So for this month’s game, I fancied making up a special scenario to use my newly painted clock tower. So I set up the table with it pride of place in the centre:
I decided that there would be three supply tokens, the central most of which would let me roll twice on the supply table and choose which result to keep:
However, it would be tougher to get to it, as the door to the clock tower would be locked. That, and 21 zombies on a 2.5 x 2.5 foot table (since that fits neatly on my dining room table, rather than hanging over the edge like a 3 foot square does) might make things pretty challenging!
Starting the game, I rolled for weather, and got light rain, which reduces the maximum range for shooting to 18”. Not the worst result, as on the slightly smaller board it wouldn’t take long for zombies to be that close!
With the terrain being so dense, no zombies activated on the first turn, leaving the survivors to take the initiative. Their plan is much the same as ever: Devon (the groups leader) leads a team up the middle, Cece peels off to the flank to look for a sniper perch, and Umlaut the monkey races off as far as possible from the rest of the group to try and draw away as many biters as possible.
Hearing Umlaut’s shrieking, the entire horde starts to move towards him. Undeterred, the brave ape hides his head in his hands, cowering in a ruined building:
The centre most group continue their advance on the clock tower, while Dionne and Cece split up - one goes to grab some supplies, while the latter moves to higher ground. Kevin, meanwhile, weighing his newly assigned Magnum in hand, takes the first shot of the game - and I roll a 1, typically, making a lot of noise but nothing else.
Unbeknownst to the survivors, at this point a body in the clock tower just sat up…
(I kept rolling high on the end of turn event table - I don’t think a single turn passed without something happened all game!)
Operation: ‘make noise on the left flank’ is a rousing success, with a conga line of zombies forming as they funnelled around various buildings:
At this point I realised I might have made a mistake, as I’d forgotten that there was a supply token on that side of the board that I was merrily leading them all towards… in my defence, it was tucked the other side of a ruined building and so I couldn’t see it from my side of the table! At this point I was starting to regret having survivors sneak up quietly, maybe they should have been sprinting to try and grab the supplies before the wave of zombies crashed down on it!
In the centre, Devon and Lynn made their way to the clock tower. I could have sworn there was rules for breaking down locked doors in the rulebook, but I couldn’t find them, so I might have imagined it. So I improvised a rule - 2AP to attempt, TN6 Strength check, which he succeeded first try. Revealing the zombie aside, which is assumed would have fallen down the stairs from the top of the clock tower during its activation (I was previously going to have the survivors spend AP to climb up to where the supply token was, if I hadn’t rolled the result on the end of turn event table that put a zombie there).
Kevin again tries shooting, but fails to take out the zombie he aims at (looks like he had a shotgun for a reason). Cece also tries to take out a zombie heading towards Umlaut, but despite hitting (thanks to all that target practice last month) fails to take it down. Devon and Lynn both try to take down the zombie that shambled out of the clock tower, but neither are successful.
Unfortunately for the group, 5 zombies sit up in the ruined building dust behind them, malevolence burning in their dead eyes, as another stumbles onto the board near Kevin, drawn by the loud reports of his Magnum.
Given how my luck runs, I probably shouldn’t be surprised at the fact that both Kevin and Cece simultaneously find their guns empty at this point.
Zombies swarm Umlaut, while penning Kevin in:
Cece tries to take out a zombie sneaking up on Devon, but again narrowly misses out on taking it out. Unfortunately she can’t take the sniper skill (which would have turned the last 2 shots into kills), but I wonder if I could maybe find her a sniper scope or something at some point in the future?
Kevin meanwhile has grabbed the supply token and throws himself at the zombies penning him in, hoping to be able to punch through and make a path to safety. It’s at this point that I start to think that I should have given the knife we found last month to him rather than Cece - but I needn’t have worried, as he takes out the first zed of the game with some judiciously applied cricket bat. Umlaut however fails to take down any of his three opponents, and one of them manages to get in a lucky blow and leave Umlaut inches from unconsciousness.
Lynn manages to finally take out the clock tower zombie in the centre, leaving Devon to take out the zombie behind him, leaving them unengaged, and buying them a brief reprieve.
In response to this brief moment of things going their way, a car alarm suddenly goes off - which could be a curse if it draws more zombies onto the board, but a possible blessing if it distracts some of the zombies away from the main action!
Over on the right, Dionne clambers onto the roof of he garages to try and provide some cover fire for her companions to escape, as Cece continues to fail to do anything useful with her hunting rifle. I finally remember Dionne’s Double Tap skill, and she takes out a zombie that was creeping up on Cece.
Kevin meanwhile manages to fend off his attackers, but Umlaut is not so lucky and disappears in a sea of rotten teeth and broken fingernails.
Having taken some casualties, the group had to take a bottle test, but pass and stay in the fight. I briefly considered voluntarily routing, but wanted to try and at least get Dionne off the table with a supply token!
3 more zombies then join the fray, all reaching up and grabbing at Cece’s ankles, as she snaps off yet another ineffectual sniper shot.
At this point I realised that I’d completely forgotten that the knockback rule was a thing all game, but given how I’d been rolling (and how close the zombies were) I didn’t think it would have made any difference…
Seeing that the situation seemed fairly hopeless, Dionne tucked the supplies under her arm and dashed off the board. As her silhouette disappears over the horizon, one of the zombies reaching up to Cece manages to grab her ankle, and gashes her calf with its sharp nails.
Back in the centre, Devon fails to take out any zombies despite the target rich environment, and is pulled down for his troubles - despite his huge Endurance stat, 3 zombies all damaging him was enough to knock him down!
Kevin, despite being ridiculously surrounded, manages to keep his feet, but at this point it’s just him and Cece left on the board so the game ends and they run for the hills…
In the post game sequence, it’s injuries first - Devon is blinded in one eye, and since Lynn (the group’s first aider) is out of action I couldn’t use her skills to change that result! Lynn makes a full recovery, but Umlaut is unfortunately infected with the zombie virus, and so with a tear in their eyes the rest of the group put them down.
Lynn is the only character in the group to level up after this game - she gains the engineer skill, which will make developing their base a little cheaper (but also I have my eye on the master skill that lets you grow medicine to finally get ahead out of bed, and you need three academic skills before you have a chance to get that!)
At this point I take to twitter to ask the game’s designer whether supply tokens get dropped if you break and run to end the game, or whether you’d keep it - when I hear back, I’ll have to amend what we found, but for now Dionne’s supply token was worth 2 fuel and 1 scavenge point, a fairly disappointing haul considering we lost the best member of the group…
With much of the group recovering from their injuries or sickness, there are a lot fewer bodies to assign jobs to - despite this, the group manages to produce enough food for everyone to eat without having to dip into their store of preserved meals, and both Jess and Kevin improve a level of sickness. Celebrations at Jess having finally been able to get out of bed are cut short when Lynn becomes bedridden with sickness after having been taken out by zombies, so the quest to find medicine continues! Luckily everyone in the group is of the same alignment, otherwise there might be a leadership dispute with how often people seem to be sick…
Aw man... That's sad. And they can't even turn him into monkey jerky to add to their food stores cos the of the zombie virus in his veins.
ReplyDeleteNot a good month for the group. Here's hoping June fares better.