The Safe House-Setup

Washington and Jerome about to meet up

This scenario is a follow-on from the "Alamo" scenario I played and the idea was also generated by an event card in that scenario.
At the end of the last scenario I had the leader of the  gangers (Jerome) escaping the gang's HQ and being joined by a civilian (called Washington), who in turn was fleeing a horde of zombies.
 The terraced buildings, I'd already determined to each have a roof hatch.
Once Jerome and Washington were together  they would head for the Safe house to plan their next step.
For this scenario, zombies would only be generated by noise, there would be no spawned zombies as the spawn points were already depleted and it was a continuation from the previous scenario.
In the building that Jerome had just left there were three more members of his gang, all hiding on the ground floor (they had had nowhere to run). These latter three would all require to recover from their fear (recover from the effect of running away), which at best would allow them to be in a state of Duck-Back" (ATZ rules). From "Duck Back" they could recover back to normality, stay ducked back or once more hide (effectively run away).
Just off-table below the house marked 'A' were a zombie horde of about 35 whilst the immediate threat of zombies were by the indicated red marker. 

The table area was the same as in the last scenario save for the fact it had been rotated 90 degrees, had two terrain boards removed (the two northern ones) and a further two added (these can just be seen to the right in the photo below.
Jerome, Washington and the three others had to make it from the house marked 'A' to the Safe House  marked 'B'.
Door on the safe house would be open only a roll of double '1' else they will be locked tight.

The horde by the South Barricade (indicated by the red marker)

Other doors could be open on a die roll of  '1'.
Rood hatches would be open in any event.
As I was playing the scenario solo I made up their plan and the various other rules I would use.
Their plan would be simple, go to the Safe house and check the door, if it was locked check next door and go around the back if neither were already open (putting as much space between themselves  and the zombies by the red marker before making any noise (smashing down a backdoor or breaking windows)
Fast movement in the open within 24" of zombies would attract them (whether or not they had a LOS) as would fast movement within 6" if inside a building, so normal movement would be the order of the day for all the gang.
 Jerome is only slightly above average in his stats whilst Washington is well above average for  Civilians (save for Washington); the others are pretty much run-of-the-mill. Here's the entire crew's stats:
                  Initiative    Leadership   Shooting   Melee   Driving   Fitness
 Jerome:         4                  4                   3              4           3             3     Rifle & BA pistol, Knife
Washington:   4                  4                   5               5          4             5      Shotgun, BA Pistol, Knife
Hiding in the house:
Jax                 4                  5                   2               3          5             2      BA Pistol, Knife
Leroy              3                  3                   2               2          5             5      BA Pistol, Knife
Patience         3                  3                   3               5          3             4      Knife, BA Pistol (no ammo)

Other than Jerome who is a ganger, all the others are civilians.
The three still in the starting building and currently unable to act will all take the same route to the safe house, namely up to the roof of house 'A', across the roof to the adjacent house and then downstairs into the back yard and finally across the street to the safe house, to join the others, without moving fast this would take about 12 turns ! 

The horde waiting just off table

Only noise and events could hinder the group, providing they all moved at normal pace. Events occur in my games (no matter what the environment or Encounter rating of the area) on a separate, die roll each turn, of a '6'.
For surviving the 'Alamo' scenario I gave each of the above an attribute, though they were unlikely to affect this particular scenario.
I didn't envisage much, if any Zombie action as only Events would really affect the scenario, but as they say "Best laid plans..." etc.
Encounters in houses would be with either Civilians, Gangers or Zombies. The zombies would have to be dealt with and the Civilians and Gangers  'negotiated' with I pre-decided that any gangers encountered would have a 50% chance of formerly having been  in the gang.

And that is it for this week, as I have limited computer access atm but the first part of the scenario will be related in next week's post.

In other news my fourth post in my new Gladiator Project's blog can be found here.

Buses

I had intended to post about my latest scenario, but alas the task has proven too daunting a one due to factors outside my control. Instead I've reverted to yet another 'easy' option of showing two buses that I purchased earlier in the year, both  from Poundlandworld and both, strangely enough, bought on the same day but at different branches.

Although the photographs may not show it off in a good light (courtesy of that useless photographer again), it is the better of the two vehicles.
It is a very good match scale-wise to Sid, as can been seen (just about), it's left-hand drive and has a good amount of detail on the inside.
Although I haven't tried to take it apart I'd imagine it would be fairly easy and would enable some perspex windows to be glued to the inside. None of the sides (even the windscreen) are particularly curved so I don't think it would be that difficult.

The second bus is nothing more than a shell with 'sticker windows'' and little else in the way of detail.
It may look pretty good in the photographs but in reality is a bit naff.
Nevertheless it is another vehicle and very suitable for a background role.

I have thought of removing the various window stickers and then carving the 'windows' out to leave a plastic shell that could be 'done up' as a wreck, but like anything to do with my growing selection of vehicles, that idea will be shelved  for the present.

Here's a final shot of the two buses beside each other for comparison.

I've also posted the third post relating my new Gladiator project, which you can find here  and I'd like to say a big thank you for your patience as I slowly return to blogging and commenting on other blogs.

Downtown Office

Front Elevation

This is a new building to my growing metropolis, rapidly put together sometime between January and March this year and hasn't had an airing since.
It's constructed from the usual 5mm foam-board, but has one or two of my own additions made to the original.
It stands about 10" (250mm) tall to the roof parapet (excluding the small roof building), The width of the building is about 14" (350mm) and its greatest depth is about 9" (225mm).

Twilight Streets version.

 The building is based on the Twilight Streets 'heroic' set, so no re-scaling of the model had to be done to accommodate the the 28mm figures, that are currently in vogue and that I use.

I restricted the height of the building to four stories, but increased the overall footprint of the building by about 50%.

My version of this building is not rectangular, but is 'L' shaped - just for variety and the fact that I really don't like rectangular buildings !

The two sides are fairly boring, but I did add some features to the rear of the building.

Boring long side of building

Vaguely more interesting rear view.

The rear of the building showing the double service doors (my own addition) and the distinctive 'L' shape.

The roof structure is not included with the model, but is an addition I made.

The shorter of the two side wall s to the building can be seen in the photograph below; a full two windows shorter than the 'long' side wall shown above.

Equally boring 'short' side

 Whilst I may not have been active, hobby-wise, in the last two months I am slowly returning to something akin to normality and started another scenario in my ongoing zombie games. I still have to finish it off  some three weeks after starting it !









On a personal note: I'll be trying to pull my  confidence together sufficiently too over the next few days and once more comment upon some of your excellent blogs, which I have been trying earnestly to follow, but alas I doubt I'll be joining any forum discussions for some time to come.

My thought processes for my new project also continues on my other blog, (here), which again was written in the earlier part of this year. Progress on this project has also been excruciatingly slow too.

Two Twenty Tonners

Sid is dwarfed by the size of the thing !

Following on the theme of "twos" from last week's post, here are two more vehicles to assist in the ultimate gridlock of my fictional city of Perdition.
I may have taken a bit of a liberty with the title as I suspect that these models are probably more like the forty ton behemoths that we see on our motorways.

Like the Tuk-Tuks I posted about last week, these too were a gift, this time from my #1 Son and for what reason I don't know (or care).
They're a little on the large size, which doesn't bother me in the slightest and are probably about 1/43rd scale.

As can be seen the trailer part of the vehicle detaches from the cab, with its own folding down supports to make it free-standing
This front view of the cab clearly shows it to be a left-hand drive, something I'll have to ignore in my games as they're set in the US.
I could of course paint out the windows as many gamers do, but that would require more effort than I can currently muster !

From the photograph above it's obvious that the rear door of the trailer opens but the cab also has a tilting cab, revealing a fairly detailed engine - a nice feature.



And just in case you're wondering why the title says "two", here they both are in the photograph below:

No guessing from which chain of supermarkets they were purchased from but you'll have to look up the price yourself - I'm sure they would be out of my usual price range.
From the packaging that came with them, there are four, differing only by what they advertise.

Whilst I may not have done much, if anything since my enforced break from blogging at the end of March, I was up until then working towards a new project, which I have recorded on a separate blog that can be seen here.

Two Tuk Tuks

Just to add to the ever growing traffic congestion my #2 son brought me back this pair of Tuk-Tuks from his recent adventures in India.

 They're made from soft plastic (polyethylene type) and may not be the best models in the world, but they're very close in scale for most 28mm figures.







There is a bit of flash on them and they could really do with a repaint, (after all who wants a green tyre ?), but nevertheless they're a welcome addition to my vehicle collection and I doubt that there are many other bloggers that can boast of having Tuk-Tuks !