"Red Ops 5 report" Topic

All this upset over the latest Red Ops 5 review got me to break it out and play. A police unit is responding to a murderous outbreak of some sort at a large multistory building. Details are sketchy. The team consists of the leader Duncan (Rep5 Shotgun) and officers Cooper (Rep4 Machine pistol), Smith (Rep3 Shotgun) and Tucker (Rep2 Machine pistol).

Duncan and Tucker pair up and enter the building with Smith and Cooper paired right behind. They enter a long hallway and see a terrified civilian some ways off. She shrieks, "Thank god you're here! It's horrible – they're killing everyone!" Duncan calls back, "Come toward us, Ma'am. Let's get you out of here. Who is doing the killing?" She says nothing more and runs past to safety.

Duncan sees a stairway to his right ands turns to cover it. He sees another civilian, this one backed into a corner and armed with a shotgun, aiming it up the stairs. The man glances at Duncan and shouts, "It's about damn time! They're everywhere up there. Ain't nobody safe!"

Duncan orders, "Sir. Lower your weapon and come toward me out of the building." The man complies. They hear several screams somewhere in the building. Duncan says, "Tucker with me on this floor. Smith and Cooper, upstairs."

Duncan and Tucker make their way down the original long hallway and come to a connecting hallway. It's empty except for several doors. The officers move to the first one, Tucker opening it and Duncan entering with shotgun ready. The sight inside sickened him. Three "people" were eating a fourth. "Freeze!" Shouted Duncan but the suspects slowly got up, turned toward him and advanced. A second command went unheeded and Officer Duncan opened fire.

Meanwhile Smith and Cooper reached the top of the stairs and rounded a corner into another long hallway. They saw a dead man shambling slowly toward them. Their commands to halt were ignored and, after recovering from their serious shock, both officers opened fire. The man fell back, riddled with holes, only to slowly get back up.

Duncan's targets were shredded. Two stayed down but the third reached for the officer's throat. Duncan smashed it's head in with the butt of his weapon. Taking a second to process what he'd just seen both Duncan and Tucker heard moans coming from further down the hall. Three more of THEM staggered around a corner into view.

Tucker opened a door across from the one Duncan just secured. "Police officer! Is anyone…" Cold hands grabbed him and pulled him down. "Duncan! Help!"

Duncan saw three individuals struggling with his partner and rushed to help. "Officer down! Officer needs assistance! Smith! Cooper! Get down here!" Too happy to leave what they were seeing behind, they bolted down the stairs.

In one movement Duncan grabbed Tucker's collar and yanked him clear of the room and to his feet. His second movement was to kick the lead perp in the face and slam the door shut. "Are you OK?" "Yes, I think so. What the hell are those things!? They're cold, like not alive or something." "I don't know, but let's fall back to Cooper and Smith. We don't want to be separated here."

The pairs met up at the long hallway in the main floor and quickly compared notes. They agreed it wasn't good. When the option to leave was brought up Duncan decided they wouldn't go before they tried to find more civilians.

Further in the building the next three doors produced five more Zeds each. There was a flurry of shots, screams and calls for backup followed by more screams. Duncan's team was never heard from again…

Now that was fun to read! I'm not sure of the game mechanics, but I am sure it's a fun game and that you're the kind of player I want to game with. Well written.

Thanks, Buddy. It's a fun little system, a stripped down ATZ designed to handle the early stages of an outbreak in a large multistory building. Encounters are determined by flipping a playing card each time you enter a hallway, stairway or room for the first time. Gunfire isn't uber-effective either, which I like. I guess it models the early encounters before its learned you need to shoot for the head. I figured my officers didn't realize they were facing a zombie outbreak until it was too late. Their luck stank too, getting five Zeds each three times in a row.

ETA: should add that the goal is to find and rescue up to six civilians as well as get your team of four in and out in one piece.

There is an unwritten rule in RedOps5… You can never kill all the zombies.

I was clearly doing it right then. :)

Great Batrep Daniel, thanks for sharing.

I bought Red Ops 5 a couple of days ago (I've been a long-time fan of ATZ and THW) and Red Ops 5 seems to be a great 'pick up and play ATZ Lite' style game. Ideal for Cons (which is where I intend to use it mainly).

I'd like to get people's thoughts on how to make it a good multi-player Con experience. i.e. One squad per player or a single character? If one squad should that be 3 figures each rather than the standard 4? Should the target number of survivors to be rescued be multiplied (i.e. if its a 3 player game should the target be 18 rescued survivors?)

I'm also intending to use the updated melee rules from ATZBDTZ as I think they are a neater mechanic without adding complexity to the game. Have you introduced any house/adiitional rules or considered using any of the rules from ATZBDTZ?

Thoughts welcomed.

Steve

You bet, Steve.

I haven't gotten to where I've needed house rules yet. I also don't have BDTZ so can't comment on the neato melee rules.

Regarding more players and a con setting I'd say one character per player is not enough. I'd go with either 2, 3 or 4. You can force them to split up by taking different floors or sections of the building – maybe even use different entrances. Law enforcement does that all the time, right? I've found that separate long hallways with numerous doors in each can serve to break things up and keep it very busy.

Perhaps add a player-run civilian security team or gang tasked with retrieving something specific like an item or certain individual. Except for them I'd have each player need to save 6 civilians as originally intended.

Hope that helps. I think you'll be a hit at any con.

Hey Daniel,

I agree, I'll probably give each player a squad of 3 characters (1 Star Rep 5, 2 Grunts Rep 4s). I had thought about forcing players to split up (different floors as you say) but then I thought it might be better to leave the tactics/plan up to the players, but in the scenario say that a maximum of 6 survivors can be found on each floor. Then players can work co-op as a team of three squads to rescue as many civilians as possible (perhaps within a time limit?) then as the Con went on I could post the 'team' scores.

I have discounted introducing a civilian security team as then you introduce deliberate hostile fire and have to get much more 'complicated' and it turns into ATZBDTZ which would be great but as a Con game I want to keep it uber simple, and quick to learn/pick-up.

Next challenge? Construct the terrain. Again suggestions/ discussions most welcome.

Deliberate hostile fire doesn't have to happen. It would just keep the players from cooperating to any great degree if they have different objectives. Probably overthink on my part – it's been known to happen. :)

Regarding terrain, I found that pretty easy. I started with Litko's free tile overlay printout files here at the bottom of the page: link

I printed them on single sheet white adhesive labels (Avery 5165) and cut them into rooms and corridors as needed. After mapping what I wanted and cutting I stuck them on large sheets (30 inches by 40 inches I think) of foam core board. You can fit a lot of stuff on that much space. I did two boards and made sure stairs and elevators aligned from floor to floor. I used different textures for corridors, rooms and stairways to help tell them apart. Keeping it the same can get confusing but that's me.

Make sense so far?

Ah, gotcha, I assumed you meant a 'bad' security team as in resident evil, so naturally I thought that they'd fire on the police/SWAT etc. I shall give this some more thought, thanks.

I've used Litko's tile overlays to do my Space Hulk games, very good. But If I'm going to put on a Con game I'd like to go 3D so I will probably use the WorldWorks Mayhem Apartment Block set. The big issue for me is that the terrain needs to be robust as I'll re-use it for Cons so cardstock won't work. I usually use foamcore for smaller projects but it's a pain to cut straight / keep square on longer structures. Currently toying with using plywood, but that's a lot of effort, and again I don't really have the tools to ensure precision cuts/sizes etc.

Anyway, I'm hoping to play a solo game this weekend, I'll try to poat a Batrep if I find time.

Cheers, keep the thoughts/ info coming.