Separate Ways (part 1) - ATZ an English Adventure

The morning sun was climbing higher into the sky, warming the young woman's weary body as she trudged through the light wood. April Nillson, investigative reporter and winner of various journalistic prizes was thoroughly lost... The directions provided by Andy Wosa - the hefty EMT nicknamed "Gobbo" for some inexplicable reason, were forgotten and she found herself wandering through the wooded countryside on the blighted Isle of Thanet. Hearing the rushing river just slightly north of her position, she headed in that direction, hoping to follow it to a crossing point, which she prayed was a stone bridge she vaguely remembered from Gobbo's instructions.

April advances onto the board and generates 2x zombies. One near the river and
the other near the bottom of the table edge.

The sound of the river almost drowned out the low moaning of the D-subs (zombies) that she knew had been trailing her for the last 15 minutes and were now closing in on either side of her.

April spies the river ahead

the zeds get closer as she tries to dash in between them

April, hearing the loud cracks of dead twigs and the groaning of the creatures as they crashed through the underbrush, tried to move faster but felt the strength drain from her legs as fear coursed down her spine. Slowed to a crawl, she willed herself forward, stumbling on jellied limbs through the last few trees and out toward the river bank. Across the burbling waters was a beautiful 'oldy worldy' tavern, typical of the medieval flavour of the town of Sandwich and it's surrounding hamlets. Buoyed by the sight of the buildings, that meant she was not as lost as she thought she was, she was none-the-less startled when she saw a girl crouched by the side of the tavern.

failing her citizen brown pants roll, she bursts out of the treeline near the river

across the water she spots a PEF (possible enemy force)

which turns out to be a girl... 

The girl spotted April at the same time, and with a liquid grace spun around and stood facing the journalist, pointing what looked like a pistol at her.  Raising her hands in as non-threatening pose as she could, April called out the girl who looked around 13 years old.

"Hi" she called across the waters in as kind a voice as her strung out nerves could manage. "I'm April, who are you?".

"Hi yourself, I'm Matilda." She answered, lowering the pistol when she saw that April was human, rather than one of the creepers.

"Are your parents nearby?" asked the red haired reporter, a relatively innocent question given Matilda's age. 

"Yeah, sure" she yelled back, a shadow coming over her countenance that pierced April's heart at the obvious lie. "Yup, uh huh! they're in the pub here" she gestured at the tavern, with its whimsical sign 'The Brock's Rest'. The young girl began walking toward April, intent on closing the distance when she saw a small movement by the side of the building causing a shiver to run down her spine.

A PEF moves within Matilda's LoS but turns out be nothing

That small distraction caused her to take her eyes off of April and therefore she failed to spot the zombie that came crashing through the undergrowth behind the older woman, teeth bared and hands outstretched like claws...

look behind you!!

Matilda gasped, retreating in fear as she saw the ragged figure emerge from the treeline reaching for the woman across the raging river. 

Matilda retreats behind the Tavern

April, seeing the horror spread across the girl’s face even from this distance, spun quickly on her left foot like a ballerina shaking out the policeman’s ASP as she turned. The D-Sub slowed by the thick brambles it had stumbled through, reached out with it's filthy fingers in it's efforts to bring the reporter closer into it's grasp. April took a step back and left her right foot trailing, tangling the zeds legs and causing the clumsy creature to stumble and fall. With a heavy thump of the ASP, April crushed the skull of the pitiful former resident of Thanet.

the zeds close in on April

and she deftly finishes it off

A loud crashing sound off to her left caused her to lift the bloodied ASP from the ruined head of the D-Sub at her feet and scan the area. Stumbling along the river bank, a zombie approached April dragging a bloodied shovel and bared its ragged teeth in a menacing growl.

Matilda paced back and forth, trying to pull herself together. Despite only being 13 years old, she was old beyond those meagre years and treasured her normally steely calm. Hefting the pistol she had lifted off the Russian sounding dude, who had been dragged down by a group of the creepers the day before, she rushed back around the side of the building in time to see one of the dead things bearing down on the pretty woman across the river. 

Matilda draws a bead on the zed across the river

Hurriedly, the teenager pointed the pistol at the creeper and snatched at the trigger, astonished at the kick back of the weapon. More astonishingly, the heavy grain bullet sped across the short distance to crash through the side of the shuffling infected's head, dropping it to the floor instantly.

And remarkably, drops the zed. The shots don't even draw anymore zombies into the area!

April, stood rooted to the spot as the approaching zombie's head exploded in front of her. Across the river, the girl once again faded behind the building. With a shrug and a hastily shouted thank you, she turned toward the nearest building hoping to find some supplies.

Matilda once again backs away (as an NPC she is controlled by the game)

part 2 on its way soon

hope you enjoy 

dGG

Separate Ways (the set up) - ATZ an English Adventure

 Hi y'all

April Nillson, having separated from Gobbo and friends in order to meet up with her cameraman Bobby, finds herself making her way through the rural backroads of Thanet on her way to Sandwich. The old medieval town, one of the Cinque Ports, is the home to an old Roman Fort (Richborough Roman Fort) and a large industrial estate that housed some rather prominent scientific and pharmaceutical corporations, which are sheltering some shady Men in Black (as April has taken to calling them) and assortment of creepy scientist types.

Unfortunately for our star, after a good start following the directions provided by Gobbo, she is lost… Having wandered off the bridle pathway, she finds herself in a small wood that backs onto a narrow, but rapid river. The river, swollen by the “Mother of All Storms” is running high and fast and is too dangerous to try to swim. Thankfully there is a stone bridge spanning the river not too far away and April needs to cross it in order to head north (which Gobbo told her to try to do). Any zeds trying to cross the river will be dragged downstream and off the board.

There is a small hamlet consisting of two residential buildings and a old country public house (tavern) nestled among the trees, which might provide some vital supplies for April and Bobby including food and water. Below is the playing area divided into 9 sections.

April arrives in the southeast corner of the board (section 9) and is marked by the blue arrow. She must exit in the northeast corner of the board (section 3) marked by the yellow arrow. The woods in sections 8 and 9 reduce visibility as per the ATZ rules – 12” inside the woods and cannot be seen from outside if 1” or more. All 3 buildings are accessible (although not physically as they are solid…) the farmhouse in section 7 has 2 rooms per floor. The eccentric house in section 4 has a single room on the ground floor and 2 rooms upstairs. The tavern (section 2) - The Brock's Rest is a special location as I have built a floor-print for the ground floor for my Burrows and Badgers games and will use that along with some special rules, the upper floor houses 3 rooms. Each room will be searchable separately and I will be using the ATZ risk/reward cards for the searches, with any firearms being rerolled on my bespoke charts for this campaign. The bridge in section 5 is the only crossing place for the river.

There are 3x PEFs (encounters) in sections 1,2 and 3 - the red squares. One is lurking in the wood in section 1, one is in the tavern/pub in section 2 and the last is in the wood in section 3. 

April must find 2x units of food and 1x other usable supply (meds/luxury/weapon) before exiting the board in order for the scenario to be counted as a success. Any encounter that would generate the military will be represented by MiBs who will attempt to capture her and take her for questioning. Any police generated will use my bespoke chart for this campaign. Any other humans will be as per the ATZ rules (with one exception, if the Carolee card is drawn from the deck it will be replaced by a special character I’ve designed for this campaign).

After her last game, April met the conditions to try increase her Rep, and is successful going up to Rep 4, however she is still a citizen as she hasn't fought a human yet and can't be counted as a survivor. 

It's the morning of day 6 post Storm Daenerys…

Separate Ways (intro) - ATZ an English Adventure

Hi y'all - for Zombtober (Is it still a blogger thing?) I've been playing some ATZ games. Now, all of my urban terrain boards are up stairs in the loft so I've had to kind of improvise for this little series of games.  There are quite a few posts all lined up, like a serial TV show or graphic novel series, so will be posted every couple/few days.

This is my first foray back into my post apocalypse ATZ narrative campaign set in England in over 4 and half years, so I urge you to click the link below and refresh yourself on the story so far (I had to!)

ATZ- an English adventure

Done? all caught up? Sure? good I'll think you'll find that you needed it in order to understand the following....

“Dad….”

The concern in Astrid’s voice cut through the happy chatter between the two paramedics, reunited after parting ways days earlier at the hospital, and the portly medic turned to his daughter who was strapped into the jump seat of the speeding ambulance.

“What is it hon?” he asked from the driver’s seat.

“We need to find some over-head cover and quickly, those creepy dudes may have satellite support, and we need to deal with an urgent matter.” Astrid’s glance flicked over the other occupant of the back of the vehicle, making sure the journalist's seatbelt was still securely fastened. April Nillson, roving reporter for an underground media outlet didn’t notice and appeared not to hear the exchange as she stared out of the window, watching the Thanet countryside flash by.

“What is it hon?” Andy “Gobbo” Wosa repeated, a touch of concern creeping into his voice.

“When we’ve stopped” was all his fiery daughter replied.

Gobbo shrugged and glancing around, spotted an old dilapidated stable set back from the road. Slowing the ambulance down, he pulled onto the dusty track leading to the livery and stopped only long enough to drag the doors open and back the emergency vehicle into the gloomy interior.

“Ok Astrid, what’s so important that we had to stop right now!” the EMT asked his youngest 'child'.

“She got bit, pops! That last zed got her” with that she swung her vicious looking crossbow up to cover the older woman.

April seemed to snap out of whatever daydream/stupor she had been stuck in as the point of the xbow bolt drew level with her heart. “Oh shit” she exclaimed as she realised the dangerous turn that the journey had taken. “Wait, wait come on guys let’s not do anything hasty here” the red-headed reporter gasped.

“Show us your arm!” Astrid’s voice rose just a little as she gestured with the weapon to the affected limb.

“Sure sure, take it easy with that thing” April said in her most soothing tone. With that she pulled the shredded remains of her sleeve up to reveal her right forearm. The flesh was torn in places, long scratches ran down from elbow to wrist and blood was pooled in the furrows, covering the limb. Gobbo grimaced and grabbed the reporter’s hand to hold it still and inspect the wounds thoroughly, all the while that xbow barely moved from her centre mass. After what seemed an age, the medic grunted and let go of her hand.

“Can’t see any bite marks, just those awful scratches. What do you reckon Putters?” the older medic naturally deferring to his mentor and the 4^th occupant of the ambulance. The younger clinician – Anna “Putters” Parker, took hold of the offending arm, a little more gently this time and turned it back and forth before pouring a large amount of sodium chloride solution all over the arm, irrigating the wound and cleaning the blood off, causing the young reporter to hiss with the stinging pain.  With a few dabs with some dry gauze, she finished cleaning the wounds and nodded her agreement to Gobbo. Grabbing some low adhesive dressing and bandages she began to dress the injury.

“Let’s hope its just the bites that spread the contagion” the older medic said to April. “I guess only time will tell” he added, in a fatalistic way. “In the meantime, we can’t really take the chance that you turn into one of those things when we get back to our camp, so I guess we will have to wait and see what happens?” he shrugged and looked around to see if the doors could be secured. Astrid, looking wary lowered the bow, although it stayed pointing in April’s general direction.

April considered this for a moment or two, the girl wasn’t stupid and was right to feel cautious, but the group seemed to be generally kind-hearted and would wait it out for a while to see if she turned. However, April knew that the government operatives would be conducting a proper search of the immediate area, and the group could not stay here, especially with the potentially explosive information that sat in the innocuous Tesco bag for life, nestled in the cab of the ambulance.

“You guys need to bug out, the men in black will be looking for this vehicle and won’t stop until they kill you all, and grab that bag back.” She gestured toward the airwave radio set that was attached to the partition wall between the cab and the back. “Do you have the portable versions of the airwave?” she asked, bringing out her own walkie-talkie that she had talked to her colleague Bobby on. When the medics nodded and produced the handsets from a pouch in the cab, checking the battery life as they did. The reporter grinned and grabbed the radios and set them to a channel that they had used earlier and checked to see if they were working as intended. Satisfied, she handed them back and keyed her own.

“Come in Bobby, are you receiving?” While she waited for a reply, she looked up at Gobbo and smiled. “I’ll move out and meet up with my colleague and find out what the hell is going on. We can coordinate with these things as long as they keep the same codes and if all goes well” she gestured to her injured arm and shrugged, “we can meet up later on, what do you think?”

Gobbo looked hard at the reporter, clearly concerned but realistic enough to see the sense in the plan and nodded his agreement, the other two swiftly following suit. “Sure, let’s do it.” 

It has been a long, long time since I played ATZ but I still wanted to continue this narrative rather than practicing with another group. So what I thought I would do is play a relatively simple scenario. Now April was never intended to be a main character in the campaign, instead she was to be a conduit with which to advance story lines and assist the survivors on occasion. However, I really liked how she folded into the previous scenario and the interest from commenters regarding her injury needed to be settled. So, April is now the star of her own storyline - however briefly! Splitting from our heroes, she is hoping to meet up with her cameraman colleague "Booby" Bobby McPherson outside the perimeter of the Forward Operating Base (FOB) of the mysterious operatives, so she can try and make sense of what is going on in Thanet. Before she left Gobbo and co, she made sure that they are able to communicate via the walkie talkies - piggybacking off the MiBs secure comms. With some hurried directions from Gobbo, she heads off toward Sandwich and the old Roman fort overlooking the medieval town. 

more to come soon....

hope you enjoy 

dGG

The Burrows of Warren Percy - part 2

 Hi y’all

Following up from the last post, here are the rest of the buildings that I made for the “Warren Percy Affair” the two person campaign for Burrows & Badgers by Michael Lovejoy. As before I haven’t taken too many “how to” pictures, as I wasn’t blogging when I built them. And, as before here is the link for Oathsworn Miniatures, the Lovejoy's business so that you can compare my efforts to the "official" buildings and in case you want to spend your hard earned hobby tokens on some gorgeous miniatures.

this time I would use some thick card as the main body of the walls

i love the eccentricity of the architecture

this time i cheated a little bit and purchased some Sarissa Precision windows
and doors. Made of MDF they were designed for B&B and again support the 
creators of this awesome little game

more zenithal highlighting

The rear view of the "Brock's Rest" the barrels are removable but I added a
permanent log pile and other detail

The front view - this is easily my favourite build hence the massive photo dump

the ivy was scratch built from teddy bear stuffing and leaf  debris

note the different size doors to allow entry for all of Northymbria's inhabitants

Highclere Hall

Duntrackin

Lots of photos of the Tavern - The Brock's Rest i know, but i'm really happy with the way it has come out. The other two buildings are just as pretty really but the extra details are what make the country pub type building. I also built the interior of the tavern and you'll be seeing it soon enough in one of my upcoming batreps - although it’s weirdly not a B&B batrep. My next posts will come thick and fast over the Zombtober period. This will be my first zombtober in over four years and although I won't be painting zeds or survivors (I literally don't have any...), I will be posting my first ATZ batreps in a long time, picking up where we left off with my uniquely English take on the zompoc. In order to get a headstart on catching up where we left off, click here to take you to the ATZ - an English Adventure page.

hope you enjoy

dGG

please consider spreading the word that this blog exists, I don't make any money doing it but it would be very gratifying to know that more than 4 people read it...lol (darn my ego!)

The Burrows of Warren Percy - part 1

 Hi y’all

This week’s offerings are a bunch of buildings that I made over the spring/summer of this year for the “Warren Percy Affair” - a two player campaign for Burrows & Badgers, by Michael Lovejoy. This awesome skirmish game pits two warbands of anthropomorphic animals against each other in a series of connected scenarios from a training session to a full on barroom brawl…

There is a lovely mdf terrain set by Sarissa Precision, specifically designed for the campaign and it’s really cool and looks beautiful and you can see them here as I'm happy to support the Lovejoys by providing links to their website. However, that support stated, I felt like I could make my own versions for a lot less money and still do them justice. So I split the buildings into two different types - the traditional medieval type building and the more uniquely “burrow” like dwellings that give the game such a distinct feel. 

The first batch of buildings that I made were the burrows. I didn’t make a “how to” video for these like I used to do back when I was blogging regularly but I did get a few progress snaps.

This is how all my projects start - a bloody mess!

a combination of blue XPS and coffee stirrers

a wet wipe provides a bit more strength than toilet tissue for the canvas covering

he bottom building has a platform for bird characters to land on

a heavy mix of PVA and water to seal the foam and protect it from the aerosol
of the priming spray

then some zenithal sprays

Brother Mortimer's Den - a cleric and chief brewer

Prickly Jane's Cottage - the hedgehog hedge-witch

Rumbolt's Place

Salvor's Burrow

The Altar

The Undergrass

With the rounded doors and rustic architecture, these citizens of Northymbria are denizens of the more rural parts of the mythical county - wooden plank roofs and single story buildings as well as the "Rabbit Hole" type building - the Undergrass,  that reminds me of Bugs Bunny cartoons. I had a lot of fun building these characterful houses and think they represent the “official” buildings well, use the link that i provided at the beginning of the post to find out.

That’s it for this week, I’ll show the more traditional style buildings in the next post

Hope you enjoy 

dGG