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.