Monday, July 28, 2014

Looking for medicine in a zombie-infested town

Recently I bought the I, Zombie supplement for All Things Zombie (ATZ) and this made me want to play more zombie survival adventures.

I never gave much attention to tri-fold or trigonal paper minis. This changed after I saw a very nice All Things Zombie battle report. I found interesting that the tri-folds were very visible and distinguishable on the table. So instead of printing another batch of the zombies and survivors I created for my Grey City campaign, I decided to try the tri-fold ones from the War of the Dead: the Paper Dead set from Daring Entertainment.

In this scenario, Barry [rep 5 star survivor with SMG] and Moe [rep 4 grunt survivor with rifle] must reach the building at the other end of the board, search for some medicine [pass a challenge test] and leave through the edge they entered. Here is a picture of the board at the beginning, already with the initial zombie placement [I rolled 7 zombies, placed per the rules.]



Barry and Moe move to the closest dumpster and from there, run up the street towards their objective. They fire at the two zombies near the pickup truck as they charge them. Moe hits one in the head causing a gory explosion. Barry sprays his SMG but it only knocks the other zombie down. The sound of gunfire in the empty city attracts more zombies...

The two survivors sprint to the target building. They pause at the door and enter warily. Luckily, there seems to be nobody inside. Barry quickly finds the medicine they needed and they leave the building, finding the zombies coming closer. Two zombies charge them and again, Moe destroys one while Barry only knocks down another. This buys them very little time, as even more zombies are attracted by the shots.

Barry runs past a knocked down zombie and crushes its head with a kick. He then proceeds to engage another zombie, defeating it with a well-placed hit using the stock of his SMG. Moe follows just behind, aiming at the approaching zombies.

Barry keeps pushing forward and defeats another zombie in melee. "I see you like punching them more than shooting," says Moe, a little worried. After all, fighting zeds up close is risky business. His thoughts are interrupted by the sight of another zombie coming from behind a building, which he promptly shoots down.


As the zombies move closer, the survivors dash across the last street and leave the infested area.

Conclusion
This game served as a refresher of the ATZ rules. I am still using the older "Better Dead Than Zed" edition, so I had to remember some changes regarding In Sight checks and status effects. Still, it is a fun and solid game.

As I wrote this report I noticed that I spawned a zombie for each shot taken, rather than rolling to check for their appearance. This resulted in a lot more zombies than expected, and at the end, I only escaped the charge of the zombies crossing the park due to a lucky activation roll.

The tri-fold figures worked well, being more readable than I expected. I will probably keep using them for ATZ and might try printing some more for other games.

So this is it for now, I will have to take another look at Haven and read I, Zombie to see all the stuff that can be put together for the next games.

2 comments:

Slorm said...

Great post and very interesting photos!
Have you done a tutorial about the streets tiles?
Where did you get them?

Ricardo Nakamura said...

Hi Slorm, thanks!

The street tiles are from the Capital City set, by Fat Dragon Games. I glued them to foamboard using spray glue and cut them with the blade at a slight angle towards the interior of the tile. This way, it is easier to fit them together.