Do I have enough Zeds?

[zizi666]

Bag o zombies are really too small for use with other 28mm zeds and wargames factory....erm plenty of other zombies out there. Want plastic, snaffle some old GW plastic zed bits and a few boxes of mantic games plastic zeds, lots of potential for kit bashing. Lots of options/zed conversions in my urban zed thread.

True on all accounts.
Just want to add : don't just go for the mantic zeds alone, their ghouls are interchangeable with their zeds. just clip (some or all of) the pins of that stick out of their bodies. They do have more energetic poses (kinde like the fast running infected you see in 28 days later)

[Commander Vyper]

True on all accounts.
Just want to add : don't just go for the mantic zeds alone, their ghouls are interchangeable with their zeds. just clip (some or all of) the pins of that stick out of their bodies. They do have more energetic poses (kinde like the fast running infected you see in 28 days later)

I meant that too Just stay away from the WGF blobs..erm zobs, not nice. (Personally) The only good use for them is a few kitbashes with mantic zeds and ghouls.

[zemjw]

The Bag O Zombies figures are indeed small, but they can be made presentable without too much effort.

I did a couple of blog posts on this very subject: part 1 and part 2

They'll never be ideal, but for hordes and cheap fillers, they paint up quickly and look okay

[Commander Vyper]

Personal choice as ever mate, glad they work for you though.

[Whiskyrat]

Thank you for your input, gentlemen! Further acquisitions are planned, just not in time for the upcoming event...

 .... if you're in a hurry there are always Horrorclix Zeds which being pre-painted will quickly "bulk up" your horde.

BTW - Nice blog zemjw.

[6milPhil]

Blind tokens will work well, either mark them up or create a random roll table.

Tokens are much underplayed, especially with fog of war and the idea that not all tokens have to be an actual figure, representing effectively nothing. This is a good way to induce panic in some players- imagine a lone survivor in a small hut with a circle of say twenty tokens around the hut, when there's only a dozen zeds, or avoiding an alleyway because of three tokens blocking it which represent nothing.

Got me twitching for a game now.

[Lowtardog]

Just to throw my rotten corpse in the pile here.

For our games we start with say 50 or so 'milling' around and then depending on how evil I'm feeling we then spawn up another load prior to game start using the spawn markers and 2d6 for the number of zeds per allocated spawn point. So we start a game with around 70- 100 on the table (the table being 6 foot by 4 foot, full urban spread). If you want 500+ on the table that's fine, but realistically, you gonna be using and moving and rolling for all of them.... nope didn't think so.

We use a ratio of at least 10:1 (hell you think there's a happy ending in zombie films!) sometimes up to 20:1, but this is a rule of thumb, I don't waste time working out the ratios, I'd rather play with what feels 'right'.

Blind tokens will work well, either mark them up or create a random roll table.

Bag o zombies are really too small for use with other 28mm zeds and wargames factory....erm plenty of other zombies out there. Want plastic, snaffle some old GW plastic zed bits and a few boxes of mantic games plastic zeds, lots of potential for kit bashing. Lots of options/zed conversions in my urban zed thread.

Good luck

The Commander

I agree here, I have around 180 but never get to use them all. The size of the table can also make quite a difference for smaller numbers of zeds and remember you can recycle the dead dead

[Ulu Elsomalien]

The Bag O Zombies figures are indeed small, but they can be made presentable without too much effort.

I did a couple of blog posts on this very subject: part 1 and part 2

They'll never be ideal, but for hordes and cheap fillers, they paint up quickly and look okay

They work very well with Mega miniatures modern ranges.

[SBRPearce]

Thanks, all.

I think I should be all right for this event. Of course, I'll be using every "fog of war" trick to shift the forces of the dead around the table, and it should avoid being a straight "thunder run" by my players because they'll have to deal with 2 additional obstacles: twitchy subordinates and panicky civilians.

This far into the Rise, the safety forces have taken a beating. So, each character has a Nerve number on their card. If the playing card turned up for Activation is lower than their Nerve, the controlling player can activate that character freely. Aces mean every character can act.  Plus, each group of characters will have 1 Hero, whose Nerve never fails, so at least part of a player's group can act in each Go. But if the carddrawn is higher than the character's Nerve, they'll choke. Another character has to burn an action to Take Charge to get the shaky character under control. I'll need to make a Choke Table, I think - with unfortunate results like Freeze, Flee, Freak Out, etc. Civilians present will probably have Nerve of 3 or less.

The civilians hiding on the board are probably the ones who've rolled numerous "Freeze" results on the Choke Table - the ones who Fled ran into a pack and got devoured, while the ones who Freaked Out drew the pack to their location, with same results. It'll be necessary to Take Charge of the survivors as they're discovered and keep Taking Charge to move them to the waiting school buses. Convincing them to stay put while you work to fill the bus could be interesting - keeping them from trying to steal the bus and Flee could be really interesting.

I'll post a full AAR after the con - Floor Wars 2011, November 12 in Cleveland, Ohio (I'll understand if most of you fellows can't make it...)

[AKULA]

As others have mentioned, various factors can make more use of your zeds.

Start with some on table (including the horde, as its slow moving), and leave enough spare to bring on.

More spawn points gives more flexibility, as you can syphon in the zeds where you need them, to keep the game flowing.

Clever use of terrain, to provide choke points, eg long alley way, high fence, blocked road....all of these will slow up your survivors, and make even a couple of zeds into a challenging obstacle.

Maybe make ammunition scare, so they have to pick their shots, rather than blaze away from max range.

My own horde currently stands at 454, and counting - you really can never have enough

 

[uti long smile]

My own horde currently stands at 454, and counting - you really can never have enough

 

I would expect nothing less

[SBRPearce]

I was sharing my woes with a friend (who will not be attending the event inquestion), and his reply was simple:

"Make 'em faster..."

So, their movement rate is slightly higher than in the basic AR:SE rules, and their "lunge" distance is a bit longer...

I'm chuckling in evil glee - a couple of players who will be in attendance are already making plan on how the Humvee with the .50 "will totally rule"... They somehow got the impression that it's an up-armored model with an enclosed turret. Needless to say, I haven't corrected their misapprehension.

Construction of buildings continues apace, with a 4-floor apartment building and DiNasti's Pizza shop taking shape on my bench this weekend.

[DD-Chris]

I am actually running a zombie game on halloween.
Total number of zombies
40
Terrain
4x4 with a single building, a small 2 storey farmhouse ( from MBA ) lots of trees, and open spaces.
did i mention that players w range weapons only have D6 shots remaining after their escape from the city >
other twists will appear later in the game ( such as the rescue vehicle only having room for a limited number of survivors )  as well as once a player is taken out by zombies, that player becomes a 'special infected' such as a fast running zombie, or a 'leaper', or one with a long lash like tongue... so then it becomes more "im dead, now so are you"
anyway, it sounds like you have your game very well planned out, and i wish you the best ! post some pictures so we can see !

[Krysset80]

My hord atm is 3 painted, got 26 something unpainted tho.

[SBRPearce]

I promise a 'monster' AAR once the shooting has stopped. the gathering's scheduled for Saturday 12 November, so I'll be posting during the week following.

One suggestion my friend had was for players whose 'team' of 2-3 characters gets killed out early on - they can take control of a segment of the Zed horde (with command & control difficulties inherent in trying to countermand their programmed "guided missile type" behaviour). But this could represent the Zeds getting smarter as the game goes on...

For now, there's a very simple dead-brain flowchart controlling Zombie behaviour. I'm counting on the players trying to exploit it - they'd better.