Friday 29 January 2016

The mystery of the zombie virus - the AAR (part 1)

With the squealing of well worn tyres, the camper screeched to a halt just shy of the courtyard in front of the majestic old building.  Carved into the worn stone fascia was the name of the formidable structure.

"Jungville General Hospital, we made it!" exclaimed Fred, spitting the dust of the road onto the paving slabs that led up to the imposing main doors and adjusting the katana strapped to his back. 

"Don't spit Freddy, it's not polite." drawled Daphne as she stepped lithely out of the vehicle, checking the safety of her huge Glock was definitely off.

"Hey guys, like are we gonna go inside the creepy big creepy building? I just hope there is some food in there, what do you say Scooby-Doo?" added Shaggy as he disembarked, nudging the barrel chest of the Great Dane that jumped down beside the hairy hipster.

"Quit your messing fools!" snapped Velma angrily, the fiery red head dropped athletically to the street and reaching back, dragged a massive chainsaw from behind the seats. "Those dead-heads are looking our way."  With a jerk she whipped the starter cord of the saw, ripping it into life. "Let's go show  'em what the new Mystery Inc's all about...."

This batrep will be in a different format to how i normally write them.  In the past I have written them as a narrative, which has been a lot of fun but a lot of hard work trying to set the scene.  What I'm going to try to do this time is a mix of narrative and what is essentially my notes cut and pasted onto here, then a bit "tarted up".  On asking for feedback on these batreps there were comments regarding lack of photos so hopefully this lack will be addressed.

We start with the battleground.....

Ground floor


Basement

First floor



and finally the roof



when the gang first move onto the table, there are 5d6 worth of zombies deployed. Rolling the dice i score an average 16 and they get scattered around the outside of the building - none on the inside, there are plenty in there already....




Velma grinned as she leaped at the undead police officer lurking behind it's cruiser, only during the adrenaline rush of combat could she switch off the constant stream of thoughts that now coursed through her brain since the fall of humanity.  Scooby-Doo galloped alongside her, almost playfully outrunning her and barreling into the zombie, teeth snapping, trying to get a hold on the zed's arm. With a yelp he was swept aside as the former lawman crunched it's huge fists into the K9 body armour  covering his flanks and throwing him to the floor in a heap.  Velma didn't flinch as the sharp cracks of the other's firearms picked off the nearby dead-heads, nor did she waver when the police zombie turned it's cloudy eyes back on her.  With a whoop she drove the whirring blades into the creature's torso, gunning the motor she tore through it's chest and into it's head in a shower of gore....

  • Turn 1 
  • The gang enter the board by the main road opposite the front entrance. 
  • Velma (V) and Scooby Doo (SD) charge the zombie (z) behind the police cruiser. SD loses by 1 and gets knocked down, he passes 2d6 and is protected by his body armour. V’s chainsaw carves up the z with happy abandon. But the noise attracts 3 more zs 
  • Shaggy (S) and Daphne (D) take up a firing position by the corner of the west wing. Both hit and kill a z 
  • Fred (F) takes up position just behind the cruiser and draws a bead on the z coming around the east wing, hitting but only knocking down his target. 
  • 2 X z's generated by the gunfire


  • Turn 2    zombie activation - 2 scooby gang activation - 5 
  • The z’s close in on the gang from all sides but none come into contact. 


  • Turn 3     z - 1 sg - 3 
  • The gang activate first, V, D and F burst through the main doors to find 3 z’s in the corridor. F opens fire on the nurse outside the waiting room  knocking it down. D shoots at a dr z outside the office – dead! the gunfire generates a z in the east wing toilets. 
  • SD stands up
  • S shoots at the z’s on the main road – misses both shots, generates a z by west wing 
looks like im going to have to repaint the steps...
  • Turn 4     z - 4 sg - 5 
  • The z's all move a bit closer 


  • Turn 5    z - 1 sg - 5 
  • The gang fail to activate, SD gets charged by 4 z’s with 1 lurking out of range. S gets charged by 4 z’s with 2 out of range, he passes his charge reaction but rolls double 1 and runs out of ammo…. 
  • D gets charged but she shoots her z down before it reaches. V gets charged and as she hasn't got a firearm she hefts her chainsaw! 
  • SD kills 2 and knocks down the other 2, S kills the first, kd’s the next 2 but can only fight the last to a draw (his fire axe is improvised cos of his attempt to shoot) 
  • Even with a chainsaw V can only kd her z 
  • The sound of chainsaw generates 3 z’s while D’s shots get 1. 

Shaggy heard the moans of the approaching zombies get more hurried as they shambled toward him. Lifting his pistol he sighted down the length of the barrel, targeting the head of the nearest brain eater - click, click.  The sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber, gave him that sinking feeling. Desperately he re-holstered the gun and tried to heft the big axe he was holding in his weaker hand.   

Across the way he could see Scooby-Doo ripping the throat out of zed before raking his front paws down the face of a second, tearing big lumps of flesh from the bone.  Using his bulk, which was significantly greater with the armour rig he was wearing, the Great Dane pinned a further two zombies to the floor.

The first of the zombies piled into Shaggy then and he lost sight of his faithful (and now quite frightening) old pooch.  The axe seemed to weigh a ton as he feebly thrust the axe-head spike into the eye of the zed, dropping it to the ground.  Using the oak haft of the weapon he tripped a second but was soon desperately trying to ward off the grabbing arms of a pair of zeds....


  • Turn 6     z -6 sg - 1 
  • Finally able to activate the gang get on it. 
  • SD kills one of the downed z’s 
  • V kills the z by her feet
  • F and D charge a lone z with melee weapons drawn to try and clear the corridor quietly. F can only kd but D pops the weasel. 
  • S carries on with the zs he's in combat with finally able to use his axe effectively instant killing them. 

  • Turn 7    z - 3 sg - 3 
  • Random event – nearest z to SD isn't dead and gets up, in the melee SD kills it (again) 

  • Turn 8    z - 1 sg - 1 
  • Random event – cell phone goes off in the pocket of a z (randomly rolled and it landed on a z so i ruled that the phone was in the pocket of the z) 

  • Turn 9    z - 2 sg - 5 
  • Phone attracts 2 zs by the chapel.  
  • the 2 zs on floor by S stand up and he’s charged by another  he kills two but draws with 3rd. 
  • SD has a z stand up next to him and is charged by 2 more  same as above, he kills 2 but draws with last. 
  • F gets charged by z with a ringing phone in its pocket, he knocks it down.

  • Turn 10    z - 5 sg - 1 
  • F finished off the kd'd zed
  • V moves up to join them
  • D answers phone  but there is just an ominous static on the line…. (ER goes up to 5)
  • Outside S draws with the remaining z
  • SD can only knock down his.

"Hello, hello.... Freddy, V there's no-one on the phone just some weird clicking noise!" With a jab of her finger Daphne ended the call and looked around at the other two just as Fred stabbed down with his katana into the brain pan of the floored zombie.  Behind Velma two former patients of the hospital shuffled absently around, as if they couldn't quite make up their minds whether to attack the fiery red head. "I don't blame them" she thought to herself....

"Don't blame who Daph?" Velma asked curtly as she fingered the trigger of her saw, glancing back at the zeds with a smirk.

"oh no-one V!" she stammered, colour rising in her cheeks, realising she had spoken her thoughts out loud....again. "I wonder how the boys are getting on?"


Tuesday 26 January 2016

the mystery of the zombie virus - the cast and rules


Before we start the batrep i'm going to introduce the cast - as if they need it.  But I s'pose we need to see the post apocalyptic versions and see how they translate to ATZFFO.  I decided to make all of the gang co-stars as it were, reason being who do you make a grunt?  In order to try and strike a balance though i only gave them 1 attribute each rather than 2.  I did make them all rep 4, which might make them a little high powered for the game but to be fair there is going to be a whole hell of a lot of zombies, it's also going to be really hard to win the game so it should pan out.

The setting is the hospital I recently built called Jungville General Hospital (Jungville being the fictional town i've been building for my Bolt Action games and post apoc setting).  So the scoobs will have to investigate the creepy, zombie filled hospital, trying to find clues as to how the zombie virus started.  Each corridor, lift, room has it's own special rules and contact table with a chance of either coming into contact with more zombies or rolling to see if they find a clue. The chances of getting a clue are pretty low, with a 1 in 6 roll initially followed by a savvy roll to see if the character has correctly interpreted it as a clue.  So 0d6 is a fail, 1d6 counts as 1 clue, 2d6 either as 2 clues or a special bonus to be used elsewhere in the game, such as reigniting the boiler means the lifts/elevators now work.  I did try to add the power point that i used for the room tables, but can't seem to get it embedded on the blog page, so if anyone has a clue how to do it let me know and i'll try to get it put on here somewhere. The scoobs need to find 3 clues, which doesn't seem a lot but again the chances of finding them are low (more chance of finding zeds!) once they have 3 clues they need to escape either via the main doors or if they discover the right clues via the roof/helipad or sewer entrance.

The game itself will be confined to the Hospital tile, although it is only a 2'x2' game surface rather than 3'x3' it does have 4 levels so offers a massive playing area in reality.



the starting encounter rating for the game will be 4 and the game will be treated as being played in an urban environment with regard to zombie generation i.e on a 4+

So here they are - the cast

First we have Daphne *note i used Bryan's (Vampifan) record sheets but they didn't copy on here well, my fault not Bryan's as i'm not technically competent... Also note i don't use the extra competencies that Bryan has as a house rule, i'm not all that confident in my ATZ skills yet so tend to stick to the script until i know the game better.


ALL THINGS ZOMBIE - FINAL FADE OUT CHARACTER RECORD SHEET
Name:Daphne
Type:Survivor
Gender: FAge: THandedness: right
Rep: 4Drive:Melee:Shoot:Fit:People: 3Savvy: 2
Attribute:Attractive +1 people skill when dealing with the opposite sex
Attribute:
FirearmRangeTargetsImpactMelee Weapon
BA pistol1222baseball bat
Resources on PersonArmor:Food: 1Fuel:Luxury: 1Meds: 1

I decided to give Daphne the attractive skill, i know she's a martial artist as well, but as i said i'm only giving them one attribute and if i said to any scooby-doo fan - Daphne they would say....  I would also say she is more a people person than a deep thinker hence the savvy/people mix.

next up is Fred

ALL THINGS ZOMBIE - FINAL FADE OUT CHARACTER RECORD SHEET
Name:Fred
Type:survivor
Gender: MAge: THandedness: Right
Rep: 4Drive:Melee:Shoot:Fit:People: 2Savvy: 3
Attribute:Brawler +1d to melee
Attribute:
FirearmRangeTargetsImpactMelee Weapon
BA pistol1222katana
Resources on PersonArmor:Food: 2Fuel:Luxury: 1Meds:

Fred likes to wrestle and do martial arts so yes he gets brawler to reflect his melee prowess.  He is a bit more logical in that he likes to build traps so i've given him a higher savvy.

next up is Velma

ALL THINGS ZOMBIE - FINAL FADE OUT CHARACTER RECORD SHEET
Name:Velma
Type:survivor
Gender: FAge: T Handedness: r
Rep: 4Drive:Melee:Shoot:Fit:People: 2Savvy: 3
Attribute:Logical +1 to science based rolls
Attribute:
FirearmRangeTargetsImpactMelee Weapon
chainsaw
Resources on PersonArmor:Food: 1Fuel:Luxury: 1Meds:

now V has really amped up since the zombie virus, the mini sees her carrying a massive chainsaw and bulging with muscles, so into the mix i added her red headed temper (in the blurb anyway).  However she still has her logical brain so her savvy and logical attribute reflect that.

As a house rule for V (i know i've just said i don't use house rules!) i think that 6d6 rolled for noise of a chainsaw is a little prohibitive and i would be tempted not to use the thing in the game at all, so i have ruled that while the chainsaw is active i.e it is slicing and dicing, it is throwing out sound and attracts the 6d6 zombie generation. But when it is not and it is just ticking over then it is generally quieter and only throws out a 1d6.  This makes using the thing a lot more fun and still gives over the noise level when its being used.

next up Shaggy

ALL THINGS ZOMBIE - FINAL FADE OUT CHARACTER RECORD SHEET
Name:Shaggy
Type:survivor
Gender: MAge: THandedness: right
Rep: 4Drive:Melee:Shoot:Fit:People: 3Savvy: 2
Attribute:dim -1 savvy
Attribute:
FirearmRangeTargetsImpactMelee Weapon
BA pistol1222fire axe
Resources on PersonArmor:Food: 3Fuel:Luxury:Meds:

now Shaggy is not the brightest of the bunch so although he's manned up a little, swinging his fire axe about, it hasn't changed the fact that he's a bit dim.  I don't expect him to find clues with such a low savvy and dim attribute.

Lastly we have Scobby-Doo himself


ALL THINGS ZOMBIE - FINAL FADE OUT CHARACTER RECORD SHEET
Name:Scooby-Doo
Type:survivor
Gender: MAge: ?Handedness: paws
Rep: 4Drive:Melee:Shoot:Fit:People: 3Savvy: 2
Attribute:Greedy D6 turns to loot (looking for food)
Attribute:special scooby snack - adds 1 success to one test per game
FirearmRangeTargetsImpactMelee Weapon
teeth and claws
counts as armed
with 1 hand weapon
Resources on PersonArmor: yesFood: 3Fuel:Luxury:Meds:

now i have made him very food orientated as he can't gorge himself like he did before the apocalypse. So now he has greedy attribute.  I have allowed him to have 1 scooby snack that gives him a one off bonus in the game.

So there we have it, next post will be the batrep.  But for now....

Enjoy