Last Days Seasons campaign: December

As we’re (hopefully!) moving very soon (or maybe have already moved by the time this gets published?) I played my December game of Last Days at the start of the month so that I could then pack everything up. As it’s the last game of the originally planned year long campaign, I decided to play the final special Season scenario, Whiteout. To make it extra festive, we also had thematically appropriate zombies:

I set up an abandoned refuge deep in the woods, with a number of crumbling perimeter walls.

To make the board look snowy, I threw down a fleece that was previously doing double duty as a draft excluder. While it makes the table look more festive, it also means that all of the pics this month look very dark!

Most of the group are bedridden, so Dionne, Kev & Cece find themselves trudging through knee deep snow to investigate an abandoned refuge in the hope of securing some supplies.

“It’s snowing, nobody trusts each other, we’re all very tired”, says Kev suddenly.

“That’s not the quote, he doesn’t say anything about snow does he?” replies Dionne, shooting Kev a questioning look.

Cece looks at them both blankly - “what are you two talking about?”

“The Thing! You’ve never seen The Thing? Kurt Russell?” asks Kev. Cece pulls a face as if to suggest that this is a ridiculous question, of course not.

“Ugh, another thing I miss about civilisation, before the biters we’d have been able to go home and fix this” says Dionne, seemingly in shock. “Wait, quiet, there’s something up ahead” she says, peering though the blizzard…

As the group enter the area heading for the abandoned refuge, Santa zombie and his elves start to trudge towards them.

Kev Dionne and Cece begin their advance on the abandoned refuge, aiming to enter through a hole in the tumbledown surrounding wall. Kev was particularly perturbed by the weather, as his skill set largely revolves around running in and rapidly grabbing things, which he was unable to do due to the deep snow! Until I re-read the Free Runner skill, and realised that Kev can actually parkour over the top of the snow like he’s Legolas toting a magnum and a cricket bat - go, Kevolas, tell us what your elf eyes see!

He barrels off towards the closest supply token, while Cece and Dionne struggle through the snow behind him. Unfortunately, due to the blinding snow and high winds, they’re not able to clearly see the monies heading towards them, and so there isn’t any shooting. Kev is close enough, but has been told that he is only to fire his magnum as an absolute last resort, for fear of causing an avalanche (whether of snow or the walking dead, we’ll likely find out eventually).

Kev swings the backpack onto his back before moving across to the right to try and lure the nearby zombies away from the opening so that Cece and Dionne would have a clear path into the compound.

Dionne loosed a crossbow bolt at Santa zombie, but was horrified to see that the zombie’s flesh was frozen, and so the bolt failed to pierce and bounced off! Seeing this, Cece raised her sniper rifle, but Dionne waved her back, whispering “not yet, let me just try again” wanting to reassure Cece, but her nerves showed in her rapidly darting eyes.

More and more zombies seemed to jerk into activity now that the survivors had started to break the tree line, and stumbled forward in even greater numbers.

Kev skirted the wall, and trudged into the compound proper, scooping up a fuel canister as he did so (I decided for this scenario to say that survivors could pick up a fuel or food token in addition to a supply token, and that fuel and food tokens would count as Heavy 1 - otherwise it would have been a short and boring scenario if the survivors just popped in, grabbed the 3 nearest tokens, and then immediately left!)

Cece advanced toward the lone elf zombie, knife in hand, while Dionne loaded a fresh bolt in her crossbow and followed behind:

(Look at how much my trees are still shedding!)

Dionne loosed another bolt, and was again surprised to be unable to take out a zombie (don’t worry, it’s not that her injuries and the weather are affecting her abilities, I just rolled a 1 both times…)

Kev suddenly realised that he’d ranged too far ahead when the zombies that he was previously luring away turn around and close in on Dionne and Cece, rejoining the lone elf zombie that has managed to get within arms reach of Cece.

Dionne reloads and sidesteps to block Cece from being attacked by a second zombie, while Kev starts to head back to try and give them a hand. Unfortunately, he’s so laden down with supplies that he isn’t able to quite make it, ending up tantalisingly close to the action.

At that moment I realise that in hindsight it would have been a better idea to send Kev off to grab some further away loot tokens, leaving the easier ones for the girls to grab on their much slower advance up the field. Ah well, maybe next year is the year we start using tactics I guess…

Just as the zombie shed moved to intercept was about to lunge at her, Dionne whipped up her crossbow and shot it at almost point blank range, scoring the first kill of the game! Cece was similarly successful, plunging her shiv through the eye socket of other zombie elf.

Seeing that Cece and Dionne now only had a single zombie to contend with, Kev shucked the backpack off of his back and onto the ground for them to later collect, and turned back to try and gather some more supplies. He decided against the ones to his right, as although he’d be able to reach them easily, there were four zombies bearing down on them, so instead he decided to take cover on the other side of the shack and see what he could find there.

Cece looked at the backpack in the snow ahead of her for a second, but figured it would keep a while longer and instead moved to help Dionne take out the zombie in the Santa outfit that she was fighting, and although both were able to land some blows on it, neither were able to land a fatal one.

With Kev now out of sight, the zombies in the compound started to shamble towards the combat between Dionne Cece and Santa zombie:

Kev nipped around the corner, grabbed an unattended cardboard box, then headed back towards the rest of the group to hand it off. 

Seeing him heading towards her, Dionne wasted no time in decapitating Santa zombie with her samurai sword, then moves forward to receive the supplies from Kev. As she does so, Cece moves up alongside her, and grabs the previously discarded backpack. Kev tosses Dionne the box and fuel canister he’d been carrying, before turning round to make another dash through the snow on the left hand side of the shack.

Dionne snaps off a shot at the zombie that’s getting dangerously close to them, but overencumbered as she is it’s unfortunately not a lethal one.

Both Dionne and Cece back away from the encroaching zombies, Dionne pausing to slot another bolt into her crossbow as she does so. Kev, however, heads off towards the abandoned lookout tower, scooping up a crate of canned goods as he does so. 

Dionne shoots again, but still can’t make a kill (the zombie in question’s reindeer outfit starting to look more like a porcupine at this point), and so decides that discretion is the better part of valour and eschews reloading in favour of putting more distance between herself and the oncoming zombies. However, laden down with supplies as she is, it’s only a matter of time before they are able to catch up to her. Seeing this, Cece lets off a deafeningly loud shot with her sniper rifle, atomising the head of the closest zombie, even as it sent flocks of birds flying from the trees, and every dead head in the area turned to face the source of the noise…

Kev, meanwhile, had managed to make his way to a clearing in the woods where he spotted a discarded briefcase sticking out of the snow.

“Things are looking up!” He said to himself, until he heard the unmistakeable crack of a gunshot ringing out, and saw zombies starting to crash through the trees ahead of him.

With four zombies bearing down on her, Dionne suddenly remembered that she had the Quick Reload skill, and so was able to easily reload her crossbow while back-pedalling, which would have come in pretty hand in the last couple of turns!

Cece, figuring that the cat was out of the bag at this point and it was a fight for survival fired off another shot, and while she wasn’t able to land a killing blow did cause the zombie to stumble, meaning that it would be unlikely to catch up to Dionne quite so easily. 

Dionne fared similarly, although her crossbow lacked the stopping power of a military sniper rifle, and so was significantly less effective.

While Dionne and Cece continue to reload while walking backwards through snow, Kev has managed to make his way to the edge of the table, and will be home free next turn.

Dionne misses her next shot entirely, while Cece once more manages to land a staggering hit on a zombie heading towards Dionne. 

Things continue mostly like this - Kev makes his way off the board with a supply token and a crate of food, having tried (and failed) to garner a single zombie kill along the way. Meanwhile as Cece turns to make her escape, she is ambushed by a new zombie that had been attracted by the sound of gunfire:

but after a few turns of struggling manages to kill her and make her escape.

Dionne, however, continues retreating and firing, but has no luck whatsoever in taking out any of her pursuers, and they eventually catch up to her, and start to surround her:

At first she tries to take them out with her samurai sword, but finds equally little success with that method of despatching them to try and this their numbers as she did with her crossbow…

This continues turn in, turn out, with Dionne breaking away to take an ineffectual shot with her crossbow, being caught and mobbed by her pursuers, breaking free, then repeating the cycle until she is able to get off the board.

Post-game:

Dionne is the only one to gain a level, and at this point reading her sheet I remember that she has the Sniper skill, so probably would have made a couple more headshots in that game had I remembered earlier. Ah well, on the other hand I rolled so many 1s that a +1 probably wasn’t going to do enough to make a real difference… and then I remembered that she has the master skill Never Misses, so could have re-rolled every single miss! Ah well again, it’s all about self belief, she just needs to remember that she’s the deadliest thing on two legs! With her advance, she gains another point of Damage Capacity - evidently lugging all of those heavy supplies was a good workout!

Between them, the survivors managed to make off with three supply tokens, one food and one fuel, and found a smattering of food fuel and scavenge, but also a set of cold weather clothes. These were given to Devon as soon as they got back to the refuge, as they knew that being so selfless if there was ever a situation where someone had to be left out in the cold he’d choose himself so that someone else in the group could be warm, and this would then keep him toasty warm. 

Speaking of leaders, it’s lucky everyone in the group gets along (and shares the same keyword, or is neutral) otherwise we’d have had a lot of infighting and leadership challenges with how often people in the group have been suffering from sickness!

When it came to assigning jobs, once again it was the case that the majority of the group were sick and needed to get bed rest - unusually though, every single member of the group felt better this month,  waning that no one at all was bedridden for the first time in a few months! That’s the power of turning the heating on I guess… Dionne and Cece set about rustling up enough food for everybody (which they managed, with one additional meal going to waste) while Kev patrolled the perimeter to protect everyone from zombies.

Managing conditions, everyone had enough to eat, and thanks to the stockpile of fuel built up in the preceding months (as well as building a wood-burning stove) the farmhouse is toasty warm. I was tempted to be a bit ‘gamey’ and only spend 3 fuel on heating the farmhouse, leaving one room cold as Devon’s cold weather clothing would mean that he could sit there and suffer no ill effects to save me 1 fuel, but that felt a little bit too detached from the narrative for my tastes. In a shocking turn of events, nobody recovering from sickness relapsed, and everyone is out of bed - it’s a Christmas miracle! 

And with that, my full year Last Days Seasons campaign is done! I had fun playing it every month, even though the common cold seemed to be a bigger threat than the zombies most of the time. I’ll probably play some more games next year, but I’m not going to commit to a monthly schedule again given everything we’ve got going on. I could do with finishing building the group’s shelter and playing a game there at the very least though…

As well as playing a game, the Tally has also taken a few hits this month.

Firstly, this year my wife and I decided to do custom advent calendars for each other (something we used to do before the children came along, but hasn’t really happened the last couple of years). As well as an assortment of small chocolates and dice, I’ve also been getting a sprue in instalments that was apparently included in the order with one of my Christmas presents. Being a big nerd, I recognised the font on the sprue and knew what company it was from straightaway… having looked up the finished sprue, it will be 4 additional miniatures by the end of the month.

I also spotted a Warhammer box poking out of a crate on a market stall that was packing up while on my way to pick up my youngest from Squirrels, and after a couple of weeks of missing them managed to catch them and bought the following on my lunch break:

And then went back again at the end of the day and also bought these:

Looks like there’s a 500 point Empire army in my future doesn’t it? All in, that’s 64 miniatures and one resin terrain piece hitting the Tally.

As we’re moving house, grandma took the kids for the night the other weekend, but also bought me sweets and a magazine because everyone else was getting one:

Adding 4 French miniatures to the Tally for future Silver Bayonet shenanigans, and leaving the Tally at:

33 vs 222 = -189

And leaving it unlikely that I’ll get back into the positives or hit my ‘average one painted miniature a week’ target by the end of the year, seeing as how my painting stuff is all packed away and any free time that I have being spent putting things in boxes…

Last Days Seasons campaign: November

Another month, another game of Last Days! This month I played the scenario ‘No One Left Behind’ from the Seasons book:

Leaving Jess behind to look after the bedridden members of the group and try to harvest some more medicinal herbs from the gardens, Dionne Kev and Cece once again venture into the city looking for useful supplies. Instead, they’ve found a lost member of another group who promises them a reward if they can escort her back home. While initially cautious (as she’s clearly carrying a severed head), the gang decide that it’s the right thing to do, and anyway, it might be good to establish good relations with Ella other group who might be a possible trading partner with winter ever looming…

The board I set up looked like this:

Two parallel streets with plenty of ruined buildings, rubble and fences. The weather result i rolled was light rain, which reduced the maximum visibility for survivors (but didn’t affect any zombies, as they have other ways of finding prey). 

As the group enter the area (new friend in tow), they see that it’s especially dense with zombies, so decide to go as quietly as possible. Due to their stealthy approach, only a handful of zombies actually noticed them and started to shuffle towards them.

Kev, actually getting to utilise his full skill set, silently sprints and parkours his way up the rubble strewn street towards a cache of supplies hiding in a ruined building’s fenced off yard.

Cece follows after him more cautiously, with Dionne bringing up the rear to try and quietly pick off any zombies that get too close with her crossbow, which she does as a zombie shambles around the corner of a collapsing fence.

Side note - I finally made some proper Last Days tokens! Shout out to the Files section of the Last Days Facebook group and my wife’s laminator:

Cece decides against firing just yet, feeling that stealth might still be a better option than her hugely noisy military sniper rifle.

More zombies pile into the area, but luckily very few can lay eyes on the survivors and so largely stand like rotting scarecrows. When I built the board for this game, I made a couple of streets that I envisioned having to fight across the width of, then decided to follow the rules of the scenario and randomly determined a starting edge, leaving the group with a relatively straight shot up one of the streets, trying to jump from cover to cover to avoid being spotted by the horde the next street over - especially  important as I was playing on a 2.5 by 2.5 rather than 3 foot playing area.

Kev grabs the supplies then pressed himself flat against the wall of a ruined building, steeling himself for a dash to freedom through the closing net of zombies.

Cece and Dionne follow after him, hoping to also take cover in Kev’s safe spot. Dionne reloads her crossbow and attempts to take out another zombie, but unfortunately the combination of intervening terrain and her eye injury mean that she just narrowly misses, the bolt clattering away uselessly.

Cece again abstains from firing, knowing that if she does she’ll bring an even bigger horde down on their heads.

The exhausted survivor trails after them, struggling to keep up despite Dionne’s frantic hand signals.

As more and more zombies wander onto the board. A critical mass seems to be forming behind the garages:

They seem fairly placid for now, but all it would take would be a single gunshot or car alarm to go off for them to surge out onto the adjacent streets…

Also, Kev’s hiding place was mostly solid, except for from the POV of one particular distant zombie who looked up and started to lurch towards him:

Kev continues his advance through the ruined building, his eyes nervously scanning the groups of zombies clumped together ahead of him, looking for a gap through which he could make his escape.

Cece and Dionne scrabbled after him, Dionne starting to look a bit worried at just how many zombies were bearing down on her as she clambered over a heap of rubble.

She then unloads another crossbow bolt at an advancing zombie, but despite getting a hit fails to make a kill. She rapidly double taps the zombie, taking it out, but as she does so dislodges a brick in the rubble pile she is standing on which noisily clatters away down the street. Uh-oh…

Hearing this (and realising that shit is about to hit the fan) Cece and Kev both open fire with their firearms. Cece blows the head off of a zombie that was closing on Dionne, as Kev blasts the closest zombie to him with his magnum. Again, I remember too late that I probably should have had my stealth team swap out their incredibly noisy hand cannons for something a little more suited to stealth missions… ah well, the cat’s well and truly out of the bag now!

Presumably summoned by this row, two more zombies emerge from the garages, only a short distance away from the survivors trying to make their escape…

In a rare turn of luck though, no other zombies seem to have heard this (beyond the handful that appear on the board every turn regardless due to the rules of the scenario). Speaking of which, every zombie on the board surged towards the sound of gunshots, as both Cece and Dionne found their weapons empty. While most of them were still a safe distance away, one actually managed to get within grabbing distance of Dionne!

Kev was torn - he could see a gap through which he could possibly sprint to freedom, but he didn’t want to abandon Cece and Dionne. “Go, get the supplies out of here, we’re right behind you!” called Cece, so Kev nodded, vaulted the low wall beside him, and ran off the table.

“Right behind you” said Cece again, as much to herself as anyone else.

Dionne reloaded her crossbow and strode round the corner to the street Kev had sprinted down, readying herself for a run of her own. Cece didn’t have time to reload her sniper rifle as she scrambled through a hole in the wall into the same street, almost into the arms of a waiting zombie - if not for the crossbow bolt that seemed to suddenly sprout from it’s forehead.

Although the group had returned to their previous method of stealthy maneuvering, enough zombies now had eyes on them that everyone (new survivor included) was swiftly engaged by the hungry dead. Although Dionne was able to duck out of reach, Cece and the survivor they were escorting were not so lucky, a d had to fight for their lives. As Dionne coolly took down the zombie she’d just ducked under the arms of, Cece hacked with her knife at the three zombies surrounding her, but wasn’t able to take any of them out.

In return, one of the zombies manages to catch Cece a glancing blow, and the escorted survivor fares similarly in her fight. Even as this happens, four more zombies pour out of the comic book store to join the fray.

Spurred on by her potential impending demise, the survivor manages to break away from the zombies grasping at her and stumbles up to join Dionne in the street.

Sucking under the swinging arm of a zombie in a hospital gown, Cece put her head down and sprinted towards the end of the street, no other thought but escape in her mind. Seeing this, Dionne had a decision to make - and she couldn’t just sprint after Cece, as her way was blocked by too many zombies. “Quick, follow me!” she hissed to the survivor, before cutting across into a side street and breaking into a run to try and get around the group of zombies blocking her path to freedom.

The survivor, however, was too exhausted to manage a run, and unable to keep pace with Dionne was surrounded by zombies once more.

As did Dionne and Cece, admittedly, but to a lesser extent. Dionne keeps pace ahead of her pursuers and continues to run down the street, all hope of protecting the survivor they were escorting lost in favour of self-preservation:

while Cece scrambles through a broken window to evade her attackers, before also losing her nerve and sprinting off the table.

The survivor, unable to escape the grasping claws of five zombies  is dragged down screaming as Cece and Dionne exit the board.

Post-game:

Not a lot of experience gained this month, but Kev learns The skill Sprinter (after having plenty of practice!). Cece learns the skill Agriculturalist, presumably where Jess is up and about again she’s been showing Cece the basics of running the farm. 

As the survivor didn’t make it (which seems to be a recurring theme whenever this group meets a new friend, despite their best efforts), they get no reward from the other group, and Kev’s supply cache only yields one unit of Fuel and one Scavenge.

(Brief aside - it’s really tricky to lead out the survivor in this scenario! It’s a bit like in a video game where you have to lead out an AI companion, and they walk very slowly and stupidly, and you have to stop in weird places to try and lure them after you)

Everyone bedridden Rests this month, and the group gives the leader Devon the last of their medicine in the hopes of getting him back on his feet, but alas it has no effect (slightly annoying, as there was a 5 in 6 chance he’d be able to get out of bed, but I rolled a 1!). The fireman also remains bedridden, but Lynn starts feeling a bit better and is able to get out of bed. Everyone else works on gathering supplies, with Jess harvesting medicine in the garden, Dionne and Cece gathering food, and Kev working on building up their stockpile of Fuel before winter hits.

I agonised over whether Kev should Guard the group (as there are so many people bedridden) instead of gathering fuel, but went with banking on the farm’s remote location being defence enough!

Once this was all done, there was enough food that no one had to go hungry (with one excess meal even wasted, as there was no one free to preserve it on the cold cellar). Luckily Kev and Dionne didn’t catch any sickness from Cece who had been feeling a bit under the weather during their excursion, but unfortunately both Jess and Lynn then fell bedridden again. Looks like it’s going to be a tricky winter - will the groups stockpile of supplies be enough to keep them alive with most of the group unable to get out of bed?

As well as playing a game, I’ve also been receiving some parcels:

CP Models had a Halloween discount code, so I grabbed a few bits there including a sprue of fungus faces for some conversions planned for the Ronin of Shadow Deep project.

My Heresy order placed over the summer arrived, with some Doctor Who adjacent bits that I’d been missing from my collection.

I ordered a box of cowboy bits from https://wynfordia.co.uk/, a website I’d never come across before but randomly stumbled over, which was handy as I was able to get some Dead Man’s Hand plastic gunfighters and Artizan sculpts (as well as a larger than my usual paint brush), all at a discounted price and with free shipping! 

Side note - I’ve had the urge for cowboys all of a sudden after years of the genre not really holding any appeal. I think it’s a combination of listening to Old Gods of Appalacia, then reading A War Transformed - originally I had visions of doing magical duelling cowboys (and wven bought a copy of the Dracula’s America rulebook!) but I think now I’m leaning towards doing vanilla cowboys using Legends of the Old West. I watched Tombstone too, which was grand - what’s not to love about Kurt Russell in a fancy moustache stomping around pistol whipping people while Val Kilmer had me googling Doc Holliday miniatures half way through the film?)

This does however mean that the Tally now stands at:

33 vs 150 = -117

So, yeah, probably not going to get back into the black before the New Year. 

Especially as it looks like we might now be moving house in three weeks, so some of these minis will have to go straight into a moving box…

Last Days Seasons campaign: October

Seeing as it’s Halloween, with most of the group bedridden it seemed appropriate that the 3 remaining members should get a suitably spooky scenario, so I decided to play the scenario ‘From Dusk until Dawn’ from the Seasons book. While out hunting for medicine, the group have holed up for the night in a lockup with a pair of survivors that they just met (I rolled up random equipment for a pair of generic survivors to take the total levels up to 20 to match the scenario suggested levels), which looked something like this:

(You’ll note the spooky trees, to make it extra thematic, and several fires around the place to provide a little bit of lighting).

I rolled for random weather, figuring that I’d re-roll anything that didn’t make sense (like bright sunlight when this scenario is played entirely at night), but handily rolled moderate weather, no additional effects (which was pretty handy, as maximum shooting range in this scenario is pretty much ‘your hand in front of your face’ unless a zombie is near one of the fires. Or on fire, which will become pertinent later).

To begin with, Cece and Dionne climbed up onto the lockup roof, hoping that they’d be able to see zombies as they lumbered past the fires dotted around the surrounding area (although unfortunately for Cece, one would come straight towards her, but would be equidistant from two fires and this functionally invisible to her until it tried to start biting her ankles). Kev manned the southmost barricade, while the two other survivors (dubbed Fat Tony and Greenhair by Cece) were set to watch the other side of the compound.

As I started moving the zombies in turn 1, I realised that if I hadn’t set anyone up on the rooftop, the group could have just sat safely out of sight behind the fences for 8 turns and won the scenario without activating a single zombie all game, but that wouldn’t make for a very interesting game would it?

As the horde shambles closer, the survivors largely all go locked & loaded, figuring it’s probably best to stay in the largely defensible location they’re in.

Meanwhile, my favourite zombie catches fire:

Greenhair opens the shooting, but fails to hit anything with her shotgun, as does Fat Tony with his semi-automatic - maybe having the two wet behind the ears survivors defend an entire flank might not have been the best idea?

Kev, uncomfortable at being pinned in place (as his skill set is more oriented around park outing over obstacles to bash zombies heads in at close range) remembered that he’d been carrying a Magnum around with him unused for several months, and managed to stagger a zombie heading for him, although it wasn’t enough to take it out.

Dionne however knew she had a reputation to maintain, and coolly picked off the first zombie of the night with her hunting crossbow. She knew it was going to be a long night though, as that was only one of many…

Cece however failed to do the same with her military sniper rifle, the bullet kicking up sparks and pinging off of the wreckage in front of her target.

At the end of the first turn, 17 more zombies shamble onto the board, but luckily none of the fires go out. Things aren’t looking great (as the group is definitively outnumbered!), not to mention the fact that multiple zombies are now on fire, but still heading our way…

Fat Tony snapped off a couple of shots at the crowd of zombies starting to amass on the other side of the fence, and luckily managed a headshot on one.

Cece, unable to see the zombie heading straight for her in the darkness snapped off another shot at the zombie shed previously missed, managing to score a hit this time, but still unable to make a kill, as does Lev with his nearest zombie. Everyone pauses to reload their guns while they still can, and then the shooting recommences.

Cece, despite having a weapon designed specifically for shooting people in the head and a special skill for doing just that once more only narrowly hits her target, and even then that was only managed because the target had clambered up on top of some rubble that was previously shielding her:

Kev & Dionne both took out a zombie apiece, while Fat Tony & Greenhair both did little more than make a lot of noise with their guns again.

Speaking of making noise, 2 out of the 3 survivors from the main group participating in this scenario are carrying extremely noisy weapons (Kev with his Magnum and Cece with her sniper rifle) - maybe if we’re supposed to be sneaking around the city scavenging for medicine we should bring some quieter weapons next time?

Once again luck is with us as no fires go out at the end of the turn, and 14 more zombies turn up:

Brief aside: checking the rulebook, zombies can climb a climbable surface - the wall of the lockup isn’t really that, but I figured I’d house rule that a zombie may use a pair of zombies in contact with the wall like a ladder and move over them to be able to climb up (using them as a rotting ramp, essentially).

Everyone that was locked & loaded snapped off their shots, but everyone missed, presumably spooked by just how surrounded they are.

While Fat Tony seems fairly happy where he is, surrounded by fences and stood on a truck, those at the barricades feel a little more nervous - Greenhair backs up a little, hoping to be able to bring her shotgun to bear more effectively, while Kev parkours up to the rooftop next to Cece (although I did have to rest on this slightly a moment later, when I remembered that carrying supplies slows you down, so he was actually only able to parkour onto the crate next to the wall of the lockup). I’d hoped to hold out a few turns longer before making a fighting retreat to the rooftop, but Kev figured that although he is pretty good at breaking heads up close and personal, even he wouldn’t stand much of a chance when outnumbered at least 6 to 1!

(This pic I took before realising my mistake)

Shooting was again largely ineffective, with the exception of Dionne who continued to relentlessly gun down a biter every turn, and Cece who finally managed to take out that one zombie she’d already wasted multiple bullets on. The only problem being, for every zombie they took out, there seemed to be five more to take their place, and they’d now started to reach the fences…

At the end of the turn, the fire nearest the barricade recently vacated by Greenhair goes out, meaning that all of a sudden she can see very few zombies… except for the ones on fire heading towards her, of course.

12 more zombies come into play - this game is pretty slow going, as the sheer number of zombies on the board take a while for me to move every turn! Plus at this point the box of zombies that I’d brought up to use is starting to look pretty empty:

With a surge of necrotic flesh, the tide of zombies reached the barricades and started spilling into the enclosure:

Fat Tony managed to take one out as it tumbled over the fence, but then realised that he’d probably left it too late to make a dash over to the rooftop with the other survivors, so clambered up onto the roof of the truck he was stood on to hopefully buy himself a little more time. Kev scrambled up onto the roof, and interposed himself between Cece and the zombies starting to pull themselves up onto the rooftop, with Greenhair running up to try to climb up behind him.

Kev leant out over the edge of the roof and pressed his Magnum to a zombie’s skull, blasting it’s brains out at point blank range, as behind him Cece took out another blazing zombie with her sniper rifle. Dionne calmly took down another biter with her crossbow, while Fat Tony and Greenhair managed to land a hit apiece, but weren’t able to put their targets down.

At the end of the turn, the fire nearest to Kev and Cece went out, plunging a whole swathe of the battlefield into darkness. While this happened, 14 more zombies then entered the battlefield.

As zombies continued to pour towards Fat Tony, he raised his semi-automatic and planned to sell his life as dearly as he could - only for it to issue a full click, as the gun was empty. ‘Ahh, son of a-’

Zombies have also started pulling themselves up into the roof of the lockup. Dionne sidesteps one and puts it down with a crossbow bolt, but Kev stumbles while trying to take out his zombie (I rolled a 1 for Kev and a 6 for the zed!), and narrowly avoids getting pulled down. Fat Tony isn’t so lucky, and is pulled down by the four zombies surrounding him.

2 more fires go out at the end of the turn, but this isn’t such a big issue any more now that most of the fighting is up close and personal! 18 more zombies enter play, and I have to go to the basement to get a second box of them!

I decide I’m probably going to stop putting more zombies onto the board after this turn, as there’s already more than 90 in play and any more than that seems like it’s not really going to affect the outcome…

The zombies on the board are approaching horde level now - Dionne takes one out, but everyone else struggles against their opponents, and it’s now just a case of seeing if they can hold out and survive long enough for the sun to rise so that they can make their escape!

(6 more zombies should have entered at this point, but I figured they wouldn’t ever get into combat due to there already being 90 other zombies between them and the survivors, so skip it)

At this point, 7 zombies had managed to make their way up onto the roof - Dionne was in her element:

Cece was starting to panic, and missing shots that she should easily have made, and so Dionne called over her shoulder for her to keep her cool. She took a deep breath, centred herself, and took a shot that took out a zombie bearing down on Kev.

Unfortunately, at that moment just below her Greenhair swing and missed her target, leaving herself open to the grasping claws of a pair of zombies, and she was dragged down screaming.

Hearing this, Dionne was momentarily thrown off, and fired a non-lethal shot (I rolled a pair of 1s!). Grunting her displeasure, she quickly fired a second shot which struck her target through the eye socket, killing it instantly. 

Hearing Greenhair scream, Kev fought harder against the pair of zombies flanking him, but was unable to make any headway on putting either of them down.

(11 more zombies should have entered at the end of the turn)

More and more zombies continue to pile up onto the rooftop - seeing that Dionne is surrounded by 4 zombies, Kev sidesteps the pair he’d been struggling with and rushes to her aid.  Cece tries to join him, but is unable to escape the grasping hands of her assailants. Kev smashed one of the zombies to the ground, trying to clear Dionne a path to get free. No one knows it at this point, but Dionne has gained a level of sickness from this fight, and so will be bedridden assuming they make it back to their home base. 

Cece manages to shiv her zombie, and turns just in time to see Dionne get her samurai sword stuck in the shoulder of one of the three remaining zombies around her, as the other two drag her to the ground! 

And with that, the scenario ends - the sun rises, and now able to see an escape route Kev grabs Dionne’s unconscious body under the arms and leaps off of the roof with Cece to make a break for it…

(Imagine this with a ring of about 30 more zombies around the outside)

Post-game:

Unfortunately both of the group’s trained first aiders are bedridden, and are unable to do anything to help Dionne. So it falls to Cece with Lynn’s medical supplies: I originally rolled an arm injury, which would have left Dionne unable to use her crossbow, but thanks to Cece’s application of bandages it turns into an eye injury - not ideal, but infinitely better than an arm injury! 

Dionne gains a level, and gains an additional point of Endurance. If she’d had that in the last scenario, two of the three wounds she took would have just bounced off of her, and she’d have walked off the roof instead of being carried!

Kev has just enough XP to level up, but decides not to this month, wanting to bank some spare XP to be able to alter his rolls!

Cece learns First Aid Training, having had some on the job experience with it!

As Dionne got taken out of action, the group was only able to make off with two supply tokens, which I decided to roll on the Winter table for both (both because winter is coming, and also because you don’t find medicine on the regular scavenge tables). They weren’t able to find any medicine, but did come back home with a selection of preserved food, fuel, and scavenge points.

As most of the group was bedridden, there wasn’t a lot of activity in the post game assigning jobs phase - everyone bedridden was assigned to rest, and Kev and Cece after making sure everyone was fed from the group’s stash of preserved meals and giving Dionne their last remaining dose of medicine set about standing guard, as with so much of the group laid up there was a real risk of the farm they’d been working so hard to make a home getting overrun by zombies. While it did take a big dent out of their supplies (which they’d been building up in preparation for the coming winter), they figured that as long as everyone got better, it shouldn’t then take too long to build their stash back up.

Unfortunately, 3 members of the group remained bedridden (Devon, Lynn and the Fireman), and Cece gained a level of sickness from playing nursemaid, but Dionne and Jess were back on their feet, which is handy as next month there will be four able-bodied fighters, and one of them being Jess is extra handy, as she can harvest medicine from the garden to hopefully help get the rest of the group back on their feet.

When the zombie attack came, I rolled a 10, so the group would have been fine without Kev and Cece patrolling, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

Final thought - I’ve played Last Days every month for the last 10 months, and I’m still using handwritten scraps of paper for tokens:

I should probably get round to printing out some proper tokens soon, right?

Zomtober 2023 Week 5

And so Zomtober 2023 comes to a close, this week with two zombies:

Here’s a slightly different angle of the chap on the right, as it’s a little tricky to see what he’s doing from head on:

And here they are from the back, where you can see that they are painted in the livery of the two provinces that the Empire troops come from in Zombieslayer, Talabecland and Reikland:

Annoyingly in the notes that I took during my reread of the novel, I noted down the colour schemes, but not the names of the provinces, assuming that I’d just remember, which obviously I couldn’t when I went to look up some painting references! Luckily I was able to reverse engineer ‘Talabecland’ from ‘mustard and burgundy’…

This pair of conversions came about from me having a root around my bits box and pulling out a couple of old starter set Empire spearmen (from a starter set that I never owned, but that’s not the focus of this). Looking at the armour on one, I wondered if I could bisect him across the waist, and then Frankenstein him with zombie bits to make two Empire zombies. Which started like this:

And ended like this:

As I started cutting, I realised that the spearman’s front and rear plate armour were not the same lengths, so rather than a straightforward straight cut, there was a certain amount of knife angling, and then rebuilding waistlines with green stuff, which is pleasingly unobtrusive on the finished model. I also sanded down a zombie head to fit the hat on at a jaunty angle, since just because your guts are hanging out not doesn’t mean you don’t want to feel pretty right?

Painting this pair brings the Tally to:

33 vs 112 = -79

I did originally have plans for a bigger finish than just ‘two zombies’, but I kept getting outbid on minotaurs on eBay, and spending most of last week in Germany didn’t leave me enough time to work on the zombie wyvern conversion that I’ve had planned since starting this project…

After two Zomtobers, my zombie regiment so far looks like this:

8 more and it’s a legal unit! Although you always need more zombies…