A Bad Day at the Outpost (New ATZ Melee rules test)

Private Boothe checked her pistol again, shaking her head in disgust at the half dozen rounds she had left.  "If those things attack I'm dead!"  She exclaimed.
"Calm down."  Sergeant Hanson said in a gravely voice.  "You're here to drive the Hummer.  Corporal Lewis and I will make sure you're fine."  Looking into the morning gloom around the trenches the trio were stationed in Hanson had a bad feeling.  "It's awfully calm out there..."
With a crackle of static the radio came to life on the nearby table.  "All sectors, plan white!  I say again, plan white!"  The radio went silent as gunfire and explosions suddenly broke the morning calm. 
"Well hell."  Hanson said, unslinging his rifle.  "Seems this day is ruined."
"What is plan white?" Corporal Lewis asked, copying the sergeant and checking his rifle.
"We're being overrun by those things."  Hanson shouldered his rucksack.  "We're on our own now.  Let's leg it to the Hummer, Boothe, get us out of here!"
"Sarge, I think those things are already nearby!"  Lewis said looking out of the trenches.  As the morning light grew brighter, he could see massive amounts of figures in the distance.  "There's a million of 'em!"
"Crap.  We gotta be as quiet as we can until we get to the truck."  Hanson fitted his bayonet to his rifle.  "Let's do this quick."

The start of a bad day

Instead of just changing in the campaign, I have a quick scenario to test out the new melee rules tweaks from Ed at Two Hour Wargames.  The changes seem pretty straightforward, I'm hoping to give them a decent workout.  If you haven't had a chance to download the rules, I suggest getting them, but I will try and relate what is happening as I go through the report.

The scenario will force a large number of zeds into close contact with the living.  It is Day 35, this military post is being overrun by zombies and the action will follow a small observation/guard group as they try to escape.  There will be no special events, zombies will automatically spawn from all noise, 1d6 zombies will enter each end of the roadway at the end of each zombie turn.  All zombies will spawn inside of the the fences, basically on the road or in the trench area.  Nine zombies start on the table and there is one PEF beside the Hummer, which will be a group of 6 zombies when it is triggered.  The PEF won't move, it will just stay still until triggered.

The group consists of:
Sergeant Hanson (rep 5, Assault rifle, bayonet, BAP, Protected) *Star
Corporal Lewis (rep 4, Assault rifle, bayonet, grenade, Protected)
Private Boothe (rep 3, Pistol, knife, Protected) Has 'driver' special ability - can automatically start the Hummer and counts rep +1 for driving checks

From the new rules it appears zombies are going to be rep 3.  I am leaving the zombies as a base rep of 4 for this report, as the evidence I have is just one mention in an example on the summary card.  As ammo is a concern, nobody will fire when charged, but instead will go straight to melee.  (Besides, I am trying to have as much hand to hand as possible!)

Turn one activation: Humans 4, Zombies 2

With three zombies solo in the trenches, each model moves to fight one zombie each.  This will also give me a decent test of the three different character setups.
Lewis is up first, his rep 4, plus a 2 handed weapon (rifle with bayonet) and being protected gives him 7d6 in melee, versus the zombie's 4d6.

Lewis Attacks!

and rolls well

Lewis rolls three successes to two for the zombie.  He gets one additional success for fighting a zombie, but doesn't need it.  Each success over the zombies equals a kill.  He handles the zombie easily.
Sergeant Hanson and Private Boothe both do well, handling their opponents.  On the zombie's activation, two zeds charge the sergeant and Private Boothe. 
Sergeant Hanson handles his attackers easily, with three more successes than the zeds.  Boothe has to fight a bit more to get through hers...  Boothe rolls 5d6 for melee (rep 3, plus 1d for 1 hand melee weapon and plus 1d for protected), the zombies get 5d6 as well (rep 4 zombie, plus 1d for second zed).  It's a pretty even match.

Blurry action in the trench

Boothe wins by 1

Boothe by 1 again!

The first round of melee was even, with both sides rolling two successes.  Boothe gets an automatic +1 success for being alive versus the undead, and wins by one.  This eliminates one zed, and the melee continues, with the zombies loosing 1 die.  The second round of melee goes much like the first, with Boothe winning thanks to the human bonus success. 

Completing the melee in the turn is a change I must say I like, it makes the game move along much more quickly.

Turn two activation: Humans 3 Zombies 5 (no activation)

Hanson charges a lone zombie in front of him, clearing the way to the Hummer.  His 8 dice in melee is pretty impressive.  Corporal Lewis moves up to the Hummer and springs the PEF.

What's over here?

Zombies!

Cpl Lewis fires on the zombies!

Corporal Lewis fires his assault rifle into the zeds, killing two.  His shots will summon three more, but at least they will be further away to start next turn!  Boothe decides to run back and stay close to Sgt Hanson, in a more clear area for now.

Boothe decides to stay with sarge

Turn three activation : Zombies 4, Humans 2

The zombies surge forward the next turn, a group of two (from the shots last turn) move towards Hanson and Boothe with a group of four following close behind them.

It seemed safer just a minute ago...

Near the Hummer, the zombies swarm into Lewis.  I had misjudged the distance behind Lewis to a lone zombie on the road, and it added into the melee.  He was facing five zombies!

Lewis is surrounded

Lewis is rolling 7d6 for melee (rep 4, plus two handed weapon, plus protected) the zombies start at 8d6 (4d6 for first zed, plus 4d6 for four additional zombies).  This fight unfolds over a few rounds of melee.

Lewis wins by 2 (thanks to the bonus success!)

Three zombies left

Lewis wins by one.  Thank you bonus!

Two zeds seems easier

Lewis finishes them off easily

Lewis held up pretty well, once he managed to get ahead in dice, even with a 'bad' round of dice, the bonus success kept him killing zombies.  Luckily he's well armed and protected too.

Sarge takes out two more

At the end of the turn, Hanson had taken out two more zeds near the hummer, Boothe gets in the truck and gets it started and Lewis joins her.  The group should be able to drive to safety next turn.

Turn four activation: Zombies 3, Humans 1

Zombie surge!

Ahh, what is that about plans and contact with the enemy?  Zombies stream forward activating first, and four of them crash into Sergeant Hanson.  A large group behind the hummer can't quite get to the truck, so sarge is on his own for melee this turn.

Sarge faces tough odds

Sarge is still rolling 8d6 for melee (rep 5, 2 handed weapon, protected) and the zombies are rolling 7d6 (rep 4 plus 3 extra zombies).  Sarge has the advantage by one die.  Things don't start all that great...

A tie.  Hmmm, now what?

A tie is not mentioned in the summary for the new melee rules.  I assume that all parties just proceed to another round of combat.  Unlike previous editions there isn't any additional dice for 'Evenly Matched'.  I just re roll the combat and continue to fight rounds of hand to hand.

Oops.  Sarge looses by 1.

The zombies win by 1 success.  Rolling for their damage (see the chart) I roll a 6, Sergeant Hanson reduces his rep by 1.

When I first read this, I thought the zombies were rolling against their TOTAL success, not the difference.  It's an interesting idea - a large number of zombies, or even just multiple zombies could kill someone pretty quickly rolling against their total not the difference.  I may consider that for a house rule, if I am feeling particularly sadistic...

Sarge is down 1 rep

Epic comeback starts right here

One zed down, three to go

Sarge wins by 2 (thanks bonus!)

Last zombie to go

Now the dice roll well!

Sergeant Hanson clears the street.

Under the new rules, if a human looses any round of combat with a zed, after the combat on their next activation, they must make a 'Harry are you okay?' check.  This is rolling 1d and adding it to the character's rep.  On a 9+ they are okay, otherwise they will turn into a zombie on the next activation that comes up double equal to their rep.  (The turning process is new compared to FFO, it gives some uncertainty to when a character may turn.)

Not Hanson's day.

Sergeant Hanson is infected.  He elects not to get to the truck and instead charges and kills a pair of zombies that didn't quite make it to melee last turn.  Boothe guns the Hummer forward, running down two zombies in the process.  I handled the Hummer versus zombies per the existing FFO rules (roll vs bash).

Looks like two of them will escape

Turn five activation: Humans 3, Zombies 2

The Hummer is moving, so as an active, moving vehicle, it moves first and exits the table.  I decide to play out the sergeants last turns before he becomes a zombie or is killed.  He fights for a couple of turns, moving to the middle of the road before his rifle runs out of ammo.  Then we get this situation:

Alone and surrounded

I may be interpreting the rule wrong, but it seems that all zombies that can make contact from charging will charge and add into the combat.  The rules are as follows:

If I interpret the first bullet point to mean all the zombies within 6" (the zombie charge range) add into a combat, it means that weight of numbers from zombies has become very dangerous.  I like the idea of this, zombies in large groups would be a monstrous force to deal with, and having them all add into a melee simulates this pretty well.
For our scenario, I did a rough mark out of a 6" radius around Sergeant Hanson below:

That's a lot of zombies

I moved all the zombies in charge radius first to form a mass around the sergeant.  This was a total of 12 zombies.  Sarge is still rolling 8d6, the zombies this time will roll an impressive 15d6 (4d6 from rep, plus 11d6 for extra zombies).

Sarge looses by 1

The first roll off was actually very close.  Hanson rolled 6 successes, giving him a total of 7 with the bonus success.  The zombies got a (slightly above) statistical average 8 successes.  Sarge looses one rep from this beating, and never recovers...

Ouch, loosing by 5

Sergeant Hanson is knocked out of the fight and eaten by the zombie horde.  What a horrible end for his day.

The new rules did prove to be pretty well streamlined.  Even dragging out the sergeants demise only added about 10 minutes to the play through time.  I like the idea of finishing off a melee in a turn, no more just having an endless hand to hand combat between a survivor and a zombie just because the dice decide I can't kill the damn zed.  I'm still not sure if I will switch the campaign over right away, or wait until I can get ATZ: Fade to Black.

Scenery: Tables and Stools and Construction Barrels

Thanks everyone for the notes of encouragement and the well wishes, I appreciate it all!  I've managed to get back to some gaming activities.  My leg is still pretty sore but at least I can do some stuff.  I've decided to get back with some smaller projects.

Tables and stools

Starting out I decided to go with some scatter terrain pieces I've been meaning to make.  I'm copying a quick and easy plan for stools and tables from another blogger, Nathan "Ironworker" Miller, who has a fun sci-fi blog.  It's basically just some wooden spools and thumbtacks painted for stools.  I made five sets of four, and painted the 'seat' a different color for each set.  The tables are some pre-cut wooden shapes (circles/squares/etc) used for table tops on some pegs.  These went together quickly and easily, I base coated them with a mix of black and terracotta spray paints, but left the tops unpainted.

Tabletop choices

For the tabletops, I tried a couple of different finishes, the grayish was painting, I was trying for a more modern composite look, it is usable, but not what I wanted.  The other two are two different wood stains.  I like how they turned out and used those for the rest of the tables.

Zombicide fig moves towards Dawn

They look pretty decent, and can be tipped over to use for cover if needed.  I may make a couple more batches of tables if I find a need.  Otherwise they will appear in various shops (like my Starbucks building) for cover and interest.

Now I need some chairs...

My other project was painting up some construction barrels.  They are a pretty common sight in construction zones, and I got a couple of sets from Secret Weapons at Christmas last year.  They are a nice molded barrel, and look pretty accurate.

Bags of Barrels!

They painted up very easy.  I washed them, then primed them white.  I masked off two stripes for each barrel (rather than try and paint a straight line, I thought this may be easier/better).  I used Krylon safety orange spray paint.  This is the same paint I used for my PEF markers, it has a reflective quality, and recreates the reflective nature of the barrels pretty well.

Typical Wisconsin road...

Dawn stands among the barrels

Reflecting Safety!

A small start, but I'm hoping to be able to get back to more gaming soon.  I downloaded the 'new' melee rules for tweaking the melee rules from ATZ:FFO to Fade to Black.  I'm not sure if I will make the change right away, but I am considering it for the next time I play just to try them out if nothing else.

Stay tuned!

PSA - Don't Let Pain Go Untreated

Here's a public service announcement - don't just ignore an aching ankle/knee/hip if it goes on for more than a couple of days.  These can lead to other issues and can hit pretty hard and fast.  Especially if you are a more...experienced individual such as myself.

I've been unable to sit or stand or walk for more than a week.  I found out I have a hip bursitis, plus still something the doctors haven't figured out with my knee... 

Ouch

It's really cut into work and hobby time.  I'm hoping to be back in another week or so, but it depends on the recovery.  It's been so bad I haven't even been able to play Fallout 4!  Something inspirational for the zombie apocalypse:

Zombie Alley by Andy Walsh

Not my art, just some stuff that looks good.  Check out his site at Stay in Wonderland for more.

Take it easy everyone!

Rusty but Usable - Vehicles

I have a few of these die cast vehicles I have found at yard sales and second hand stores.  They all have been played with - some very destructively!  These are all Tootsie Toys, and a few of them are the same model, just different colors.

As I looked at them, they inspired a bit of Fallout feel to me, and having wasted much time on Fallout 4 recently, it was easy to see them as rusty hulks.  I figured these could be some old workhorses for some survivors.  Some of these have broken parts, which made me think of wrecks first, but they could also be just well-used and worn.

All I did was clean them up and give them a heavy weathering finish.  I chose to leave whatever paint scheme was left on the original vehicle.  They all had flaking, damaged paint so it fit with the post apocalyptic feel.

Jeep and "Utility" truck

Utility truck and Ambulance (?)

Dawn gives a sense of scale

I was just wanting to get some generic vehicles I could use for some survivors, and these feel like they fit the bill.  I haven't decided if I want to customize them with armor/spikes/etc. or just use them as is.  I have a few more, I'll have to decide what to do with them.  This was a quick project to get the year started!

Merry Sithmas! er... Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays!  Merry Christmas!

Last year at our house we had a village under zombie attack.  This year, with the release of the new Star Wars film, we decided to recreate a special edition scene from the Battle of Hoth.  (I think this was in the special edition...)

Everyone has fun in the snow!

Han and Leia have a snowball fight as Chewie skis by

A rebel trooper finds out why not to throw a snowball at a wampa!

Vader has some father - son time with Luke

I'll be spending some time with my family, I hope to have some gaming related posts up soon.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Scenery: Street Lights and a Billboard

A real quick project, this is a 4 pack of Street lamps from JTT model parts.  I found them at a model railroading/scale model shop and figured they would make a decent addition to any tabletop.  The lights are pretty simple, and are the "T" shape that is pretty common everywhere (at least in the USA).

Ready to work

I snagged 4 steel slugs to use as bases, they would be heavy enough to keep the lights from tipping over.  They presented a couple of problems, not the least of which was actually mounting the posts to the bases.  I changed my mind from the steel slugs and switched to a standard 30mm base from some Dark Heaven miniatures I didn't have any use for.

Poles mounted on the bases

Textured filler

The bases have a recessed top, and I fill this in with a spackle compound I use for finishing my bases.  It is easy to give a concrete finish to.  After basing, I give them a basic paint job.  The posts are a dark brown/black and the base is finished like concrete.  Pretty simple and quick.

Finished lights

Dawn shows the scale

JTT has other products, and I plan on trying out some of their other offerings.  If you are looking for reasonably priced modern street accessories, you could do a lot worse than these.

  

Part of the Christmas clearance at Menards (a DIY store mostly in the midwest US) were these Lemax billboards.  They come with an advertisment for Menards paint, which would be fine, but they are easy to customize.  I have customized one with an ad for an online game/geek product site.

The original billboard

Some paint, a bit of flock, a heavy black wash and the winter theme is easily changed.  I just added a business card from a recent game order (More Kittens in a Blender if I recall correctly...)

New ad for the board

Dawn checks out the advertisement

I have a couple more billboards, once I find some good artwork, I plan to convert them as well.  Finding them on sale makes them pretty cost effective for quick conversion.  I may grab some more if I see them.

Between Star Wars and starting Fallout 4, I didn't get much done this weekend... 

The Burned!

More zombies!  Well, a few more anyway.  During Zomtober, I painted three "George" zombies from Dark Heaven Bones.  As I painted them, an idea occurred to me to make them look like they had been burned.  Mostly because they have just some rags on, and not much detail.  I had already painted them as 'normal' zombies, so I shelved the idea for the future.

A Walking Dead inspiration

I found another pack of "George" zombies, then I managed to find a second pack from the Bones line of zombies, with (in my opinion) a goofy hand waving pose.  They will work for what I want though.  Some quick advice for painting the Bones figs, make sure to wash them.  You should always prep figs with a quick wash anyway to get rid of mold release residue and such, but I figured I'd mention it.

"Zombie" being prepped

After primer, I did a basecoat of bright red on all the skin areas.  Then did dry brushing of various shades of red oxide and dark grey up to black.  After the black, I did a bit of white/grey just to bring out some detail.

Basic colors

I was pretty happy with the results.  The deeper red color came through the darker burn/ash colors, much like I had wanted.  The bright red shows up pretty well, and on the tabletop, you can actually see it.  Close up it doesn't look quite as nice, but good enough for play.  After I did the first zombie, I went ahead with the remaining figs.

Red Skin base

Red covered with grey/black

The rags the zombies are wearing are bit more difficult to paint up, I tried painting them as if they had burned, but it just looks too sloppy.  Instead, I picked some generic colors and just go with it.

Who wants candy?

Just shorts?

Overall the effect is pretty much what I wanted, I may go back and add some details to the bases, maybe some burned/melted details to reinforce the idea that these zombies had been hit with a flamethrower or just caught in a fire somewhere.

Shambling hand wavers

They could be drawing pistols...

Dawn checks out the new zeds

 Thanks for looking, comments always welcomed!