Time for part two of the batrep of Day One, Location One: School. Thanks to all for the kind words on the first part! Since writing part one, inspiration has struck and I have a figure and name to use for the main character. However, to not disrupt the flow of the batrep, I'm staying with 'Sean' for part two, although his wife does have a new name - Jenny. Anyway, on with the batrep!
Day One - Location One, School, Part Two
At the end of part one the zombies had just arrived and launched their initial attacks upon the (rather static) civilians spread across the board. Our hero was inside the school having been re-united with his kids. This pic shows the board at that point. Another inspirational moment led me to use the PEFs I had created to record the number of turns a feast would last, which is why you can see them on the board
Here is more detail of the situation right outisde the school; As you can see, the zombies seem to have done pretty well against the civ's. In most cases this was due to them being able to double-team the civ's, although the 'Out of Fight' counter toward the top left of the picture does show where one civ almost managed to escape!
Just to give a bit more flavour, here is a close-up of two zed-chicks stalking an unspecting civ:
He did manage to put one of them down, but the other did the same to him ... poor fella
Turn 7 - Humans 6, Zeds 5 (an 11 indicates a cop turns up)
Another policeman arrives on the board. I'm not sure where they should be placed according to the rules, but it made sense to me that he would help his buddy now that people seemed to have started eating each other ... so the 2 cops made their way toward the nearest 'disturbance'. This meant that they should take 'Zed or No Zed' tests which gave rise to a couple of questions, that I would appreciate input on:
- What do police take tests as? I couldn't find it in the rules, so I settled on Survivors, although perhaps it should have been Military?
- The results for Zed or No Zed tests indicate that the Zed is moving toward you - i.e. the zed can charge without you being able to shoot - but in this case the police were advancing toward the Zeds. So, should the test still be taken? in this case I decided no, as the Zeds were feasting, and the 'See the Feast' test was applicable
So, based on my answers to those questions, the police took a 'See the Feast' test. Officer 'Newly-Arrived' passed with 2d6 and failed to see what all the fuss was about - "Sure it's gruesome, but I've seen worse at the movies", whereas Officer 'Helpful' from part one failed to pass with any d6 at all and ran away screaming!
Officer 'Newly', attempting to 'Serve and Protect' drew his Big-Ass-Pistol and gave the nearest zombie a third eye right in the centre of his forehead (rolled a 6 to hit, followed by a 1!) most impressive!
The sole remaining civilian on their feet - in the middle of the 3 cars outside the school - ran screaming as well, straight towards the small cemetary, which depending upon the 'method' of the zeds, might be the worst place possible to go!
But enough about the extras! I can tell you are all demanding to know what happened to our heroes! Still inside the school, and having heard screams and gunfire, Sean decides to get the hell out of dodge! Grabbing Katie's and Peter's hands, Sean cries "Run as fast you can, but hold onto me!" and they all high-tail it out the front door. I completely forgot about the 'Leader dice' but even so, all three managed to pass 2d6 on their Fast Move test - wooh-hoo!! Not that it made any difference ...
Coming out of the front door of the school put our Heroes within 6 inches of the nearest zombie-chow-down event, so a 'Seeing the Feast' test was required. Sean, motivated by the safety of his kids, passed easily with 2d6, but, as might be expected, Peter and Katie didn't do quite so well .. passing 1d6 and 0d6 respectively requiring that Peter 'Duck Back' and Katie 'Retire'.
I decided that in these circumstances, this meant that the kids had got to the doorway, seen what was going on, and whilst dear-old-dad wasn't phased, they sure as hell weren't going out there!!
Then the Sanity tests demanded by failing the 'See the Feast' tests ... I was so surprised - pleasantly, I might add! - when both passed 2d6! I had convinced myself that one of kids was going to go ga-ga (technical medical term, BTW) there and then, so Stunned was great result!
I decided that in these circumstances, this meant that the kids had got to the doorway, seen what was going on, and whilst dear-old-dad wasn't phased, they sure as hell weren't going out there!!
Then the Sanity tests demanded by failing the 'See the Feast' tests ... I was so surprised - pleasantly, I might add! - when both passed 2d6! I had convinced myself that one of kids was going to go ga-ga (technical medical term, BTW) there and then, so Stunned was great result!
I think that I should mention that both Katie and Peter are Rep 3 cvilians. I had thought about making them Rep 2 as kids are given as an example for that that level of Rep, but decided against it as a) I wanted them to last longer than about 90 seconds and b) I'm not a masochistWith the kids not moving and Sean not about to leave them, I decided that he would spend this activation picking them both up intending to move again next turn (but as carrying 2 kids, I decided he would be unable to Fast Move).
The zombies spent the turn either moving toward the nearest chow-down or chowing-down. I changed the feast counter die down by one number and the one shot fired this turn generated no new zeds.
I was unsure what Officer Newly would do this turn. He was on his own, he'd just shot someone eating a human being and could clearly see several other people doing exactly the same who had in no way reacted to one of their number having the back of his head blown away ...
I mean, what would you do in this situation?
In the end I decided, that he'd go to the cop car - as it was within one move of him - and try and get:
- Help from other cops
- Instructions from the bosses
- Sheet Metal and Toughened Glass between him and the crazy cannibals infesting the streets
Three birds with one stone sounded like a pretty good result to me!
Meanwhile, Sean moved out of the school carrying Katie and Peter. As I said previously, he couldn't Fast Move (however much I wanted him to!) All the zombies within sight (more than three, so the Rep-upping requirement was met) were feasting, so none of them were an issue (for now anyway!). At the end of his move, Sean put Katie and Peter down as they had rounded the corner and were out of LoS of the chow-downs. All 3 of them were mightily relieved to see Jenny come running up to the roadblock, but much less happy to see the one non-feasting Zombie on the board right in front of them!
Note that Jenny's arrival was purely a plot device and she has no impact on the game - see the start of the previous post for details
The zombies didn't activate this turn, not having a high enough activation roll - but much gore was swallowed and spilt! and all the feast counters went down by one ...
Turn 9 - humans 5, zombies 4
Officer Newly jumped into the car, locked all the doors and start fumbling with the radio!
Meanwhile, Sean charged the zombie that stood between his kids and safety. Whilst this was the 'right' thing for him to do, I thought, I feel honour-bound to admit that I also had an eye on the rep-upping requirement of a zombie kill. As he did this, he shouted to the kids to run to Jenny, which they attempted to do with a Fast Move, Katie passing 1d6 and Peter none :( Nevertheless, Jenny was able to move up to them.
Back to Sean and the Zombie ... I was confident of winning this combat, but that evaporated very quickly when despite rolling 4 dice (Rep of 3, +1 for Brawler) against the zombie's 1 dice, Sean only managed one success to the zombie's 1! Uh-oh!
Re-roll One: Sean one success ... zombie one success! getting (More!) nervous now
Re-roll Two: Again, Sean manages one success - hoorah! But so does the zombie! Again! Even nervouser now!
Re-roll Three: Sean gets a success! How long can he keep this up?! Surely the zombie will go down now?! No - another zombie success!! Oh dear! Where's the toilet!?
Re-roll Four: HOO-RAH!! a success for Sean!! DOUBLE HOO-RAH!! THE ZOMBIE FAILS!!! OMG Thank F*ck for that!!
Somewhat anticlimatically, the other zombies keep chowing, not that I was complaining mind you!
Turn 10
As the family was within Fast Move distance of the table edge, and all the zomies were chowing still (although it was the last turn for some of them, none of them would have reached our heroes), I decided that was happened; besides, I needed to calm down a bit!
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| The Family united! |