AAR - Simpson Family day 15, part 1

Billy Ray looked over at his wife who was hunched over the wheel of the family SUV, trying to negotiate the detritus that littered the once pristine streets of Jungville.  Just two weeks ago there would have been signs of human activity everywhere you looked in the bustling residential areas. Folks mowing sparkling green lawns or putting out the trash, kids riding bikes up and down the street or playing street games.  Now the streets reminded him of downtown Baghdad during the bad ol' days when his unit kicked Saddam's ass all over the desert.  Bodies sprawled in alleyways, rubbish blew over those sparkling lawns and abandoned cars, some burnt out, were strewn across the tarmac and cobbles that characterized the once pleasant town.

They had liberated the SUV from the police impound lot the week before and had fled back to their family trailer to hunker down before trying to light out to relatives living in the country, well away from the infected who plagued the urban areas.  Billy-Ray's heart had been in his mouth when one of the dead heads had pounced upon his son and tried to take a bite out of him during the raid and he had spent the ride back, making plans and calculating how to get his family to safety ever since. They had used the week consolidating their resources and trying to rest before heading out. Looking at the kids in the back seat gripping weapons and mouthing off at each other in typical Simpson style, he was reminded of what he had to lose.  But he and Mary-Lou had discussed it and the supplies they had, had not amounted to much and they needed to remedy that in town where supplies were a bit more plentiful before bugging out.

Mary-Lou pulled to the curb as they entered the end of Lower High Street, the long road that bisected Jungville and shut the engine off.  Checking to make sure the string on his crossbow was taut, Billy-Ray placed a bolt in the firing groove and hefted the quiver over his broad back.  All around the car were the moaning, shuffling forms of the infected but there was no choice but to get out and get what they needed.  Flicking the safety off, he surged out of the vehicle and took aim at the nearest zed....

So its time for my Simpson family to get another run out before I pack away my urban boards for a little while.  Those of you who need a reminder check out my introduction to the trailer trash trouble makers here

the Simpsons

the whole playing board

crossroads board

Jungville General Hospital section

Jungville Train Station section

Terraces section

• The family have managed to snatch their car back from the impound yard.  They now need to stock it in order to begin the move out of the town and safety.  
• It is the residential part of Jungville so the area is treated as urban during the daytime. ER rating begins at 5. 
• the family decide to proceed on foot, leaving the car at the edge of the district.  They must find at least a unit of food for each member and a single unit of fuel and return to the car before night time. 
• Rolling for lack of sleep, everyone has had a decent rest and are not suffering. 
• The family move into the area up Lower High street that runs the length of the area (section 9) 
• 19 zombies are alerted to their presence in small groups of three or four. A PEF is located in section 2 (rep 3) in an end terrace house, another (rep 4) is behind the hospital in section 4, with the last (rep 5) in section 5 hidden in a townhouse (3)  
• Turn 1  
• Neither side activate 
• Turn 2 
• The family cut left into townhouse 1 and find a rep 4 ganger with a BA rifle skulking on the ground floor. Ganger – Judy chooses to walk the walk (no successes either side). Billy Ray (BR) fires X bow and misses, Junior  (JR) fires his BA rifle and misses. Judy shoots her rifle and KDs BR who passes 2d6 and is stunned. Mary-Lou (ML) misses with her compound bow, but Bonnie-May (BM) knocks down Judy with her BA pistol causing her to go OD. Searching the ground floor they find a grenade. 

inside the house

i took it out of the house for ease of rolling

• The zombies edged closer as all but 3 had seen the family go in the house. Rep 5 PEF moves to just outside the townhouse with the family, the other two move further away. 
• Turn 3 
• Just the zombies that have seen the family get to activate (roll of 4) and the dead gather closer and closer! 

• Turn 4  
• The family get to activate (zeds don’t) 
• Exiting the townhouse through the back door they encounter 3 X zeds directly in front of them also reveal the first PEF (rep 5) which turns out to be a squad of National Guard! 

PEF marker becomes

national guard squad

• 3 X rep 4 guardsmen with Assault Rifles, a rep 4 guard with a S.A.W and a rep 3 with an AR 
• Rolling for the meet and greet the family score three successes as does the army officer in charge. The family won’t surrender their weapons so they will need to resist arrest. Interestingly the squad are surrounded by zeds so we get to a bit of a dilemma, is it realistic for them to demand that the family lay down their arms while surrounded by the dead?(I decided to leave it to fate and rolled dice for each guard. On a 1-3 they would concentrate on the family 4-6 the zeds.) 

• The Sargent of the squad ordered the family to lay down their arms and two of the privates to cover them, he then ordered the SAW and another guard to pick off the closest zeds.  
• The insight test goes as follows 

red dice is rep for guard and the white dice is Insight

• SAW – ordered to fire at zeds kills 2 out of 3 
• The other guard takes out the last of the 3 zeds with a burst from his AR 
• Ma shoots an arrow into the sarge, knocking him down (0d6 and goes OD 
• Jr shoots at a guard with an AR and misses 
• BM shoots her BA at the 2 guards hitting both, KDs the rep 4 (passes 2d6, is protected so carries on) the rep 3 guard is OOF. 
• Gracie- Lyn (GL) blasts away with her smg and takes out the prone guard OOF 
• Billy-Ray (BR) shoots his xbow and KDs the guard with the SAW (passes 2d6, is protected so carries on) and is now prone. The last guard passes 1d6 on his man down test and has to duck back behind the bush. 
• All the shooting generates 5 more zeds

carnage!!

• Turn 5 
• The guards activate first, the guard that had ducked back passes his recover from duck back 1d6 and can now carry on, firing at BR hitting him twice and putting him OOF, BR is a star though and reduces that to a stunned result. The prone guard stands up and seeing a zed  close enough to charge him opens fire on it with his SAW killing it. 
• Mary-Lou (ML) shoots an arrow into the man who shot her husband, KDs him. 
• Jr shoots the SAW wielding guard killing him.  
• BM shoots her pistol at a zed killing it 
• GL shoots her smg taking out another leaving 1 left. 
• The last zed closest to the family charges ML. Who wins by one and kills the zed! The horde of zeds by the crossroads close in on the guardsmen and attack the prone guard who loses all 4 rounds of melee and succumbs. The rest close in on the humans.  
• The shots generate 10 zeds

Mary-Lou pulled the arrow out of the head of the zombie that had crashed through the bushes at her and fitted it to the string of her compound bow, looking around she saw her husband on his knees, shaking his head like a dog trying to clear it after the bullet from the guardsman had grazed his temple, a thin trickle of blood marking the left side of his face.  The part-time army boys were sprawled over the road, dying or injured she wasn't sure, neither did she care! The sarge had put her family in danger by demanding that she hand over her weapons in a f**king apocalypse! the idiot and his idiot squad had paid the price by messing with the Simpsons.  Groaning from some of the guards indicated that they weren't finished, but that would soon change she thought, looking at the horde of infected Jungvillians about to descend on them. 

"Should keep the monsters busy" she snorted as she gathered the twins up and got them to follow her, "Jr keep an eye on Pa and catch up when you can!" she hollered as she scooted around the side of the building, lifting her bow in anticipation.

• Turn 6 
• The family activate first. ML darts around the corner of the house and shoots the closest zed 

• The twins follow shooting a zed down the side of the hospital dead and kd another. 
• Jr shoots and KDs the nearest zed to his dad. 
• Zeds activate with the horde feasting on the guards 
• The rest head for the family 
• The twins gunfire attracts 5x zeds 

• Turn 7 
• Zeds close in on the family 
• 2 zeds charge ML after 2 rounds of combat she defeats them. 
• Family now activates 
• ML shoots the zed in front of her and makes her way around the town house to come out near the front door. 
• BM runs after her and shoots at the zed by their SUV blowing it away 
• BR stands up after his stunning and runs through the house coming out the front door and shoots his xbow at the zed in the chicken mascot suit missing. 
• Jr follows BR through the house and shoots a zed threatening his little sister. 
• GL scoots after her twin and shoots at the zeds following them killing 2 
• 3 X zeds are generated from the gunfire 

• Turn 8 
• Only the family activate 
• ML shoots at and misses the chicken suit zombie and moves over to townhouse (2) front door 
• BR kills chicken suit zed with xbow shot and joins ML, rest of family follow. 

• Turn 9 

• The family activate first and move into townhouse out of sight of all the zeds on the table. 
• In the house are more national guard - Lt “pip” Levenson (rep 5) armed with a BAP and private “musky” Muskering (rep 4) armed with an AR 
• Following the firefight outside, the family are now enemies and will go straight to insight

 

the family fluff insight terribly

• Poor insight rolls mean that only BR goes before anyone else and at the same time as Lt Pip 
• Lt pip recognises the big man as his main threat and opens fire on him with his BAP stunning him 
• BR gets his shot off at the same time, shooting and killing pt Musky as he has the AR. 
• ML shoots at Lt Pip and KDs him, as he's protected he can carry on. 
• Jr shoots and misses the now prone Lt, however BM blasts his head off with her BAP. 
• GL finds a SAW stashed in the corner of the room. 
• The 2 X zeds directly outside hearing the shots head toward the back door and start to attempt to get in. 
• Turn 10  
• Neither side activates

Bonnie-May looked around at the gun-smoke filled room, sprawled across the living room floor lay the two guard officers, Pa had transfixed the officer with a bolt to the brain just as the guard had dropped him with his service pistol.  Pa was on his knees with his head in his hands and trying to rub some sense back into his temples with yet another bullet track down the side of his head.  The other guard had a massive hole in the middle of his face where Bonnie had plugged the fool.  Her sister was already stripping the corpses of their body armour and relieving them of their weapons.  In the corner of the room was a large machine gun, she knew that her father was the only one capable of wielding it with any chance of success. Outside she could hear the moaning of the zeds as they shuffled nearer, drawn by the muffled sound of gunfire from inside the town house.

• Turn 11 
• Zeds activate and the two outside townhouse 2 break through the door and charge the family one going to Jr and BM the other to ML. ML shoots and kills hers, Jr fails charge into melee test and BM passes and KDs her zed. 

• Turn 12 
• Zeds activate, family do not. Zed that was kd in the house stands up and charges ML who fights two rounds of melee before killing it. 
• The feast continues and the big line of zeds from behind the hospital close in on town house 2 

• Turn 13 
• Zeds move closer 
• BR gets up and shakes off his stunning while the family strip the guard and pick up the SAW. The body armour goes to the parents (BR’s to be held by BM until he is up and running properly) and the AR goes to Jr. The SAW is carried by BM (but I rule is too big for her to use effectively) she will pass it onto BR along with the armour when he shakes off the stunning. 

• Turn 14 
• No zed activation this turn! 
• The family duck out the back door 
• Turn 15 
• Again no zed activation 
• BR gets his SAW and armour 

• Turn 16 
• No zed activation again 
• Family fast move across the road, rep 4 ML, BR & BM can run full 16” where rep 3 Jr & GL can run 12” 

• Turn 17 
• The family don't activate and stand stock still as they are spotted by the horde outside townhouse 2 
• The feasting horde breaks up and scatters with those that spot the family heading in that direction. 

• Turn 18 
• Neither side activate 
• Turn 19 
• Zeds don't move but the family scoot inside town house 4 
• Inside is a pair of rep 3 gangers armed with BAPs Leroy and Lori 
• ML rolls 3 successes vs Leroy’s 1 and they exchange pleasantries. 
• ML tries to barter a guard pistol for Leroy’s food unit but only gets 1d6 and quits before Lori gets angry 

• Turn 20  

• The family don't activate 
• The zeds edge closer 
• The gang head out the back door on MLs advice and exit the table

Bobby-Joe aka Junior watched the gang members slip out of the back door and leap nimbly over the hedgerow that bordered the property before disappearing from sight.  The zombies were stumbling closer out front while the family searched the ground floor of the town house, but it looked like the gang-bangers had stripped the place bare.  Ma's weak charm offensive against Leroy had backfired with his girlfriend Lori snarling at Mary-Lou and refusing to hand over any food. So now they needed to get out of here and search elsewhere for their supplies....