Well, I've just played my first complete game of ATZ and it was a blast! I haven't made enough card buildings yet for a set-up, and still have a load of unpainted figures, but I got fed up with not actually playing the game, so I thought I'd try Day One from the ATZ rule book.
So to answer the questions in the book (I'm basing my character on myself, but with a few major differences!):
- Where are you? Although actually at home, I decided to be at work when the Zed-storm began - after all I am there 5 days out of 7!
- Who are you? So, he is 35, married (to Jenny), has 2 kids - Katie and Peter; Jenny is at work and the kids at school
- Occupation? Business Analyst - works with spreadsheets all day :( rep 3 civilian
- Experience? No military or law enforcement experience; being an American he has fired a gun!
- Where He Lives? Have a house in the 'burbs
- Supplies? Not a big family for stores, there are 4 units of food at the house
- Weapons? There is a pistol at the house, with other assorted improvised weapons plus an hereditary cavalry sabre and a couple of axes
- Vehicles? A 'sporty' 3-door hatchback for him and an SUV for Jenny
- Luxury Items? At home there's enough booze to count as 1 unit, and as he smokes, another unit's worth of cigarettes, plus assorted jewelry, other goods, etc., for one more unit
Anyway, where to go on Day One? Well Sean and Jenny are both heading for the kids school first to collect them. Then, once they are united, it's on to Sean's friend Andy's gun-shop to stock up on ammo and weapons, then home to barricade themselves in for a couple of days to see how bad things get. So ...
Day One - Location One, School
I decided that I didn't want to just drive on to the table, stop outside the school, pick up the kids and drive off again, so I determined that there would be a police roadblock preventing Sean's vehicular access to the school. The pic below shows the table laid out; Sean's entry point is the red car in the top left and the school is the big cork-tile building (thanks to Matakishi for the method!). After collecting the kids from there, he has to exit the table via the roadblock next to the police car on the small road that exits the table on the right hand side.
And here is a close-up of the barricade at the exit point. At some point in the game, Jenny would enter the table at this point having left her car off table.
Copying another idea from VtG, I rolled 2d6 to see how many civilians were on-table at the start of the game and placed them as you see in the pic below. Not having any civilian (unarmed that is!) figs, I decided to use my undercoated plastic zeds as civilians (if it's good enough for Whiteface, it's good enough for me!)
Here's a close-up of the 3 outside the 'school' - waiting for their kids perhaps?
Turn 1
Sean arrives (having passed 1d6 for his 'Getting There' test) and finds the police's roadblock sections across the street with a police car behind it, but no sign of the police themselves anywhere. He gets out of the car, intending to get the kids and come back for the car later.
Turn 2 - Sean 5, Zeds 6 (an 11 indicates a cop turns up)
A Cop arrives just as Sean was considering searching the apparently abandoned cop-car for weapons - bummer ... seeing that Sean is unarmed, he politely orders Sean to leave the area.
"Not without my kids!" is Sean's determined reply.
"Be quick!" replies the obviously sympathetic cop "But I never saw you, right?!"
"You got it!" Sean replies as he hurries past
Turn 3 - Sean 4, Zeds 6
Hurrying to a) get to the kids and b) get away from the cop before he changed his mind! Sean decides to 'Fast Move' (passing 1d6 on the test) towards the school. Here's a close up of him
Turn 4 - Sean 5, Zeds 5 (doubles! indicates 1d6 terrified civilians appear - in this case 3)
3 terrified civilians appear running from the school straight towards Sean! In the ensuing struggle to fight his way through the group to get to his kids, Sean discovered he had a talent for this kind of thing that he'd never known he had! (Sean's starting 'Attribute' is 'Brawler'; +1d6 in melee. As a Star, Sean should have 2 chosen attributes, but in common with other campaigns I've read on blogs, I decided to start him with 1 and gain the second later.) Despite this natural talent, it was still a close-run-thing, with the second guy nearly putting Sean down!
Turn 5 - Sean 4, Zeds 4 - (another double! 6 terrified civies this time!)
It must have been kicking out time or something! As Sean got closer to the school, another group of people came running out and tried to go straight over him!
Fresh from his first ruckus since the schoolyard, Sean waded into the group, desperately trying to reach the school - and managed to reach it!
As this was the first location he had been to, the kids were still there! A very happy Sean was re-united with Peter and Katie!
Turn 6 - Sean 1, Zeds 6 (7 indicates Zeds! appear)
And now the bad news! Zombies appear! As this is a suburban area on Day One it counts as a rural area for determining the number of zombies that appear. A there are eight humans on the board (7 civs, 1 cop - I didn't count Sean and the kids as they were in the school), so 8 times 1/2d6 resulted in 16 zombies! I used a d12 to determine their direction from and the school front door as the point for distance from.
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| The Zombies appear!! |
As per p30 of ATZ, the zombies appeared facing the nearest human, and then they moved! After this first attack the score was, zombies 6, civilians 2!
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| Sean and the kids survey the impending carnage ... |
That's enough for now, more to follow later! Time for an english intermission ...
Edited: Inspiration has struck! I have a figure and name for 'him' and have changed his wife's name in the above as a result, but left his name as is, as changing that would have been too much of a change IMO