Drew, 01 March 2013

ATZ in a phone booth again – I like working with the small maps, they’re very convenient for me. Having escaped from Capt. Flack’s team, Drew’s crew need to tool up again. That means it’s back into town… A Discover encounter (p. 41) in daylight. There are 3d6+3 = 14 zombies (p. 29) who are placed 12” away as follows (p. 30): 6 towards the top of the table, 5 towards the left, 3 towards the bottom.

As the table is so small, many of the zombies have to be moved around clockwise until they fit (p. 30). This puts inside a building with no way out, but Our Heroes have to get lucky sometimes.

Drew: Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler.

Vince: Officer, Rep 4, Runt.

Sylvia: Veteran, Rep 5, Brawler.

 

The weather is starting to improve a little, and not before time for our heroes, who have been living rough most of the winter and are feeling somewhat the worse for wear. Hungry and weaponless, they decide to try their luck in a nearby city.

Start of Turn 1

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 3, zombies 5. Zombies fail to activate.

Walking up the main drag into town brings Drew & Co. to an abandoned car, which they ignore, knowing how zombies are attracted by noise. Passing it, they see that the building on their left has no doors on-map (probably rubbled) so they turn right towards the nearest door and prepare to stack up for entry. No reason to fast move yet.

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 6, zombies 5. Nobody moves.

Turn 3

Activation: Humans 5, zombies 4. Both activate, but none of the zombies on the map can get to the humans.

While Sylvia scans the area behind the team for unseen threats, Drew and Vince get ready to break in the door.

“On three. One… two…”

Turn 4

Activation: Humans 4, zombies 1. Both activate.

Drew and Vince kick down the door and barge inside, improvised melee weapons at the ready.

I now roll 2d6 on the table on p. 43 to see what’s in the building. 7 + 2 (urban area) –1 (daytime) = 8; 1/2d6 zombies, which turns out to be three. I now roll for surprise; 1d6+3 (one per zombie) = 8, 1d6+Rep for the humans; both roll a 6 so Drew gets 11, Vince gets 10. I also roll for Sylvia just in case, she gets 8.

“Crap! Zombies! Kill ‘em!” shouts Drew.

“Aren’t they already dead?” Sylvia mutters; but no-one can hear her over the screams and hacking.

Drew rolls 6d6 in melee, 1d6 per Rep and an extra one for being a Brawler. Vince rolls 4d6. The zeds get 1d6 each, so getting up close and personal is an acceptable risk with three of them. Drew takes on two zombies and splits his dice evenly between them rolls 3, 3, 4 and gets one success against the one on the left, which rolls 4 and gets one success; that zombie is Out Of the Fight, but ass per p. 35 this escalates to Obviously Dead for a zombie. Drew gets 5, 5, 6 and 3 successes against the one on the right, which 2 and gets no successes – scratch one zombie. Vince rolls 1, 1, 4, 6 and gets two successes, his opponent rolls 1 and gets none – another zed down.

“I can hear some screams and hacking – a definite struggle…”

I decide the building is a small shop, and roll 2d6 + 2 (urban area) for loot. A 9 means we found some food, not unreasonable for a shop.

Turns 5-10

We move up to the next building. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This took five turns because of some really sucky activation dice. Lucky none of the surviving zombies can get at us.

“Two more zombies!” warns Vince, but these are quickly smashed down by the experienced detectives, who find more food inside.

“That one must have been here a while, it’s gone green!”

Turns 11-13

We break into the third building, but it is vacant. Searching it, we find medical supplies – must be a pharmacist.

Turn 14

We move off the board, richer than before.

Campaign Book-Keeping

The team started with nothing; it now has 2 units of food and 1 unit of medical supplies, leaving 58 and 19 respectively in the urban area they are now scavenging in. The total cargo value is 2.5, which is quite a bit less than the team can carry – fortunate, as we have no base in which to store it. The team consumes one unit of food each per month, so we don’t have enough – luckily there are 4 encounters per month in an urban area, so we can go shopping again before hunger starts to reduce our Rep.

Drew and Vince have now met all the requirements to choose a class – see at least 3 zombies, kill one, and fight an armed human (p. 5). Sylvia still has to kill a zombie. Drew and Vince decide they will be Survivors rather than Gangers, and will use those reaction tables rather than the Civilian ones in future.

Drew and Vince both succeeded in this encounter, and roll for improvement (p. 61); no change for either of them. Sylvia failed (didn’t kill any zombies) and rolled a 1 for improvement, so her Rep is now 4. The team is now:

Drew: Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler.

Vince: Rep 4, Runt.

Sylvia: Rep 4, Brawler.

Lessons Learned

• The yellow Cry Havoc! maps work a lot better for batrep photos than the more naturally-coloured Wydraz ones. I should switch back to those.
• The decision that I could place zombies somewhere they couldn’t get out meant that the team could deal with those they encountered piecemeal, and made it a lot easier for them to clear the board.
• To avoid characters losing Rep after an encounter, I should have them take it in turns to look for resources and fight – everybody has to find one to avoid the chance of losing Rep. I forgot to let Sylvia do that this game.
• This session took a couple of minutes to set up and knock down, and about half an hour to play. I’m content with easing back into the game slowly as I haven’t played for a while. It used three human figures and 21 zombie pawns. (This last statistic because a common question on the boards is “How many zombie figures do I need?”)

One lesson I hope readers are learning is that you don’t need beautiful figures and terrain to have fun, nice though they look. As Ed says, just play the game!

Credits

Figures and pawns by eM4. Map by Wydraz. Rules by Two Hour Wargames.

Drew, February 2013

After last week’s flashback, we return to Drew, Sylvia and Vince, last seen captured by Captain Flack and his troops. ATZ doesn’t really cover escapes from captivity, so I press Warrior Heroes into service and set up the usual village from Cry Havoc! at 2” per hex.

Turn 0: Durance Vile

Drew and colleagues have been locked up in a room in a small group of buildings, while their captors ponder their next move.

“Find anything useful?” asks Drew, as the group gathers to review options.

“Got some allen keys,” says Sylvia. “Might be able to pick the lock with those.”

This will be a challenge (p. 51-52), with failure meaning the guards are alerted. Sylvia rolls 2d6 vs Rep 5: 2, 6 so pass 1d6. As this is the first time she has passed 1d6 on this challenge, she can immediately roll again, but passing 1d6 again will count as failure. She rolls 1, 2 and picks the lock.

There are no mounts or vehicles in evidence as the group tiptoes out of the building. (Roll 6 for mounts.) It is dark, though. (Roll 3 for time of day.)

There’s not much point rolling activation yet, so off they trot.

• Turn 1: Move, alarm not sounded (die roll 2). We’re not fast-moving yet as I want to see if anything is outside first.
• Turn 2: Move, alarm not sounded (die roll 4).
• Turn 3: Getting close to the edge of the board now so I think it’s worth fast moving. As group leader Drew rolls 2d6 vs Rep 5: 2, 5 = pass 2d6, so everyone double moves. However, the troops are alerted (die roll 1, which is less than or equal to the turn number – official modification from the forum). A 2d6 roll of 6 means the forces are equal. Rolling 1d6 for each of the three enemy figures means one appears 12” behind them, and the other two enter from the same table edge our heroes wish to leave by. Visibility is only 12” at night, but both groups have someone within 12” so it’s time to dance. I place the figures as seems to make most sense on the map.

Turn 4

Activation: Boxcars – a random event! Rolling on the table on p. 52 I get 8 – random character opens fire at nearest building, at “shadows”. Conveniently, there are 6 figures on the table, and one of the troops opens fire at the nearest building, which is the one his buddy is just leaving. The troops are too far apart to see each other, but I think the lone trooper should take a Received Fire test. He rolls 2d6 vs Rep 4 and passes 0d6, so he Ducks Back into cover.

“Down!” calls Drew, softly. “Someone coming up the path!”

“One behind us too,” says Vince.

The night lights up with muzzle flash as someone on the path fires at the building behind them. The soldier Vince can see ducks back behind the nearest wall and yells “Stand to! Stand to!” at the top of his voice.

“I guess even the SAS blow it sometimes,” mutters Sylvia to herself.

Of course, this is ATZ, so I roll to see if the gunfire attracts zombies. One appears right next to the troops on the path. Oops.

End of Turn 4: Whose side are you on?!?

Turn 5

Activation: PCs 5, troops 4, zombies 6. Everybody except the zombies activates. Drew urges his people to fast move, which they do, and all of them clear the board. The two soldiers on the path focus on the immediate threat and make short work of the zombie even though it is behind them – they just have too many melee dice for it to have a chance. The trooper in the building stays there, waiting to be rallied. I roll for pursuit but there is none.

“Come on!” shouts Drew, “Move!” The three detectives run off into the dark, weaponless but free.

-o0o-

Some hours later, just after dawn, Captain Flack finishes berating his squad.

“Expected better,” he concludes. “Still, no casualties, could’ve been worse.”

“Should we go after them, skipper?” asks Pugh. Flack looks at him thoughtfully for a moment.

“No,” he decides. “Three less mouths to feed. Better things to do.” He raises his voice and gestures to the vehicles. “Location compromised; move out in twenty.”

Drew, December 2012

I gots me the zombie-killin’ sweats agin, so it’s back to All Things Zombie: Better Dead Than Zed.

Reed & Co. having been wiped out on 19th January 2013, I pick one of the other groups rather than generate a new Star; Detective Sergeant Malcolm Drew.

• Drew (Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler, BA Pistol)

We know what Drew was up to in January 2013 (getting his crew shot up by Captain Flack and the Camberwick Green SAS), so I decide to run Day One for him and then advance to February 2013 in the next post, so as to break myself back in gently after a few months off.

DAY ONE

Drew is sitting at home watching TV with a cold beer. There’s not much else in the fridge since his wife left him – “Good riddance,” he mutters to himself as he takes another swig – and the general bachelor disarray is enhanced by a selection of weightlifting equipment. Have to pass the time in the evenings somehow, and Drew senses beer is not the answer in the long term.

The ‘phone rings, and he answers. It’s the local cop shop, calling in off-duty officers to help with what they still think are riots.

“Hello…. Yes, I’m watching it on the news now… OK, I’ll be at the station in twenty.”

For the first session I’ll downgrade Drew to a Rep 4 Civilian, because he works out a lot.

Drew pauses to throw on something more suitable than a beer-stained track suit and grab his gun, a BA Pistol. He looks at the beer, then at the car keys, and shrugs. “What the Hell,” he mutters. He grabs the keys and heads out, locking the door behind him as if he will ever come back; as if it matters whether someone steals his last beer and his barbells.

I don’t think I’ll need a table laid out for this; let’s see how far we get just on dice. Destination police station, arriving by vehicle; I roll 2d6 vs Rep (4) on the table on p. 64 – 5, 4 is pass 1d6, but since this is the first location and Drew’s Rep is greater than the location number, this counts as pass 2d6. He arrives normally, in 20 minutes as promised. Arriving at the bottom edge of the imaginary 3’ x 3’ table, Drew must get to a 6” square area in the centre, which is the station. That puts him 15” from the objective – call it two moves at 8” per turn.

This early in the outbreak an urban area counts as suburban, but there are no zombies on the table initially.

Turn One

Activation: Drew 2, Terrified Civilians (there are 12 of ‘em) 1. All activate.

There’s a huge crowd outside the station as Drew pulls up. There’s obviously no chance of getting the car through them, so he parks, locks the vehicle, and moves in. As a detective, he’s in civilian clothes and not obviously a police officer. He starts pushing his way through the mob to get in.

Drew must fight all 12 civilians in melee to get past them. I won’t bore you with the numerous dice rolls, suffice to say that a Rep 4 Brawler has to be really unlucky to get KO’d by a Rep 3 Civilian, and Drew wasn’t unlucky enough for that to happen.

Turn Two

Activation: Drew 5, Civilians 2. Since the activation dice total 7 there is a chance of zombies. Two zombies appear, and roll 1 for activation; one towards the top of the table and one to the right, both 12” away; that means one of them is actually inside the station – oops. The other zombie uses its turn to move 6” towards the nearest human, namely Drew. It is now 6” from Drew, so as a police officer he now takes the Zed or No Zed test on p. 33. 2d6 vs Rep 4: 2, 5 = pass 1d6. The zombie charges and Drew takes the Being Charged test; this early in the outbreak I don’t think he will use his pistol, so he uses his Star status to select “cannot fire but will melee normally” – pass 1d6.

Drew is a Rep 4 Brawler so rolls 5d6 vs 3: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 = 2 successes. The zombie rolls 1d6 vs Rep 4: 6. Drew scores two more successes than the zombie; it is Obviously Dead.

Drew now sees what the panicked crowd is fleeing from; a bloodied travesty of a human being, muttering “Braaiiiiins…” Looks like someone on drugs, he thinks. It claws at him ineffectively; this is no time for half measures, and Drew is not in an entirely stable frame of mind, so he drops it with a few well-placed blows. Time enough to worry about the brutality charges later; there’s gunfire coming from inside the station.

I decided not to play out the scene inside the station in detail, but ruled that one of the armed officers panicked and opened fire.

Turn Three

Activation: Drew 5, Civilians 5, Zombies 2. The zombies activate; the one clawing its way around the police station continues the way it was going, starting to move away from Drew as it doesn’t yet have Line Of Sight to him.

Turn Four

Activation: Drew 2, Civilians 6, Zombies 4. The zombie inside the station activates first, then Drew.

Drew sprints inside, drawing his pistol, to find the zombie charging him. He opens fire, figuring that if other officers have started shooting, there is something seriously amiss.

Enough pussyfooting around. Drew chooses to pass 2d6 on the Being Charged test and opens up with the BA pistol. 1d6+4 = 5 = miss. Oops. However, he can melee normally, passes 4d6 and the zombie is Obviously Dead.

The desk sergeant emerges cautiously as Drew kicks the body.

“Talk to me, Harrison,” he says. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno. We took this guy in on suspicion of drugs, then he went wild and starting biting people. Never seen anything like it. The batons did nothing, so somebody fired – I don’t know who. Sylvia took Vince, Larry and Kate out to the Bridger place; she thought if anyone knew about this new drug Bridger would – he probably made it.”

“And?”

“She called for backup just before things went crazy here. Everybody else is out dealing with the riots, so you’re it.”

“Just me, huh?”

“Hey – one riot, one ranger.”

28 Months Later: Reed – 19 January 2013

“Wilf and Ernie left us a couple of days ago; we didn’t actually fight, but we reached a terse agreement to split the food and other stuff evenly, and they took off in one of the 4x4s. The group hasn’t been the same since we lost Jules and Annie. Connie and Nick have stayed with me, but we don’t talk much any more.” – Reed’s journal.

Another discovery mission in daylight, as Reed & Co. try their luck in the nearest town, looking for supplies and maybe a new group member or two. This mission took just over half an hour, and used three human figures and 10 zombies.

I set up the group one move onto the board, then dice for zombies; there turn out to be eight of them, bunched up as usual.

Start of Turn 1: "Zombies, Reed! Fight or run?"

Turn 1

Initiative: Player 2, zombies 5. Reed rolls to Fast Move, getting an extra d6 as he is a Born Leader; he rolls 2, 4, 5 vs Rep 3and passes 1d6. Everyone on his team within 4″ of him takes the same result. Reed & Co fast move towards the closest building, which is behind them to their right, and stack up around the door, waiting to burst in on their next activation.

End of Turn 1: "In here, quickly!"

Turn 2

Initiative: Player 3, zombies 3. Nobody moves.

Turn 3

Initiative: Player 1, zombies 1. Nobody moves.

Turn 4

Initiative: Player 1, zombies 2. The zeds close up. Reed & Co enter the building, and roll 2d6 (3), -1 for it being daytime, +2 for being in an urban area for a total of 4. This indicates there are 1/2d6 humans inside, but the die comes up 1, so nobody’s home. I decide this is a retail store and everybody rolls 2d6 for loot, adding +2 because it’s an urban area. Reed gets a 13, and finds a pistol (at last!); Connie gets a 10, followed by a 4, and finds some luxury goods; Nick gets a 14, which unfortunately can’t be The Cure, so I give him a pistol instead, that being the best weapon you can find in a normal shop.

Turn 5

Initiative: Player 3, zeds 6. Reed takes a gutsy decision to fast move across the path of the zeds into the next building. He rolls 2, 3, 4 and passes 2d6, giving him a 16″ move, which everyone else also gets thanks to his Born Leader. (Man, I love that attribute!) Even deducting 2″ for going through a door, that’s easily enough. I roll 2d6 (9) -1 +2 as before, and get a 10; 1/2d6 zombies inside.

Reed decides to melee the zombies, as the group should be able to take two of them down, and gunshots bring more. He rolls 2, 2, 5 vs Rep (3), using his extra die again, and passes 2d6. In we go. Reed rolls 4d6 vs 3 in melee, scoring 2, 4, 4, 6 and passing 1d6; his opponent rolls a 1 on 1d6 and passes 1d6, so they are evenly matched; as you’ll see, this turns out to be irrelevant.

Connie rolls 1, 2, 3 vs 3 and passes 3d6; her opponent rolls 3 vs 3 and passes 1d6. Connie clearly bears a grudge and hacks the zombie to pieces.

Nick rolls 2, 4, 4 vs the zombie attacking Reed, passing 1d6. It can’t melee, having used its single die on Reed, so it goes down.

Now we loot the building, which I decide is a supermarket. Reed and Nick come up empty handed, but Connie finds some medical supplies.

End of Turn 5: "Eat sharpened spade, zombie!"

Turn 6

Initiative: Player 2, zombies 2. Nobody moves.

Turn 7

Initiative: Player 1, zombies 1. Nobody moves. This is happening a lot today.

Turn 8

Initiative: Player 6, zombies 1. The zeds close up, but as per the rules stop politely once they reach the door. Just as well, since I’ve made two bad tactical errors; first, I didn’t barricade the door behind me, so the zeds can just stroll in; secondly, we are all facing away from the door where they will barge in – I should have left at least one person facing the door to keep watch.

End of Turn 8: "They're behind you!" "Oh, no they aren't!" "Oh, yes they are!"

Turn 9

Initiative: Player 5, zombies 4. The zombies walk right in, up behind our heroes, and engage them in melee from the rear, which reduces their melee dice by two each. Oops.

Reed rolls 6, 2 vs 3 and passes 1d6. The zombie passes 1d6 also, so they are evenly matched. Connie and her zombie both pass 0d6 and are evenly matched. Nick passes 0d6, but his foe passes 1d6, and down he goes, Out Of the Fight. The player group now takes a Man Down test, but Reed chooses to pass 2d6 and they Carry On.

End of Turn 9: "Get 'em off me!"

Turn 10

Initiative: Player 5, zeds 1. Suffice to say that both Reed and Connie were overpowered by their zombie foes. All three Out Of the Fight, no-one to help them, and not even a Star can walk away from this. There’s a zombie feast, but no-one to see it.

End of Turn 10: Can you say "Total Party Kill?" I knew you could.

It’s the 22nd when the next human wanders into the supermarket looking for supplies. Stoner’s practiced eye sweeps the wreckage, and he recreates the struggle in his mind’s eye. The zombies are long gone, with their new recruits; but he pockets the bloodstained first aid kit. As he stoops to pick it up, he sees a discarded notebook under a cabinet. Intrigued, he fishes it out and dusts it off. Handwritten on the cover is the title: “Reed’s Journal”. He starts to toss it away, then thinks better of it; if nothing else, the paper could be useful. He stuffs it into his backpack and steps back outside, into the rain.

28 Months Later: Reed – 12 January 2013

“I could write more about the breakdown of government and technology over the last few days, but what is important to me at the moment is that we buried Annie and Jules today. Was it my fault? I don’t know. Was it my responsibility? Absolutely. This is how it happened…” – Reed’s Journal.

Reed & Co still need to go shopping. We’re starting to feel the lack of firearms. We have improvised two handed weapons, which have an impact of 2, but having to mix it up with the zombies in hand-to-hand is a bad approach, and it will get worse when we have to take on other survivors. So, it’s back into town. This will be a discovery scenario in daylight. Annie’s attributes were undecided, so I decide to give her a new one I shall call “First Aid”, meaning she can count as a nurse for purposes of recovery tests.

The party numbers four, so as per p. 29 there are 4d6+4 zeds when we enter the board. As usual when I enter the table from one edge, the zeds clump up as shown in the first picture…

Initial Setup: "Look out! Zombies!"

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 1 (activate), Zombies 6 (fail). Reed & Co move towards the nearest building, intent on searching it, which is also away from the zeds. On reflection, this is where things went wrong, tactically speaking. As our heroes are Rep 3 and the zeds are Rep 4, over the course of six turns on average the zeds will activate four times and move a total of 24″ towards us; the humans will activate three times and move 24″ at base move rate; and if we fail two activations in a row, which is not unlikely at this Rep, the zeds will be on us. The lesson learned is that the protagonists should fast move all the time, and I should also remember the rules for Born Leader, Athletic and the Leader Die, which between them would pretty much guarantee a double move each turn. Perhaps I would miss less of this stuff if I player more often, and before 10 at night…

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 2 (activate), Zombies 4 (activate and go first). The zeds start to close in while the humans continue to move towards the building, still not running.

End of Turn 2: "They're getting closer, Reed..."

Turn 3

Activation: Humans 5 (fail), zombies 4 (activate). The zombies continue to close in.

Turn 4

Activation: Humans 4 (fail) zombies 1 (activate). The zeds will get into melee this turn. When they are a short distance out, since zeds always Want To Charge, the humans take the Being Charged test. I use Reed’s free will (he is a Star) to pass 1d6, as retiring and hunkering down would be lethal. (Post-game note: Rereading the rules shows that hunkered down figures are invisible to those that caused them to flee, so had I chosen to pass 0d6 at this point we would all have got out alive, using the same approach I eventually got to in turn 9. Another tactical error.)

The zeds now close to melee. Nick and Annie have two zeds each, and Jules has three. They have to split their melee dice as evenly as possible between the combatants; each human has 4d6, except Reed who has 5d6. Nick rolls 1, 3 vs 3 against the first zombie, which rolls 4 vs 3 in return; since Nick has two more successes than the zombie, he kills it. Glossing over the detailed die rolls, Nick draws against his second zed, Jules kills two of hers but is knocked Out Of The Fight by the third, and Annie kills both of hers.

As Jules has fallen, we now need to take a Man Down test, but Reed uses his free will to pass 2d6 and his Born Leader to force everyone else to do likewise, so everyone Carries On in good order. I was too engrossed in the game to take a picture at this point.

Turn 5

Activation: Both sides roll 6, so we consult the event table and learn that the humans’ car is out of fuel. We’re on foot, so that’s no problem just yet – might be later, though.

Turn 6

Activation: Humans 2 (activate), zombies 4 (activate and go first). Jules is down, so all unengaged zombies which can move to her and feast. Those which can’t move around the flanks to engage the rest of the humans. (This was also an error, due to my thinking there was a stacking limit – there isn’t, there is no limit to how many zeds can pile into a feast.) As per p 31 I roll 1d6 to see how long Jules will occupy them; this turns out to be two turns. Meanwhile, elsewhere the melee continues; Reed faces off against three zeds, killing two and drawing against the third; Nick kills one, draws against another, and is knocked down and stunned by a third; Annie kills one but is knocked down and rendered Out Of the Fight by the second. This is going downhill fast.

Now it’s the humans’ turn, and Nick uses his activation to recover from stun before the zeds can pile in and feast on him. There is however a feast going on, so everyone takes the See The Feast test; Reed can’t use free will on this, but can use Born Leader to roll an extra die and force everyone to follow his lead. He rolls 1, 4, and 5, passes 1d6, and everyone ducks back into the nearest cover within 6″ (there is a crater nearby, which doesn’t show up well on the pictures, but that’s where they go) and take a Sanity Test: Rolls of 2, 2, and 1 mean Nick and Reed pass 2d6 and are stunned.

End of Turn 6: "Get 'em off me!"

Turn 7

Activation: Humans 2 (activate), zombies 3 (activate and go first). The zeds now pile in on Annie and Jules, whichever one is closer, and feast again. Annie will occupy them for 3 turns starting now, Jules will last until the end of this turn. Nick and Reed use this activation to recover from stun.

Turn 8

Activation: Humans 3 (activate), zombies 5 (fail). Reed uses his Born Leader to force passing 2d6 on a Wanting To Charge test, and he and Nick barrel into the zombies. (In game terms, it’s already too late, but from the figures’ viewpoint I figure Civilians wouldn’t just leave their friends, they’d try to do something about it; so in they go. By the time the protagonists switch to being Gangers or Survivors, they probably would just use this opportunity to slip away.) At least they have the sense to go for outnumbering the enemy in terms of dice count; Reed takes on two and kills them both, Nick drops all four of his dice on one zombie and kills it.

Turn 9

Activation: Humans 1 (activate), zombies 2 (activate and go first). Those zombies not already dead are feasting on Annie, so I decide a second See The Feast test is called for. This time Reed rolls 4, 5 and 6, passes 0d6, and he and Nick retire to the nearest cover within 12″ (the crater again) and hunker down.

At this point the game is over. The remaining zombie can’t see them, as it was what caused them to hunker down, so it will wander off in a random direction. The humans stay hunkered down until someone comes to rally them. So, I picture the other group members frantically searching for them until nearly nightfall, then finding them in shock, hiding in the crater and driven nearly mad by what they’ve seen. Camp will not be a happy place tonight.

End of Turn 9: "What, all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?"

This session took 90 minutes from start to end, including setup and packing away, and used four human figures and 14 zombies. As ever, THW rules are merciless in their punishment of bad tactics. Tonight’s lessons are: (1) Keep moving, fast; (2) use all your figures’ attributes to best advantage; (3) split the party into at least two groups, so that if one hunkers down the other can rally them.

28 Months Later: Captain Flack, January 2013

Exterior, day. A Land Rover pulls up outside a fence topped with razor wire. It’s hard to tell what this facility was, but judging by the wreckage and bloodstains, it’s something else now. Half a dozen soldiers pile out of the vehicle into a defensive perimeter. When he is satisfied that all is well, or at least as good as it’s going to get, the leader calls softly: “On me!” and they gather around him, eyes darting here and there in search of zombies.

“Right,” says Captain Flack (for it is he). “Cuthbert, McGrew – stay sharp, stay with vehicle. McGrew – stay awake this time; may have to leave in a hurry. Dibble, Pugh – no, not you, other one – secure line of retreat. Pugh, Grubb – with me. Questions?” There are none. Flack, Pugh and Grubb double time over to a shattered door, and dart inside a short hallway, past the half-eaten body of a security guard slumped over his desk, telephone still in hand to call for help that never came. At the end lies a lift shaft. The three force the doors open, and Grubb rigs a field expedient sling seat for them to lower themselves into the darkness below.

“Good,” says Flack. “Descend!”

Meanwhile, outside, Cuthbert has rolled back the canvas over the rear compartment and is scanning the area with his SAW. McGrew has his beret down over his eyes, arms crossed, feet up on the dashboard – clearly the unit’s “get-out artist”. Pugh and Dibble are checking the wire-enclosed area around the entrance for nasty surprises.

“So, Pugh,” asks Dibble. “What do you think we’re here to get?”

“I think this is where it all started – you know, the zombies. Stands to reason there’s a good chance of finding a cure here, too. If we can get it back to HQ, maybe the boffins can, you know, culture it or something. Make more.” Dibble snorts.

“If it exists. If it’s still here. If they’re still alive at HQ when we get back. If we get back.”

“Your trouble, Dibble, is you’re too optimistic for your own good.”

-o0o-

One of the things I love about ATZ is the continuous flow of scenario ideas it generates. Here we see Captain Flack, erstwhile adversary of Drew & Co., conducting a search of a secret underground laboratory a few weeks after the outbreak. Can you say “ATZ dungeon crawl?” I knew you could…

The squad (all protected, with assault rifles and flash-bangs):

• Captain Flack, Rep 5 Military. Born Leader, Stone Cold.
• Pugh, Rep 4 Military. Knifeman.
• Pugh, Rep 4 Military. Nerves of Steel.
• Barney McGrew. Rep 3 Military. Transporter.
• Cuthbert. Rep 4 Military. Athlete. Has a SAW instead of an assault rifle.
• Dibble. Rep 4 Military. Ambidextrous.
• Grubb. Rep 4 Military. Knifeman.

And we’re back in the ‘phone booth because (Dining) Table Mountain has got stuff on it. If this gets to be a habit I may shift to 15mm figures on smaller maps. This map is from one of the French expansion packs for Cry Havoc, and I’m counting one hex as 2″.

Capt. Flack’s orders are to search the underground facility (which I shall treat as a discover encounter inside a hospital) for The Cure. In a rural area such as this, we begin with 1/2d6 zombies per human, and I have 3 humans on the board. I roll 1, 3, 6 and halve the scores rounding down to get 0 + 1 + 3 = 4 zombies. I now roll 1d6 per zombie on the table on p. 30, and because of the rolls and the fact the play area is so small, the zombies clump up just out of Line Of Sight for our heroes.

Initial Setup: Flack, Grubb and Pugh enter the map from the lift shaft.

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 4, Zombies 5. Humans activate and zeds don’t. I expect this will be a lot easier with heavily armed and armoured Rep 5 troops, but who knows? Moving cautiously (no fast move) Flack’s team move up to room 6 and peer in through the bars. On such a small map I decide to treat each room as a separate building for encounter purposes rather than using the Large Buildings rules on pp 48-49. I roll 2d6 for the room, deduct 2 for a rural area, and add 2 for night-time as I reason that deep underground with the power out is more like night than day. On a modified score of 2, the room is empty. However, Flack can also see into another room, so I roll for that too. Unbelievable – a 3, so that is empty as well. Put on some creepy music and imagine the scene as the troopers’ flashlights sweep over the abandoned lab area.

End of Turn 1: "Cells with beds? An operating table? What the hell were they up to down here, Skipper?"

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 4, Zombies 2. Both activate but humans go first. Flack splits the team with hand signals to search the two empty rooms, using the table on p. 48. I decide to treat the area as urban for this purpose as otherwise there is no chance of finding The Cure. Room 6 turns up empty (roll of 5, +2 for urban = 7), and the larger room likewise (roll of 4, +2 for urban = 6). The zeds start shambling towards them.

End of Turn 2: "Did you hear someone say 'Braaaiiiins'?"

Turn 3

Activation: Humans 4, zombies 4; neither activates. The troops continue to search their areas, but so quietly that the zombies have no noise to home in on, and pause.

Turn 4

Activation: Humans 1, zombies 6. Humans move and zombies do not. Flack gathers his men by gesture and they creep off towards rooms 2-5; I pause the action when they round the corner as this gives Flack line of sight into rooms 2-4. Checking contents gives room 2 a 6 (1/2d6 humans with a 1 counting as 0, I roll 1, so nothing); room 3 gets a 5 on 2d6 (1/2d6 humans from the What’s Inside? table on p. 43) followed by 2 – a single human; room 4 gets a 7 on 2d6, 1/2d6 humans, followed by a 2 – one human. I roll for Who They Are (table p. 43) and get a pair of 4s – gangers. I then check the table on p. 9 for specifics, and get 2d6 rolls of 4 (Hard Case, Rep 5) and 11 (Wannabee, Rep 2). I roll 1d6 for each to see what weapons they have; the hard case rolls 2 and adds his Rep (5) for a 7, SMG; the wannabee rolls 4 and adds Rep 2 to get a 6, machine pistol.

I decide to go to the Meet & Greet table; Flack’s men are highly disciplined, and the gangers have seen flashlights earlier (which zeds don’t use) so they are not surprised.

Flack’s torch plays over the two figures in the cells, and the troops move stealthily closer. Everyone knows by now that making noise is a bad idea when there may be zombies around. Flack finishes his move with line of sight into room 5, so I check that as well; a 2d6 roll of 5 +2 -2 on the What’s Inside table (p. 43) shows another 1/2d6 humans; a roll of 3 gives us another one (I’m halving and rounding down, which isn’t explicitly in the Rules As Written but does match a roll of 1 being zero people). A 1d6 roll of 3 gives us another ganger, 2d6 on the Ganger table (p. 9) gives a 6 (Banger, Rep 4) and a further 1d6 roll 2 + Rep 4 = 6 shows he has a machine pistol. For simplicity, I decide to treat these as one group led by the hard case. As usual, rather than multiple rounds of rolling dice, I decide to go with whatever successes occur on the first set of rolls. The Gangers roll 3 d6 (5d6 for boss Rep 5, -2d6 for being gangers), and the soldiers roll 5d6 (Flack’s Rep). Flack rolls 1, 2, 2, 2, 6 vs 3 and passes 4d6; the hard case rolls 2, 4, 4 vs 3 and passes 1d6. I consult the table (p. 45) and see that as Flack has scored three more successes than the gangers, they will join the group under Flack’s control.

“They’re everywhere!” says the hard case. “You have to get us out of here, man!” Flack considers for a second. They are not very good civilians, but they are civilians, and he is sworn to protect even such as they. Also, real live people are scarce commodities. A few months’ training will turn them into useful group members.

“Come with me if you want to live,” says Flack. (Another beer for those playing Trope Bingo.) “Expect you searched. Find anything?” But searching has to wait for the next activation.

End of Turn 4: "Come with me if you want to live."

Turn 5

Activation: Humans 1, zeds 2. Both activate, zeds first as they rolled higher. They each shamble 6″ towards the nearest human by the most direct route, which means one rounds a corner and walks into Pugh’s flashlight beam. Pugh rolls 5, 3 vs Rep 4 and passes 2d6 on an In Sight test (quick reference charts). As a Military figure, this means he holds his fire because the zombies are more than 6″ away. He taps Grubb, who signals to Flack. Nobody takes the Zed or No Zed test (p. 33) because no-one is within 6″ of a zombie. Flack gives orders with curt gestures, which in the case of the gangers is limited to “shhh”, and steps into room 2. Time to search.

(I roll 2d6 four times for resources found, once for each room, adding 2 each time for location. 7 = nothing, 6 = nothing, 5 = nothing, 4, nothing. Oh well.)

End of Turn 5: "Skipper! We've got company!"

Turn 6

Activation: Humans 2, zombies 3. Both move, zeds first. It is at this point that I notice there are now zombies between Flack and the unsearched rooms, and also between Flack and the elevator. Oh dear. Pugh and Grubb are now within 6″ of zeds for the first time, so take the Zed Or No Zed test on the Military QRS. I now notice I have moved Flack more than 4″ from his men, so he can’t help them with the test. Ouch. Note to self, don’t build a Star around a concept and then move him so that he can’t use his powers! Pugh takes charge of himself and Grubb in this instance, and rolls 2d6 vs Rep 4: 3, 6 = pass 1d6. The zombie charges and Pugh and Grubb take the Being Charged test, 2d6 vs 4: 3, 5 = pass 1d6. This means they cannot fire but can melee normally – gunplay is a bad idea at this point, so I’m happy with the result. I’m not quite sure how to handle this, but after reading p. 31 a couple of times I think the zombies Pugh can see now move into contact.

Pugh has two zombies on him, each rolling 1d6 in melee. He has Rep 4 and an improvised melee weapon, giving him 5d6, but he must split those – 2d6 on one zed and 3d6 on another. The left hand zed rolls 2 vs 3: Pass 1d6. In return Pugh rolls 2, 5 vs 3: Pass 1d6. He’ evenly matched against that zed. The other one rolls 1d6 vs 3: 4, pass 0d6. Pugh rolls 1, 3, 3 vs 3 and passes 3d6. Since this is at least two more successes than the zed, he kills it. (Again, I’m counting successes from the first round of die rolls rather than following the Rules As Written.)

Flack and the gangers move up in support. Grubb moves into contact with Pugh’s zombie – this requires a Wanting To Charge test vs Rep 4, Grubb rolls snake eyes and goes into Hero Mode – as per p. 14 this means he automatically passes certain types of reaction test for the rest of the game. Having passed 2d6, Grubb charges into melee. He has 5d6 (Rep 4 with improvised weapon) rolls 1, 3, 3, 5, 6 vs 3 and passes 3d6; the zombie rolls 4 vs 3 and passes 0d6, so Grubb creams it.

End of Turn 6: "Silent (if blurry) kill!"

Turn 7

Activation: Humans 2, zombies 1. Both activate, humans first. The humans start to move around towards room 7, but this brings Grubb to the point where he can see another two zombies – In Sight test! He passes 1d6, and snap fires – oh dear, and things were going so well. Three shots, each with 1d6 + Rep, gives us totals of 7, 6 and 5. All of those miss.

Middle of Turn 7: "Grubb! How can you miss at that range?"

And this is the point where the family needs my attention, so I pause for the night. Fortunately, one side effect of doing these write-ups is that I have pictures to reconstruct the current state when next I can play.

-o0o-

Later… I dig everything back out of the cupboard and use photos intended for this blog to reconstruct the situation. I get hung up for a while on the question of whether the humans can carry on moving after Grubb has fired from his In Sight test, but decide that they can. As the group moves past the doorway into the largest chamber, Flack calls a warning and lobs a flash-bang into the room, aiming for the rear zombie’s location. He rolls 3, 5 vs Rep 5 and passes 2d6; the grenade table on p. 19 informs me that the grenade lands just where he wanted, so we move to the results table on p. 20. The zombies halt in place and lose their next activation. Flack rolls 1, 2 vs Rep 5, passes 2d6, so is unaffected. Pugh passes 2d6, as does the ganger. Grubb passes 1d6 and is stunned, as do the wannabee and (surprisingly) the hard case. The turn now ends and I dice for extra zombies drawn by the grenade (counts as 12 shots) and gunfire (3 shots). I roll 1d6 for each shot, and since this is a rural area each 6 generates a zombie. There are three of them, and the zombie placement table plus the rules for placement if they would be off-map drops all three in the place the first lot appeared. I realise that Flack and Pugh should’ve taken the Zed Or No Zed test, Flack does so now and passes 2d6, and uses his Born Leader to force Pugh and the gangers to do so as well. Nobody has to worry about that again.

End of Turn 7: "Skipper, are you sure that grenade was a good idea?"

Turn 8

Activation: Humans 5, zombies 6. Humans activate, zombies don’t. What a waste of a flash-bang. Oh well.

Grubb, the wannabee and the hard case spend this turn recovering. The rest pile into the largest room and lay into the zeds with improvised melee weapons. 14 melee dice vs 2 is not a fair fight, and that’s just how we like it; both zeds go down under a hail of boots, fists and rifle butts. I am restraining myself from picturing Flack yelling “Fix bayonets!” – maybe next time, it looks like it would work pretty well.

The humans search the room, and find two units of food.

End of Turn 8: "Zulus down!"

Turn 9

Activation: Humans 2, zeds 3; both move, zeds first.

The zeds move closer. The humans move through their current room towards rooms 1, 7 and 8, aiming to search the other room on the way. The formerly stunned stragglers fast move to close up, all rolling well enough on fast move to do so – yes, even the wannabee, astonishingly. Flack steps around a corner at the end of his move and takes an In Sight test on a zombie entering via the opposite doorway; he rolls 5, 6, 6 (extra die for being Stone Cold) and even the redoubtable Captain Flack passes but 1d6 and snap fires at the zombie. Scores of 11, 9, 9 mean that only one hit is achieved, but the Impact 3 assault rifle is a sweet tool and gives of its best even in these circumstances, placing the zombie Out Of the Fight. It’s now the end of the turn, so I roll for more zombies, but miraculously none arrive.

End of Turn 9: "Take that, vile flesh-eater!"

Turn 10

Activation: Zeds 3, humans 1. The zeds go first and shamble to the sound of the guns. They stop 4″ from Flack and he takes a Being Charged test, passing 2d6; he fires and melees normally. Three rounds rapid into the approaching zeds: Scores of 10, 8 and 7 grant one hit, which knocks down the nearest zombie.

The humans now move; calling “Follow me!”, Flack first passes his Wanting To Charge test, then barrels into the knocked-down zombie, with Pugh hot on his heels. The pair of them make short work of it. The room is now clear, so the gangers following on behind search it, finding a pistol.

Again, no zombies are generated for the gunfire. If you’re going to shoot, do it in a rural area, that much is clear.

End of Turn 10: "...and you shall know us by the trail of undead."

Turn 11

Activation: Both sides roll 4, neither moves.

Turn 12

Activation: Both sides roll 6, neither moves, and there is an event! I roll 2d6 on the random event table on p. 52: 12, a cellphone rings 1d6 inches from a random character and attracts 1d6 zombies. It must be an alarm, they can’t possibly be getting a call this far underground this long after the servers went offline. The cellphone turns out to be right next to the hard case. Even worse, it attracts 6 zombies, one of them right next to the lift.

End of Turn 12: "Turn that damned phone off!" White die showing 6 represents phone.

Turn 13

Both sides activate and the humans move first. Flack and Pugh fast move (passing 1d6) towards room 7, hoping to search it before the zeds get them. The gangers and Grubb take room 1, all of them except the wannabee passing 2d6 (he passed 1d6). The zombies close in on Pugh, he restrains himself through the In Sight test, and only passes 1d6 on the Being Charged test so doesn’t get a shot off. Three make it into melee, but through lucky dice rolls he kills two and draws against the third. Flack meanwhile frantically searches room 7 and comes up with another assault rifle; oh well, never know when you’ll need a spare.

Over in room 1, Grubb finds a semi-auto rifle and the hard case finds nothing. One room left, and then we can get the hell out of Dodge.

End of Turn 13: "Any time you want to leave would be fine by me, Skipper..."

Turn 14

Both sides activate and zeds move first. The unfortunate Pugh is now facing off against four zombies. He kills one, and draws with two more, but the fourth one clobbers him good – he’s Out Of the Fight. (At this point I realise I forgot to do an In Sight test for the ganger I had carefully positioned just outside the door of room 1, ready to lay down Final Protective Fire. I guess he just froze under the pressure.)

The gangers are ready to charge to Pugh’s aid… right up to the point where they pass 0d6 on the Wanting To Charge test, and halt in place, unable to fire. Wusses. Worse, they’re blocking the door so Grubb can’t help his squadmate either. It’s all down to Flack, who shoots at the zombies, knocking one down, then wades into the others in melee, where he kills both of them in a fine display of Close Quarter Battle.

Luck is with the Captain, and no more zombies come.

End of Turn 14: "Are you lot going to help, or what?"

Turn 15

Fortunately, the humans activate this turn and the zombies don’t. Flack now out-dices the remaining zombie in the dogpile 6:1, and it goes down. Grubb gets the gangers moving to room 8, which he searches, finding nothing of use.

End of Turn 15: "Pugh! Speak to me, man!"

Turn 16

Humans go, zeds don’t. Flack uses this turn to try a recovery test on Pugh. Pugh passes 1d6, but is not in contact with a medical professional so stays OOF for the rest of this game.

Turn 17

Both activate, zeds first. The sole surviving zed creeps closer, unseen by Our Heroes. Grabbing Pugh and their loot, these worthies start back towards the lift.

End of Turn 17: "Bug out for Zeebrugge!"

Turn 18

Both activate, humans first. We keep running. The zed turns tirelessly round and follows, bringing it into line of sight for the Rep 4 ganger, who passes 0d6 on his In Sight test so may not fire – just as well, really.

End of Turn 18: "Don't shoot!"

Turn 19

Both go, humans first. The gangers charge off the map into the lift shaft hoping for rescue, but on the way they must take In Sight tests and one of them opens up with his SMG on the zed. He drops knocks it down, and runs on. The ganger behind also shoots, doing no more harm; Grubb also shoots when he makes an In Sight, and puts the zed out of its misery.

The dice gods are kind, and none of this draws more zombies; it’s only a matter of time, then, before everyone is safely up the lift shaft. I now use the Keeping It Together table on p. 60 to see what happens to the gangers. Flack rolls 1, 2, 2, 3, 5 and passes 4d6 out of a possible 5d6. The hard case rolls 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6 (he gets an extra die for being a ganger when Flack is not) and also passes 4d6 – we’ll come back to him. The banger rolls 1, 2, 2, 4, 6 and gains 3 successes; less than Flack, so he stays with the troopers for now, but will reroll after the next scenario. The wannabee rolls 3, 3, 4 and scores two successes, which is half as many as Flack; the wannabee is a permanent addition to Flack’s group.

Returning to the hard case… The table says “both sides score zero successes”, but I’ll take that as “same number of successes”, which makes more sense to me. They both drop 1d6 and retake the test; this ends with Flack getting more than twice as many successes as the hard case, so he is a permanent addition as well.

I now check the recovery table for Pugh after the encounter; he passes 2d6 so returns with no permanent damage. However, he was rendered OOF by a zed so he may turn; I roll 1d6 + Rep (4) = 9, so he’s OK, though only just. Finally I check for improving Rep; the soldiers all qualify, and both Pugh and Grubb increase to Rep 5.

This has been the longest game of ATZ I’ve played to date, and took nearly four hours – but I was doing the write-up as I went. It used six human figures, and pawns for 13 zombies.

28 Months Later: Stoner – January 2013

This one is ATZ in a phone booth; a 16″ x 22″ battlemat, and one Star vs zombies. It started off as I wondered what would happen if a classic action adventure movie hero wandered into the world of ATZ, and then mutated as I wondered what a game on my desk would be like, and how ATZ would work in such a small space; if that works out, it will be useful for the next time my employer sends me to work away from home for a while – hotel rooms generally have desks, but not regulation 4′ x 6′ wargaming tables. So here we go. The protagonist was chosen because I thought the figure looked appropriate, and is:

Stoner: Rep 5 Survivor Star; Nerves of Steel, Stone Cold. Protected, SMG, flash-bang grenades. (I’ve given the character what the figure is carrying.) Stone Cold means he will roll 3d6 for reaction tests rather than the usual 2d6, and Nerves of Steel means that he will not duck back, regardless of reaction test outcome. I have picked these two because there is no-one to help him, which means hunkering down would be a death sentence. Strictly speaking I should start him as a Civilian, but as an action movie hero I feel he should be a Survivor.

Objective: Make it across the board lengthwise and exit alive, which I shall treat as a Discover encounter (p. 41) during Daytime.

This game lasted about 45 minutes, including setup, knockdown, and figuring out why my camera wouldn’t work. It used one human figure, and 9 zombies.

Setup: One Star means 1d6 +1 zombies, namely 4 + 1 = 5. I roll 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 on the Zombie Placement table (p. 30), which shows me that 4 of them are 12″ towards the bottom table edge, and the last one is 12″ away towards the left table edge. I rotate them clockwise until they fit on the map, which results in them all clumping up down a street to the left as shown. Red pawns are “live” zombies, green pawns are “dead” ones.

Game Start: "This town ain't big enough for the both of us."

Turn 1

Activation: Stoner 3, zombies 4. Both activate, zombies go first and move 6″ towards Stoner. Stoner tries to fast move, rolling 2d6 vs Rep; 5, 6 vs 5 means he passes 1d6 and moves 150% normal, or 12″, winding up just outside a door.

End of Turn 1: "Open the door, or take the zombies?"

Turn 2

Activation: Stoner 5, zombies 6. Stoner activates and zombies don’t. At this point Stoner could walk right off the board, but where’s the fun in that? So he enters the building to see what he can find. I don’t need to move the full 8″, and it costs him 2″ of movement to go through the door, so he just steps inside and rolls 2d6 on the What’s Inside? Table on p. 43. The dice score 8; add +2 for being in an urban area, and deduct -1 for it being daytime, gives a result of 9. That’s 1/2d6 zombies; I roll a 6, so 3 of them. I now move to p. 44 to work through this sub-encounter. The three zombies split themselves evenly between the humans, so Stoner gets all three. As this is Stoner’s first game, and he is now within 3″ of zombies for the first time, he takes a Zed or No Zed test (p. 33). He rolls 3d6 vs Rep (5): 3, 3, 3 so he passes 2d6 and recognises the threat – but, because he rolled a double, the zombie is someone he knows, so this counts as passing 1d6; the zombies charge and Stoner takes a Being Charged test (Survivor reaction test table in the QRS at the back of the book). He rolls 3d6 vs Rep (5): 2, 2, 5 so passes 2d6, he will thus fire and melee normally.

The Zombie Surprise Total is 1d6 + number of zombies (3) = 4. The Human Surprise Total is 1d6 + Rep (5) = 10. Stoner may fire or move away, and opts to fire once at each zombie. I’m not sure whether I should have taken this test before the Zed or No Zed ones, but since Stoner beat the zombies in all the tests it doesn’t matter, so I’m not going to bother about it just now.

I move to the Ranged Combat tables on the QRS (at the back of the book) and roll 1, 5, 6; adding Stoner’s Rep (5) to each makes those scores of 6, 10 and 11 respectively. I now roll 1d6 for each successful hit on the ranged combat damage table, getting a 3 and a 6; both of these exceed the SMG’s Impact (1) so two of the zombies are knocked down. As per p. 32, this means they use their next activation to get up. The third zombie now engages Stoner in melee. It rolls 1d6, and he rolls 5d6 (Rep); both are aiming for dice with scores of 3 or less. The zombie rolls 4 and fails; Stoner rolls 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 and passes 1d6. This is one more success than the zombie, so he renders it Out Of the Fight – since it is a zombie, this escalates to Obviously Dead. Scratch one zed, and Stoner has now both seen zombies and killed one.

Shots were fired, so I roll 1d6 per shot, results of 4+ indicate zombie reinforcements. I roll 1, 2, 5 and one new zombie joins us; a die roll of 5 shows it turns up 12″ towards the bottom table edge.

End of Turn 2: "Die, zombies, die!"

Turn 3

Activation: Stoner 3, zombies 4. Both activate, and zombies go first. The two in the building with Stoner stand up. The ones outside move 6″ directly towards the nearest human; they can’t see him, so they move towards the most shots fired within 24″, which amounts to making straight for him. Time to go, Stoner; he rolls 2d6 vs Rep (5) to fast move away; 1, 6 so passes 1d6 and moves 150% of normal, i.e. 12″. Passing through the door costs an extra 2″. As he exits the building, he sees a group of zombies, but since he is active at the moment he doesn’t take an In Sight test. It’s tempting to go for that truck, but if it won’t start, or Stoner misses an activation, the zombies will be all over him. Better to retreat in good order, and live to fight another day – if ATZ teaches you anything, it’s when to cut your losses and bug out for Zeebrugge.

End of Turn 3: The Better Part of Valour

Stoner didn’t find any resources, so doesn’t get to roll for improving his Rep. This was an experimental session, and not part of the main story arc (which features Reed and family, Drew, and Captain Flack’s Trumpton SAS, of whom more anon); so I may or may not use Stoner again. Now that I upload the pictures I see that they’re bigger than I intended, but c’est la vie.

28 Months Later: Reed – 5 January 2013

“I wanted to keep some kind of record. Knowing accurately what the date is has become important to me, for no logical reason… It’s nearly two weeks now since the outbreak. There’s no electricity. There’s no water, although it looks like the sewage plants are leaking into streams and rivers – pump failures I suppose. There are packs of zombies and starving dogs everywhere. I don’t know if the dogs would eat us, or if there is still some vestige of loyalty to humans; I don’t want to risk finding out. The zombies would definitely eat us.

There were a lot of riots the first couple of weeks, but they have mostly died down now. National government seems to have disappeared, I can’t tell if that is because of the riots or not. Local councils and police are trying to fill the void, without much success.

We still have laptops, running off car chargers; they’re useful for navigation and (frankly) entertainment; but without power, the servers are down so we can’t connect to anyone else. Mice and rats fill the supermarkets ankle-deep. They’re still eating the dry goods though, they aren’t hungry enough to go after us yet. Even so, shopping – I suppose looting, really – is a deeply unnerving experience. I’m concerned we may be in a fallout plume from spent nuclear fuel rods – the storage facilities probably blew up when the coolant pumps failed – but I haven’t told the others; there’s no point, we can’t do anything about it. We’ll be lucky if we live long enough to get leukemia, anyway.

The skies are clearer, both night and day, with no city lights and no pollution. It would be interesting to see if that has really affected the climate, but there’s no way to tell. It feels colder than it should.

We’re going to need more supplies, and better weapons than those we improvised from garden tools and kitchenware. So zombies or not, we need to go into town.”

- Reed’s Journal.

In tonight’s episode, Reed and family go shopping. One of the commonest questions on the THW forum is how many figures are needed; this little escapade used 31 zombies and 7 ordinary figures, and lasted 95 minutes including setup and knockdown.

This will be a Discovery mission during daylight. The protagonists are all Rep 3 Civilian Stars with improvised melee weapons:

• Reed: Rep 3 Civilian Star, Born Leader, Brawler.
• Annie: Rep 3 Civilian Star, haven’t decided on attributes yet.
• Jules: Rep 3 Civilian Star, Athlete and one as yet undecided attribute.
• Nick: Rep 3 Civilian Star, haven’t decided on attributes yet.
• Connie: Rep 3 Civilian Star, Transporter and one as yet undecided attribute. Connie is held off table in a 4WD as a getaway driver in case things get really rough, which they well might.

In addition, I figure we probably had houseguests over Christmas, whom I shall call Ernie and Wilf. They’re Rep 3 Civilian Stars as well, attributes unassigned, and won’t take part in this game – they’re holed up with two other 4WDs guarding our stash, which I have decided includes all of the resources from a suburban area, namely 35 food, 8 medical, 15 fuel, and 15 usable cars of which we have liberated three. This being the UK, I have ruled out body armour and guns – I know of exactly one set of body armour and two sources of guns within 50 miles, and I suspect somebody else would get to them first. Having mined out the suburbs, we move to the nearest big city.

Left to right: Annie, Reed, Jules, Nick.

Tonight I’m using some city maps from Wydraz, eM4 figures, and some 30mm pawns (also from eM4) to represent zombies. Before the game starts, I roll 1d6 + 1 for each human to determine the number of zombies, which turns out to be 17, and place them according to the table on ATZ: BDTZ p. 20. Since many of them wind up off table, their placement rotates clockwise until they fit somewhere, which means they clump up in two big groups.

Start of turn 1: "Never mind the zombies, we need more beans. And toilet paper."

Turn 1

Activation: Stars 2, zombies 5. The stars activate, the zombies do not, and the stars move up to the nearest building, intent on getting inside and looting it. In an earlier game I learned that it was a bad idea to stream in through the door one at a time so we pause just outside before entering as a group.

End of turn 1: "Left side door breach, stack up!"

Turn 2

Activation: Stars 4, zombies 5. Neither moves.

Turn 3

Activation: Stars 3, zombies 4. Both activate, zombies first. The zombies move 6″ towards the stars, and I realise that due to sloppy placement on my part they can melee Jules. As they close to within 3″, we take the Zed or No Zed? Test – first time any of us have seen zombies for real. Reed is a Born Leader, so uses 3d6 rather than the usual 2d6, and all friendlies within 4″ react as he does. (There’s a reason I keep picking that attribute for my Stars.) Rolls of 1, 3, and 6 mean Reed recognises the threat and all carry on.

I overlook the Being Charged test in the excitement, and two zombies melee Jules. Each zombie rolls 1d6: 6, 6. Both miss. Jules must split her 3d6 between them; one gets 2d6 (4, 2) and the other gets 1d6 (3). In both cases she beats them by 1d6, which would put them Out Of the Fight, except being zombies they are Obviously Dead instead. Way to go Jules! She has now both seen a zombie and killed one. She only needs to See the Feast and she’ll graduate from Civilian to something else. However, as things stand that would mean one of the rest of us dies, so let’s not bother with that just yet.

End of turn 3: "Don't get her riled, zeds. You wouldn't like her when she's cross."

Turn 4

Activation: Stars 1, zombies 2 – both activate and zombies go first. Three each shuffle up into position to melee Jules and Nick.(See, you have to keep moving, far enough away from the zeds that if you blow an activation they can’t reach you.) Jules rolls 3d6, 1d6 against each zombie – not good odds. 4 vs a zombie rolling 1; it scores one more success than she, so she is OOF. The second rolls 3 to her 5, and again she goes OOF – fortunately the effects don’t stack. The third one rolls 6 to her 1 and is brutally decapitated. Jules drops, triggering a Man Down reaction test. Reed abuses his Born Leader and Star attributes, choosing to pass 1d6 on this test and forcing everyone else to do likewise. This means they duck back into the nearest cover, namely the building whose door they are outside.

It is only after they have barged in, slammed the door and bolted it that they notice there are people inside. I roll 2d6 on the What’s Inside tbale (p. 43): 5 +2 for an urban area, -1 for daytime = 6; there are half a d6 of people inside, which turns out to be 3, and a roll on the Who Are They? Table tells me they are Gangers. Ouch. A few dice rolls on the Ganger table (p. 7) reveals that they are a Punk (Rep 3) with a shotgun, a Banger (Rep 4) with a SMG, and a Hard Case (Rep 5) with a SMG. Time for the Meet and Greet table. The Ganger leader rolls 3d6 (5d6 for his Rep, less 2d6 because he’s a Ganger and we’re not – I think I’m doing that right); Reed rolls 3d6 (his Rep). As elsewhere, I’m taking the number of successes from the first round of rolls, rather than gradually dropping dice until only one side scores. Reed rolls 2, 3, 6 and passes 2d6. The Hard Case rolls 3, 3, 3 and passes 3d6. As a result, he allows us to leave peacefully, but not to loot the building on our way out.

Middle of turn 4: "Who are you?" "Who are YOU?" "Who's she?" - you have to have seen the Yellow Pages ad for that to make sense.

The stars now activate, and use their active move to shift up to the building’s other door – the one they came in by is covered in zombies.

End of turn 4: "Stop rattling that door so hard, you're making the camera shake - the picture will come out blurry!"

Turn 5

Activation: Stars 5 (no), zombies 2 (yes), gangers 4 (yes and go first). But what will the gangers do? Since it’s not obvious, and I have CR 3.0 to hand, I crack that open and turn to the NP Force Movement table on p. 28. The hard case rolls 5, 6 so passes 1d6; because the gangers are outnumbered by zombies, they take cover and hold in place. (It’s easy taking cover in a building, everyone is in cover all the time.)

Turn 6

Activation: Stars 1, zombies 3, gangers 3. As the zombies and gangers tie, neither activates. Reed’s little group use this opportunity to move off down the street, away from the zombies. I’m planning to stop and check the recovery table for Jules, but want to be sure I’m far enough away from the zeds that they can’t grab us while I miss a turn to do that.

End of turn 6: "Keep moving!"

Turn 7

Activation: Stars 2, zombies 2, gangers 3. The gangers are the only ones to activate this turn, and checking the NP Force Movement table again they pass 2d6 and seek cover from which to engage the zeds.

Turn 8

Activation: Stars 1, zombies 4, gangers 4. This looks like the perfect time to check the Recovery table on p. 22 to see if we can get Jules back into the fight. She rolls 5, 5 vs her Rep of 3, and passes 0d6 – she’s out of it for the rest of the encounter.

Turn 9

Activation: Stars 5, zeds 3, gangers 5. The gangers check the NPFM table again, pass 2d6 by rolling 3, 3 against the hard case’s Rep of 5, and continue to seek cover. The zombies use this turn to break down the door.

Turn 10

Activation: Stars 1, zombies 2, gangers 3. The gangers check NPFM, pass 1d6, and take cover but remain in place. The zombies now enter, forcing an In Sight test for the gangers; they roll 1, 6 vs Rep 5 and snap fire at the zombies. The hard case fires thrice with his SMG, rolling 6, 5, 5. We add his Rep of 5 to get scores of 11, 10 and 10 – 10 or more always hits, and lucky damage dice mean he drops three zombies. The banger does likewise, but misses all his opponents, as does the punk.

Surviving zombies continue to move up, and the gangers take a Being Charged test. They pass 2d6, so snap fire and then melee. Blazing away, they drop another three zombies between them, and only one makes it into contact, where the banger (rolling 4d6 against its 1d6) quickly despatches it.

However, all this gunfire leads to another 7 zombies being placed around the board using the placement table on p. 20. The stars decide to leg it down the street away from the shooting, no good can come of being near it.

End of turn 10: "Stop shooting you lot, I'll run out of zombie models soon!"

Turn 11

Activation: Stars 4, zeds 1, gangers 5. The gangers go first, and with zombies pouring into the building it seems like a no-brainer – they move out through the other door after the stars. The zeds, however, are close enough to engage the punk in melee as he leaves; four of them roll 1, 3, 3, 6 (one die each) and he rolls 3, 3, 2 against the first three, drawing against all of them.

Meanwhile, other zeds are drawn to the sound of the gunfire – unfortunately this means a group of them exit a building right next to the stars.

End of turn 11: "This is another fine mess you've gotten me into!"

Turn 12

Activation: Stars 6, zombies 3, gangers 3. Nobody activates.

Turn 13

Activation: Stars 4, zombies 2, gangers 1. The zeds go first; one group moves towards the stars, the rest pursue the gangers and again engage the punk in melee before he can withdraw.

Reed takes a Being Charged test, and again abuses his Born Leader and Free Will abilities – he choose to pass 0d6 and retire, taking the whole group with him. This means they duck back behind the nearest cover, one of the cars abandoned in the street. Unfortunately one of the zeds is close enough to engage Nick in melee; he rolls 1, 2, 4 and passes 2d6, the zed rolls 4 and passes 1d6; Nick kills his first zombie. Another box ticked.

Meanwhile, five zombies have grappled the punk. He rolls 2, 3, 4; they roll 2, 3, 3, 4, 6 meaning that one of the ones which hit isn’t hit back, and the punk goes Out Of the Fight. The gangers now activate, and use the Recovery rules to grab the punk before they fast move off. The gangers roll 1, 4 for fast moving, so the hard case and the banger both pass 2d6 and move 16″. The punk would only have passed 1d6 and moved 12″, but since the banger is carrying him it hardly matters. 16″ is enough for the gangers to leave the table, which they do.

Turn 14

Activation: Stars 6, zombies 6. Not only does neither side activate, but the “boxcars” trigger a random event – a nearby building catches fire, drawing 5 more zombies. It seems logical that this should be the one where the shooting happened, so I use that as the focal point for placing zeds.

End of turn 14: "Gangers! WE - ARE - LEAVING!"

Turn 15

Activation: Stars 1, zombies 4. Both activate, but zeds go first.

Reed uses his Born Leader trick again (how useful is that, eh?) to force the group to retire on a Being Charged test. They fall back to the blue truck behind the brown car they have been using as cover. So that they don’t all run away after the encounter, Reed also uses his Free Will and Born Leader abilities to Rally the group, choosing to pass 2d6. He then takes a Fast Move test – rolls 3, 3 vs Rep 3 – passes 2d6, forces the rest of them to do likewise, and fast moves 16″ off the table after the gangers.

End of turn 15: "Elvis is leaving the building!"

After the encounter, Jules rolls on the Recovery table on p. 23: 1, 3 vs Rep 3 so she passes 2d6 and will return at full Rep next time. I also need to roll for her on the Harry Are You OK? Table on . p35, since she was rendered OOF by a zombie – 1d6 + Rep (3), and she needs a 9 to avoid infection. Fortunately she passes so we don’t have to cap her. I knock off 7 food units for January, a unit of fuel for the journey to the city, and a unit of medical supplies for treating Jules; we’re down to 28 food, 7 medical, and 14 fuel.

Game over, and not a tin of beans to show for it; no loot, and nobody triggered the requirements to roll for an increase in Rep. Still, the whole party is still alive, and that feels like a victory when everything else on the table has a higher Rep and better weapons.

28 Months Later: Drew, January 2013

After a long run at Larger Than Life I wanted to re-acclimatise myself to All Things Zombie, so I decided to play a quick game of Chain Reaction 3.0 to get myself back in the groove and also as a demo for a friend to whom I recommended the rules recently (hi, Tony!). The whole thing took one hour 55 minutes, including setup, knockdown, and numerous rules checks – I’m out of practice.

Scenario: It’s January 2013, a month after the outbreak, and in a rural area five undercover cops are moving in on a small group of buildings when they detect movement.

The cops (eM4 prepainted Chequer Gang) were diced up on the Police List, CR3 p. 7, and given attributes from the table on p. 6 as they are the good guys, or at least the less bad guys:

• Drew (Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler, BA Pistol)
• Vince (Officer, Rep 4, Runt, BA Pistol)
• Trenchcoat Larry (Officer, Rep 4, Brawler, BA Pistol)
• Sylvia (Veteran, Rep 5, Brawler, Shotgun)
• Kate (Rookie, Rep 3, Athlete, Shotgun)

Left to Right: Trenchcoat Larry, Sylvia, Kate, Drew, Vince

The PEFs (two prepainted eM4 Recce Squads) were diced up on the Military Table, CR3 p.7. Theoretically one does this when a PEF is resolved, but I prefer to pre-roll them for speed of play. This gave me four Soldiers (Rep 4, Assault Rifle), three Veterans (Rep 5, Assault Rifle or BA Pistol depending on the figure) and two Team Leaders (Rep 5, Assault Rifle).

I lay out the only gaming mat I have ready, The Village from Cry Havoc, downloaded from Cry Havoc Fan, printed at an enlarged scale, laminated for durability, then Scotch-taped together. This means the terrain can fold flat in a drawer when not in use. It also means I bypass all the terrain setup rules on p. 21. I decide that for this game, each hex represents 2″ so that I don’t have to measure ranges and movement with a ruler. I haven’t made or acquired any game tokens yet, so I decide I will mark OOF figures with a die showing “1″ and OD ones with a die showing “6″.

Three PEFs are now placed, and turn out to have Rep 2, 1, and 1 respectively. The first picture shows the state of play as battle commences.

Game Start: "I wonder if there's anything we can use in those buildings?"

Turn 1

Activation: Cops – 1d6 = 1 vs Leader’s Rep (5) so they activate. The PEFs roll 2, 4, and 5 respectively, so PEF 1 activates, and since it rolled higher than the cops, it goes first. The other two PEFs rolled higher than their Rep, so do nothing. PEF 1 rolls 2d6 vs its Rep (2): 2, 4 so it passes 1d6. Consulting the PEF movement table on p. 26 and rolling a 6, I see this means it moves 8″ towards the enemy. It starts moving around the buildings towards the cops. The cops move up to the wall of the nearest building, thinking to use it as cover.

End of Turn 1: "Stay close to the wall! There's something out there..."

Turn 2

Activation: Cops 3, PEFs 1, 2 and 6 respectively. PEF 1 passes 0d6 against its Rep so fails to move. The cops sneak along the wall and step around the corner. They now have Line Of Sight to PEF 1, so it is resolved. I roll a 1 on the PEF Force Composition Table (p. 26) and see this is the enemy Main Body. I roll 2d6 + 3 = 8 so it has one more figure than me (How Many Of Them? Table p. 27), and a 1d6 roll of 2 means the enemy commander is in this group. Must be one of the team leaders. I replace the PEF with the relevant number of figures.

Since the cops have walked around the corner into sight, the inactive side (the former PEF) takes an In Sight test (see QRS sheets). 2d6 vs leader’s Rep (5): 1, 6 so pass 1d6. Those who can snap-fire at the cops, the others halt in place. Looking at the position of the figures, I decide that the team leader (the one pointing), the veteran (the one with bare arms), a soldier and the medic (medical bag and pistol) have line of sight. Each now rolls as many dice as their weapons have Targets (Weapons Table in the QRS), adds their Rep to each die, and looks up each result on the Ranged Combat Table in the QRS. The team leader aims his assault rifle at the three nearest foes and scores 10, 9 and 5. The 10 hits Drew (the closest target gets the highest scoring attack), the 9 hits Vince (second closest so gets second highest attack), and the 5 misses Sylvia. I roll a 6 for the hit on Drew; this exceeds the rifle’s Impact of 3, so Drew is knocked down and rolls to recover from that. He rolls 2d6 vs 5: 1, 3 and passes 2d6, so he cannot act until he has spent one full activation recovering (“miss a turn”). The cops now take a Leader Lost test as their boss has been shot; they roll 2d6 against the highest remaining Rep (5) and get 3, 4 so they pass 2d6 and carry on – Sylvia, as the next highest Rep, steps up and takes command.

Vince gets a similar result to Drew for his wound and is also down. The cops take a Man Down test – 2d6 vs Sylvia’s Rep (5): 2, 5 so pass 2d6 and carry on.

The veteran fires and scores one hit on Sylvia; she is knocked down but only passes 1d6 on the Recovery Table and so is Out Of the Fight – she’s not doing anything for the rest of the game except bleeding profusely. The surviving cops take another Leader Lost test: 2d6 vs highest remaining Rep (4): 2, 6 so pass 1d6 and all Duck Back, moving 6″ into the nearest cover. However, under the Recovering Wounded rules on p. 19, each of them is allowed to pick up a wounded comrade within 4″. Kate grabs Vince, Trenchcoat Larry grabs Sylvia, and they duck back out of sight behind the wall. The soldier and the medic now have nothing left to shoot at.

Looking back on it, there are two mistakes here. Tactically, I should either have fast-moved the group into the bushes to get into cover while gaining line of sight along the wall, or used one guy to stick his head around the corner rather than expose the whole group; in terms of rules, Drew has Star Power so should have rolled to soak the wound. Never mind, the purpose of the game is to get my head back into ATZ/CR3 combat, and this it is doing.

The former PEF now activates. In a third mistake, I overlook the NP Force Movement Table on p. 28 and decide the enemy will charge into melee. They roll to fast move (one set of 2d6 vs individual Reps), and close in on the helpless Drew.

However, this brings them into Line Of Sight for Trenchcoat Larry, who takes an immediate In Sight test, passes 1d6, and snap-fires at the oncoming enemy, missing twice. This triggers a reaction test for them for being fired upon, but they are made of stern stuff, pass 2d6, and carry on charging. Drew passes 1d6 on the Being Charged test (rolling 1 and 6 against Rep 5), and the enemy team leader and veteran make contact for melee. Each now rolls as many d6 as their Rep, but Drew is down 2d6 for being prone, down 1d6 for having a lower Impact weapon, and up 1d6 for being a Brawler, so he rolls 3d6 not 5d6 – and he must split these as evenly as possible between the two enemies. He rolls 1, 6 vs 3 for the team leader, passing 1d6, and 5 for the veteran, passing 0d6. The team leader rolls 1, 1, 2, 4, 5 and passes 3d6. The veteran rolls 2, 2, 3, 5, 5 and passes 3d6. Since the veteran has rolled at least two more successes than Drew, and Drew is down to no passed dice against him, Drew is Obviously Dead. But wait – Drew is a Star, and thus has Star Power. He rolls 1d6 per point of Rep, hoping to score 3 or less: 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 and passes 3d6. Each passed die here reduces the damage level, so it shifts from OD to OOF to Stun to OK.

End of turn 2: "Larry, what do we do now? Larry?"

Turn 3

The cops and the troopers both activate, the unresolved PEFs do not. Troopers go first. Again I forget the NP Force Movement table, which would probably have got them to split into one group which takes cover and opens fire, and another group which tries to flank the opposition. Oops. However, I decide that the soldiers will open fire on the Trenchcoat Larry, whom they can see. The team leader scores three hits, one of which makes Larry Obviously Dead. Kate takes another Leader Lost test, passes 1d6, and ducks back into the next nearest cover within 6″, namely a tree just down a low hill. She is still carrying Vince. However, the veteran now has line of sight to her, takes an In Sight test, fires, hits her, and she goes Out Of the Fight.

Vince and Drew use their side’s activation to recover.

End of turn 3: "It's all fun and games until somebody's Obviously Dead."

Turn 4

Neither the cops nor the soldiers activate. PEF 2 does, but passes 0d6 on the PEF movement table so doesn’t move.

Turn 5

The cops roll a 3 for activation, the soldiers a 1, and the PEFs 3 and 5 respectively. The PEFs roll over their Rep so fail to activate. The cops and soldiers both activate, but the cops rolled higher, so go first. Vince pops up and fires at the soldiers from cover. This triggers an In Sight test for the soldiers, the team leader and veteran have line of sight so return fire. The team leader scores 8, 9 and 9 to hit, but all these miss because Vince is in cover. The veteran scores 8, 9, and 11; the 11 hits even in cover, and a damage roll of 6 vs Impact 3 means Vince is knocked down again. He takes an immediate recovery test and rolls 2, 5 against a Rep of 5; he passes 1d6 and is Out Of the Fight.

Things are not looking good for the home team, with Larry dead, Drew surrounded by the enemy, and everyone else OOF. Drew stands up and shifts 1″ to break out of melee, which triggers another In Sight test. The troops roll 5, 5 against the leader’s Rep of 5 and pass 2d6, opening fire. The team leader hits Drew twice, scoring an Obviously Dead (reduced to OK by Star Power rolls, although Drew loses one SP die because it rolls a 6) and an OOF (reduced to Stunned by Star Power rolls). Drew has to miss another activation.

The troops now activate, and I belatedly remember the NP Force Movement table on p. 28. Troops roll 5, 6 vs Rep 5, so pass 1d6; because they outnumber the opposition, they split into two groups. One takes cover and opens fire, and the other moves to flanking positions. Three of those in flanking positions have clear shots, so they fire. The veteran hits once, scores an OOF, but Drew’s Star Power saves him again, reducing the wound to no effect. The medic hits twice, gets one OOF, but again that pesky Star Power keeps Drew upright. Finally the soldier scores a hit, knocks Drew down, he passes 1d6 on the recovery test and goes OOF, and this time not even Star Power can save him as he rolls all sixes. To save time later, I roll on the After The Battle table (p. 20) for all casualties. Drew rolls 2, 3 vs Rep 5 and passes 2d6; he will return at full Rep. Vince and Sylvia both pass 2d6 as well, but Kate passes 0d6 so her OOF escalates to Obviously Dead.

End of game: "We all fall down."

The enemy team leader steps out of cover, looks around, and shouts “Clear!” His men move forward to examine the bodies.

“Sir,” says the medic. “One dead. The girl in yellow isn’t going to make it; she needs a field hospital, and we don’t have one. The other three should be OK.”

The team leader thinks for a moment.

“All right,” he says. “Tie up the survivors and bring them with us back to base. They survived this long; that means they have supplies we can use, and maybe they have friends to come looking for them. I’ll ask them when they wake up. We can always kill ‘em later.”

We’ll leave Drew & Co. there for the moment and switch back to Reed’s troupe. Will the two groups encounter each other later? What are the soldiers up to? Who knows?

Post-Apocalyptic Timelines

One of the things that Better Dead Than Zed does much better than the original All Things Zombie is to give me an emotional connection to the Star and his group of companions; partly because it starts on Day One of the outbreak, not two years afterwards, and partly because you are encouraged to play Day One as if it were actually happening to you.

As background for the 28 Months Later campaign, I wanted to understand better what would still be available to survivors over time once civilisation had collapsed. (Wargaming is very educational, and takes you off in all sorts of strange research directions.)

I originally planned to work this out myself, but then thought: It’s so obvious a topic that someone else must already have done it. And indeed they have; you can find timelines in increasing levels of detail here, here, and here. Since civilisation in ATZ collapses over roughly a one month period, you may want to adjust the timelines for the first year or so to reflect that.