Blackman, Z+94: Discretion

“Discretion is the better part of valour.” ― William Shakespeare

“Discretion is the better part of not getting exsanguinated.” ― Jim Butcher

SETUP

Z+94, 4th April 2013: It’s the start of a new month, so Mike deducts one food unit from his stock (p. 55). Mike is staying in the suburbs for a while, and has decided to clean out a small group of houses as a base of operations. He only needs one to sleep in, but it would be easier if the rest had been cleaned out as well. Thus, I’ll be playing a Take Back scenario (p. 70). I choose the Day Part as Daytime (p. 66), and note that the Encounter Rating (p. 53) is 3. Mike’s Rep can’t get any lower than 2, so there is no point rolling for Lack of Sleep.

As usual, I’ve picked an existing map rather than generate one using the rulebook, and also as usual, it’s The Village from Cry Havoc Fan, set up in Hex Map Pro on the iPad, and counting one inch per hex – a bit small as tables go, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. As per p. 53, there are 1d6+2 vehicles; I roll a 4, so there are 6 vehicles on the table. There’s no particular way of working these out in the rules, but it seems reasonable to me that most of them are sedans or small vans.

There are PEFs in areas 3, 4 and 6, with Reps of 5, 6 and 5 respectively (p. 60). With the player tactical group only having one figure in it (Mike), there are 1d6 zombies on the table at the start; I roll 6 of them, then 1d6 for each to get its clockface direction from Mike as per p. 46, and get 214652. Mike enters from section 9, and moves a full 8" move onto the table before I place the zeds, putting his back to the wall of Building 1 as it may be some time before he activates again, and I don’t want him to be rushed from behind. Thanks to the rule that zeds must be 12" away from Mike to start with, and if that’s not possible, they rotate clockwise until they fit on the board, a small herd of zeds develops in section 7 of the board.

There are no special rules about placing vehicles, so I place them as if they were PEFs, which works as well as anything; that puts them in sections 363622.  Here’s the board at the end of setup, which took just under half an hour because I’m a bit rusty; I’ve marked the board sections for you. The white square at top left is the ER, the red and green squares are activation dice (using Hex map Pro’s built-in dice roller), and the tan octagon is the turn counter.

TURN 1

Activation: Mike 1, zeds and PEFs 5. All PEFs activate, as does Mike, but the zeds are dormant. Since the PEFs have a higher die roll and have activated, they move first.

PEF6 is easy; it must pass 2d6 on the PEF Movement Table (in the Quick Reference Sheets at the back of the book), so moves 12" towards Mike, staying in cover at all times. I decide to let it walk through walls, as until it is resolved, it’s just where Mike thinks something might be; it closes up to the corner of Building 4′s yard, as per my usual house rule that given a choice between getting closer and staying in cover, PEFs stay in cover.

PEF5a rolls 4, 1 vs its Rep (5) and passes 2d6, so it moves into the corner of Building 2. PEF5b does likewise (rolling 3, 3) and winds up next to PEF5a.

Mike ducks into Building 1, and since it has no PEF inside, I check if there are zombies (p. 47, Meeting Zombies in Buildings). this triggers a Defining Moment (p. 64). I roll 6d6, with any scores of 5 or 6 counting as a zombie (because these are the ‘burbs). I roll 553346, so there are three zeds inside. Mike has a shotgun, but with a miserable Rep 2 he needs a 6 to hit anything, and that has to be on the first die, as anything after that counts as "second or higher target" and will miss automatically. So, using it as a club, he lays into the zeds.

We start with a Charge Into Melee test (I’m working from the QRS sheets now). Mike rolls 4d6 vs Rep on the table – 2d6 as normal, +1d6 for Rage, +1d6 for being a Survivor. He rolls 3655 and passes 0d6; zombies always pass 1d6, so they have beaten him and move straight into melee (zombies having no ability to shoot at him, fortunately).

The first zed rolls Rep (3) d6 and gets 625, scoring one success as only one of the dice has scored 1-3. Mike rolls 3d6 (Rep 2, Rage) and scores 625, also one success; but he gets an extra success for being a human fighting a zombie. As Mike scored one more success, the zed is knocked down and Mike rolls 1d6, which on a roll of 1 will kill the zombie. He rolls 5, and it’s still in play, but now prone.

Zombie #2 rolls 314 and gets two successes; Mike gets 411, counting as three successes as he’s fighting a zed, and again knocks it down – he rolls a 3, so doesn’t kill it.

Zombie #3 rolls 255, one success, and Mike gets 526, so knocks the third one prone also, but on a roll of 6 fails to kill it.

TURN 2

Activation: Mike 1, Zeds 5. Hmm, same as last time. PEF5a and 5b both pass 2d6, and would close in, but like PEF6 they can’t get any closer. The zeds fail to activate, so that leaves Mike smacking the ones inside Building 1.

You’ve seen how that works; however, because the zeds are prone, Mike is now rolling an extra 2d6, so he manages to kill one, and knock two down as they stagger to their feet.

TURN 3

Activation: Mike 2, Zeds 3. All PEFs activate and pass 2d6, but they can get no closer. The zeds activate and go before Mike; let’s look at the melee first, where we find Mike clubbing both zeds back to the floor as they try to rise. Even Rep 2 Survivors have a chance in melee, it seems.

The other zeds have nothing to home in on, so move forward in the direction they were facing, turning left or right at random when they bump into things. The one in Building 3′s yard amuses me briefly by rattling around inside the yard, before straightening up and heading for the open gate. Which reminds me, I forgot to roll for the door Mike entered building 1 through; never mind, that’s a house rule anyway.

TURN 4

Activation: Mike 4, zeds 1. PEFs and zeds continue to move as before, but the zeds climb to their feet unopposed and claw at Mike, who knocks one down but is evenly matched against the second.

TURN 5

Activation: Mike 1, Zeds/PEFs 4. This time, both PEF5s pass 1d6, so they move away from Mike. The zeds bumble around as usual, and there are the first signs of the traditional conga line starting to form up along the edges of the board.

Meanwhile, Mike is still locked in melee with two zombies, both of whom he knocks down. I should get him a sword or something.

TURN 6

Activation: Mike 5, zeds 2. All the PEFs pass 2d6 and move back where they came from. Zeds shamble around aimlessly outside, while inside Building 1, the melee continues… and Mike clubs both zombies back down again as they try to stand up. How long can this go on, we ask? The problem is that while Mike’s Rage and Survivor status are giving him enough successes to beat the zeds, they aren’t giving him enough successes to actually kill them.

TURN 7

Activation: Mike 6, zeds 5. Nobody moves, the PEFs because they can’t get any closer without breaking cover, and the rest because they don’t activate.

TURN 8

Activation: Mike 4, zeds 2. Much the same as the last few turns, except that Mike finally gets enough successes, and rolls low enough for damage, that he kills both zeds. Phew!

TURN 9

Activation: Mike 2, zeds 1. Mike uses his activation to loot the building; he rolls 2d6 vs the area’s Encounter Rating (3), scores 6, 5, and finds nothing. Oh well.

Meanwhile, outside, the zeds are in a full-blown anticlockwise conga line, except for one maverick who is going clockwise.

TURN 10

Activation: Double 1 – random event. I really must print that page out separately, it’s the only one I use now apart from the QRS. Naturally, it’s an 11, and Mike twists his ankle again. Note to self: Pick up some grunts, then there is a chance that one of them might twist and ankle instead.

TURN 11

Activation: Double 4 – random event. This time, a 10; Mike has the wrong reloads, and once his shotgun runs out of ammo, it stays that way for the rest of the game.

TURN 12

Activation: Mike 4, zeds 2. One of the PEFs passes 0d6 so stays put – usual outcome, different reason. The zeds conga around the board edges.

TURN 13

Activation: Mike 6, zeds 2. Stuck inside a building with no line of sight to or from zeds is as good a way to fail to activate as any, I guess. However, next time the zeds activate, one of the zombies will shamble past the open door, and then it will be able to see him.

TURN 14

Activation: Mike 2, zeds 1. Since this is a Take Back encounter, Mike has to kill all the zeds to win. Looking at the board, I can see that if he attacks the closest one in melee, none of the others will be able to see; so Mike hobbles out of Building 1 and lays into it with his crowbar, while the rest shuffle around the board edge. Mike rolls 2d6 vs Rep for Charge Into Melee, and gets no successes (rolled 3, 5). Although zeds have no guns, it’s still worth rolling for this, as if Mike manages to beat the zed, it counts as unarmed on the first turn of melee, and thus rolls one die less.

The zed rolls Rep (3) d6, scoring 315 for two successes; Mike rolls Rep (2) d6, plus 1d6 for Rage, and gets 315 – two successes, bumped up to three because his target is a zed. Mike rolls 1d6 vs the number of extra successes he gained (one), and on a 5 has just knocked the zed down. It’s a start.

TURN 15

Activation: Mike 3, zeds 5, and only the PEFs activate; PEF6 notices that it can now get closer without being seen, and joins the other PEFs in Building 2.

TURN 16

Activation: Mike 5, zeds 3. Mike has two zombie activations to finish this melee and bug out, or the others will heave into view and notice it. As they shuffle forwards, the life-or-death struggle goes on; the zed fights for its not-quite-life and rolls 312 for three successes, then Mike rolls 33241 and gets five successes; he rolls a 1 on 1d6 for the melee result, and kills it outright. However, as he has not activated, he can’t move, and stands in plain sight, panting heavily, slimy crowbar in one hand.

TURN 17

Activation: Mike 1, zeds 3 – everyone activates and the sequence is PEFs, zeds, then Mike. PEF5a is bored and wanders off, having passed only 1d6; since it moves 12" directly away from him, it’s now outside Building 5. The zeds conga as usual. Mike hobbles back to Building 1 and hides in the corner, minimising the chance of anyone seeing him.

TURN 18

Activation: Mike 1, zeds 2. PEFs 6 and 5b hold in position; PEF5a flees again, hits the board edge, and joins the zed conga line.

Mike needs to resolve all PEFs to win, so he now switches to the shotgun, fast-moves up to Building 2 and barges in (I roll 1d6, using a house rule, and get a 3; the door is closed, but not locked). He rolls 2, 4 vs Rep for the fast move and passes 1d6, boosting his move to 10"; he only needs 7" to get into the building, but any hostile shooters are more likely to miss if you’re fast moving, however far you go.

I now roll 2d6 vs local ER for each PEF; PEF6 gets 3, 2 and passes 2d6 so is an actual contact – I roll 1d6 on the Contact Days 30+ table and get a 1, Gangers; I roll again on the How Many table, adding +1 as directed by the previous answer, and get a 5. +1 = 6; Player Group + 2, or three Gangers. PEF5b gets 2, 3 and is also a contact – a 4 on the Contact Days 0+ table tells me this is zombies, and a 3 on the How Many table tells me there are 1 + 1/2 d6 zeds; I roll a 4, so that’s three zeds.

We now go to a Meet and Greet situation (p. 62), which happens before anyone else gets to do anything. First, I need to load up the PEFs; the zombies are easy, but I need to roll for the gangers on pp. 74-75. Rolling 1d6 for the table to use for each, then 2d6 for each ganger on the relevant table (this is why it’s better to do it ahead of time), I see Mike has met gangers 6 and 8 from table 1-3, and ganger 7 from table 4-6. The stats I need for the moment are:

• Kev (6 on 1-3 table): Rep 3, Shotgun, Rage.
• Fred (8 on 1-3 table): Rep 4, Machine Pistol, Runt.
• Jeni (7 on 4-6 table): Rep 3, Machine Pistol, Hard As Nails.

Fred has the highest Rep, so he’s in charge. Fred and Mike now each roll Rep d6, looking for successes; Mike gets 6, 3 = one success, while Fred gets 2331 = 4 successes. Consulting the Ganger Meet & Greet table, I see that when players score less than Gangers, Gangers Walk the Walk – i.e., start fighting. We go directly to the In Sight check (p. 17) , where each figure rolls Rep d6 to determine the sequence of events. Mike rolls one less die than usual because he is the active figure.

(Note that although the Gangers are all Grunts, and thus must follow the Grunt Actions for in-sight resolution, it’s obvious in this case that they will all fire.)

Mike gets no successes (rolling 4); Kev, 1 (rolling 345); Jeni, 0 (rolling 644); and Fred, 3 (rolling 1341). Fred goes first, and fires three shots at Mike (his weapon has 3 targets). He rolls 1d6 for each shot (scoring 445) and adds his Rep (4) to each one, giving him scores of 8, 8, and 9. The first 8 misses Mike because he is fast moving (told you that was worth it), the second 8 misses because this is the second shot, and the 9 misses because it is the third shot. I roll 3d6 to see how many zeds this attracts; 443, so no new zombies.

Kev goes next, and fires his shotgun at Mike. As it’s a shotgun, although the target rating is only 3, he rolls 6d6 for hits, counting the best three for attacks but all of them for tight ammo; he rolls 445445. No ones there, so he hasn’t run out of shells; he counts 545 as hits, but rolls 6d6 for fresh zombies, getting 525521 for three new zeds. He adds his Rep (3) to the three best dice rolls and scores 8, 7, 8; all of those miss – again, Mike is saved by fast moving. The new zeds turn up at Kev’s 6, 4, and 8 o’clock (in each case, twice the score of 1d6).

Jeni and Mike go simultaneously. I roll for Jeni first, and she gets 553, which gives her scores of 8, 8, and 6; all misses thanks to the fast move, and she scores 425 for zombies, getting a new one at her 10 o’clock. Mike fires his shotgun and gets 356554, counting 565 for hits, no ones so tight ammo doesn’t apply, and 151631 for zombies, generating two new ones at his 2 and 6 o’clock.

I now face a quandary. As I understand the rules, there is no rule saying he can’t use up his remaining movement to break contact; but that will leave him in view of half a dozen zeds and three hostile gangers, and unlikely to activate. So, I invoke the Leaving the Table rule on p. 33; all humans roll 1d6 + Rep, and any who score higher than Mike can shoot at him as he runs off, although he counts as fast moving – that sounds like a better bet.

Mike rolls a 6 and adds Rep 2 for a total of 8; go Mike! Fred rolls a 3, adds Rep 4 and gets a 7 – too slow, Fred. Kev rolls 1, and let’s just draw a veil over that, shall we? Jeni rolls a 3, adds Rep 3, and also fails to beat Mike’s score. Mike is removed from the table.

AFTERMATH

Mike failed this encounter, since he did not clear the board of the opposition. He can’t roll to improve his Rep, and there is no point rolling to see if he lost any Rep, because it can’t go any lower. Well, that was a bust, but ATZ encounters are like aeroplane landings – if you can walk away, it was good enough.

CURRENT STATUS

Mike Blackman:* Rep 2 MM Survivor, Pep 2, Sav 1, Poser, Rage. Shotgun, crowbar, knife, backpack. Food 1.

Suburban Area: Body Armour 9, Food 29, Fuel 14, Luxuries 28, Medical 7, Weapons 25.

STATISTICS

This encounter used 18 zombies and four humans, and took about three hours to play and write up – it’s hard to apportion time between those, as I write things up as I go. Mike’s appalling Rep is also boosting the encounter time, as he often fails to activate.

The Dojo Gang, Z+28: Grenade Fishing

It’s now January 18th for the Dojo Gang, and they have moved into the suburbs, where there is a small military base, now hopefully abandoned. NS has decided he needs a flamethrower, so they plan to stroll in and take one.

For this encounter only, since the group has specified raiding a military base for decent weapons and body armour, I allowed them to declare Items they found as either one.

SETUP

The Dojo Gang (Gouda Killem, GM, NS, and Hardcore Hank) enter the board from section 7. Gouda as declared as the tactical group leader, as while he and GM both have Rep 5 now, if Gouda leads he can stop GM indulging her Greed by looting. The assorted mountain bicycles have been left off-map.

The PEFs are Rep 4 (in the Inn), Rep 5 (building 3) and Rep 6 (building 6). Seven zombies initially, placed as per the rulebook.

GAME PLAY

NS climbed into Building 1 through the window, and encountered a lone Ganger who opened fire on him, drawing more zombies, before NS cut him down with a katana.

Meanwhile, all PEFs were resolved, two of them boosting the Encounter Rating to 5, and one revealing itself as a squad of five soldiers, no doubt placed to guard the base.

Neither side felt especially forgiving, and so grenades were exchanged through the doors, but thanks to Star Power the Stars survived and the soldiers did not, except for the Rep 3 medic, who got lucky. Many more zombies were generated by the bangs, and started to close in on Our Heroes.

The group methodically searched the cluster of buildings, then repaired to the roof of Building 4, throwing a grenade into section 9 to draw the zeds away from them. At this stage they had met all requirements for self-improvement except killing a zombie each, and hit on the idea of taking it in turns to throw a grenade into the mass of zombies, on the basis that this would probably get them at least one each, and continue to draw the zeds away from them. That explains the mass of live and dead zeds milling around sections 8 and 9.

Meanwhile, several random events occurred, including a couple of zombies bursting out of cupboards and Building 6 bursting into flames – we decided that must have been where the flamethrowers were kept, and that one had been set off by a stray round.

The soldier medic recovered and fled, unfortunately straight into a group of zombies, who promptly devoured him. While the zombies were distracted by fire, grenades and the dying medic, the Gang withdrew to the Stables in good order, where they found a Hummvee – Gouda had previously found some car keys in Building 4, to ensure that he had some when he next saw a vehicle.

The group debated whether to clear the place out and take up residence, as they have too much stuff to carry now, but decided it was too big, and they should try again somewhere smaller. So, they roared off through the Alep Gate in their new Hummvee (not shown), letting Hank drive so that he could run over one of the zeds by the gate and thus fulfil all his victory conditions.

Sorry, the end-of-game picture is a bit blurry today.

AFTERMATH

The only character who improved anything was Hardcore Hank, the Grunt, who promptly beat Gouda’s Keeping It Together roll by a wide margin and left the party, taking large quantities of food and a couple of weapons.

Having looted all the bodies, the group now has more armour and weapons than they can comfortably use. Fortunately, they now have a vehicle to carry it.

CURRENT STATUS

Gouda Killem, Rep 5 Survivor. Pep 3, Sav 2, Runt, Born Leader. Body armour, pistol, crowbar. Food 3, Fuel 2. Fireman’s axe, nailgun, map, compass, lighter, commlink, propane lantern, backpack, 2 grenades.

GM, Rep 5 Survivor. Pep 3, Sav 2, Greedy, Medic-2. Body armour, shotgun, fireman’s axe. Food 4, Lux 3, Med 4. Shovel, mirror, commlink, pink Dora the Explorer backpack with compass, jack-in-the-box, glass cutter.

NS, Rep 4 Survivor. Pep 2, Sav 3, Brawler, Rage. Body armour, shotgun with bayonet and flashlight, katana. Food 6, Fuel 1. NVG, grappling hook and rope, binoculars, commlink, large backpack, blowtorch, large can of deodorant spray, mountain bike.

Hummvee. BV 6. Fuel 6. Contains 5 assault rifles, 2 grenades, binoculars, 4 x pistol, BAP, road flare, 4 body armour.

The Neighbourhood: Body Armour 4, Food 28, Fuel 14, Luxuries 24, Medical 3, Weapons 17.

-o0o-

I can see that for the next session we’ll need to look at encumbrance – as they have a Hummer, they can hang on to it all, but some of them now own more than they can carry on their persons.

For the group, though, February approaches, and we’re switching back to our normal diet of alternating Shadowrun and Savage Worlds games; ATZ will be the reserve game for when time is short or inspiration fails, as it can be set up and played very quickly. When next you see the Dojo Gang, expect a Take Back scenario in the suburbs, as they find a place to stay.

Credits: Map – the Caravanserai from the Cry Havoc! Fan website. Figures – zombies from Zombie! boardgame, other figures eM4 prepaints. Additional rules – CR2 Final Version for grenades.

Statistics: The game lasted 17 turns, roughly 90 minutes, and used 38 zombies and 10 human figures.

Blackman, Z+80: Let’s Twist Again

It’s been a busy week, and there wasn’t time for a group session at the weekend, so I decided to use my spare time constructively – that is, by playing more All Things Zombie.

For Mike Blackman, would-be road warrior, it’s now 21st March 2013, Z+80. Mike hasn’t eaten in a long time, so I decide he will move back into the ‘burbs where the tins of spam – and zombies – are more numerous. So, it’s a Search scenario; I prefer those in urban or suburban regions, as you can win the encounter earlier on; in rural locales, I find it better to use a Take Back scenario, as you might very well not find anything, but you can clear the board.

SETUP

I was going to use one of the nifty maps Lee Sweeney pointed out to me, but I already had the Village from Cry Havoc! loaded in Hex Map Pro on the iPad, so inertia won, as it often does these days. I set one hex as 1" because it’s easy, which makes the board a bit small at 16" x 26", but as I’ve said before, these rules are really hard to break, and a small board won’t do it; it just speeds up play a little, and with Mike’s current Rep of 2, that’s useful, as he will fail to activate two turns out of three.

We begin with Mike entering the board from section 7, with two PEFs in section 5 and one in section 6, all three of the beggars Rep 6. There are 2 + 1d6 = 4 vehicles, which I place as if they were PEFs in sections 1, 3, 4 and 4. There are three zombies, at Mike’s 2, 6 and 8 o’clock, rotated around until they fit on the board. The game board now looks like this:

I thought it might be useful to label the board sections and show the borders between them, so I added those. You’ll see some of the labels later are on sideways – sorry about that, I was playing the game “vertically” and it didn’t occur to me at the time that I always post the pictures “horizontally” so they fit on monitors better.

I don’t bother rolling for lack of sleep, because Mike’s Rep can’t get any worse than it is already, poor guy.

TURN 1

Activation: Mike 3, Zeds and PEFs 6. Rep 6 PEFs always activate and always pass 2d6 for movement, so they all move 12" towards Mike, staying in cover at all times. As usual, I apply my house rule that given a choice between moving closer and staying in cover, PEFs will stay in cover.

This leaves them all lined up inside the yard of Building 3, glaring at him like something from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

TURN 2

Activation: Mike 2, Zeds and PEFs 5. The zeds still fail to activate, and the PEFs can’t get any closer without breaking cover, so Mike moves. Mike fast-moves, rolling 2d6 vs Rep (2); 6, 2 and he passes 1d6, meaning his move this turn is 12". He runs to the corner of Building 5 and flattens himself against the wall. Since the PEFs rolled higher for activation than he did, he moves after them, so they stay where they are. Mike can now see a vehicle crashed into a tree in section 3.

The white square is a turn counter, while the coloured squares are the activation dice for Mike (green) and zombies (red), using Hex Map Pro’s dice roller.

TURN 3

Activation: Mike 4, Zeds and PEFs 3. Mike doesn’t activate, but everyone else does. The PEFs follow him and squat on the other side of the wall he’s backed up against; the zeds shamble 6" in whatever direction they’re currently facing, which conveniently takes them towards where they last saw him.

TURN 4

Activation: Mike 6, Zeds/PEFs 5. Nobody moves, Mike and the zeds because they failed to activate, and the PEFs because they can’t get any closer.

TURN 5

Activation: Mike 5, Zeds/PEFs 3. Pretty much a repeat of turn 3, with the zeds coming up on the edge of the board now.

TURN 6

Activation: Mike 2, Zeds/PEFs 6. Again, although the PEFs always activate and always pass 2d6 to move closer, they go before Mike; which means they don’t actually move. While the zeds pause for breath (all that shuffling takes it out of you), Mike fast-moves up the board toward the vehicle in section 3. He rolls 2, 5 against Rep on 2d6, and so passes 1d6 and moves 12".

A little metagaming here; in the real world, danger could come from anywhere, but in the game, I know any attackers will be on the board somewhere. So, I turn Mike to cover as much of it as possible. This is why he needs a companion; someone has to look out behind him, since attacks from the rear are vicious.

TURN 7

Activation: Both sides roll 4, so there is a random event, and for the first time I turn to the rulebook. Oh look, it’s an 11; Mike twists his ankle again. He really ought to get that ankle looked at. This happens in almost every game with Mike, for some reason.

TURN 8

Activation: Mike 1, Zed/PEF 4. As the zeds can’t see any people, they are Rep 3, so miss a turn. The PEFs realise Mike is in section 3 now, and stampede towards him. Meanwhile, Mike fast-moves; as he has twisted an ankle, he only counts 1d6 for this, but rolls a 2 so still passes 1d6, and has a move of 10" (8" normal move, +4" for fast move, -2" for twisted ankle). That doesn’t bother me, he needs much less than that to reach the crashed car, but will still count as fast-moving if anyone shoots at him, which is all I wanted.

After a quick skim of the rules, I can’t see anything that says there should be anyone (or anything) inside, so I decide this car is empty. Mike clambers in, because then he counts as concealed. As per p. 39, at this stage of the outbreak in a suburban area, it’s out of fuel on a roll of 4-6 on 1d6. I roll 1, so it’s still operational, and then 4 when checking if the keys are in the ignition; as that roll is more than 1, Mike will have to hotwire the car if he wants to use it. Let’s search the car, shall we, Mike? That’ll have to wait, though, as he needs to spend an activation doing it.

TURN 9

Activation: Mike 1, Zed/PEF 4. Hmm, same as last time. The PEFs close up, and stare at him through the windows. Mike searches the car; only one person can search a car, but there’s just him, so that’s OK. I roll 2d6 vs the Encounter Rating of 3; 1, 5 passes 1d6, so Mike finds a food unit. Hurray! I would imagine he eats some of it, as it has been weeks since he had any real food.

TURN 10

Activation: Mike 1, Zeds/PEFs 5. Mike’s on a roll here. Pausing only to stuff his pockets and backpack with food, he exits the vehicle and fast-moves along the top of the board towards the car parked in section 1. He has now achieved the encounter objective, but he needs to kill a zed to gain a chance to improve his Rep, and given its parlous state, that is definitely worth a shot. I roll 2, 4 and again Mike passes 1d6 and moves 10", flattening his back against Building 1.

TURN 11

Activation: Mike 1, Zed/PEF 4. Wow, four activations in a row! The PEFs move up as always, and Mike fast-moves to the next car, again getting a 10" move. The car is fuelled, but there are no keys. Mike looks out of the windows, and has line of sight to two of the PEFs, so I resolve them now by rolling 2d6 vs location ER (3) on the PEF Resolution table.

For the first, I roll 6, 6 and pass 0d6 – just Mike’s nerves playing tricks on him. For the second, I get 2, 4 and pass 1d6 – there’s definitely something out there, and the ER increases to 4. Good for looting, bad for getting shot at.

TURN 12

Activation: Mike 4, Zed/PEF 1. Ah well, it had to happen sometime. As the highest Rep that activated, the PEF moves up as close as it can. Then the zeds finally move, hit the board edge, and start shaking out into the traditional conga line.

TURN 13

Activation: Mike 6, PEF/Zed 3. Mike doesn’t activate, the PEF can’t get any closer without being seen, and the zeds shuffle around the edge of the map.

TURN 14

Activation: Mike 3, PEF/Zed 1. A repeat of turn 13.

TURN 15

Activation: Mike 1, Zed/PEF 5. Mike searches the second car, and finds a second food unit. Excellent. For the previously-explained reasons, nobody else moves.

TURN 16

Activation: Mike 1, Zed/PEF 5. Still lucky, Mike. Mike sees he is within range for the shotgun, and pokes it out the window to blast the zed moving up the left-hand edge of the board. As per p. 23, he rolls 6d6 to hit, counting the best three for purposes of hitting and all of them for purposes of running out of ammo. He rolls 362363, and uses 6, 6, 3 as his rolls to hit. I add his Rep (2) to each of those dice and get 8, 8, 5. The 5 is an obvious miss – any roll of 7 or less is – but looking at the Range Combat table, both 8s hit. (8 misses "if second or higher target", but it’s the same zombie, so I guess both hit.)

As soon as I fire, I must roll to see if the gunfire attracts more zombies… I roll 6d6 (one for each shot), and get 612331; any results of 5 or 6 in the ‘burbs are a new zed, so I deploy one more, 12" from Mike. I roll a 3 for direction, meaning it would be at his 6 o’clock (you just double the score to get a clock face direction), and then rotate that vector clockwise until the new zed fits on the table, facing Mike, but it doesn’t activate on the turn it is placed.

Now for damage. It doesn’t matter if I use the Easy To Kill rule (which would apply) from p. 49 or not, as Mike’s Rep is the same as the shotgun’s Impact – 2. I roll 1d6 for each hit, and get 6, 2; the 6 is higher than the Impact, so Knocks Down the zed, but the 2 is the Impact or less, and so puts the zombie Out Of the Fight – which for a zed, kills it (p. 49). I flip the counter to its grey side in celebration, as Mike has now met all the victory conditions for the scenario.

As my beloved wishes me to clear snow from the drive at this point, I call the game and Mike uses his movement to exit the board while I exit the house with shovel in hand.

AFTERMATH

Mike rolls 1d6 to increase his Rep, and gets a 2. I am unimpressed, but the dice roll what they roll. As the ‘burbs look like a good compromise between loot and safety, Mike will stay here for a while, so it’s worth checking what loot there is; I roll this as per the Availability rules on p. 57, then deduct the 2 Food Mike has already found.

I suppose strictly speaking I should keep track of resources left in previous areas, but that sounds like high effort and low fun, so I won’t bother. The primary purpose of Over Fishing is to force characters into a new area from time to time, and in my experience that’s usually triggered by a shortage of food.

The next adventure should be a Take Back encounter, as Mike looks for a place to stay for the next few weeks. He definitely does not want to spend another winter living rough in the boonies. Also, he is reaching the limit of what he can carry, so he needs a safe place to store things. At Rep 2, he can only carry 4 Items (twice his Rep), which are currently the shotgun, the knife and the backpack (counts as two items). However, he can carry twice his Rep in items inside the backpack, which are currently a crowbar and two units of Food; that means he can only carry one more item.

CURRENT STATUS

Mike Blackman:* Rep 2 MM Survivor, Pep 2, Sav 1, Poser, Rage. Shotgun, crowbar, knife, backpack. Food 2.

Suburban Area: Body Armour 9, Food 29, Fuel 14, Luxuries 28, Medical 7, Weapons 25.

The Dojo Gang, Z+21: Hardcore Hank

Gouda Killem, GM and NS are now in week 3 of the outbreak, and as Stars have automatically been promoted from Citizens; they chose to become Survivors.

Incidentally, the map is from SPI’s Sniper! – scanned, enlarged until one hex is an inch across, printed and laminated. As you can see, the first sign of an impending zombie outbreak is that all the buildings turn from rectangles into rhomboids. Figures are a mixture of Mongoose Battlefield Evolution (representing zombies), some beads from the local bead shop (representing PEFs) and eM4′s prepainted SF range (representing everything else).

SETUP

The group are playing the Escape! scenario for Z+21. To succeed, they must cross the board diagonally from top left to bottom right, pick up an NPC Grunt, then cross the board diagonally from bottom left to top right.

I decided they only deserved one Grunt between them, as a group of 3-5 Stars should be able to get by on its own. After some time poring over the available Grunts, and overruling the suggestion from NS that they pick the one with the most loot, kill him, and steal all his stuff (not 100% sure he’s a Survivor, that one) they accepted TM’s choice of Grunt #2 from the Survivors 1-3 table on p. 75. This worthy they dubbed "Hardcore Hank the Hacker" or "Triple-H" for short.

Things are off to a bad start as they begin with 18 zeds on the board, and two of the PEFs are Rep 6. There was some discussion of abandoning the game and walking straight back off the board, but they decided to press on.

EARLY GAME

The group broke into what must have been a garage, since they found a moped, a glasscutter, and a very large can of deodorant. Unfortunately they made a noise breaking in (failed Savvy test) and all the zeds moved to the noise. The Defining Moment and one PEF resolution increased the area Encounter Rating to 6. Gouda Killem and GM decided to hunker down and wait for the zeds to pass; Gouda wanted to race across the street and enter the building with the PEF in it, but that would have left Greedy GM alone in the garage for who knows how long.

NS, meanwhile, had thrown his mountain bike over the neighbours’ wall and followed it. Realising that a failed Fast Move roll would leave him alone in the street with a dozen zombies, he hid as best he could in the garden.

Risking a peek out of the window, TM noticed that one of the zombies was in fact a normal human in makeup. Regrettably they never talked to him.

MID GAME

Crossing the street, they discovered a group of soldiers who demanded they turn over their weapons and go home. By succeeding handily at a Pep challenge, GM persuaded them to rescue the human hiding among the zeds, and the party then ran out the back while the squaddies were distracted.

Abandoning the earlier idea of looting all the buildings – there were just too many zeds around – the group used their stolen mountain bike and moped to charge down the main street towards the opposite corner of the board.

GM played true to zombie movie stereotypes by twisting her ankle at a critical moment, but avoided the bad effects by riding pillion on Gouda’s moped.

In the shot above we see the first wave of all the zeds attracted by the moped’s engine noise catching up to the party, while the conga line that has formed up from zeds bouncing off walls, fences and board edges marches to the sound of the moped.

By now, I’ve run out of Mongoose soldiers to act as zeds, and NS has replaced them all with the pawns from the Zombies! boardgame.

The human hiding among the zeds has taken advantage of the distraction to leave the board, and the soldiers decided to move into one of the buildings and hole up.

The white die at top centre is Fenton the dog, who appeared early on and has been chasing them with his entourage of zeds ever since. I think he appears often enough to get his own mini, I’ll see what I can find.

LATE GAME

Picking up Hardcore Hank, the group started back, but were cornered by zeds and had to dive into a building. The zeds near the big red die (ER tracker) have lost sight of their quarry, while the ones on the other side of the building turned back into the board and are now moving into an inconvenient place.

END GAME

Hank and Gouda, on the moped, were swarmed by zeds thanks to a poor Fast Move roll. They were moving too fast for me to catch them, but as you can see from the Knocked Down zeds they managed to cut their way out and escape into another building. Gouda had to leave his moped behind, but found another mountain bike in that house, as did Hank.

Meanwhile, NS and GM had thrown the cellphone GM recovered in the previous scenario into the road, where its ringing drew the zeds away once they’d lost sight of the fugitives, helping them to escape. A tied activation roll saw Hank vanish, but he was picked up later.

AFTERMATH

GM failed the encounter, as she didn’t kill any zeds; but NS and Gouda both succeeded, and Gouda increased his Rep. Hank decided to stay with his buddy Gouda.

They’re still intent on robbing a military base, as NS has decided the weapon of choice for the Zombie Apocalypse is a flamethrower.

CURRENT STATUS

Partly so I don’t lose track, and partly so you can share my amusement at their choice of looted Items…

• Gouda Killem: Rep 5 Survivor Star, Pep 3, Sav 2, Runt, Born Leader. Food 2, Fuel 1, bike, pistol, crowbar, one-handed axe, nailgun, map, compass, lighter, commlink, propane lantern, backpack.
• GM: Rep 5 Survivor Star, Pep 3, Sav 2, Greedy, Medic-2. Food 3, Luxury Goods 3, Medical Supplies 3, shovel, one-handed axe, mirror, commlink, pink explorer backpack with compass, jack-in-the-box, glass cutter (for getting through windows without making noise).
• NS: Rep 4 Survivor Star, Pep 2, Sav 3, Rage, Brawler. Food 1, Fuel 1, kendo Body Armour, shotgun with bayonet and flashlight, katana, night vision goggles, grappling hook and rope, binoculars, commlink, mountain bike, large backpack, blowtorch, large can of deodorant (improvised flamethrower).
• Hank: Rep 5 Survivor, Pep 4, Sav 3, Brawler. Food 3, Luxuries 1, Body Armour, BAMP, bicycle.

REFLECTIONS

I was surprised they got away alive, especially after being mobbed by zeds twice, but Brawler, Rage, Survivor and a two-handed melee weapon are a powerful combination.

So were they.

Blackman, Z+73: There’s an Old Mill by the Stream

The ATZ adventures both for Mike Blackman and Don Savage are now self-sustaining; I find this with most games, after a few sessions ideas for scenarios just flow naturally out of what went before, and then I feel more like I’m watching the story unfold than making it up.

4th March 2013: Z+73. Mike’s out of food again, but at least the weather’s improved.

Let’s see how Mike does with the watermill, shall we? I’m feeling lazy today, so no didactic writeup; just the narrative. There was no involuntary encounter for March, so Mike eats what’s left of the food he got last time, and goes looking for more.

This is a daytime Take Back encounter in a rural area. I’ve started experimenting with other things Hex Map Pro can do for me; the white square at the top left of the picture is a turn counter, and the green and red ones at the top right are dice – Hex Map Pro allows you to declare a token as a die or dice, so you can also use it as a dice roller.

Above is the board at the start of the encounter.

Mike moves into cover by the watermill door, uncertain whether to go in or to resolve the PEFs first. He needs a defensible position in case he fails the next 3-4 activations, which is entirely possible. I decide to modify my house rule for door state following a discussion on the THW mailing list; roll 1d6: 1 = Open, 2-3 = Closed, 4-5 = Locked, 6 = Barricaded by previous visitors. I roll a 4, and this one is locked, so I add a little token in Hex Map Pro so that I don’t forget that. (Tokens can be various different sizes.) That makes Mike’s decision for him, let’s do the zed and the PEFs first.

Mike fast moves up the board to get line of sight on as many PEFs as he can. (The bridge is normal terrain, but I decide each water hex reduces movement by 2".) This turns out to be all of them. Thanks to the low ER (1), all the PEFs resolve as false alarms. Just the zed to deal with then, plus whatever is in the house. The zed wades across the pool at 2" per hex towards where it saw Mike last. It does this for a couple of turns, during which I also get a string of doubles on activation, but not random events.

By turn 9, all that dancing about is over, and Mike circles around a tree to get a shot at the zed without coming into charge range. He manages to knock it down despite only being Rep 2, but only just. Luckily, no zeds are attracted by the gunfire. However, next turn we get a random event, and Mike twists his ankle again. The zed recovers while he is hopping around swearing (and not activating), then runs at him, but his strategy of staying out of charge range is looking pretty good.

After a lot of messing around with nobody activating, Mike activates and charges the zed, which counts as unarmed for the first round, and kills it. Being a Raging Survivor is good for this sort of thing.

Mike walks back to the watermill and tries a Savvy Challenge to pick the lock. Astonishingly, he passes 2d6 (no, really – rolled two ones!) and succeeds. The door opens, and even better, there are no zombies inside. That means a Defining Moment, which results in the ER increasing by one. Mike rolls to see what’s inside his new home, and finds… nothing. Oh well, can’t have everything.

Mike meets the criteria for a Rep increase, but rolls a 1 and stays at Rep 2. About par for the course with my dice rolling.

• Mike Blackman:* Rep 2 MM Survivor, Pep 2, Sav 1, Poser, Rage. Shotgun, crowbar, knife, backpack.

Reflection: It looks like the main factor driving game length is the Star’s Rep.

Happy New Year, everyone! I’ll be back in a couple of days with more silliness for your amusement, and mine!

All Things Zombie: PEFs and Factions

We’ve skipped a couple of our usual Saturday sessions, due to the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Christmas, so I’ve spent some time thinking about PEFs for the co-op game. I want a way of creating PEFs quickly during play, without having to prepare beforehand or slow the game down by looking things up; and I want some factions in the play area, to keep things interesting for my players in the long term – a sandbox environment to generate adventures, if you will.

INSTANT PEFS

Rather than look up the tables, I decided to use a simple die roll to select groups from my collection of eM4 prepainted figures:

1. Police. Used to represent gangers after Day 30. (Don’t read anything into that, I just don’t have enough gangers otherwise.)
2. Recce Squad. Used to represent survivors after Day 30.
3. Recce Squad. (I have two Recce Squads, thanks to a sale at my FLGS.)
4. Chequers Gang. Gangers.
5. Mercenaries. Citizens.
6. Roll again, at least until I get some more figures. Or I could use the Aliens set if I wanted to worry the players.

Then, I just haul out the relevant group, and that’s what the PEF is. To my mind, each of the eM4 groups has an obvious leader, who will be Rep 5, Pep 4, Sav 3; an obvious runt of the litter, who will be Rep 3, Pep 1, Sav 2; and three normal guys, who will be Rep 4, Pep 2, Sav 3. Most groups picked this way will be 5 figures, but this is the same pool of figures that gets raided for Stars and their Grunt sidekicks, which will mean some groups enter the table short-handed. I’ll adopt a rule from earlier versions of ATZ, and not bother with attributes for NPCs. (For Savage Worlds, I’d rate the leaders as Experienced Soldiers, and the Rep 3 or 4 members as Soldiers.)

Gear: THW games often suggest you pick a figure for your Star, and he or she has whatever the figure has. I’ll extend that to NPCs; they have whatever the figure has. Three of the figures have medical kits, so they have medical supplies; none of them have obvious food or luxury items. Too bad, the Stars will have to loot buildings for those. To compensate, though, there are a lot more figures with body armour than the tables on pp. 74-75 of ATZ: FFO would suggest. One or two of the figures have backpacks, which I will allow players to search as if they were buildings, so long as what they claim to find would fit inside a pack.

Zeds: I’ll use the Mongoose Battlefield Evolution figures for zombies until I get some proper zeds. They’re the only ones I have enough of, and I need to replace the red and green pawns with something that shows facing – facing is important in ATZ. Or maybe I’ll try the free download zed standees from Pinnacle’s website.

SIMPLIFIED LOOT TABLE

This is more for solo play, really; it allows me to run games using just the encounter tables in the QRS, without looking up what’s on the bodies in the main rulebook. I crunched some numbers about who carries what, and came up with this as an alternative to looking up loot on ATZ: FFO pp. 74-75.

When a figure is vanquished, roll 1d6 for each of Food, Luxury, Medical and Body Armour to see what it’s carrying. (Actually, I suppose I should roll for armour when the figure appears, as it may affect combat.)

• Food: 1-3 figure is carrying one unit, 4-6 it has two units.
• Luxuries: 1-2 none, 3-6 one unit.
• Medical supplies or Body Armour: 1-5 none, 6 one unit.

That doesn’t give the correct relative frequencies, but in the long term it averages out at roughly the right levels.

FACTIONS

The lazy way to add these is to say that each encounter table (for example, Gangers 4-6) is one faction, a recurring ally or enemy. I did some analysis of who has how much of what compared to the averages, picked some likely-looking leaders for the groups, and let my mind wander for a bit. I won’t bore you with the percentages, but this is what I came up with; numbers in ( ) show which group member I mean when I say someone is the leader.

Citizens 1-3: The Commune. Led by a council of four equally capable leaders, David (2), Kim (3), John (10) and Michelle (11), the Commune has no surplus of anything, and is short of everything; charitable players could easily befriend them. They have more women than most groups, however, and if things get bad enough they might be tempted to swap them for something edible; any of the ganger or survivor groups would be credible partners in that trade.

Citizens 4-6: The Farm. Led by Robert (10), a Born Leader, who has three right-hand women; Amy (2), Angela (4) and Melissa (11 – a medic). This faction has more female members than any other; they also have a surplus of Food, which they will trade for Luxuries or Medical supplies.

Gangers 1-3: The Kings. Led by Chris (7), a Greedy old man. The heir to the throne is his Fast grandson Will (4). They prefer to trade Food to get Luxury goods and Medical supplies, although they have no actual medic.

Gangers 4-6: The Jacks. Nominally led by Brian (2), who is Dim; the power behind the throne is Tammy (12), Brian’s young mistress. While she is the ruthless brains of the outfit, though, its heart is Mark (8), a badly injured (Rep 2) but charismatic consigliore. The Jacks would also offer Food and ask for Luxuries or Medical supplies.

Survivors 1-3: The Righteous. These are led by Mary (12), a mature but Agile female, whose second in command is Richard (2), a young male Brawler – I picture him as heading up the Arm Militant, who defend the rest of the Righteous. The Righteous are intended to subvert the post-apocalyptic trope of the mad, vicious fundamentalist Christian group; these guys are indeed fundamentalist Christians, but they have retained their essential decency. (That will please those of my group who are devout Christians, and worry those who play Silent Hill.) The Righteous have a surplus of both Food and Luxuries, but need Medical supplies (and a medic who can use them).

Survivors 4-6: The Libertarian Militia. The Militia is a group of doomsday preppers who have been waiting for this day for years. They are well-equipped, well-prepared, and well-organised. They are nominally led by Jeff (12), a mature male Poser, but the real power is with Scott (2), a young male and a Born Leader. This group has the lowest number of female members, and if they cannot adjust their gender imbalance by civilised means, at some point they will probably raid one of the Citizen groups and steal some women. Like the Righteous, the Militia have Food and Luxuries, but want Medical supplies – they had envisioned an apocalypse, but not one with this much disease or this many injuries.

So, short version: Everyone wants Medical supplies, and almost everyone would swap Food for them. If the campaign gets sufficiently grim and dark, Citizens 4-6 might offer women to Survivors 4-6 in exchange for Luxury items, while Citizens 1-3 might offer women to Survivors 4-6 for Food, and any of the ganger or survivor groups could raid either of the citizen groups for women. (It would be equally valid to say that all groups are ~50% female, but preferentially send males out scavenging, so the players meet more men than women; but a darker interpretation lends itself better to the classic damsel in distress scenario and is more in line with my original inspiration, the movie 28 Days Later.) Less disturbingly, any of the 1-3 groups might offer any of the 4-6 groups Items or Resources to gain access to their medical skills; and Stars with that skill in their tactical group could probably find employment too.

I did think about doing a large-scale map showing which faction was where compared to the Stars, but lacked the motivation to do so. Maybe later.

Savage, Z+43: Black Hawk Down

“If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it’s probably a helicopter… and therefore, unsafe.” – Anon.

Merry Christmas to all readers! Here’s the last post before Christmas Day…

2nd February, 2013: Z+43.

"Bex? About those contrails you wanted… Does a chopper on fire count?"

"Sure. Let’s check it out."

"You want to swap that shotgun for the other assault rifle?"

"No thanks. I prefer this for close work."

Metagaming: The shotgun has nearly a 50% chance that at least one damage die will ace, while the AR has less than a 25% chance of that. So although when the AR is burst-fired it appears to have roughly the same chance to hit and average damage, the SG is a little more likely to take down a zed in one shot, and makes less noise doing it (one die roll for extra zeds instead of three). The range in my encounters is short enough not to be a factor. I’d switch Don back to a shotgun as well if I had another one, mostly because that matches the figure I have in mind for him. If I ever get around to painting it…

Admin: It’s the start of a new month, so Don and Bex reduce their stocks of food by one unit per person – from 5 to 3. They’re OK for a while yet. I check for an involuntary encounter by rolling 2d6 vs the area’s Encounter Rating (1); 6, 4 – no encounter this month. I roll for lack of sleep by rolling 2d6 and get a total of 8, meaning 8 hours’ sleep the night before the next encounter; whatever they’re getting up to in that watermill, they’re sleeping soundly enough.

SETUP

This is a daytime Search encounter in a rural area. Having settled in, Don and Bex are scouting the area for useful items, resources such as food, and possibly other survivors to join their little band. Don’s objectives, worth one experience point each, are: (1) Survive the encounter without either Don or Bex being Incapacitated or turned into a zombie; (2) find at least one item, or recruit one new member; (3) kill at least one zombie. I’m especially interested in getting Bex some body armour.

However, this time they’re not searching buildings – they’ve found a crashed helicopter, one of those black choppers that occasionally turn up as random events… I spent some time looking for a suitable picture and doodling in Hexographer, and then decided to Just Play the Game and make a big token for the chopper wreck. The map is The Crossroads from Cry Havoc Fan, in Hex Map Pro as usual.

PLAY

Turn 1: Don and Bex can immediately see two of the Possible Enemy Forces, which resolve as a case of nerves and three survivors, respectively. The survivors are numbers 2, 7 and 8 from table 1-3. The Opposing Forces draw a Club Jack to Don’s Spade 8, and go first. The remaining PEF moves into the chopper. The survivors are currently neutral, and move closer to Don and attempt to interact. The zeds all run at the closest human. Survivor 7A has an assault rifle and Shooting d10, so sweeps across the incoming brace of zeds, two shots on one and one on the other; this does no damage to anyone, but at least it doesn’t draw any zeds. Don puts one zed down with a well-aimed burst, and Bex shakes one. I decide interaction can wait until the zeds are all down.

Turn 2: Don draws a Heart Queen to the others’ Heart 3. Trusting Bex to handle the zed on his left, which she kills, he turns and shoots one of the zeds assaulting the survivors shaking it. PEF5 sneaks up to the edge of the crater and lies in wait. While the survivors and the zeds go simultaneously, I decide that bullets cross the 4 yard gap faster than raging zombies, so the three survivors combine fire on the zeds and kill them both.

Turn 3: Initiative doesn’t matter this turn, as Don, Bex and the survivors meet to talk. Don (Persuasion d6) makes an opposed Persuasion roll with the survivors’ leader (Persuasion d8); Don can’t do better than match their roll even after spending two bennies, so they exchange pleasantries but that’s all. Looking at the stats for the Survivors 1-3 table, it looks like they are OK as far as food and luxury goods are concerned, and have enough women not to kill Don for Bex, but they are interested in medical supplies and need a medic – more on this approach to loading PEFs later, when I’ve worked the kinks out of it. They agree to look inside the chopper wreck and divide the loot.

The leader of the group, a man in his twenties with a large-calibre SMG and the scars on his knuckles that mark him as an experienced bare-knuckle fighter, eyes Don up and speaks.

"You claiming the chopper?"

"No. Just curious, that’s all," Don replies.

"Good," the opposing leader says. He thinks for a moment. "My crew goes in first, and we get our pick of what’s inside. Agreed?"

It’s Don’s turn to think; them going in first means they’ll take all the good stuff, but it also means they have to deal with whatever is inside.

"Agreed. I just want to know where it came from.”

The opposing leader looks at him curiously, but says nothing.

Turn 4: Initiative matters because of who looks in the chopper first, and the survivors get first dibs, which I use to justify the exchange above. Everyone moves up, and the PEF is resolved; there’s nothing there.

"NAVY," Don reads from the side of the wreck. "Thought so. Makes sense."

"How’d you work that out?" asks the survivors’ leader. Don shrugs.

"Nuclear-powered ships," he says, "Especially carriers; sometimes they don’t – didn’t – touch land for months. Probably at least one missed the infection, and now they’re looking for somewhere safe to resupply. No power ashore, so no radio; so they send choppers."

Turn 5: Don and Bex go first, but go on hold while the survivors cautiously enter the burned-out chopper. There’s a lone zed inside, but they make short work of it, and search the wreck. Whatever they find, they don’t tell Don about it. Turns stop mattering now, as the survivors cautiously move off.

Don enters the wreckage and searches it himself, in case they missed something useful.

"Nothing," he says as he emerges. "Just one body inside; should be more than that, so maybe the rest got away. Be interesting to talk to them, if we can find them."

“Wait a minute,” says Bex. “How did that guy get infected?”

Don shrugs as they walk back to the motorbike. “Like I say, be interesting to talk to them.”

And there’s the next encounter, easy as that.

AFTERMATH

Two experience for Don, taking him to 14. Bex rolls a 6, so advances; she’s using the shotgun a lot, so I boost her Shooting.

REFLECTIONS

A very short, quiet encounter to wind down before Christmas; but that happens sometimes, even in the Zombie Apocalypse.

CURRENT STATUS

Don Savage * Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigour d6. Skills: Driving d4, Fighting d8, Healing d4, Intimidation d6, Knowledge (Battle) d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d4. Charisma: –; Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 7/9. Edges: Command, Natural Leader. Hindrances: Code of Honour, Loyal, Vengeful. Gear: Kevlar vest, assault rifle, crowbar, backpack. XP: 14. Advances: Strength, Fighting. Progress: ZZZF but using ATZ Survivor tables if necessary; as a PC ("Star") he was automatically promoted on Z+21.

Rebecca "Bex" Smith * Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigour d8. Skills: Driving d6, Fighting d6, Notice d6, Repair d4, Shooting d8. Charisma: -. Pace: 6". Parry: 5. Toughness: 6. Edges: Brave, Hard to Kill. Hindrances: None. Gear: Pump shotgun. Advances: Vigour, Shooting. Progress: ZZZF – still using Citizen tables, in case it ever matters.

Team Resources: Food 3, Fuel 0, Lux 4, Med 0, SMG, Assault Rifle, Motorcycle.

Savage, Z+38: Get a Room. And a Bike.

28th January 2013: Z+38.

Don and Bex are sitting quietly, watching the stars and huddling together for warmth. At least, that’s Don’s excuse, and he’s sticking to it.

"Don, where do you think this all started?" Bex asks, idly.

"The zombies? I don’t know, but it must be somewhere close by."

"Why?"

"You’ve seen people get bitten, and turn, right? How long does it take?"

"A few seconds. Minute, maybe."

"There you go. No incubation period. It’s not like you get bitten, hop on a plane, and then bite someone in another country three days later. No, you get bitten, and you go looking for someone else to bite right away. So, it spreads slowly, at the speed of a walking zed. We saw zombies within a few days of the outbreak, so it must’ve started near us."

"What a comforting thought. Not."

"Well, yes, actually. It means people far enough away had some warning, some time to prepare. Maybe in France, or Brazil, or somewhere, they still have a civilization going."

"I don’t think so. When was the last time you saw contrails? If anyone was still okay, they’d send planes to take pictures, wouldn’t they? If only to find out how bad it was?"

Rules Updates: I see I’ve been short-changing the zombies on recovery from Shaken – they may only have Spirit d4, but as Undead, they roll at +2.

SETUP

This is a daytime Take Back encounter in a rural area. Don and Bex have enough food for a while, and they’re looking for somewhere to call home – at least, until they’ve used up all the resources in the area and have to move on. As usual, comments in italics show where I’m using ATZ to supplement Savage Worlds.

The map is The Watermill from Cry Havoc Fan – I’m sticking with one inch per hex, which makes it a small map, but that won’t break the game, just speed it up a little. Don’s objectives, worth one experience each, are: (1) Survive without either Bex or himself being Incapacitated or turned into zombies; (2) clear all buildings on the map and resolve all Possible Enemy Forces; (3) kill all zombies on the table and drive off all opposing humans.

Don and Bex walk their Pace (6") onto the table and look around. PEFs: Rep 1 in section 4, Rep 6 in section 6, Rep 5 in section 4. Zombies: 1d3 per person, namely 3; they are 12" away at Don’s 12, 10 and 10 o’clock, respectively.

The couple can see PEF6, so I resolve it right away; I roll 2d6 vs Encounter Rating (1) and get 5, 4 – just a case of nerves, there’s nothing there really. I remove the PEF.

PLAY

Turn 1

Don draws Club 7, Opposing Forces draw Spade 7. Spades trump Clubs, so the zeds and PEFs go first. PEF1 astonishingly passes 1d6 and moves to the table edge, then turns left. It is still hidden from view.PEF5 passes 2d6 and would like to close up, but can’t without breaking cover. The zombies shamble towards Our heroes, that being the way they were set up facing, and one gains line of sight on Bex, so it starts running. It runs 1d6" on top of its Pace of 4" – it rolls a 1, and this is hardly noticeable. It’s now 7" away from Bex and will likely be all over her next turn, so she blasts it with her pump shotgun.

She rolls Shooting d6 (3) and Wild d6 (1), picks the 3 as it’s bigger, and adds the +2 for a shotgun at close range – 5, a hit, since the Target Number is 4. She rolls 3d6 for damage and gets 11; since that is 4 more than the zed’s Toughness of 7, she succeeds with a raise, inflicting one wound on it – as it is an Extra, this kills it. I roll 1d6 to see if another zombie has been attracted by the noise and get a 2; no, it hasn’t. I note that Bex has killed her third zombie, and need only hurt a real person now to be promoted from Citizen.

The pair move to put their backs to a wall on general principles, but can’t see anything else right now, so Don has no target.

Turn 2

Don Club Ace, OpFor Diamond 6. Don and Bex go on hold; let the zeds come to them first. PEF1 passes 0d6 and stays put. PEF5 passes 1d6 and moves away.

The zeds run 5" extra this turn, or 9" in all, and as they break cover Don makes an opposed Agility roll to interrupt them and shoot one as they charge. The zombies make a group Agility roll (p. 63) and get an 11, against Don’s 5; they’re just too fast for him, and they’re into melee before he can squeeze off a shot.

Fortunately only one can reach him this turn; it makes a wild attack, rolling Fighting d6 (6, that’s an ace so it rerolls – 2 – for a total of 8, then adds +2 for the wild attack to get a 10). That beats Don’s Parry of 5 by at least 4, so the zombie gets an extra d6 of damage for hitting with a raise. It rolls 2d6 (Strength d6 plus 1d6 for the raise) and gets a 13, adding +2 for the wild attack for a total of 15, beating Don’s Toughness of 7 (5 for him, 2 for his armour) by 8 and thus threatening a Shaken condition and two Wounds. Don spends a benny and makes a Vigour roll to soak the damage. He rolls Vigour d6 (1) and Wild d6 (1) for an abysmal total of 2; I’m not having that, so I spend a second benny to reroll and get a much better 10 thanks to an ace – each success and raise soaks one wound, and since that means Don has no wounds left, he is not shaken either. Don now smacks the zed with his rifle; he rolls Fighting d6 (5) and Wild d6 (1), and since the zed’s Parry is reduced by 2 for the wild attack, from 5 to 3, he hits. He rolls Strength d6 (3) and improvised weapon damage d4 (3) and gets a 6 – this is less than the zed’s Toughness, so he inflicts no damage.

Bex walks calmly around the melee and fires at the second zed running towards Don, hitting with a raise to inflict 4d6 damage, and blowing it to pieces.

Turn 3

Don Heart 5, OpFor Spade King. PEF5 moves in again, PEF1 stays put.The zed makes another wild attack on Don, hitting with a raise again and threatening one Wound. Don soaks this, as in the country the PEFs are quite likely to resolve as nothing to worry about. He soaks one wound and is fine, then counterattacks, killing the zombie.

I check the rules, but can’t see anything that would stop Don moving now he has killed his opponent, so he and Bex move across the river (which I count as difficult terrain, an extra 1" of movement required per hex) – he walks as he didn’t declare running earlier, and Bex walks as she might want to shoot. I decide to give the PEFs the benefit of the doubt and don’t resolve them yet.

Turn 4

Don Diamond Ace, OpFor Club Jack. Don goes first this time, and he and Bex move up to gain line of sight on the PEFs, which I now resolve. PEF1 is nothing in and of itself, but does increase the local Encounter Rating by one, to 2. PEF5 is just nerves. I remove both PEFs from the board.

Turns 5-6

No need for initiative now; Don and Bex take a leisurely stroll back to the watermill and enter (the door is unlocked, as per my usual 50/50 chance). I now roll 6d6 for zombies, with each 6 indicating one is present; three of the blighters. Two of them attack Don in melee, but they both miss – the third one can’t get to him. Don returns the compliment.

Turn 7

Don Heart 9, zeds Club King. The zeds make another wild attack, and one hits, but the claws scrape uselessly at Don’s armour. Bex moves away, so that Don can back up, giving her a shot into the zeds. Don goes on full defence and withdraws from combat; he rolls Fighting d6 (9) and Wild d6 (17 thanks to a couple of aces) – he uses the higher of these instead of his normal Parry (5) until his next action. Parry 17 ought to be enough.

Turn 8

Don Club Queen, zeds Spade 5. Bex blasts one of the zeds to bits. Don runs across the stream to join her, and also covers the doorway. The zeds boil out, running 10", and one gets into melee with Bex and Don – the other can’t quite make it as I rule each hex moved inside a building counts double. The zed misses, and Don swipes at it, connecting thanks to the +1 gang-up bonus granted by its fighting both he and Bex; but he fails to damage it.

Turn 9

Don Heart 6, zeds Club 2. Bex clubs her zed, hitting it and shaking it. Don swings at it as well, but misses. The zed rolls a 1 to recover from Shaken, and even with the +2 for being undead, it fails to recover. The second zed moves up and attacks Don, as he is closer.

Turn 10

Don Diamond 9, zeds joker. The shaken zed recovers, and thanks to the joker can act immediately. It makes a wild attack on Bex, and hits thanks to the total +4 bonus (+2 joker, +2 wild attack) even on a roll of 2; however, 5 damage (1 rolled, +2 for wild attack, +2 for joker) is not enough to get past Bex’s Toughness of 6 (it went up one last encounter when she improved her Vigour). The other zed clocks Don, and also fails to damage him. Don’s return swipe hits on a 3, as the zed’s wild attack lowered its Parry, and he kills it thanks to an ace on the damage roll. Bex counterattacks, hits with a raise, and kills hers.

There’s now nothing to stop Don and Bex looting the watermill; I reason that although they have entered it before, it can still be searched as no-one else has been there since. The ER is now 2; Don rolls 4, 3 and passes 0d6, while Bex rolls 1, 1 and finds an Item – this can be anything I want except a weapon or body armour, and I decide it should be a motorcycle, for two reasons:

1. Travel between areas costs one food unit if on foot, or the vehicle’s Bash Value in fuel units if driving. Motorcycles have a Bash Value of zero. Hur hur hur.
2. I can’t resist the thought of roaring through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a motorcycle laden with guns and a hot chick riding pillion. If the thought of that doesn’t bring a grin to your face, check your testosterone levels immediately.

AFTERMATH

Experience: All objectives achieved. Don gets three experience, taking him to 12 and gaining him an advance; I choose Fighting. Bex rolls a 1, and since as a NPC she needs 5+ to advance, she doesn’t. never mind.

Keeping It Together: Don and Bex make an opposed Persuasion roll to see if they split up or not. Don rolls Persuasion d6 (4) and Wild d6 (1), so scores 4; Bex rolls Persuasion d4-2 (0) and Wild d6-2 (0) and gets a 0 overall. Don succeeds with a raise (a result at least 4 higher than Bex’s), so Bex is a permanent addition to his tactical group and will not need to make this roll again.

Don and Bex sit in companionable silence for a while, staring into the flames of their carefully-concealed fire; then Bex starts singing, in a smoky contralto.

"Our house… is a very, very, very fine house; with two cats in the yard; life used to be so hard…" she stops suddenly and turns to look at Don, surprised at herself.

"Our house? You’re staying, then?"

"Yeah, I suppose I might as well. Don’t get cocky, though," she smiles. "It’s just until someone better turns up." Don offers her an arm to lean into, and she accepts. The odds of her finding someone better out here, he reasons, are not good. And if she does, Don can always shoot him.

CURRENT STATUS

Don Savage * Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigour d6. Skills: Driving d4, Fighting d8, Healing d4, Intimidation d6, Knowledge (Battle) d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d4. Charisma: –; Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 7/9. Edges: Command, Natural Leader. Hindrances: Code of Honour, Loyal, Vengeful. Gear: Kevlar vest, assault rifle, crowbar, backpack. XP: 12. Advances: Strength, Fighting. Progress: ZZZF but using ATZ Survivor tables if necessary; as a PC ("Star") he was automatically promoted on Z+21.

Rebecca "Bex" Smith * Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigour d8. Skills: Driving d6, Fighting d6, Notice d6, Repair d4, Shooting d6. Charisma: -. Pace: 6". Parry: 5. Toughness: 5. Edges: Brave, Hard to Kill. Hindrances: None. Gear: Pump shotgun. Advances: Vigour. Progress: ZZZF – still using Citizen tables, in case it ever matters.

Team Resources: Food 5, Fuel 0, Lux 4, Med 0, SMG, Assault Rifle, Motorcycle.

REFLECTIONS

You know, I’m not sure which is more fun; plain vanilla ATZ or the ATZ/SW hybrid. Fortunately, I don’t have to choose, I can keep playing both until something shinier catches my eye.

Blackman, Z+42: In Country

1st February, 2013: Z+42. Mike is cold, hungry and footsore, but at least he got out of the city alive. He needs food and a roof over his head. He also needs someone to watch his back, but he’s not ready to admit that to himself yet.

SETUP

Behold a part of one of the maps from Lock n Load Game‘s All Things Zombie – the Boardgame. Is it not a thing of beauty? I used it extensively in my off-camera experimental games, and thought that posting one blog game with it would be "fair use". The actual picture was exported from the relevant Vassal module, imported into Hex Map Pro, and expanded to 500%, which makes the cars about two hexes long – which I think is roughly correct for scale, since I work at one inch = two yards. The actual map is about four times this size, I’m just using the top left quadrant. You should see the rest of ‘em.

Anyway, Mike wanders on from the middle of section 8 as usual, and there are the obligatory three PEFs: Rep 6 in section 3, Rep 5 in section 1, Rep 6 in section 6. Blimey, they’re well ‘ard in the country, aren’t they? There are also 1d3 zombies per human, in this case one, and that’s how we like it, frankly. It’s 12" from Mike at his 2 o’clock, which puts it next to PEF6b. Mike can see that PEF, so I resolve it right away; I roll 2d6 vs Encounter Rating (1), and get 5, 6 = pass 0d6; it’s nothing to worry about, just a case of nerves.

This is a daytime rural Search encounter. Mike is looking for food.

PLAY

Turn 1: Activation: Mike 1, Opposing Forces 3. Good heavens, Mike gets to move? Best be about it, then. He fast-moves towards the gas station; he rolls 2d6 vs Rep (2), gets 4, 1 and passes 1d6, so boosts his move to 12". This is often worthwhile even if you don’t go any farther, as it makes it harder for people to shoot yo – and who knows what those Possible Enemy Forces are? The zed shambles 6" after Mike, moaning. PEF5 rolls 6, 6 for its movement and stays put. PEF6 moves as close as it can without breaking cover.

Turn 2: Activation: Mike 3, OpFor 5. PEF5 closes up through the gas station, staying in cover. A bit of metagaming here; that’s what I was hoping for, as the chances of meeting something nasty are reduced if the building has a PEF in it. Once I’m inside, PEF6 will move out into the open, which means I can resolve it once I’ve cleared the gas station.

Turn 3: Activation: Mike 4, OpFor 1. PEF5 moves away, and the zed shuffles closer.

Turn 4: Activation: Double 2 – no random event as 2 is more than the local ER of 1.

Turn 5: Activation: Mike 5, OpFor 1. PEF5 moves up close and personal again, and the zed shuffles in for the kill.

Turn 6: Activation: Mike 4, OpFor 5. PEF5 moves away. As I’ve mentioned before, they do this a lot, which puzzled me until I realised that so long as it hasnl’t been resolved, the PEF represents Mike thinking about where something might be, not actual movement.

Turn 7: Activation: Double 3 – no random event.

Turn 8: Activation: Mike 1, OpFor 3. The zed is close enough to get into melee this turn, so it’s good that Mike activates first. He brings up his pump shotgun and fires three rounds at the zed. He rolls 1d6 + Rep (2) for each one, and gets 2, 3, 6 – even with his current lousy Rep, the last one hits. Mike now rolls 1d6 vs Impact (2) for damage; a 4, and since this is higher than the Impact, the zed is knocked down. Being a zed, it doesn’t roll for recovery, it automatically spends its next activation standing up. I roll 1d6 for each shot – since this is a rural area, each 6 will draw another zed. I roll 231 and no new zeds appear.

Mike hasn’t moved yet, so he decides to Charge Into Melee (p. 30); the zed automatically passes 1d6, and Mike rolls 4d6 – Rep 2d6, +1d6 for being a Survivor, +1d6 for his Rage. He rolls 2156 = pass 2d6, more than his opponent, so he charges home and the zed counts as unarmed. Mike now rolls 5d6 to hit the zombie in melee; 2d6 for his Rep, 1d6 for his Rage, and 2d6 because the zombie is prone. 32545 = 2 successes, which is bumped up to 3 because the target is a zombie. It’s not clear to me from the rules whether the zed can fight back, but I decide to let it, so it rolls 2d6 – Rep 3, -1d6 for counting as unarmed. The zed gets 23 = 2 successes. Mike rolls 1d6 for damage and gets a 3; the zed is knocked down again, which means it can’t act this turn.

Turn 9: Activation: Mike 3, OpFor 2. Mike can’t go, and the zed is standing up, so no fighting this turn. Both PEFs stay put, no doubt watching the fight through the windows.

Turn 10: Activation: Mike 3, OpFor 2. Again. The zed is back on its feet, and melee continues. The zed is now rolling 3d6 as it no longer counts as unarmed. Mike is only rolling 3d6 as it is no longer prone. Successes: Mike 4, zed 1; sadly Mike rolls a 5 and knocks it back down again. PEF5 wanders away, possibly to make some tea, as the fight looks like it will go on for some time.

Turn 11: Activation: Mike 4, OpFor 5. Mike and the zed stare at each other, unable to bring their claws or gun butt to bear.

Turn 12: Activation: Double 1 – random event 5, very interesting but can’t happen so I roll again and get 10; Mike brought the wrong ammo, and if his shotgun runs out, he can’t reload it.

Turn 13: Activation: Mike 6, OpFor 4. PEF5 wanders back, sipping its tea, while the melee continues. Mike gets two more successes than the zed, and knocks it down again.

Turn 14: Activation: Mike 6, OpFor 5; nobody moves, as both PEFs would close up but can’t do so without breaking cover.

Turn 15: Activation: Mike 2, OpFor 5; Mike is rolling 5d6 this time as the zed is prone again. He gets 4 successes, the zed one; Mike rolls 5 for damage and knocks it down more.

Turn 16: Activation: Mike 2, OpFor 3. The zed uses its turn to stand up, and Mike scores 3 successes to its one; he rolls a 2 for damage, which is less than or equal to the number of successes more than the zed he got (3-1=2), so his opponent goes Out Of the Fight, and since it’s a zed, that kills it. PEF5 wanders away again.

Turn 17: Activation: Mike 2, PEFs 4. PEF5 comes back, and Mike fast-moves over to the building and steps inside. (I rolled for to see if the door was locked; it wasn’t.) This brings him face to face with PEF5, which I now resolve – nothing there, so I remove it from play. Notice that since there was a PEF in the building, I didn’t have to roll for zeds or a Defining Moment. PEFs in buildings are your friends. Mike closes the door behind him.

Turn 18: Activation: Mike 6, PEF 4. The remaining PEF moves 12" towards Mike, as he can’t see it. (There may be windows, but he is facing the other way.)

Turn 19: Activation: Mike 6, PEF 4. Again. The PEF moves up to the other side of the closed door and lies in wait.

Turn 20: Activation: Mike 2, PEF 5. The PEF is already as close as it can get. Mike uses his activation to search the building; he rolls 2d6 vs Encounter Rating and gets 1, 4 = pass 1d6; he finds a unit of food, exactly what he needs.

Turn 21: Activation: Double 2 – no random event as the ER is still 1.

Turns 22-24: Mike didn’t activate, and the PEF is as close as it can get. I picture Mike slumped on the floor, back to the door, panting – and wondering if those scratching noises outside are anything to worry about.

Turn 25: Activation: Mike 1, PEF 6. Mike has no idea what the PEF is – or if it’s even there – but he has what he needs for today; he has succeeded in his search, killed a zed, and done this without Running Away or going Out Of the Fight. Time to call it a day, Mike. He fast-moves through the house, out of the door opposite (also unlocked, fortunately) and runs off the board.

AFTERMATH

Mike gets a chance to roll for Rep increase, but rolls a 1 and blows it. He has found some food, but still counts as being on half rations until March.

CURRENT STATUS

Mike Blackman:* Rep 2 MM Survivor, Pep 2, Sav 1, Poser, Rage. Shotgun, crowbar, knife, backpack, 1 food.

REFLECTIONS

Thanks to his Rage and Survivor status, Mike is still dangerous, even at Rep 2. I expected the game to flow more quickly in the country, as there is less going on; but the number of activations Mike missed due to his appalling current Rep more than made up for it.

Mappy Goodness

Map by Probono, from the selection of Modern Maps at RPGMapShare. Thanks Lee!