@Corporal Chaos: Thanks for the info! Yeah, the way Ed(?) presented the game on the blog and the kickstarter made it feel like it's been changed a bit in direction. I'll look into it.
Last night Cpt.Shandy and I had a go at Last Days, the Zombie game I recently tested solo. This time we went south of the border, into a Mexican village, which is also plagued by the global Zombie outbreak. Where's El Santo when you need him?
This meant I finally had a chance to have a look at Cpt.Shandy's Mexican terrain. Very, very nice stuff. A whole bunch of buildings, along with his great scatter terrain and bits in between, as is kind of his trademark in terrain building.
It's all there - a church with external bells, a well, a village square incl. remnants of a fiesta, snakes, dogs, chicken, cacti, wooden crates, fruit carts, and even a nast international company's oil well. Right next to a graveyard too! I'm sure horrible chemical stuff leaks down into the graveyeard. With GRUESOME consequences. And I'm not even mentioning the portable looks being set up right against the graveyard walls either...
The two gangs are the same as in the first campaign game.
McCoy's Survivors:
Left to right: Jens Gäbel (clerk in an electronics store,armed with cricket bat), Rosie (armed with toy gun and a fluffy bunny), Kyle Nightingale (Nurse, armed with shotgun and first aid kit), Chainsaw Charlie (Dishonorable discharge from the army, armed with a chainsaw), Mr.Jacket (nobody knows what he does. He just showed up, always wears the jacket and the hat, doesn't talk, but makes himself useful), McCoy (taxi driver, Leader, Everyday Hero, armed with surplus assault rifle and a knife), Reverend Ralf (founder of the Online Church of Easily Attainable Salvation, armed with semi-automatic pistol), Luke Isberg (Scout Leader, armed with a sporting crossbow and a knife)
Armando Toblerone's Troublemakers:
Left to right: Kim (Survivalist, left the NRA because she deemed them to be too illiberal in terms of the right to bear all the arms and too liberal in all other regards, armed with a modified surplus assault rifle and a knife), Ron (Gang Member, armed with a shotgun and a knife), Biff (Gang Member, armed with a baseball bat), Armando Toblerone (Gang Leader, Merciless Thug, armed with a semi-automatic pistol and a knife), Spliff (Gang Member, armed with a knife, carrying a first aid kit), Kid (Gang Member, armed with a surplus sub-machine gun and a knife), Michelle Masters (former olympian, former sports model, former reality tv personality, former singer, fitness youtuber, armed with a sports bow and a knife)
After the first encounter last month and since everybody recovered really well everybody went for a trip down South due to rumours of a stable settlement in the border region. On their way McCoy's group encounter Professor Challenger, a keen researcher in the field of mesoamericanic studies. He is looking for clues concerning his theories on the source of the Zombie outbreak. He travels along with the group and for this game he'll replace Rosie (the little girl, who has to spend this encounter on the sideline due to a case of the runs).
After setup the initial three zombies are placed around the centre of the board.
The first of them is easily dealt with by the nurse Kyle Nightingale with his trusty Shotgun. At the opposite side of the table Michelle feels challenged and takes down another zombie with an arrow to the neck. Due to a bilateral agreement that the third zombie isn't really worth paying much attention to. This decision would prove to bite me in the backside lateron...
Cautiously McCoy, Chainsaw Charlie, Kyle and Jens (behind Kyle) advance towards the village square.
Kim goes into position behind an old truck. As Jens charges around a corner he catches one of her bullets and goes to the ground. There's a quick firefight between Kim on the one and McCoy and Kyle on the other side (Michelle can barely intervene, Kid's running around to get into a better firing position).
Just then that darned third zombie surprisingly leaps at Kim. She panicks and wrestles with the monster. Spliff (far right in the photo) rushes to her aid and they kill the zombie together. This cost me time though. Time used by McCoy to get into a solid position from which she's a major problem for Kim. In the meantime Kyle dashed to grab one of the Supply Tokens.
In the mean time at my right Armando (Leader), Biff (baseball bat armed thug) and Ron (shotgun) are facing Luke (crossbow) and Mr.Jacket (Revolver). There's a mexican stand-off and a shootout across the graveyard. Luke fires bolts at the gangers while Jacket keeps zombies off his back. Due to the graveyard walls being good cover there are no clear winners for quite a while, but lots of shooting and shouting between Luke, Armando, Jacket, and Ron. Biff's got not gun and tries to make up for that with cursing wildly.
Professor Challenger uses this chaos to pry the church backdoor open and slips in. Armando and Biff take a gambit and storm right after him, several crossbow bolts burying themselves into the church wall left and right to them. The two bad boys meet the professor in the church and strike him down. In a church! Those two really are no good.
To my far left Reverend Ralf zips from cover to cover and grabs a supply token. Kid fires a few bursts at him with his sub-machine gun, but fails to do any serious damage. This can't stop someone who's on a mission from god and Ralf takes off with the supplies.
In the right neither side sees much use in firing at each other any more. Ron, Luke and Mr.Jacket cease fire to run to the village square to either side of the church to help out their comrades. Ron storms to help out with firepower, Luke and Jacket have the supplies in mind. Jacket stops at the closest supply token and starts picking up canned canneloni. Biff, who sat in the shadow of the church gate, leaps at him and clobbers Jacket. Chainsaw Charlie, who'd just been busy sawing at a zombie, won't let this aggression stand. She kicks the zombie back and lunges at Biff. She remembers their first encounter and who hit her in the head with a baseball bat. Both make ready for round #2.
Seems like there'll be a brawl on the village square as well:
Armando and Michelle storm towards McCoy (mostly to keep her from firing her assault rifle at Kim).
Luke comes to help his boss out, so the wounded Kim and Spliff also join the scram. In the left you can see the duel between Chainsaw Charlie and Biff. In the ensuing brawl Spliff is taken out by Luke. In return he's beaten down by Kim. McCoy manages to hit and wound Michelle, but she stays on her feet. Behind the church Biff and Charlie fight it out. Charlie is wounded, but stays in the fight.
Luke being taken out of the fight pushes McCoy's band of survivors over the edge. They retreat, the spoils go to Armando Toblerone's gang. Shame; Kyle almost got off the table with another Supply Token. Kid (in the lower right) fires his sub-machine gun at him, but doesn't hit a thing.
McCoy's Survivors: 1 Supply Token, 3 Wounded.
Toblerone's Troublemakers: 4 Supply Tokens, 1 Wounded Campaign Phase:Right afterwards we did most of the campaign phase, so Cpt.Shandy sees how that's handled. First we see how the wounded turn out after being tended to. They recuperated pretty well (especially so on McCoy's side due to Kyle's medical background and equipment). Luke and the professor are slightly traumatized by the events, same as Spliff. All of them lose an Action Point each.
The Supply Token Reverend Ralf took off the table contains supply points and - interestingly - a riot shield. Armando's gang got mostly supply points out of the ..well, supplies. That and a military-grade sub-machine gun (possibly left behind by military or cartel guys).
AftermathA very nice game. Due to me and cpt.shandy being unfamiliar with how dangerous the guns in this game are and so both of us were kinda cautious and the game took a while, but it worked well. I really like Shandy's mexican village terrain. Something different. I think that Cpt.Shandy enjoyed the rules, especially so the campaign rules.
Right, I hope you enjoyed this battle report. Happy Easter, guys!