I took Friday off to get a few things ready for our Montjoie game so I had to work all day on Saturday. By the end of the evening I was ready for a little mayhem and was itching to try out All Things Zombie. So about 1:00 am I started digging through my closet for those zombies and Copplestone future warriors I had picked up several years ago. I grabbed a box of buildings and headed down to the dining room table.
First thing I needed was to choose weapons and stats for my zombie hunters. I gave the four figures the weapons on the model, Gave them stats, threw some buildings down and started to play.
Name Rep Weapons Attribute
Axle 5 SMG, BA Pistol Medic
Slick 4 Shotgun, BA Pistol
Carlos 4 LMG, SMG
Kenny 3 2 Pistols
I chose a loot encounter in the outskirts during the first phase of the zombie timeline. The board was set up as one street with 3 buildings on each side and a church at the end with a couple of smaller buildings behind the main line of buildings. I set my team up 6" from the end of the table opposite the church. The game started with 7 zombies on the table, most behind and to the sides.
I set a couple of goals for myself so I wouldn't be playing all night and to try out some specific rules in the system. 1) loot buildings until you find zombies in one and survivors in one. 2) try the medic attribute which requires me to have at least one guy out of the fight. 3) see if shooting a lot really does attract a lot of zombies.
Number 3 was easy. The first turn I opened up with Pistols, a shotgun and an smg on the 7 zombies on the board. I managed to take one out and knock another down. I attracted 8 more zombies with the fire and was fairly well surrounded.
Turns 2-6 were a hectic scramble to extricate my team from the zombie hoards. This involved striking a balance between volume of fire and possible new zombies as well as a couple of hairy melees. I made good use of the break off rule and was able to slip to the rear of the buildings on the right side of the street.
Turns 7-8 I made my way back into the street and had kenny poke his head in the first building. Using the generation charts, he found 3 zombies was attacked by two, killed one, taken out of action by the other and barely rescued by Axle. At this point I had found zombies, and had my first guy to check to see if he was alive. Kenny was ok, Axel found some extra ammo and a pistol as loot and the fire had attracted additional zombies.
Turns 9-11 were spent in an attemt to move farther down the street. But a turn where I couldn't activate and two that the zombies got to move first stopped that effort in its tracks. My guys were forced to move across the street and into another building.
Turns 12-15 we check out the second building. Slick was first in while the others covered the street. He found two survivors who didn't feel like talking, shot him with pistols and took him out of action. Carlos poked his head in to try to take them out and was dropped as well. Axle sent Kenny in who passed 2 dice on his "in sight" check while both of the survivors failed. Kenny opened up with both pistols spraying lead into the walls and ceiling. The survivors, however had had enough and dove through windows to make good their escape. Axle Checked out Carlos and Slick who were both just stunned. Kenney searched and found a crossbow and a vehicle parked out back. Unfortunately, all of the fire had drawn another 8 zombies.
Turns 16-18 we make our escape. Slick was the first one unstunned. He was posted at the doorway and cleared a path through the zombies with his shotgun. The rest fast moved out and shot whatever they could while taking up positions to cover the street. The final turn the team fast moved off the board and made good their escape.
In all the game took 2 and 1/2 hours. That included digging through the closet and setting the game up. The mechanics are slick and really easy to pick up. The game plays quickly, fluidly and makes a player think tactically. All in all, BIG FUN! I can't wait to try out Nuts and 5150 when it is published.
Rod
ponders nirvana.
