Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Grey City ep. 1 - Chance Meeting

This is the first game of the Grey City campaign, where the two groups of survivors meet and start a plan to leave the city. I'll present the rules for the scenario first, followed by the battle report.

Rules for the Scenario
The Good warband
This scenario is meant for a 300-point warband of zombie survivors. Use the profiles from the book as a starting point. Given the amount of zombies, it is advisable to have 6-10 models instead of just a few high quality ones. Since this is the beginning of the campaign, no survivors should have grenades or chainsaws.

Zombies
The zombies in this scenario are regular Walking Dead. There are a total of 15 of them, but only part of these will be initially deployed. When playing solo, all zombies activate with only one die, except if there is a target that can be contacted in a single move. In that case, they activate with two dice in order to try to engage in close combat and attack in the same round. Activate all zombies that will roll one die first, then activate the ones with two dice. Their tactics are simple: pursue the closest targets, surround and overwhelm.

Setup
Deploy the Good warband in two groups, within one Short of opposing sides of the board. Each should be about the same amount of points. Place five zombies one Long away from each group of survivors. The remaining five zombies will show up using the rules from the Zombie Infestation scenario from the book. They will enter from the other two edges of the board (roll a die to choose.)

You may place 4-6 obstacles on the board, however they must be at least 1 Medium away from the zombies and survivors. Besides that, a circle of one Medium radius on the center of the table should be kept free of obstacles. The following picture shows an example of setup. In this case, the extra zombies may appear from the north and south edges.

Important: in this scenario, the Good warband always has the initiative (i.e. it has the first turn.) Also, ignore time of day for this scenario.

Victory Conditions
The Good warband wins the scenario by defeating at least four zombies, and then keeping at least three models within one Short of the center of the table for three turns of the zombie warband in a row. The models must be from the two groups of survivors.The zombie warband wins by removing all enemy models from the board (by defeating or making they rout.)

Victory points: 3 points for winning the scenario. The Good warband gets 1 additional victory point per zombie killed above the second one. The zombie warband gets 1 victory point per 25 points of models removed from the board, with a minimum of 1 victory point per model.

Battle Report
No one knows what created the zombies. First the people on TV said it was a disease that spread through the air, like the flu -- but some people were not affected. Then it was found that even those people could turn into zombies if they were bitten or scratched by them. The army started isolating cities and separating the ill from the healthy but, by then, zombies were everywhere.

Grey City is a small town in the middle of the USA. Much of it has been destroyed by riots, fires and raids but there's still people here, fighting for their lives. My name is Jeffrey. Me, Kate and Mack had been fighting the zombies for the last weeks, keeping them away from our base, an old apartment building where a few other survivors were hiding.

That afternoon we had moved close to the city central square to look for supplies, when we heard gunshots. Across the square, a group of bikers were fighting a zombie horde, and then another bunch appeared in front of us. Kate dispatched one right away with her rifle.

The bikers were fending off the zombies that approached. Suddenly I heard a burst of gunfire and saw the head of a zombie explode. All the gun fighting attracted the attention of more zombies, which started walking down the street towards the bikers.
The zombies were closing in, so we decided to move away. Mack and Kate ran towards the old diner building. I thought it would be better to try and surround the zombies from the other side. I could also hear one of the bikers ordering the others to run to some ruins.
Two zombies closed in on Mack. I thought he was gone, but he managed to step back and dodge the monsters' claws and bites. He may look old, but I guess all the hunting he's done is paying back now.

Mack managed to destroy one of the zombies that had attacked him and Kate got the other one, both with aimed shots to the head. Now they were free to aid the bikers, who were getting surrounded.
Just as Mack was crossing the city square to aid the bikers, their leader freaked out, running away from a zombie. This left another biker exposed and surrounded by the undead creatures, who knocked him down and finished him.
After losing one of them, the bikers were more willing to cooperate. They ran towards the city square to regroup there. The only biker girl who was with them surprised me with her agility, running past many zombies without a scratch.
After we managed to regroup at the city square, the fight still went on for a while, but we managed to eliminate the rest of the zombies. When the fight was over, we finally had a chance to take a breath and talk.

"How come you bikers got stuck in this place? Out of fuel?," I asked them.
Tom, their leader, answered, "We tried to move out, but there are hordes of zombies on the roads. Lots and lots of 'em, and they're heading this way. Only way we can get out of this place is using an armored truck."
"Then we'll have to build one," said Mack in his no-nonsense tone, "and I have an idea of how to do that."

Scenario results
The Good warband won the scenario and defeated 9 zombies, for a total of 10 victory points. The zombie warband got 1 victory point for defeating one of the bikers.

Six victory points were spent to get a new survivor. Rolling the die, I got a zombie survivor with pistol. I also rolled for the leader, who got the Paranoid insanity effect. Unfortunately I failed so he will become permanently paranoid.

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