haven for smuggling, illegal gambling and all manner of shady deals. Rumours are also starting to circulate that the Pyke Syndicate — sensing an opportunity with the collapse of the Empire — are now sniffing around Mos Eisley. Will Mos Espa also be in their sights?
The region around the Crossroads is less settled than the areas closer to Mos Espa and Bestine. Ancient ruins dot the desert wastes, remnants of the long-vanished Tusken Raiders or other mysterious peoples who once dwelled on this desolate world. The few Jawas and lone Tuskens who still roam the Dune Sea avoid these ruins, believing them to be haunted.
Recently, off-world archeologists have commenced excavations at one set of ruins several days journey from the Crossroads. What they might find buried in the sands could unlock secrets about Tatooine's forgotten past. But dangers abound on the desert frontier where they work — from sandstorms and krayt dragons to the unfriendly natives who see them as trespassers.
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Jyn Odan and her crew about the independent Mu-2 Class Shuttle Ataraxia were flying along the Corellian Run, a trade route near the Arkanis Sector, when they were impacted by two simultaneous happenings.
The first was: coming out of hyperspace, they were caught in a fight between some breakaway Imperial forces and a Corellian corvette of the New Republic.
The Ataraxia was caught in the crossfire and damaged. They headed for the nearest planet: Tatooine.
At the same time, they caught a distress call from the Corellian Corvette : Urgent -- Code 3-2-7 *static* near Tatooine. Code 3-2-7 must be recovered at all *static*! Reward - *static* (Repeats) To all New Republic *static* Urgent - - -
The damaged shuttle crash landed not far from the outskirts of Mos Entha, but the crew had already taken off in smaller pods and now Captain Jyn has to locate her missing crew members.
Now a local commander - Captain van Tam - part of the remnant of Imperial forces on Tatooine has sent patrols to investigate the crash area. Stormtroopers are scouring the area and brutally rounding up the other survivors.
Can Jyn locate her colleagues and rescue them before it is too late? ...
(This mission starts off atypically with only one figure: the leader. They have to make a search and locate the rest of the crew who could be captured, wounded, in hiding, or worse: dead.)
#1 ENEMY PATROL
Jyn starts off by searching the nearest likely place… (There are 4 numbered spots to conduct a Search although what is found may not necessarily be a missing crew member).
Undaunted by the odds, Jyn sets of… and after dodging patrols and overcoming odds and near brushes with Stormtroopers, manages to locate her second in command: Dayala, a Trogrutan Force wielder.
(Note: I forgot if I move more than 6” I can’t perform any other action except Brawl, which is automatic anyway if I’m in base contact with an enemy. Also the challenge to locate Dayala was one of the most extreme ones: 3 successes! However, I forgot a challenge to pass a Plot Point doesn’t entail taking damage. It does however mean you take more time to perform the challenge. So good thing I passed on my first try with Jyn's 3d10's!)
However, they are not unobserved and a patrol quickly makes it to their location.
Dayala manages to use the Force to cloud the minds of the Stormtroopers: These aren’t the survivors you’re looking for… move along now. Then she collapses, exhausted.
Heartened by finding her sidekick, Jyn and Dyala split up in search of more crew members.
After dodging more patrols and near misses, (Jyn and Dyala were wounded but managed to recover later) both of them fumble their activations. They have to face a peril each and what do you know, their activations ended! That made up for me taking an action on Turn 1 after Jyn moved more than 6”.
Jyn manages to locate 2 crew members: Biff (a human male) and Kano (Aqualish male) after dodging some patrols. (Kano is extra shiny and wet-looking because I've yet to apply matte varnish on top of the extra glossy Army Painter Quickshade Dip.)
Dayala however is more limited in that she only had 2d6’s to perform most of her non-combat actions and what do you know… she fumbles even the most basic challenge, needing only 1 success to pass! Ugh 🤦🏻♂️
Anyway, Dayala finally manages to get a Colleague Plot Point… only to have the patrols move all the way towards her, ensuring that she needs to hunker down in order to not be observed.
So Dayala moves away to the next Search point and tries to whittle down the Campaign Deck so that Jyn can tackle the Colleague Plot Point instead.
Dayala manages to pin one patrol in place and get rid of another one, so all they have to contend with is 2 roving patrols. One is still sniffing around the crashed shuttle, so all Jyn really needs to worry about is 1 roving patrol.
This enables Jyn to locate another crew member: Mak (Bothan male).
But that was it as time ran out. Still missing: Saskia, the human female tech of the Ataraxia.
Mission Reward: +3 Rep. (Because I was playing solo, the Campaign Deck didn’t churn fast enough and I didn’t manage to collect any Resources.)
NOTE: I did try to have Biff locate a crew member but with only 1d6 to play with for any non-combat challenge, he flubbed it and was Wounded. Thankfully he was an Ally so only went Down instead of immediately Out and he was able to recover 2 turns later. After that, I sidelined both Biff and Kano since they only had 1d6 to play with for all non-combat challenges. Storywise, they were tired, wounded, etc. after the crash and weren’t fit to do anything else.
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That ended the first mission of my re-skinned China Station campaign.
Playing this just reminded me just how much fun Pulp Alley is, even solo. I much prefer playing 2 player Pulp Alley (the game really comes alive then) but it was still interesting. The random patrol movements threw me curve balls all the way. And the “Free Pass” card drawn when Jyn and Dayala had to encounter a patrol was just hilarious! Pure serendipity!
I will need to prepare a few more painted minis for NPC/Plot Points for the next mission: Breakout! where I need to go and rescue my captured crew member.
It's also fun to be able to use an LLM to do background research to re-skin the original China Station campaign to the Star Wars universe. I have the minis from Imperial Assault. I severely lack the requisite pulp minis to run an authentic China Station game.
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