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

Monday 16 March 2015

The East Side Alamo (Part One)

This scenario once more follows Jerome and his gang in the East Side of Perdition. It takes place
sometime around between the second and third week of the apocalypse.
Jerome has already recruited (and lost) some of his homies; he's searched a lot of the immediate area to press-gang civilians into joining him and to find weapons and supplies.
To secure the area he's had his gang throw together some barricades to keep the growing zombie menace at bay.
The above photograph map shows the main features of the table. The numbered red circles are zombie spawn points, any zombies generated by the game will spawn from these points, (the left-most two foot of the table wasn't used for this game and is purely cosmetic, hence the position of   it). The Yellow N,S,E,W letters are for referencing the four main barricades, whilst the smaller yellow circles are the approximate starting positions of the defenders. At least two defenders  had to start by each of the four main barricades, the gang leader Jerome (shown  by the letter 'R' (?)) placed himself on top of the central building.
Southern edge showing three PEFS (the black counters)
There were a total of ten defenders, consisting of seven civilians, each with a handgun and melee weapon. In addition to the handguns, Jerome had a single shot Rifle, there was a shotgun and sub-machine gun with the defenders of the southern barricade and  a machine pistol on the eastern barricade.
There were one or two defenders that had above average melee and shooting skills, but most were not.
The east barricade (machine pistol)
The encounter rating was set at 4, for the Urban environment.
The southern barricade (Jerome on the roof)

The gang leader, Jerome also carried two ammunition reloads with him, but it would be a long hike to get to him on the roof-tops.

The building Jerome was on would also be where anyone fleeing within the barricade, would head for.
The north and west barricades.


View from the west barricade.

At game start there were less than a dozen zombies on the the table.
The zombies, for the next few turns would follow the same pattern of shuffling forwards to attack the vehicles and barricades that barred their way to lunch, whilst the defenders picked them off slowly.
East side barricade - setting the scene for the action here.


The east barricade, 1 zombie knocked down, 1 dead, but notice the number of shots fired (machine pistol), represented by the white counters. Each shot had a 50% chance of spawning another zombie, but slightly less chance of killing one - not a good trade off.


The west barricade defenders, taking care of business.
Notice that the defenders are well back from the barricades, so that even if the zombies get to the barricades they wouldn't be able to attack the defenders directly.






The southern barricade, where a shotgun  and sub-machine gun were stationed, (the former wielded by a civilian with a shooting ability of '5' and the latter by gang member Michaela - shooting '4').


One of Jerome's victims
The gangers mostly stayed put, defending their own sector. Jerome on his lofty perch manged to snipe away successfully at several zombies.


The first two PEFs to be revealed turned out to be nothing, but it did manage to increase the ER of the scenario to '5' - very deadly.


All becoming a bit routine at the Southern Barricade


With turn four we had the first spawn point depletion - spawn point 3 !
It wouldn't generate further zombies on a turn-by-turn basis, but would still act as a source for zombies generated by sound !.
No worried on the Northern front too


And all quiet on the western front
Zombie casualties slowing mounted as can be seen by the growing number of casualty counters being used, The zombies, being the very sporting chaps that they were, decided to stay put for a couple of turns allowing the defenders to down a few more of their number.
 The few zombie spawning at this point in the game were quite a distance from the action.
"We're quite a distance from the action"
"They're quite a distance from the action"


The before shot
and the after shots, shot
By turn nine a routine of a few zombies appear, the defenders shoot a few, a few more appear because of the noise, but two things happened.

The gang obviously knew of a safe house, however as all the buildings within the perimeter had already been searched, it was determined that it was the building nearest spawn point 3, though knowing this was going to have little immediate effect on the game.

The second thing that happened was that Jerome missed ! Since turn one, Jerome had shot and hit a zombie, not necessarily killing it, but at least hitting it, not bad for someone that had only a 50% chance of hitting.




"Nothing changed here"
 Getting back into routine, turn 11 saw spawn point 6 depleted.
"All good here"

"Get back here miss "

At the southern barricade two zombies did manage to get to the barricades, causing one of the civilians defenders to duck for cover.

This was an interesting development when it was realised that none of the civilians had encountered zombies and would need to take their zed or no zed test when the time came.
two zombies had also ensconced themselves behind a vehicle, inadvertently giving themselves a bit of cover.



"Altogether - PUSH!"
For the barricade, each 1" of barricade gave 2 dice for defence. So, for example a 3 " model car would have 6 dice. Each zombie would have  a single die but up to 6 zombies (stacked two deep) could atttack the car - a pushing contest really.
A die coming up 1,2, or 3 counted as a success most successes wins.
Should the zombies win then the barricade is moved 1" on one of its "corners".









Turn 15 had another event occur (I don't link events to the ER of the scenario), but it wasn't anything that was truly game-changing, somewhere along the line the defenders would get a bonus  !

Even whilst spawn point 4 closed, noise from gunfire produced another.

Even so, those at the barricades were still dropping or killing zombies at a  fairly steady (if slow) rate.








A few more zombies at the North barricade
and another at the relatively quiet west barricade
Zombie approaching the southern barricade
Southern barricade clear
With turn four we had the first spawn point depletion - spawn point 3 !
It wouldn't generate further zombies on a turn-by-turn basis, but would still act as a source for zombies generated by sound !.
Eastern barricade, still shooting, but in no danger.

Whilst everything seemed pretty well contained and under control turn 18, changed the game quite dramatically.
Rather than the normal trickle of zombies spawning , this turn produced five, all of whom spawned from the spawn point near the north barricade. (it also had the effect of depleting spawn point 2, near the east barricade)._

Reinforcements had to be rushed from both the southern , eastern and west barricades to help the defenders of the Northern barricade.







Reinforcements arrive - let the turkey shoot begin !
Erm, we seem to be missing a lot.
Over the next two turn, poor shooting by the defenders, despite the volume of fire they poured into the slowly advancing horde only managed to kill a single zombie, but did attract another seven zombies with the noise.

  
More reinforcements



"No sweating this one"
 The Northern barricade was to become the foal point of the fight as defenders wee rushed to stem the tide, zombies were reaching the barricades, making it even more difficult to hit them; Jerome had crossed across his roof top to give a little additional support.
Elsewhere, the usual exchange of fire seemed to be having little effect, but there was yet another group of five zombies heading for the southern barricade, but hey were still some way off, so much so that ganger Micheala with her SMG was ordered to the Northern barricade, whilst the civilian was left on his lonesome.
"I'll handle this lot"

 We had been playing for about two hours by this point and realised that there was still a lot more play in the game and similarly I'll make the break here., with part two coming next week.
It's taken longer to write up the gamne than it did to play it  !

30 comments:

  1. That is an interesting scenario - a hold the fort game. It always gets interesting when the trickle turns into a flood. That is usually when my luck turns bad and suddenly shots miss or don't kill.

    Hopefully the civilians don't recognize too many of the dead!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks N667, it's not a very original scenario, but I still felt it's the sort of thing some would attempt before fleeing the city. Without the chance of spawning zeds every turn, this would have been a far easier scenario for the defenders.

      Delete
  2. It might not be original Joe but I think it's what a lot of people would try to do. So maybe it's more "realistic" than some of the scenarios. Let's hope Jerome and his crew can hold out until..... rescue or until they realise the cities are not the safest place to be anymore.
    Great stuff, can't wait for part 2.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Bob, what you've said is pretty much along the lines I was thinking. I'm following the Ganger scenarios in "Haven" and have inserted this one between the 2nd and last one, so and chance of rescue has already passed them by !

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice Joe, a good scenario, and its just getting interesting, The inevitable has happened, zombies stacking up in one area, just as I thought would happen, a good read mate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Tex, The actual stacking that you see in the latter stages took both myslef and the other player by surprise .
      The other hald of this action will be related next week.

      Delete
  5. it's getting really interesting now as the numbers build up. This is when the game always turns against you and it all goes wrong....
    looking forward to reading how it goes :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks CW, it did get "interesting" as the zombie numbers shfted dramatically over just two turns.

      Delete
  6. Damn exciting looking forward to part 2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Irqan, maybe it'll inspire you to do another game too ?
      Part 2 shuld be on time next week and a bit picture heavy too

      Delete
  7. Action packed!

    I know you won't trust me, but I can't get enough of board, it really looks great.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Mattyoo, it's been a long time coming - getting in a game with a bit more action.
      Thanks for the terrain compliment I do get some nice comments from the occassional visitor I have around here too.

      Delete
  8. So far, so good. But it only takes one slip and the endless hordes are all over you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks C6 - When did you get a preiview of next week's blog post though ?

      Delete
  9. The scenarioe ide is great have to use it some time ;)
    Thx for a great read :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thnaks for the comment HW, it's not a new idea (and certainly not mine) but it does make for an interesting game.

      Delete
  10. 1st: With a gaming layout like yours, some people might skip going to work,and come over to your place and roll dice!

    2nd: Enjoyed the scenario. It isn't as easy to hit a Shambler as one might expect. They bob-and-weave a lot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jay, very kind of you to say so,but I struggle to get an opponent (and I really can't get the hang of playing solo). Having the ability ot leave a game set-up as long as I want is a dream for many.

      I though Iwas the only one that thought it more difficult to get headshots on zeds ! (I blame it on my inability ot hit them on the X-Box)

      Delete
  11. Entertaining write up Joe. It shows the wisdom in befriending your local street gang. In case of Zombie apocalypse it will be good to know lots of mean dudes with guns!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Paul, I do struggle at itme swriting these things up - it doesn't come naturally at all.
      The gang aren't that mean and they may as wellnot have had guns either !

      Delete
  12. A great scenario Joe, things are looking a little dodgy??? I think Jerome and his pals should stop shooting and get into a little hand to hand combat!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ray,I think youhit the nail on the head - "stop fecking dhooting " - they couldn't hit a thing anyway and generated more zeds with their cacaphony !

      Delete
  13. Sorry it has taken a few days to get round to reading this. Firstly the board looks really good. You never know I may start to make on now. Your scenario seems good. But I am not sure why they chose to make baracades in the open when inside a building might have given them more options and given them less work and they can always make an escape route in a building if they need to by having a barred door or similar.

    However it was a gripping read and I will be looking forward to seeing another episode next week. Top job mate.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Noneed to apologise Clint, whilst comments are of course very welcome they're not "the be-all and end-all" eh ?
    The sceanrio is of course flawed and the player did have his central building prepared, but having read scenarios like this myself it was time to duplicate one.
    Pleased you're enjoying the read so far, I didn't realise the length of it !

    ReplyDelete
  15. Fantastic write up and I love your terrain, very inspiring! Especially the piles of boards!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Spider, somewhere amongst my post there is one showing how I made them from cut-off bits of coffee stirrers - so simple , but effective I think.

      Delete
  16. OOOh, how dare you leave us with a cliff hanger! I am not a patient person!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks BC (I think), but I did think the report was getting a bit long and photo-heavy ! It was also the point where we took a real-life pysical break from the action which was just as frustrating for us !

      Delete
  17. Brilliant looking terrain Zabadak. Esp like the rusted car wreck. You can sort of feel when the dice are going to turn on you and produce an impossible amount of Zombies. :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks David, it's taken a long time to get the table looking anywhere near presentable and as for dice, when they decide to go against you, you're doomed.

      Delete