Checking Out the Neighbors (Part 2 - Conclusion)

"Well that's just great."  Jack said, looking around.  "Any more bright ideas?"
Tina shot daggers in her look at Jack.  "I didn't think we should come here to begin with."
Dawn looked at the bending fence and the zombies in the road.  "I think I may have an idea."  She said, matter of factly.

The group is surrounded

Last turn started with the crevasse opening up in the road and the zombies activating and the survivors not activating at all.  The team is trying to explore the buildings in the area and continue towards the rest of the town.

The next turn the survivors activate but the zombies do not.  Looks like the team gets a break!  They run around the wrecks to the street beyond.

Everyone runs past the wrecks

Jack padded down the now lifeless corpse of the soldier in the street.  Opening up the various pouches and pockets, he hoped to find something useful.  A few loose rounds of ammunition and a couple pieces from an MRE is all he found until he checked the back, where Jack found a full first aid kit.  "Jackpot!"  He yelled.
"Keep moving!  We need to head towards the junkyard!"  Dawn yelled back as Jack continued to check the body for useful items.

Jack (being Greedy) rushes forward to search the downed guard zombie.  Luckily I roll a 1 for the number of turns he spends searching.  The next turn starts with another random event before the survivors and then the zombies act.

Armed zombie - that's not fair!

At least the armed zed is stuck in the pit

Zombies crash the fence and move forward

I make a quick ruling that the zombies need to pass 2d to climb out.  They will roll each turn, and will stand up on the edge nearest the survivors.  Everyone waits, watching the zombies shamble forward and into the pit.  No zombies manage to climb out, and I am starting to think passing 2d may be too hard...

Pit full of zed!

On the next turn, the zombies go first.  The last two fall into the pit, but three climb out!  The survivors react with Tina shooting and Dawn and Brenda (who passes her brown pants check) attacking in hand to hand.

Zombies crawl forward

Tina shoots one as Dawn and Brenda attack

Two more zombies appear

Over the next few turns, The survivors basically stand around and wit for the zombies to get close.  I'm hoping to get the two zombies out of the junkyard lot before moving in.  It's important to plan well ahead for moving with the citizens along, the brown pants roll can really throw plans off.

Dawn faces two zombies

More zombies approach

"I can get him from here!"  Jack yelled, taking aim with his SMG.  "Then we can stop standing around!"

"Keep an eye out for more after you shoot!"  Dawn shouted, eyeing up a zombie crawling out of the pit.

Last zombie from the junkyard

Dawn kills the nearest zombie in melee and Jack shoots the other zombie closest to the group.  His shots bring one more zombie, behind the team near a wrecked jeep.

Another zed arrives

Looking around, Dawn saw the zombies had thinned out.  "Let's head to the buildings and get out of here before more dead arrive."  She said gesturing towards the nearby shack.

"That's fine by me, I'll just be glad to get out of here!"  Joyce said, checking her shotgun.

Preparing to enter the shack

The team runs to the nearby shack, getting ready to enter.  Apparently that took a lot out of them, as they don't activate for three turns...

One zombie strolls along the road

He crashes into the barricade

Jack faces the zombie!

So after three turns of standing around (yikes that hurt!) one zombie (at least the others stay stuck in the pit) stumbles into Jack.  He passes the charge test, but we go straight to melee.  Jack rolls 5d6 (rep 4, +1 for 1 hand melee weapon) versus 3d6 for the zombie.  With the bonus success for fighting a zombie, Jack easily wins by 3.

Dawn enters the shack when they finally activate.  She finds and empty room.

Dawn finds an empty shack

The group moves towards the garage in the junkyard lot.  I elect to stop checking the zombies in the pit (I figure they calm down without seeing or hearing anything) mostly because they were rolling poorly and not getting out.

Heading to the garage

"I don't see any damn gas!"  The voice yelled from the garage.

"Harry, calm the hell down!  I told ya that kid said he left it in a garage around here.  Maybe he meant one of the house over on Tenth Street."  Another voice answered loudly.

The voices caught Dawn by surprise as she walked towards the garage.  Looking at the group she saw worried looks from everyone except Jack who simply shrugged at her.  Dawn waved Jack to come with her as she approached the side door.  She held up her pistol and and gestured at Jack and and the right side of the door.  Jack nodded and cocked his SMG.

The arguing inside stopped as Dawn kicked open the door and entered the garage, facing a pair of men dressed in a mix of camouflage uniforms and hunting gear.  "You just entered the wrong garage!" One man yelled, raising a machine pistol to fire.

Dawn and Jack enter the garage and find two gangers, Rep 3 (machine pistol) and Rep 3 (BAP).  They are from a 'gang' in the area populated by deserters and some civilians.  The meet and greet goes poorly, Dawn with two success versus three for the gang.  They decide to walk the walk and we go to in sight tests.

Trigger happy ganger

Luckily only one of the gangers passes any dice, but he gets two successes and ties Dawn.  They go at the same time, and Jack will go second as he passes one die for his in sight check.

Results of the first shots

Dawn fires her BAP twice and gets a knock down, which turns into an out of the fight.  The ganger fires his machine pistol and gets one hit with an obviously dead result.  Dawn is Tough as Nails and the result turns into a knockdown result instead.  She passes 2d on her check and carries on.

Jack activates and shoots the last standing ganger.

Gang down.

Both gangers go OOF, so Dawn and Jack take their weapons and search the garage.  The garage is empty but they do pick up a machine pistol and BAP from the two gangers.  Closing the door behind them, Jack and Dawn regroup with the team and they all head towards the gas station.

Jump the fence

Jack hopped over the fence and paused as he looked at the ruined jeep in the road.  "Hey, I bet that belonged to someone who liked the outdoors.  Maybe there is some good gear we can use!"  Jack yelled and ran towards it.
"Jack!  Leave it, check the gas station and let's go!"  Dawn yelled back before shaking her head and running after Jack to keep him on task.

Jack's greed distracts him

Jack searches the jeep, finding nothing, but being greedy, he will spend d6 turns searching, I roll a 4 so Dawn moves up to Jack to keep him moving.  The rest of team starts searching around the gas station as everyone moves to the building and searches.  In the end they manage to find a unit of food.

Dawn argues with Jack to keep moving

Everyone searches the gas station

After searching the gas station, the whole group exits the table, continuing into town.  Dawn scores pretty well for keeping it together, with 3 successes.  Eric scored 1, and won't check next time.  Tina, Jack and Brenda score 2 success and stay.  Joyce ties with 3 successes, but as the scenario was a success, she stays.

Walking into town

"We left the camp a couple of days ago.  There was fighting at the school south of town and guards have been disappearing for weeks now.  There were rumors that the medical group was experimenting on people and that anyone who went in there never came out."  Joyce was explaining the events of the last few weeks.  "A horde of dead crashed into the southern fences and got into the tents and trailers.  It was chaos and panic..."  She choked a bit, but continued, "We all lost people."
"That sounds horrible!"  Dawn said, shocked.  "Are there more people alive in there?"
Brenda shook her head "I don't know.  Maybe, I heard gunfire as we ran away last night.  The guards were well armed and the central compound was pretty well protected.  They might still be holding out."
Pausing along the street near a wrecked car, everyone looked around and then to Dawn.  She sighed and looked further down the road before saying anything.  "Let's see how big the horde is and then decide if we can either help or get more supplies.  I don't think any of us wants to wake up with a mass of dead crashing our house."
Everyone nodded, checked their weapons and packs and started walking along the road again.

Checking Out the Neighbors (Part 1)

"Okay, the place is pretty well fortified now."  Dawn said as she looked over the boarded up back door.  "We'll use the side door from the garage to get in an out."
Tina stretched her arms and picked up a pair of gallon containers filled with water.  "These are the last two for upstairs.  There's at least a weeks worth of food and water for each of us up there."
"The truck is fixed up and ready to go."  Jack added as he lifted his beer in a toast.  "This place seems safe enough and we're ready to go if we need to.  Who could ask for more?"
"Tomorrow we'll head into Somerset.  There's a gas station and junkyard on the edge of town we can check out as we head into town.  Maybe we can find more fuel."  Dawn said and grabbed her pack, heading for the stairs.
"We'll walk to town, it will be more quiet and we won't use any gas for the truck."  Tina suggested.  "Once we have an idea of what's happening there, we can drive in if we need to."
Dawn looked at Tina, sighing.  "Fine we'll walk.  It's not like I'm going to take the truck and just drive off."
Jack shook his head.  "Everyone just calm down.  We'll take a walk into town and see what we can see."

Walking into town

It is morning of day 58, the group is walking into the nearby town of Somerset, following rumors of a FEMA camp and looking for supplies.  The area ER is 5, there are 10 zombies and 3 PEFs.  Zombies will appear on a 5+ (suburbs) for this scenario.  The goal is to check the three buildings (Gas station, junkyard office and garage) and exit the side opposite the group entered from. 

As part of the campaign a couple of special rules are in effect:
1. Very tight ammo rules
2.  Scarce looting
3. Zombie specials: as the team explores the town there is a chance for 'special' zombies to appear in any group from a PEF and at the start of the scenario.  These are zombies that may have something useful, a weapon, body armor, keys, etc.  I have a chart to roll on for what each special zed may have.  For example, to start there is an undead soldier zombie at the gas station -

Undead soldier

The team enters on foot, heading towards a nearby truck to get started.

Everyone is ready to go!

The PEFs move forward, but stay in cover.  The team activates first and moves forward shooting at zombies as they approach the truck.

Tina and Jack kill the closest zombies

Dawn searches the yellow wrecker truck, finding it inoperable and empty.  A lone zombie appears from the gunfire.  Not too bad to start.  The next turn is rather action-packed, two PEFs move into contact!

Here they come!

"See, they don't seem so tough."  Jack said to Tina as the zombies they shot collapsed to the ground.  A scraping sound from the wrecked pickup truck caught their attention.
"I don't think that's all of them."  Tina said pointing at the truck.
"Aww, what is it?  Don't tell me!"  Jack said, taking aim with his SMG as more zombies shambled from the wreck.

Three more zombies appear

Dawn glanced at the three zombies approaching on the road.  "You guys got those?"  she asked.  Metal clanking on the fence snapped her attention back around to in front of her.  Three people were climbing over the fence, a young boy had just hit the fence with his rifle.  They all paused and stared at each other for a moment.
"You okay?"  Dawn asked.
"We're just trying to get away from the dead."  A lean young woman with a spear offered.  "Where are you headed?"
"We're checking out town, then heading back to our fortified farmhouse."  Dawn replied.  "We'd be happy to help you out."
They paused for a moment and looked and nodded at each other.  "We'd love to join you guys.  I'm Brenda, this is Joyce and Eric."

New friends!

The second PEF turns out to be three civilians.  Again with civilians instead of survivors!  Still, living people for allies are welcome.  We meet Brenda (rep 4, spear) Joyce (Rep 4, shotgun) and Eric (rep 2, bolt action rifle).  I have some temporary minis standing in for them until I can get some new figs made up.  I'm hoping Brenda survives, I'd like to make a spear wielding survivor!

The survivors win initiative for the turn, and everyone fires on the undead.  Dawn moves forward, just in case any survive to charge the team.

Lots of shooting

One zombie survives the fusillade and charges Dawn.  Surprisingly, they tie on the first round of melee, before Dawn kills the zombie with her machete.

Dawn fights in melee

Five more zombies appear from the gunfire, shooting doesn't seem to be killing them fast enough...

More zombies arrive

The next turn, the PEF moves to contact to start things off.

PEF moves into contact

Tina watched Dawn slice the zombie in the head, slamming it to the pavement.  A sound from the truck next to her made Tina look just in time to see two zombies crawling over the back of the truck.  One zombie still had the tattered remains of a hazmat suit, the air tank making a metallic tinkling sound as it was dragged across the empty truck bed.  "They're right here!"  Tina yelled as they reached for her.

Zombies climb over the truck

The PEF resolves as two zombies, one of which is a 'special' and is represented by the zed in a hazmat outfit.  Other than the chance for loot, they are handled the same as any other zombie.  The zombies win initiative and they charge towards the living.  Tina passes her brown pants test and shoots one before going in to hand to hand with the second.

Zombies close in on the survivors

Tina wins in melee, and I leave a marker for the potential loot.

Tina wins, the zeds get closer

Joyce, armed with the shotgun fires before moving, killing two zombies near the trees.  Unfortunately, she also runs out of ammo.  The civilians move to the front of the truck, where everyone else fires at the zombies as well.

Shooting works pretty well...

...until four more zombies show up

On the next turn, the survivors go first.  Jack moves up and kills the nearest zombie, Tina searches the dead hazmat zombie and finds a key card.  She follows that up by shooting the soldier zombie.  Joyce reloads, moving up with Eric and Brenda.

The team moves forward

And the zombies close in

Zombies close in on the group, several crashing into the fence, slowly breaking it down.  Gunfire attracts one more zombie, behind the group.  The next turn starts with a random event.

This could be a problem.

A sudden rumble cut through the morning air, the ground shook like an earthquake.  With a crash and a wet sucking sound the road ahead opened up as an underground drainage line collapsed.  Shock made everyone stand and stare at the large crevasse that had just opened up.
"I guess we'll have to go around."  Jack said calmly.

That's going to tough to get past

After the random event, the survivors do not activate.  Zombies close in, the fence is damaged and will likely fail on the next turn...

It could be worse...

To be continued...

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

"We should stay!"  Tina yelled as Dawn asked if she had everything packed.  "This seems to be a safe enough area.  Sure there have been some zombies, no power and a few strangers... No offense, Jack."
"None taken."  Jack said quietly as he finished a can of beer while sitting at the dining room table.
"That guy Donald all but ran through here trying to get away from Somerset."  Dawn replied.  "If there is a FEMA camp there, and it's been overrun, we need to get out of here."
"There haven't been that many zombies around here.  I'll bet the camp is just deserted."  Tina continued.  "We should just clear out the house and barn, and make some fences to keep the few wanderers out."
"You know I want to head east, I promised my friends I'd return if I could."  Dawn replied.  "I still say we should be ready to go, and check out the camp area.  If it's bad we can run, if it's not, we can come back."
Tina looked upset, looking hard at Dawn.  "What do you think Jack?"  she said coldly.
"Oh boy."  Jack said as he looked at the two women.

I am starting out with an argument between Dawn and Tina about staying versus leaving.  I am using the same mechanics as I did for when the group first decided to head to Minneapolis (wow that seems so long ago!)  Jack will be the deciding vote for what they will do.

Dawn wants to load up, check the FEMA camp and head east.  Tina wants to improve the house they are in and make a place to stay.  Jack is undecided, lucky him! 

The rules for the argument are similar as the original rules for melee where each person trying to convince Jack will roll their PEP stat in d6, looking for successes.  Each success will move Jack 'one space' to either side of the argument or undecided (in the middle).  Once there is nobody undecided, there will be 1d6 rounds before the argument ends.  Seems complex, but it's easy once you see it in action.

Tina has a PEP of 3, Dawn has PEP of 4.

Jack likes the idea of staying...

 Tina wins 1 to 0, and I roll 3 rounds left.

Dawn can't persuade Jack

Tina solidifies her position

Tina adds two more successes to Jack staying on her side.  The last turn is going to need to be spectacular for Dawn to win this.

Looks like we stay...

While they will 'stay' at the house, they will still check the nearby town and FEMA camp.  They will just plan on returning to home rather than moving on/through the camp area.

"Alright."  Dawn said with an exasperated sigh.  "We barricade the house and stay."  Tina clapped, but Dawn finished.  "IF the FEMA camp isn't as bad as that survivor made it sound."
Tina pouted, putting hands on her hips.  "That wasn't the deal!  We're going to stay."
"Whoa there."  Jack jumped in.  "I think we need to check that camp.  I don't want to stay where a horde could overrun us at any moment."
Tina looked at Jack with the same withering gaze and slowly spoke to him.  "You said we'd stay."
"Whoa.  We will."  Jack replied holding up his hands.  "Once we're sure the area is safe."
Tina considered it and nodded.  "Okay.  Let's get the barricades going and we can check it out in a couple of days..."

On day 58, the group wanders to the east, approaching the outskirts of Somerset...

Approaching Somerset...

So this was short and long overdue.  Sorry, but The Commonwealth of 2288 (it's January in my game...) needed my assistance.  Curse you Fallout 4!