Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 2

This report follows on from last Wednesdays post, visible here.

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In advance of the Regenerator the zombies lurched forward, wounding Anderson and Symes with their filthy clawing hands.  With the hissing Regenerator twitching forward on its palsied limbs things are looking bleak for Sigma Squad.

The Regenerator moved suddenly and with a spasm spikes erupted from its body, eviscerating Jerabeck.  With cold efficiency Anderson riddled the body of the Regenerator with rounds from her MP5 killing one of the Regenerators parasites, while weaving between the zombies all around her.

With skills honed by years of training Symes broke right, in the opposite direction to Anderson while putting three rounds into the nearby butane cylinder.  The cylinder burst sending zombie and Regenerator offal flying in all directions.  “Hasta la muerte” she uttered pithily as chunks of bloody, rotten flesh rain down around her.

(When setting up the table for the game some cinematically minded player decided that the best place for a butane cylinder was next to a Spawn Point, and he was probably right.  On this occasion it likely kept the wounded remnants of Sigma Squad in the game).

On the street between the Cinema and the rear of the Police station, USS Squad Gamma crossed paths with USFU Squad Sigma, the first living things that they had encountered since deployment.  Under strict orders to keep their noses out of each others highly sensitive business, a curt nod between fully masked sergeants was the sum of their exchange.  Gamma proceeded North while Sgt White went South.  Squad Epsilons  Ingram climbed the extendable ladder to the roof of the Police station to give covering fire over the vehicle holding the vault keycard.

Squad Gamma proceeded towards the milling throng of confused corpses that was trying to locate its last target, Squad Epsilon.

As Epsilon Sgt White rounds the South side of the police station, Ingram gives cover from the rooftop by detonating a fuel barrel, turning a handful of zeds into sub-human torches.  This cleared the way for Sgt White to get the vault keycard in the blue Porche.

Kaplan pauses from the rhythmic headshots and dismemberments to reload, and is caught unexpectedly.  Although he dies quickly from arterial blood loss, Gamma has no time to grieve as the Squad struggles to keep the mounting horde at bay.

Eerie wailing is heard as a Witch shows up near squad Epsilons keycard objective location.  Luckily, the Witch is inclined to keep itself to itself.  As it spawns a distance away from the main routes travelled by the forces, it remains undisturbed for now.

Squad Gamma, rattled by the loss of Kaplan get some payback on the large mob that has congealed near their objective, the Umbrella Corp local HQ.  After some unnecessary risks, some touch and go hand to hand where they were kept alive only by their kevlar, they get their heads back in the game…

…and tactically withdraw around the rear of their target building.

Meanwhile the wounded Sgt Anderson has procured the incriminating documents.  Now Symes (at the front of the fire truck) has the unenviable task of drawing the zombies away from the Sarge.

At this point the unmistakable howl of a Hunter is heard not far from the Police Station and the Umbrella building…

… and the pressure builds as a Licker shows up even closer to both buildings than the Hunter, next to the still crying Witch.

That doesnt bother Anderson and Symes of Sigma Squad. After reaching the chopper Anderson covers Symes sprint from where she had been heroically drawing the cannibal corpses away from the access point.

With a whine the helicopter begins to lift off, which is enough to agitate the Witch into action.  It also satisfies Sigma Squads mission objective.

Meanwhile Squad Gamma has procured Dr Braga and the vital information that he has.  The hordes are getting nearer however and the extraction chopper has to execute some fancy manoeuvring to get close enough for them to board (the Hunter can be seen approaching on the right, next to the game card).

At this point disaster struck.  Pvt Ocampo had been delayed while punching a couple of zeds tickets at ground level, where she has already seen the approach of the Hunter and Licker plus the large encroaching horde. “Get out of here!” she cried, “Don’t wait for me!”

As the chopper delayed the vital extra seconds for Pvt Rain Ocampo to get up the ladder, the brain dead hordes struggled out of the stairwell onto the roof, dragging the pilot and Pvt Symes of Squad Sigma from the vehicle.

The helicopter tilts, rotors spinning in slow motion, Michael Bay sty-lee.  Across the slow motion image of the chopper crashing into the roof the Hunter leaps screaming onto Pvt Symes, who is subsequently torn apart  while his limbs are used to beat the pilot to a mushy pulp.

The only survivor of Squads Sigma and Gamma is Rain Ocampo, and she is surrounded by zombies on a rooftop with her back to a flaming helicopter wreck.

Sgt White, the lone survivor of squad Epsilon has fought his way through the hordes to his objective, despite losing two good men en route, the last of them only moments ago.  Shoving the final zombies in his path aside he uses the key card to enter the bank and to lock himself into the vault.  There he must locate “the package” in the pitch dark before being extracted.  The vault lights dim and the power cut out.  An inhuman voice screams in the room that Sgt White is locked into behind inches of steel.

Credits roll.

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I was very pleased with how the game worked out.  The revised elements of the system functioned better than I could have hoped.  While a handful of minor issues were quickly recorded during the game for inclusion in future drafts the game trundled along quickly and cinematically.  Importantly the other players were able to work out the rules and mechanics of the game from the cards and rules document without the author (me) having to translate.  I have hopes that this system will regularly get played at Sho3box Castle.  Which will help me to justify my compulsion to paint even more zombies.

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 1

Preamble

After last weeks diatribe regarding the build up and preparatory work for the zombie apocalypse segment of a recent gaming weekend, the report of the game itself follows as promised.

For info regarding the terrain and why it looks the way it does check out the previous zombie game report as I want to avoid repeating all of that stuff here.  All of the Survivors, Special Infected and Spawn Points plus many of the individual zombies themselves are pictured throughout this blog.  Use the tags to the right of the post if you want to see something in particular close up.

Objectives and Deployment

“Day 9.  Infection has not progressed further than 8km beyond the original release site, due to Umbrella containment at principal choke points.  Manipulation of political, media and other information sources has provided enough time for the virus to be tested in non-laboratory conditions and without interference from the authorities.

Final data must be gathered before Governmental intrusion becomes inevitable.  Your squad will be deployed directly into the hot zone.  Objective is priority.  All other considerations are secondary.  As a result all non Umbrella personnel are to be terminated with extreme prejudice.  Any contact with other Umbrella personnel is prohibited without express permission from your CO, due to the sensitivity of individual objectives.

Squad size is reduced to three to accommodate easy extraction and to minimise disruption to the test site”.

MT, PB and I picked a small force of Umbrella Security Service or Umbrella Special Forces Unit each.  PB picked USFU Squad Epsilon while MT and I each picked three members of USS Squads Sigma and Gamma respectively.

We had access to many more survivor figures, often with more esoteric equipment and or characteristics.  As this was a playtest game we deliberately choose not to use those and to each field very similar three man teams.  This was deliberate and intended to keep our focus a little more on the basic game mechanics.

Shade, Kaplan and Ocampo of USS Gamma Squad deployed on the roof of the bank…

…with orders to locate and evacuate Dr Braga from the roof of the Umbrella local HQ building.  The information that Dr Braga holds regarding the development of his ZG620 (zombie repellent) formula is of incalculable value.

White, Ingram and Hoffman of USFU Squad Epsilon are deployed on the roof of a local retail outlet (“Strangerous Liaisons”, a sex shop).  From this point Squad Epsilon must acquire the code key from the corpse of a deep cover Umbrella agent…

…in his blue porche (lovingly offset here by the wandering flesh eating remains of Michael Jackson).  The Umbrella agent used to work undercover in the bank where he concealed a sensitive package in the vault before being dismembered by Whiskey Deltas.  After acquiring the code from the car Epsilon has to progress to the bank vault to secure the package without destroying it (even if it bites).  Once there they need only wait for extraction.

Anderson, Symes and Jerabeck of Squad Sigma were airlifted to the Police Station roof in a locally acquired helo.

Similarly to the Gamma mission, Squad Sigma must reacquire potentially incriminating documents from the police vehicle shown (again being modelled by Michael Jackson) and return to the extraction vehicle.

Resistance is factored at Level Orange (that’s eighty zeds plonked down at random plus nine reinforcements per turn, plus a handful of randomly determined Special Infected showing up throughout the game, on a 6 x 4’ table, in case you were wondering).

The centre of the target area, just before the action begins

The Action

Squad Gamma proceeds with covering fire, by the numbers.  They encounter a still armoured ex-USS colleague.  The Sergeant puts a shotgun round through its head without a second thought.  “If necessary I expect each one of you to do the same for me” he rasps through internal comms (tough guys always rasp, they never just “say”).

Squad Sigma proceeds slowly and efficiently, clearing a path through the dispersed undead.

In stark, bloody contrast to the advance of the other Umbrella units, the overconfident Hoffman of Squad Epsilon gets too close to a mob of ex-police as he rounds the first corner.  Although he takes a few shamblers with him, he is torn limb from limb in moments, his screams of agony being heard through each Epsilon earpiece.

Squad Epsilon continued to advance.  The longer they stayed the more biters were going to be drawn to the area, so they grimly pressed on.

(This was an alarmingly sudden and early demise for one third of PBs forces, much to our amusement.  Despite being 100% lethal upon contact with Survivors, Zombie mobs move rarely and are very unlikely to move rapidly in succession before Survivors get to react.  At least that’s what Hoffman thought anyway.  This unpredictability is part of the appeal of card driven miniature games for me, even if this is an extreme example of things going not so well for a player.  Don’t feel sorry for Hoffman (or PB): they knew the odds)

Squad Sigma rounded the abandoned cinema, taking out the closest threats all the while.  Their gunfire had drawn zombies in the area towards them however and their firepower was not proving to be sufficient to clear a path…

Squad Gamma gave the horde nearby a wide berth, but still ran into to some opponents that could not be dropped at range.  Kaplan and Ocampo dealt with their targets, while the Sergeant dropped a zombie with the butt of his shotgun and blew its brain remnants out on the ground.  Having become separated from his squad by a small distance by a number of hostiles he confirmed rendezvous at the far side of the park.

Even while Hoffmans remains were being devoured Epsilon came under more pressure from the encroaching dead.

After a struggle that was touch and go for a while they blasted their way through the throng and proceeded towards their objective.

Sigma was finally making some headway when the first of the less common undead threats appeared alarmingly close to them.  While not especially fast, the Regenerator (square base, standing next to Spawn Point) is very dangerous up close and very resistant to gunfire, as the combination of T-virus and Las Plagas parasites work to knit its dead flesh beck together after trauma.

Will the Regenerator tear squad Sigma limb from limb?

Will Dr Braga be rescued?

Who will live?

Who will die?

What will explode?

Tune in next week for the thrilling (well somewhat amusing and entertaining in a well-you-had-to-be-there kind of way) conclusion of…

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead!

Preparing for the Zompocalypse

Special Infected Cards for my AR:SE Rewrite

MT, PB and I all got together recently for a gaming weekend at my place.  As is usual these days, the emphasis was mainly on board games.

In addition to those games I decided to set up a Zombie Apocalypse miniatures game, largely due to the success of a game of AR:SE that MT and I played a few months ago.

While I planned to use the AR:SE rule set again I felt that some modifications to the rules as written (available here) were required.  So I set about trying to sort those out in advance of the big day.

AR:SE is a game that provides a cinematic way to use your toy soldiers with friends against a system that plays the zombies for you.  It is not a competitive game or even a test of skill.  It is a type of game that my group often calls a “funny voice generator” which basically means that it is an excuse to muck about with toy soldiers with your buddies and have a few laughs, rather than a contest.

The card driven AR:SE rules provided for a cinematic and very entertaining game the first time that MT and I played it some months ago, but we did feel that we had to make a lot of the supplementary rules up on the fly.  That session, while very entertaining did feel a little woolly, a little more like a RPG jamming session than a delineated boardgame or wargame.

That’s fine if that’s what you are into and I think that it was definitely part of the intention and design philosophy of AR:SEs original author.  Horses for courses and all that.  For our needs however I wanted to add a few elements that suit our play style, such as a more concrete process for spawning new zombies, specific rules for the arrival and behaviour of “special” boss zombies and a standardising of the somewhat eclectic ranges used for movement and shooting.

That process turned into a full blown re-write of the rules that included the following:

• Revised/streamlined weapon and movement ranges and rules
• A full glossary of very simple special effects/rules that are applied to create different types of Special Infected, weapon effects, character abilities etc with the minimum of duplication
• Expanded simple Spawning Rules that dictate the quantity and frequency of zombie reinforcements and that do not require a GM
• A very simple points/character generation system which was then applied to many of the Survivor models in my miniatures collection (and which could obviously be easily applied to anyone’s miniatures).  These rules were then added to cards along with a photo of the relevant figure.  This allows for a very easy way to field those figures either at random via a deal from the Survivor Deck or with ballpark values assigned that will mean that all players have roughly the same level of forces, should that be deemed necessary for some reason
• Another set of cards (the Event deck) was made for the various special zombie types plus other things that might crop up in the game like Extra Ammo, First-Aid, Pipe Bombs etc.  Basically the sort of power-ups that occur in Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil, that sort of thing.  These cards are inserted into the standard AR:SE Activation Deck at certain points to govern the appearance of Special Infected or Power Ups for Survivors.  Additionally in some circumstances these Event Cards are used to generate the circumstances when and where Scenario Specific items show up (like a briefcase containing the zombie virus antidote or keys required to enter the underground lab complex or whatever).

Survivor Cards

The Goal: The rewrite process had to pay particular heed to one main criteria: it was absolutely crucial not to bog down the simple, fast and entertaining core of the card driven AR:SE system with needless extra rules that would slow things down more than entertain.

The aim was to add a series of modular and clean extra rules without cluttering the system, while simultaneously streamlining the original system.

Ranges/Movement.  A major part of the re-write process was to rationalise the ranges and modifiers from the original AR:SE.

I felt that the weapon stats were quite varied but without much gain, that some distinctions were made unnecessarily and that overall they were a little counter-intuitive.

After a couple of different attempts I decided to convert the movement and weapon ranges to an approximation of those from Song of Blades and Heroes.

I feel that the movement and range measurement system in SoBH is far and away the best thing about it, so I happily transplanted a version of that into my AR:SE rewrite.

In addition to that I also reworked how the modifiers to hit at range apply to the various range bands when shooting.  I did this by reassigning the target number and then removing nearly all negative modifiers to hit (negative modifiers to hit are a slightly odd pet peeve of mine).

This was easier to organise than it probably sounds and was worth the little bit of effort.

Add to that that the fact that all of the information (including modifiers to hit) for each and every Survivor in play is written down on a card in front of each player and the potentially irritating effects of modifiers overall are minimised.  I hope.

More Survivor Cards, Yakuza this time.

Glossary/Special Rules.  The largest part of the rewrite was the generation of a large glossary of terms.  While quite a large number of terms were eventually settled on, very few of those are at play at any one time or even in any one game.  The few that are in play are always summarised on the cards used for each survivor miniature and for each of the more esoteric zombie types.

I did my best to standardise most of the special rules so that the same rule for a leaping Hunter was applied to a leaping Jockey for example.  Similarly a particularly dangerous weapon uses the same damaging rule as a particularly dangerous Special Infected for another example.  Of course it has to be ensured that this streamlining doesn’t render the game too generic and homogenised too.  This is all pretty fundamental stuff but it is essential to enable a game to run satisfactorily. It’s a balancing act that many systems trip up on that I hope my rewrite has handled adequately.

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So, after all of that time consuming work my as yet un-named rewrite was ready to go.  Anyone who is still reading at this point might be interested to know that the after action report for the inaugural game that MT, PB and I played will be posted next week.

Zombie Spawn Points

These two are numbers seven and eight of the eight strong zombie spawn points project.  The rest of the zombie spawn points were posted as Zombies of the Week if you fancy a more in-depth look at any of them.

The remaining two dont really qualify under that tag so I have put them here instead.

A Cerberus marks its territory against barrels of unholy chemical concoctions using cold, dead, bloody dog piss.

This one is similar to many that have gone before, except that this one has a zombie dog instead of a zombie human.  Allowing animals to become zombies opens up a whole can-o-worms, but I am ok with it being cross contagious with a limited number of species.  Kinda like swine or bird flu I suppose. Dog-flu that re-animates corpses I suppose.

Predatory Sewer Dwelling Mutant

Tentacles dont tend to suggest zombies to most people.  The figure is designed more as a Cthulhu thing really I suspect.  Nonetheless I was happy to use a manhole with tentacles coming out of it as a zombie spawn point.  I suppose that it goes back to my zombie grounding in the Resident Evil franchise, where mutant animals…

[comic store guy mode ]

…and not necessarily zombie animals.  There is a difference of sorts…

[ /comic store guy mode... well... reduced to normal levels at least ]

…are reasonably common due to reasons related to the zombie outbreak.

Yesterdays News

The newspaper is an image that I found online a few years ago and held on to.  I printed out a sheet of tiny papers back then but always found them just a little too big to fit on most 28mm figure bases.  I am pleased with how they look on the spawn base above though.

Lastly, here is a silly, tiny shot of all of the spawn points together, along with some of the other zed related stuff that I have painted up recently, just for fun.

Its curtains for Jill Valentine.

The spawn points were a satisfying project: the sort of thing that I regularly talk about, but dont always get around to completing.

Not this time

Zombie of the Week #33: Private Watford

Pvt. Watford

All personnel are required to be aware of safety protocols regarding shipments.  Under no circumstances should compound 39-B (purple containers) be stored, loaded or unloaded in the vicinity of any other hazardous materials.

In particular, under no circumstances whatsoever should compound 39-B be allowed to come into contact with standard consignment barrels.  Contact with the contents can result in a hazardous biological reaction.

Health & Safety Pallet Stacking Violation.

Another spawn point, quite similar to Pvt. Maberry and Pvt. Molina from over the last couple of weeks.  This is the last one with the zombie-emerging-from-a-barrel motif.

I like the barrel zombie models.  In particular Pvt. Watford is amusing in how very limber he seems to have remained despite (or perhaps because of) being stored in a barrel of toxic waste.

Zombie of the Week #32: Bud

Bud

The Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal programme developed an”unexpected” hitch.  A bunch of Cannibalistic, Humanoid, Underground Dweller shaped hitches.  Heads will roll, figuratively and literally.

A Bloody "Accident"

I have never seen C.H.U.D. (although the DVDs are en route as I type).  I am however familiar with the cover of the VHS which I could never get anyone else to rent with me as a child.  I figure that this Black Cat Bases manhole-with-hoodie figure was inspired by it.

(Edit: since I drafted this post I have seen C.H.U.D. While far from the likes of Citizen Kane, it was better than I expected.  Unintentionally hilarious in places but actually trying to be a grown up movie about monsters in others: it could have been much worse. C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the Chud however lasted less than ten minutes in the DVD player.  It looked like it was going to be a Weekend at Bernies type affair.  Ugh.)

The warning barriers come from some cheap Pound shop toys that I bought years ago.  I hopefully applied enough ink washes to them to remove most of the toy look from them.  Those things look so plastic-y in real life that I wasnt sure how far to go.

Naturally I then ladled gore all over them too.

As I have already painted up a pair of hoodies as Left 4 Dead Hunters I followed the same routine while painting Bud.

Zombie of the Week #31: Private Maberry

Pvt. Maberry

Private Maberry had always considered the possibility of going home in a box.  He hadnt factored in a barrel.  He definitely didnt think that he would be still moving en route either.

Umbrella Archive Filing

Pvt. Maberry is another off-the-peg style spawn point in the same vein as Pvt. Molina from a few weeks ago and Pvt. Watford who goes up soon.  The zombies in barrels come from Eureka and were a lot of fun to paint.

Zombie of the Week #30: Doug

Doug

It looks like Doug is going to get another chance to enjoy his retirement… from life.

Personal Voluntary Exhumation

Personally, I like my living impaired to have been rendered that way by pseudo-scientific means.  This, in my opinion renders the zombification of buried corpses “unrealistic” 

On the other hand, a zombie bursting from the grave is a classic zombie image.  When an opportunity to make something fun like that comes along I dont like to let “realism” get in the way.  When Doug showed up in my Frothers zombie pack last January I put it to one side, knowing that he was destined for a cheesy looking spawn pont.

The gravestone is from the GW zombie sprue.  The grave is from a Horrorclix Jason Vs Freddie set plus some balsa scraps, flock and gravel.  I had to trim the bottom of it to get it more flush but it still sits a bit proud.  While I could have made a little more effort to get it flush with the base I was happy to leave it looking like disturbed earth caused by personal, voluntary exhumation.

I definitely should has taken more time with the “engraved” text areas on the tombstone however.

Zombie of the Week #29: Private Molina

Pvt. Molina

Ronald Reagan was in power when Private Molina was unfortunate enough to be on covert investigative duties after Chernobyl.  While his family were given closed casket burial, the Privates body was stored in a barrel of chemical soup.  For many years since the same chemical concoction has kept the ex-soldier in a reduced mental and physical capacity, even for someone already “living impaired”.

Recent events have obviously rendered the chemical solution inactive.  As a result, Private Molinas mobility rating increases by the hour.

Necromantic Creme de Menthe

Like Dr Javad, Pvt. Molina is another zombie spawn point, rather than a zombie toy soldier intended for moving around the game table.

The barrel, crate and zombie motif makes up the basic structure of the my zombie spawn points.  As such, Private Molina can be seen as more or less a standard example of the eight that I have made up.

The zombie-in-barrel miniature is from Eureka, the crates and metal drums are a Pardulon piece and the biohazard (orange) and corrosive (purple) barrels are Fenris.

The Umbrella logo on the crate was a bit rushed.  That in combination with it being a bit awkward to paint on to the grain on the crate means that it isnt really very well done, but its within tolerances for me.

Zombie of the Week #28: Dr Javad

Dr Javad

Dr Javads plan has succeeded, although he had not planned to martyr himself just yet.  That part was an accident.

The weaponised zombified test subjects contained in units Z7 and Z8 are already entering the first stages of reanimation and will soon strike against the infidels like the holy weapon of God.

Biological Weapons Containment (compromised)

Dr Javad is one eighth of my recent project to make zombie spawn points for my games.  As zombies show up during games they will be placed in contact with one or more of these spawn markers.

Each marker is a very small diorama or collection of bits and pieces stuck to a 60mm base.  Most of them are pretty similar in theme but I had a little more fun with a couple more.  I think that this marker with Dr Javad is probably my favourite.

The concept is that the two blue boxes are some form of high-tech containment unit for the transport of zombies.  These units are carried to their strategic destination by evil terrorist/corporate types.  Subsequently the containment units are opened by some prearranged signal which can then release these disease vectors right in the heart of the infidels/testing areas.

The idea is mainly ripped off from Patient Zero, a cheesy book that I read recently (reviewed here on Dawn of the Lead).  That book was in my opinion pretty trashy, although I enjoyed the non-fiction Zombie CSU (written by the same author and again reviewed here) significantly more.  All the same, like a lot of hard-boiled pulp fiction, Patient Zero contained a lot of inspiration for gaming.

The story in Patient Zero is that nasty terrorist types have created the Sief al Din (Sword of the Faithful) virus and are planning to release it throughout the US.  They used “big blue phone-booth-sized containers” to transport the zeds and that is what I tried to represent with the resin sci-fi crates from Fenris games.

Rather than just have a couple of the crates plonked on a base I decided to add a scientist to the base too.  As everyone knows that when scientists try to play God that everything inevitably goes South, I used a Wargames Factory zombie that I got in a trade to represent the scientist in a zombified state.

I replaced the scientists hands with hands from a Mantic ghoul for a few reasons: the WF zeds hands are tiny and shit and the ghoul hands are gangly enough to be crudely bent into a position that they could hold the laptop that I made from plasticard scraps.

The laptop was added for fun and to show that the scientist is likely to have had something to do with the containment units, rather than simply shambling past them.  The “hazardous” transfers plus the numbering and lettering Letraset help with the industrial scientific look I think.

Finally I painted a few of the recesses in the unit sides to look like status lights (Han Solo in carbonite anyone?).  Again, as with all dealings with zombies where anyone thinks that they can control them, one of the status lights is in the red.  Its only a matter of time…