Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 13 July 2015

The Safe House - Part 3

Situation outside the 'HQ', with Jax making his bid for freedom
Last week the two main protagonists of this scenario, Jerome (the gang leader) and Washington (a civilian) were confronting four zombies in the top floor of the 'Safe house', having dropped through the roof hatch. Washington dispatched one of the zombies, whilst Jerome merely knocked his opponent to the floor. In the continuation of the melee Washington once more kills his opponent whilst Jerome keeps up his record of just knocking them down. This left one zombie standing up and one, once more lying on the floor.
At the same time as the above fracas was happening, of the three other gang members, Jax continued to make his way to the safe house, Leroy made his way to the second floor of their 'HQ' whilst Patience stayed hidden.
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 It had been some time since the last event card, so it came as no surprise that the next turn started with one.
I decided that as I already had a zombie on the floor in the SAfe House that this would be the 'wounded zombie' of the event.
The dice gods  however weren't finished for this turn yet, with both the civilians and gangers throwing a '1' for activation, meaning the zombies had free rein to attack, which they did !
The zombie that had been knocked to the floor, normally would have stood up, but as it was now a 'crawler' it attacked Jerome, whilst the 'fit', upright zombie attacked Washington. Keeping with his current run of form, Jerome managed to once more only effect a 'knock-down', thus having no effect on the already prostrate zombie attempting to gnaw at his ankles; Washington on the other hand continued to be impressive with his shogun-bat and quickly dealt with the zombie facing him.
Three rounds of melee and the gang of two still hadn't dealt with the four zombies facing them !
Jax in the street


 The next turn (turn 17 for those attempting to keep count) once more saw the civilians and gangers taking a break to gawp about nonchalantly  - once more I'd thrown a '1' for the initiatives of both ! This left Jax seemingly reluctant to cross the street, Leroy hesitating on the middle floor of the 'HQ' and Patience still hiding.
Washington meantime looked on as Jerome fought off the ankle biter, finally nailing the him,









Leroy standing on the camouflaged roof hatch
I decided that Jerome and Washington would continue on their way through the Safe House, descending to the middle floor, the other gang members carrying on with what they were doing.
The occupancy of middle floor of the safe house was diced for revealing that there would be humans; they were gangers and were two in number. Dicing to find their allegiance (50% chance) revealed them to be former member of Jerome's gang. A quick meet and greet later and both decided to throw their hand in with Jerome. Whilst their skills were the typical mixed bag for gangers, they were no worse or better than the rest of the gang  and they were fairly well armed, which is always a plus!
Jax finally got to the safe house and Leroy made it to the roof, but Patience would still not come out of her hiding place.




With their two new colleagues Chuckles and Bubba in tow, Jerome and Washington made their way to the ground floor of the safe house, to complete their sweep and once more they encountered humans.
Chuckles and Bubba
The humans were again gangers, but their luck didn't hold this time as they were a rival gang. They were 6 in number, had a small arsenal of weapons encompassing just about every ganger weapon and could probably give as good as they got in a stand-up shooting match. I elected to go for a meet and greet (of course), taking into consideration that the gunfire would attract the small horde of zombies on the table and the larger horde just off-table. It was a bit more of a risk than I'd anticipated as the Rival gang's leader was the equal of Jerome in the Leadership skill (read people skill in ATZ/FFO term) and he would have an advantage being from a rival gang. The dice were thrown and the result ? Well, from my point of view it was a sigh of relief; the gangers with 4 leadership dice plus a bonus of one die for being a rival gang got three successes. Jerome with no bonus dice was throwing four  dice and he too managed an  impressive 3 successes; all of which meant they decided to engage in pleasantries.
With the safe house 'cleared' the game scenario was complete, but there were a few loose ends still to be tied up. Jax couldn't get in the safe house even with Jerome imploring the 'rival' gang to help ( a Leadership challenge). Jax would have to make his way to the other house.
Ransacked already - bugger!
Leroy would be making his way across the roof, down the three floors of the house next to the HQ and straight to the house beside the safe house.
Jerome and Washington I'd decided would make their way to meet the  newly arriving gang member and began their journey up through the safe house and back to the house next door.
After arriving at the top floor of the Safe house I determined that as there had been zombies there I would search it next turn (I'd also decided that any floor that had had humans present would have already been thoroughly searched)
The dice gods being what they are decided that even this was too much and threw me an event denying me even this small boon.
The room had already been ransacked !




Leroy makes it outside.
 Once more making their way up to and across the roof Jerome and the gang would encounter the civilians present, at the same time as Jax was making his way upstairs to join them. Leroy finally made it outside ! Patience had had a quick look around then once more ducked-back into her hiding place)
Eventually confronting the two civilians once more but now with greater numbers, I'd decided that there was a 50% chance of Jerome chancing another "meet and greet". The up-shot being he passed that roll and succeeded in recruiting the two civilians into his gang.

Bunny and Claude
Leroy quickly made it across to the gang, which left Patience as the only member still to account for.
Eventually she would make it across to the gang, barring any untoward events.
I quickly rattled off the 23 turns (yep 23 !) managing only a single event (a secret door) which was ignored and eventually Patience joined the gang.


With that the scenario was ended and the next one was already formulating in my mind.

The latest  post for my Gladiator project blog can be found here.

16 comments:

  1. You had me holding my breath there for a second, but all turned out well for our heroes, great job Joe.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Michael, much appreciated, I find it quite difficult to turn what was in effect a very bland scenario into something interesting.

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  2. Great posting, Joe. I was still laughing at your gang members paltry efforts to beat up four 'harmless' zeds well after I finished reading it. Nice to see my luck isn't unique ;-) I love these BatReps of yours, even if I don't use the rules, as your narrative is always so engaging. Looking forward to the next one already.

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    1. Thanks Blaxx, what with the Bromannce, the speech and being unable to kill zombies, I don't really think Jerome's cut out for the gang-leaders life (plus Washngton is so much better than him too).

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  3. Great Batrep Joe! This is much more realistic than guns blazing, stealth is one of the many skills for survival. Nice and easy build up for much more to come, I hope.

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    1. Thanks Bob, it could have just as easily turned out to be a guns-a-blazing scenari, but thankfully didn't. My characters generally aren't the super-heroes I often see in the games of others.
      I have one more scenario planned for this group - keep tuned in

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  4. Chuckles and Bubba, love it! An excellent read Joe, very exciting!!!

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    1. Thanks Ray, much appreciated, it really is difficult to fgenerate any excitement when nothing really hapens !

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  5. All good in the end and Im looking forward to the next episode!

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    1. Thanks HW, compared to the blood-bath of the previous scenario, it was perhaps inevitable this would be a quiet one.

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  6. All's well that ends well! A nice AAR makes me want to play a few more zombie games!

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    1. If I've even remotedly sparked your interest in a zombie game then it can't have been all bad.

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  7. I agree with all the above - sometimes the minor trials and tribulations make a much better story than all guns blazing and a high body count. I loved how some of the zombies were really hard to finish off and how certain humans just couldn't pluck up enough courage to cross the open street :-) !

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    1. Thanks C6, I do feel re-assured that I'm heading in the right direction with my rules from the comments I've received and after each game I do tinker with them. Some of the dice rolls and events really made this a more interesting scenario thn it should have been.

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  8. Great presentation, Zab.

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    1. Thanks Jay, much appreciated especially coming from you.

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