Thursday 19 April 2012

ATZ Campaign, Game 1.   The search for Gramps and Nanna

So, there are outbreaks of rioting, looting and attacks on innocent citizens all over the country.  In the big city, a wedding party hears news that disturbs them.  John (the wedding photographer) knows that his grandparents had planned to go out shopping in the afternoon, but reports are coming in that the suburb where they live is to be put under martial law to curb widespread disorder.  Clearly, grandad and grandma are in danger!

Some of the wedding party offer to assist John in his search.  These are:
  • Darcy and Lizzie (the bride and groom, who are close friends with John)
  • Mr Braxton (a neighbour; he has an enormous Irish wolfhound called "Clancy")
  • Rob (another friend)
  • Dougie (a work colleague).
  • Also present were a couple of hangers-on who presumably didn't want to be alone on the streets: Sam the gardener and Willie the hobo.

We were playing the Exodus scenario from the ATZ: Haven rules, with the added twist that the players had to search buildings for John's grandpa and granny (and then escort them to safety).  So, here's how it went:

Immediately upon entering the board, the party was set upon by a large mob of zombies.  How unlucky was that!  John managed to stun some of the lead zombies by flashing his camera in their faces and most of the party escaped (you can just see Sam and Lizzie running in the upper half of this picture).  Sadly, Rob and Willie were caught and torn down.  At least this distracted the mob for a while and allowed the remaining players to put some distance between themselves and the zombies!

Round the corner of the burger bar, John and Darcy try to persuade some nightclubbers to flee before the zombies arrive.  Eventually they were successful, though the women took some persuading.

Meanwhile, Sam and Lizzie found some lost children.  Again, it was hard to make them flee from the danger, but eventually they were escorted off the board, once John and Darcy caught up and assisted.

Mr. Braxton suffered from a fatal "Ooh, shiny!" moment when he discovered that the keys had been left in a deserted Lambourgari.  He and his dog got in and spent a number of turns trying to start the engine and failing (perhaps the car was out of fuel?).  Meanwhile the zombie horde closed in.  He could have got out and run at any time, but was fixated on stealing such a nice motor.
Eventually the zombies surrounded the vehicle, dragged him from it and killed him.  Of course, once the zombies had opened the car door Clancy the wolfhound escaped.  He took on all 5 remaining zombies at once, made furious by the death of his beloved master and he succeeded in destroying 3 of the monsters before being gravely wounded himself.

As this was happening, Sam and Dougie entered a bookstore in the shopping district.  They found a couple of heavily-armed survivors (Goofy and Paulie) who weren't best pleased at the new arrivals - especially since they were being chased by several zombies at the time.  Nevertheless, all 4 humans decided to fight together.  The bookstore became a scene of carnage as Goofy and Paulie's gunshots killed some zombies but just attracted more and more.  Sam was torn apart in hand-to-hand fighting by a single zed after Dougie failed to charge to his assistance.  At this point, Dougie lost his bottle completely (failed his sanity test!) and ran away and hid amongst the books in the "Teenage" section of the shop.  After a while longer, no more gun shots were heard from that building.

John, Darcy and Lizzie found Albert and Gertrude (aka Gramps and Nanna) in the garage, where they had gone to have Gertrude's chainsaw serviced.  They managed to escort them back into a safer part of the city.  Darcy and Lizzie even managed to rescue the wounded wolfhound, Clancy.  Mr. Braxton, Rob, Willie and Sam were all dead.  Dougie was never seen again.

Game 2 of this campaign can be found here.

9 comments:

  1. First time I have seen a bride and groom in a zombie game. Bonus points for originality! Great report.

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    1. I like the figures for the wedding couple quite a bit. However I'm not sure how often I can work them into a scenario like this. There's probably a limit to the number of times that their ceremony can be interrupted by zombies!

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    2. True! But they are good fun to include at the start. Makes the whole campaign get off to a unique start. Maybe the next scenario will be the hunt for a change of clothes! :)

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  2. Looking good 8-) Im currently making my own city using the Swift Scenics Downtown range, WWG have made terrain a doddle.

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    1. Yes, indeed - the WWG stuff is a godsend and I have far more of their products than I can reasonably print out and build. Having said that, I'm not so keen on the newer TLX stuff as I prefer my buildings to be permanent.

      It's also only fair to point out that not all the terrain in the pictures is from WorldWorks. In particular, the burger bar that can be seen on the left of the first and last picture is from Fat Dragon Games.

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  3. Great report, Terrain and table is awesome. Are a lot of the figures from BlackCat bases and Alphaforge/megaminis

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    1. Yes, well spotted. There are both Black Cat Bases and Mega Minis humans in the pictures.

      Mr Braxton is from Wargames Foundry, passers-by and small children are Black Cat Bases, Wargames Foundry and Hasslefree. Zombies are mostly Victory Force and Wargames Factory, though I think there's also a Golgo Island one in there.

      I've just realised that Clancy, the wolfhound, didn't appear in any of the pictures. That's an unfortunate oversight.

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  4. Realy like the way you started off with the group and of course the a bride! It gave me the idea to use work mates trying to get home. The terrain is fantastic. Where do you get the buildings? I've been looking and can't find any.

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    1. Thanks. Yes, workmates returning home should work well. Reminds me slightly of the film "The Warriors", though that was gangs rather than zombies.

      The buildings visible in this report come from 2 sources:

      - Most of the town is from WorldWorks Games, though it's all pre-TerrainLinX stuff and some of those older kits aren't available any more :-( .

      - The Burger Bar is from Fat Dragon Games; they have a small range of modern structures.


      In some of my most recent reports (those set in "Golden Hills"), you can see additional buildings from:

      - Stoelzel's Structures. This is a very useful and fast-growing range.

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