Day One at the Office

There are a few special rules I used for this scenario, more or less just some looting rules, and a couple of random charts for the elevators.  I also randomized where each human started, and proceeded from there.

The day had started off normal enough, although Pamela had hit a few huge snarls of traffic, and was 20 minutes late to work.  She managed to grab the last space with her yellow compact, and hurried in, catching an elevator.  The radio had mentioned that the police were warning people to stay off the streets, so it wasn't a surprise to see a couple of empty desks when she got to her desk.

Pamela set her purse down, started up her computer and decided on some coffee.  Sandra said they were interrupting music with some sort of news about the chaos hitting the city.  Pamela figured she would get an update when she got back to her desk. 

In the break room, Pamela ran into Ted, the manager for the floor.  He was looking out the window, apparently there had been a crash in the intersection.  "Lots of crazies today, Pam.  I just heard the crash out there, and it looks like there are several fires nearby - look at the smoke!"

Pamela looked out window, and saw a pickup and car crashed into each other.  The car had gotten the worse of it.  "What are those people doing wandering around?"  Pamela was a bit worried - the news had reported some riots and strange attacks in some other large cities over the past couple of days.  Could it be happening here?

"Well, I guess we will never..."  Ted trailed off as the elevator doors opened, and a pair of...people shambled out.

Round 1 setup

Round 1:  The elevator arrived, and 2 zombies shambled off.  They moved into the front desk, trying to get the guy working there.  This caused him to panic (passed 1d on zed or no zed check, and I rolled a run away result for random action).

 

 

Ding!  Zombies!

Round 2:  Ted, the boss, Moved up and attacked the zombies.  Pamela ran back to her desk and grabbed her purse.  Everyone else popped up over the cube walls.  The guy from the front ran for the stairs.

The boss takes charge.

Ted knocked down the first zombie, but didn't kill it.  The second one latched on and with huge bite, tore out Ted's neck and he went down with a gurgle and spray of blood.  This caused the woman in green to panic, and freeze in place (failed 2d, random action was freeze).  Pamela convinced Sandra to take a look at the commotion.  Which they did on their next turn.  Pamela grabbed her keyboard (improvised weapon) and got ready to fight.

Turn 3/4: Sandra moved up, saw the dead body and zombies, and panicked - running back, barreling over Rick (in blue) who came out of the bathroom to see what was happening.  Everyone else was panicking and running for the stairs.  Pamela moved up after this, and charged the lead zombie.  (Realistically I should have just run away, but where's the fun in that?)

Sandra runs past.  Maybe she played lacrosse as a kid.

Round 5:  Pamela fought a round in melee, and only managed to knock down the zombie.  Damn, they are hard to kill without a good weapon.  It was rapidly becoming just Pamela versus the zombies as Rick panicked and ran on the next turn.

One down...and uh-oh

Round 6/7/8:  (I am missing a pic, not sure what happened) Pamela backed off, and the zombies moved up to the corner.  Against my better judgement, I charged and managed to actually kill one.  Unfortunately, the dice gods struck back, the next round - one zombie knocked Pamela down.  On turn 7 I rolled double 6, and ruled the boss had reanimated, so I had another zombie to play with.  With Pamela down, I had to check for infection - I managed to roll a 6, she was not infected, and passed 2d for knocked down.  She was stunned for a turn, and I anxiously waited for the next turn activations.

This usually where the game ends...

Round 9/10: Pamela won initiative, stood up, and killed the zombie that had knocked her down.  It was by far the best round of melee I had rolled yet.  Looking at the last zombie, and it being someone Pamela "knew", I figured the odds were not good.  Discretion being the better part of valor, Pamela headed for the stairs.

Up and at 'em!

Heading down the stairs, (I had planned on this being on the third floor, so I only had a few floors to go down) Pamela didn't run into anybody (random rolls came up with empty and 2 "normal" civilians, who ignored her) and I reached the ground floor.  Rather than trying the lobby (it was either going to be zombies, panicked humans or both) Pamela ducked out the fire door and into the parking lot.

Boss, I am leaving early today...

That was the scenario I had planned out.  It was fun, I wasn't sure where the zombies would first come from, I had a few random charts planned out.  As it turned out, they stumbled off the elevators and fun ensued.  I know the boss re-animating wasn't strictly by the book, and the randomized reactions (it was all fight or flight type actions) didn't add much, but it did seem like everyone panicked and ran.

So round 2 now starts - outside...

It must be safer outside...

With some luck, I will play this week and post the bat rep before next weekend.

Cheap Homes

So I am using my new campaign to help motivate me to finish some of my scatter terrain (the office furniture has been a bit ...challenging... to be motivated on) but I want to document some of my other pieces as well.

Here are three destroyed homes, based off of a really cheap and small doll house toy.  I picked these up at a Goodwill (thrift store) for about $1.00 each.  I have picked up a bunch over time, and I plan on using them as a before and after for suburban housing.

The apocalypse can be rough on subdivisions...

They make for decent stand-ins for ruins, and I didn't spend an hour on each one.  They are very easy to break (hehehe) and as such, make very easy ruined homes.  I have gotten a couple that had furniture included, which is small, but useful.  I plan on using that for more scatter terrain for interiors.

Another angle on the homes.

I have a few from one of my previous ATZ campaigns.  This was a small neighborhood in a rural/suburban area.  I have a couple of cardboard homes from Hobby Lobby (they were around for Christmas a couple of years ago) also in the picture.  These have a basic paint job applied, nothing fancy.

It seems like such a quiet neighborhood.

You can see they can have some pretty funky colors (pinks and yellows are common) some are not too bad, and I have been experimenting with black/brown washes to dull them to usable condition.  It may be "cheating" but I love using  (or reusing) toys for scenery.  I am lucky to have a great thrift store nearby so I have been getting stuff cheap.

As always, comments welcome.  Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.

Civilian Horde!

I haven't gotten the next adventure done yet, I want to start in an office setting, and I am building some scenery to match.  I hope to have it done this week and post the battle report next weekend.

I have a couple of group shots of my zombie snacks, or civilians, to be used as either panicked civilians, possible survivors or whatever else I might need.  They are a mix of O-scale figures, converted heroclix, toys and game pieces.  Some are very much out of scale for 28mm gaming, but in all they work out pretty well I think.  Not all have been finished, but you get the idea from the pics.

A kind of rogue's gallery

I do have a couple of Reaper miniatures to help see the scale, one on each end.

Who are these guys, some sort of boy band?

A few of these are toys and out of scale. I did a head swap on some, using some extra heads from Wargames Factory zombies.  They don't look too bad, they are not meant to be central characters.

I wonder if any of them have a Clue what is going to happen to them.

Some of these will represent characters for Day One scenarios, and then I will replace them as they gain experience.  After all, few of my characters are going to start looking like Mad Max or Alice from Resident Evil.

Where is the nearest train?

If they group up to form a mob, it looks like a decent mob.  I may add some more figs as I come across them, I would like to add some people holding signs, more like protestors.

Ahhh, zombie bait.

Stay safe out there.

Day 1: Get to work

NEWS FEED:

Last week:

Riots for third straight day in Pakistan

Authorities close port of Shanghai

US Military forces redeploy from Central Asia

Terrorists destroy bridges in Europe, travel crippled

CDC warns of dangerous Flu

Yesterday:

Boston Authorities report cannibalistic murders

Port of Los Angeles Suffers fire and closure

Homeland security warns of imminent Terrorist attack in US

Local authorities report missing persons from several neighborhoods, fear serial killer on loose

Last Night:

Fire destroys Apartment building after car crash

Airports closed, flight delays projected for rest of week

This morning:

Several car crashes reported across city

Hospitals report injuries from “bites”

Now:

“Good morning, this Jay in the morning on KZMB, with the morning cruise.  Marci is just coming in – listen folks stay off the highway this morning!  There are delays through the whole area, with reports of several accidents and general congestion.  Marci, you got caught on the way in, what did you see?”

“There were at least two full-on wrecks out there!  It looked like crazy bumper cars, plus at least at one of the people were still wandering around a bit dazed.  Some drivers had stopped and were trying to keep them calm until the ambulances arrived, but there were definitely people hurt.”

“Hopefully everyone gets to the hospital, and authorities can get things under control.  We’ll be back after this short commercial.”

Mark was glad to be on the side streets, which were actually pretty empty right now.   It was still early, just past 6am, so that wasn't much of a surprise.  Still, hearing about the traffic on the highway, and not seeing any signs of traffic made Mark chuckle.

Just getting to work

Mark turned into the construction site, surprised to see only one truck in the lot.  It should have been full, they needed to get the walls roughed in today, or there would be hell to pay.  Parking by the office trailer, Mark started walking into the site when he stopped short - there was a body laying just past the employee entrance.

 

Mark passed 2d on a rep check to see if he would panic from a dead body.  Mark moved to investigate and see if the body was dead or just hurt.  As he was investigating his fallen employee, a low moan and shuffling of feet alerted Mark that something was wrong.  Grabbing a roofing hammer (improvised weapon) Mark faced two zombies - and passed his Zed or no Zed check with 1d.

OSHA would have a field day with this...

Yikes!  Melee is a bit different from ATZ:BDTZ, so this took me a bit of time to get right.  Mark fought a round with one zombie (the other came up short, which was the plan for this scenario anyway) and won by 1 success.  Predictably, the zombie was just knocked over.  Mark tried to finish him off, but still came up with only a knocked down.  Mark retreated to the parking lot - trying to make for his truck.

The dead walk

Mark managed to stay ahead of the two shambling zombies, but had trouble getting his jeep started!  Damn the car won't start rule!  Even with two free activations (zombies scored 5 and 6 to his 2 and 3 for activation) the Jeep wouldn't start...  Eventually it did start, but the zombies were close enough to charge!

Mark really wishes he had the hard top.

Well, at least the Jeep helped here - one zombie got plowed under and killed.  The other pulled up to the side, only to loose the melee.  For once, it wasn't even close.  Of course, that means it just fell off, but it let Mark drive away - heading for Pamela's work.  Hopefully she had her cell phone still.  Mark started trying to get through...

I don't see any traffic, so the stop is optional

All told, the scenario was a success and I managed to learn the differences for melee between BDTZ and FFO.  I was happy to see a win, and decided Mark would head to his wife's job next.  I will run a scenario with her, and see if she is where Mark expects.

Campaign Start Up

I have started an ATZ:FFO campaign, and I will document it as it unfolds.  I will be using the rules pretty much as listed, however, I have added a resource called ammo.  I did this for my ATZ:BDTZ and I like having some additional resources to look for, and it gives me something else to find besides weapons.  I will also use the Risk and Rewards deck from THW and the very cool events deck from Colgar6 (Colgar's blog) for the various situations.

My starting survivors will be a husband and wife:

Mark and Pamela for day 1

Mark - Rep 3/Pep 1/Sav 2 (attributes will be generated one per scenario after the first)
Pamela - Rep 3/Pep 2/Sav 1 (attributes will be generated one per scenario after the first)

Both will be stars, but only one will be a star in any scenario they are together.

My intention will be to have a series of linked scenarios of them trying to get together and get home.  After that, it will be wherever the game takes me.  Once I get past the first scenario for each, I will play with normal rules for adding members to the group.

They will start with an SUV and a sedan, plus a house in the suburbs.  They have two pistols and a shotgun, two baseball bats, a crowbar, an axe, 4 units of food, 2 medical supplies and 8 luxuries at their home.

Some Scenery

For my ATZ campaign, I wanted to have a junkyard/survivor fort completed eventually.  These are a few pieces I have done for that.  Most are just made from old parts and toys I have in my much too large bits piles.  The corrugated walls are made from aluminum cans that have been formed through a paper shaper for scrap booking.

These are older pieces, I will be posting some updated items, as well as some batreps as soon as I can.

Sections of wall

Because "WELCOME" just didn't seem correct.

Its best to leave the gates closed during the apocalypse...

Couple of random plastic cars, bunch of junk (a heroclix base is in there)

Random gubbins.

Some sort of toy soldier tents I found at a flea market for 10 cents each.  I wish they had more.

Actually an HO scale truck body, but I like it for an objective marker (some sort of generator)

I will try and post some actual in game shots (I always seem to forget to take pics while playing) and as I said, some batreps will follow.