Mayan Apocalypse Zombie Armageddon: an AKULA Battle Report

[Maniacus]

The following is a battle report from my gaming group's archives of an AKULA game that we played back in December 2012.  Apparently mimicking the slow speed of the undead, I’m finally just getting around to writing it up now.


MAYAN APOCALYPSE ZOMBIE ARMAGEDDON

It was December 21, 2012, and the world was ending.  The date of the long-predicted Mayan Apocalypse had finally arrived.  As far as we could tell from the best information that the internet and the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens guy could give us, this might well be the end of the world as we knew it.  

To prepare for a disaster of such magnitude, we decided to gather together and spend our last moments on earth doing the only logical thing that we could in such a dire situation:  playing a Mayan Apocalypse Zombie Armageddon scenario using AKULA’s Total AR:SE rules.

The Scenario
Reflecting the imminent predicament that would surely follow the Mayan Apocalypse, we decided that for this scenario our group of survivors would need to accomplish the following three Victory Conditions:

1)   Search at least 6 of the 9 marked buildings
2)   Find 6 food items (we’ll surely get hungry while running for our lives)
3)   Exit off the far end of the board with the food items.


The group of survivors approaches a seedy area of town.  Roaming zombies fill the streets and the effects of Armageddon are already evident.








Riding on fumes, the survivors pull their SUV over next to a gas station.  It’s apparent that this area has already seen a lot of looting and ransacking.


Unfortunately the station’s gas tanks turn out to be drained as dry as their vehicle.  It looks like they’ll have to set out on foot from here.


Wasting no time and deciding not to bother with a stealthy approach, the group begins firing on the nearest zombies in the hopes of cutting out a safe path up the street.


Following classic horror movie tactics, the survivors split up and the two groups head up different streets on opposite sides of the city block.  
In the first group, Snake Eyes leaps onto the top of a nearby SUV and expertly dispatches a couple zombies with his pistol while the rest of the group advances and provides supporting fire.


Suddenly a large hulking “tank” zombie charges out of a nearby alley and heads straight towards Trish Campbell.  Snake Eyes leaps from the SUV onto the postal truck and fires off several shots at the massive creature as it closes on its victim.


The desperate shots from Snake Eyes and the other survivors manage to wound the tank zombie before he gets within arm’s reach of Trish, but they don’t take him down.  However, against all odds Trish survives his furious blows and manages to dispatch the wounded beast with her chainsaw.  But the group’s celebration is short lived when they see an even greater threat, a massive zombie horde, slowly lurching up the street towards them.

[Maniacus]

Part 2

Deciding further progress up the street toward the horde would be nearly suicidal, Officer Ken, nurse Becky, and the Renegade scout out a nearby alley hoping to find a safer alternate route.  Their hopes are dashed, however, when they discover it crowded with the undead and two more massive tank zombies.  They decide their only choice now is to backtrack and try to safely regroup with the other half of the team.  Which may be easier said than done…


On the next street over, the other half of the group is encountering much better luck.  After blasting their way past several zombies, Lock Bresner and Sledge reach one of the buildings that they intend to search while several other survivors head into the alley to help the hard-pressed other half of the group.


Sledge and Lock Bresner search the building and successfully find several weapons and food items.


Lawrence takes up position guarding the front door while they finish searching the building and the rest of the survivors regroup and catch up.


The sound of the group’s gunfire is attracting ever-growing numbers of zombies.  Another horde of walkers is beginning to form outside of the hospital as the undead continue pouring out of the emergency room door.




Realizing that they cannot linger in this area any longer, the group begins pushing further up the street again to find a safe exit.  Sgt. Anderson and Scarlett freeze in horror as the zombie horde near the hospital picks up their scent and suddenly lurches toward them.   Sgt. Anderson begins unleashing full-auto blasts from his SAW, ripping into the unstoppable horde…


Upon realizing that the road in front of the hospital is nearly impassable due to the massive swarm of the walking dead, the rest of the group slips into an alley only to find their path blocked by a fence.  They begin climbing onto the nearby rooftop in a desperate bid to find a safer way through the area.


Lawrence leaps across the gap between buildings and onto the next rooftop. After shouting back to the group that they should jump over and follow him, he gets to work with his shotgun on the zombies below in order to clear a spot for the survivors to climb down.


Meanwhile, a couple blocks away, Alice is busy searching another building when suddenly an otherworldly portal shimmers into existence right in front of her.  Just then an unsettling chattering noise is heard before a swarm of bizarre spider-like creatures scuttles forth from the portal.  Just what sort of Mayan Apocalypse is this anyway?!

[Maniacus]

Part 3

Alice decides discretion is the better part of valor and seizes this moment to slip away from the spider creatures before the can surround her.  As she sprints away across the street she links up with Trish Campbell.  Nurse Becky and the Renegade are nowhere to be seen and presumably have already me their fate.  However, the spiders prove to be incredibly fast and quickly catch up to and surround them. 


Trish puts up a valiant fight but her mounting wounds cause her to ultimately fall to the swarming creatures.  Against the odds, Alice manages to fight off the spiders and the zombie dog and manages to slip past the walkers to make her way toward the rest of the survivors.


A shuddering roar rends the air as a demonic beast begins to emerge from the portal. “C’mon!” Alice is heard muttering to herself at this troubling development. “Can’t we just have a nice normal Mayan Apocalypse for once?  What’s next, dogs and cats living together?”


A few streets over, the rest of the survivors are still attempting to escape the rooftop when without warning a second portal tears through the fabric of reality and another creatures suddenly emerges.  Ash steps toward the creature and announces, “This is my boom stick!” before he gives it both barrels right to the face.  Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to drop the monster and Ash gives his life in hand-to-hand combat with the creature ensuring that the others can escape.


No sooner have the remaining survivors climbed down off the rooftop and begun running to their exit point than another hulking beast emerges from the portal.


A massive cyber demon emerges from the portal on the other side of the block and the ground shudders as it begins striding forward toward the survivors.




With no time to spare and certain death right on their heels, the remaining survivors finally reach their exit point and sprint away to an unknown future, having had to leave several of their dead comrades behind.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The unfortunate survivors who fell during the scenario. Let’s hope they stay resting in peace and don’t rise from the grave to join the ranks of the undead.


And finally, those who survived the Mayan Apocalypse Zombie Armageddon and are now left to carry on in the aftermath of the world-ending disaster.  But which group are truly the lucky ones?  Those who survived or their fallen comrades?

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[Too Bo Coo]

Love it!

[magokiron]

A great AAR.

Akula's rules are among my favorites for zombie gaming.

Can you tell us how do you activate the portals (timing, turns, dice rolls) and how do you activate the new creatures?

Your minis and scenery are brilliant too.

Thanks for sharing.

[supervike]

Great report and I love your table!

[therepoman]

I absolutely love this! it looks like a really fun time, and the board looks like a great match for the game, but I couldn't help but get distracted by the un-painted plasticville buildings.

 

[matakishi]

Where does the cyberdemon originate? And the Thing spiders, they're great too, where did you get them?

[m4jumbo]

I absolutely love this! it looks like a really fun time, and the board looks like a great match for the game, but I couldn't help but get distracted by the un-painted plasticville buildings.

 

Thanks, it was definitely a good time. We always have fun playing AKULA.

Since Maniacus is my brother and the terrain is both of ours, I can jump in and say that yes, the unpainted pasticville buildings are a bit of a point of embarrassment.  I swear we will get them painted one of these years!  

[m4jumbo]

Where does the cyberdemon originate? And the Thing spiders, they're great too, where did you get them?

The cyberdemon, spiders and other demon things are from the Fantasy Flight DOOM board game.

[Maniacus]

@ Therepoman – As my brother M4Jumbo mentioned above, one of these days we really need to get the rest of our Plasticville buildings converted and painted.  It is slightly embarrassing having all that bare plastic out on the board for the world to see…

@ Magokiron – It was a while back, but I believe we activated the spiders/demons on the same card as either the zombie horde or the fast/tank zombies.  The portals themselves were activated by the GM per some conditions that he’d written down beforehand.

@ Matakishi – Yes, as M4Jumbo mentions above the Cyberdemon, spiders, and the other non-zombie creatures are from Fantasy Flight’s DOOM board game.

We ran another AKULA game recently featuring even more DOOM creatures, with the scenario taking place as a special forces team is sent in to investigate mysterious circumstances at a shadowy pharmaceutical laboratory in the South American jungle.  Hopefully that battle report should be ready to post here on LAF before too long.

Until then, below is a link to another fun AKULA game that my group ran, this one actually took place at my bachelor party and featured 28mm versions of ourselves as the main protagonists:


Get Matt to the Church on Time:  An AKULA After Action Report

LINK: http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=59541.0  

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[AKULA]

Apologies, I missed this at the time of posting, but wanted to praise both the AAR and the quality of your tabletop. Glad you enjoyed the rules.

 

[Doomsdave]

Magnificent.  Nice collection of Plasticville as well.  I have many of those same pieces.