Hello all, thought you might like a quick battle report. Firstly I should mention this is just a test of the scenario that will be used on the awesome ruined London board that Crooked Dice will have at Salute. I should further explain that the real board is locked miles away in a heavily guarded fallout shelter, meaning I've had to improvise (badly).
in addition zombie dogs are represented by unpainted (sorry) zombicide runners, as are bloaters (fatties) and tanks (abominations). Beyond that, it should give a flavour of what will be happening...
As many of you may have seen on the 7tv Facebook fan page, another game was played last night that got photographed. A brief sum up is here (only just noticed that the other game photographed above also had the survivors going underground
. Not sure why that is, about 50% of the play testing has the survivors running hell for leather across the top of the board to get to the safe zone at crooked towers. Must be an effort to hide from big brother I guess)
Firstly I shall give you the blurb on the scenario...
Whilst searching the ruins of London the Spooky Squad have come across a zombie horde. the only way they can escape is via Crooked Towers... The problem? It's on the other side of Trafalgar Square. Can our favourite teenage survivors escape or will they end up as fodder for the shambling hordes, only one way to find out....
We join the action midway through the first turn. The Spooky squad have activated, moving into the subway thinking that it will be safer than braving the square. As they left street level Ted shot one of the zombie dogs, turning its head into little more than a red mist (the first of an obscene number of head shots that would happen that day, clearly the number of run throughs has honed the squad's zombie hunting ability!).
The zombie player (Paul) then drew his 6 spawn cards (for the Salute game these are being used as activation/spawn tokens; basically each card tells you what models can activate/spawn so a card reading '3 zombies' means you can either spawn and activate 3 models or activate 3 models on the table or a crazy mix of the two options, any zombie models without an activation card get one move action) one of which was the survivor Misty who had been hiding behind the stairs, hearing Ted shoot she clearly thought she was to be rescued. Beyond that zombies spawned from the access door in the subway and a dog raced down the stairs to try to get to the fresh meat that was trying to run away.
I'm afraid that I didn't photograph anything for the next few turns (far too engrossed in trying to keep the Spooky gang focused and escaping down the tunnel. I should mention though that in the second turn Misty came to a grizzly end, Paul got to activate first and the zombie dog leapt upon her face, clearly she had moved out of cover prematurely (luck of the draw, one survivor card in the deck which represents her, if its drawn she appears within 3" of another survivor). Turns 2 to 6 basically consisted of a slow shuffle along the subway felling zombies left, right and centre (this wasn't too detrimental to the zombie player as we were testing a new twist, zombie models removed from play can be brought back on in the activation phase) but they still kept coming out of that doorway in the subway!
The above picture was taken just before Ted got angry and used his 'last man on Earth' ability and his heroic surge. These 4 actions saw him, Deirdre and Thelma clear the subway of standing zombies, allowing the squad to race to the corner. the zombies next to the board represent the models that are still in play because of hard to kill, rather than being put back into the generic spawn pool. It should also be mentioned that by this point Misty had succumbed to the zombie infection and was shambling across the square.
By turn 6 (out of 10, as that's when night falls and the zombies really come out to play) the Spooky squad had gotten to the sewer and the manhole exit, Deirdre proved she was no slacker when it came to gunplay. She shot 2 zombies, dropping them which allowed Spooky to swarm up the ladder and charge another of the filthy undead, which he failed to harm in any way at all. It looked like Misty's first meal as a zombie would be dog. As turn 8 started the action looked like this:
In the above you can see the real star of the show, the Hare Krishna zombie who managed to climb down the sewer's ladder to attack Deirdre, he would later repeat this feat to climb the ladder (our ruling for zombies to climb they have to pass an agility test (no mean feat when you are agility 1!))
Turn 8, and the Squad activated first. Deirdre blew away two zombies at the top of the ladder, clearing the way for Shaky. As he failed his Screamer test, Deirdre got to shoot again killing the last of the regular zombies. Shaky climbed the ladder, threw a Molotov cocktail at the 6 zombies and the zombie tank swarming around the entrance to Crooked towers, felling all of the zombies and clearing the way for Spooky to charge the tank. Underground Thelma continued her rearguard action by felling a zombie dog and moving up to the base of the ladder. Ted climbed up and moved towards the exit. This is where the zombies started to get angry, both Thelma and Deirdre took wounds as did Shaky when the bloater exploded. The tank failed to wound Spooky in an incredibly lucky combat for the erstwhile pooch.
In the end phase zombies started to get up here there and everywhere (well it felt like that to me! It was probably only 2 though.) and turn 9 started. Activation was rolled and it looked like the heroes had got the luck, they would be going first.
In the above picture you can see both Shaky and Ted stood on a roof of a car, shaky had charged the tank and somehow had wounded the beast. Ted however managed to completely screw up his attacks. His charge missed, failed to hit with use of luck and then his second action he tried again, 1 to hit, 1 with his good offence reroll and then 1 again for his second luck roll. Not good. Spooky then continued the trend failing to even register a hit. The heroes were left with 1 luck token (out of a starting 10). Both Thelma and Deirdre climbed out of the subway into the twilight.
The zombies turn... The tank attacked Shaky, he died (2 victory points to the zombies, as he had used Screamer this turn). The other zombie on his feet by the door attacked Spooky, the mutt took a wound. Luck was with the ladies though as they managed to come through turn 9 unscathed.
The world slowed as turn 10 arrived, we both picked up the dice for initiative. There was still a chance the Spooky squad could win, if all the surviving cast could get through the door it would be a narrow win for them. The zombies won with a roll of 6 to the heroes 1. Not good, the stupid amount of audience appreciation meant that the zombies would be having a lot of fun. This photo shows the state of play at the beginning of turn 10:
In a nutshell, the zombies chowder down, when the screams subsided it could be seen that only the Tank had let the side down. Ted was still on his feet...
As the last rays of sun were reflected off of the few remaining windows in London the self styled 'last man on earth' glanced around at the hordes feeding on the remains of his friends. Bellowing in rage he cleaved the tank in two (finally!) and moved through the door, bolting it behind him. Now perhaps he would be safe for the night.
A lot of fun and the game could have gone either way in the end. The dice roll for turn 10 decided it. If Ted hadn't used last man on earth earlier in the game perhaps the Spooky squad would still be around.
Welcome, Guest. Please 
June 05, 2024, 03:01:42 AM
March 08, 2009, 09:41:07 PM
