Saturday 11 November 2017

Generation Zed - Day 2 conclusion



Attracted by the gun fire another zombie appears and start to shamble its way towards the warm brainy humans.
Having just cleared the wall, a little drool slips from the zombie’s mouth that is nearest to pink Emma but she knocks it down.
Amanda starts to desperately club the zombie that has grabbed her. She buries it under a torrent of blows and whilst she cannot kill it she’s bought some time by knocking it down.
The two zombies that had previously been knocked down start to get up as the third zombie, which was still on its feet, lunges at Tim. Swinging to the left and the right, Tim is able to keep the beast at bay and it slips on the gore of its comrades and is knocked down.
It’s a tough choice. Looking around Tim can see that another zombie has been attracted to the scene and that there were two more starting to shamble towards him and Amanda that had been attracted to the areas previously by the fire. Bob, the baseball bat man, was sobbing and Tim didn’t know if he would be grieving too much to either accept help or to help.
He thinks of taking one last swipe at the zombie that he’d just knocked down but thinks better of it (ie he fails his brown pants) and he turns to Amanda and shouts “Common darls let’s just get to the car and get out of here.”
The make towards their ute but the progress is slow because of the debris from the melee (ie they didn’t pass any fast move checks and Amanda’s ankle is twisted so they can only move 6”). Tim is worried that with her ankle Amanda isn’t going to make it to the truck before the zombies can react so he places himself between her and the zeds, hoping to ward them off with his axe.

Suddenly a police car comes hurtling towards them. The cruiser screeches to a stop and two officers jump out. “Snap,” thinks Tim, “who would have ever thought I’d be happy to see the law.”
Officers Girle and Mahoney are dead tired. They’ve been on the beat almost continuously for two days but with the outbreak there is a serious need for every officer to be on duty. They quickly size up the situation. Their first priority is to protect the living from the dead and their second is to disarm illegally armed citizens.
Pulling his pistol from its holster, Officer Mahoney forgets all his training as he fires one handed at the zombie in the red board shorts who is looking to jump at Emma. Bang. Bang. He hits it twice and puts it down permanently.
Officer Girle handles his firearm in the orthodox two handed manner as he fires at the small pack of zombies that had been attacking Amanda and Tim. His fire knocks one zed down and kills another. Officer Girle yells out to baseball cap Bob, Amanda and Tim “Run to the squad car, I’ll cover you!!!”

With Mahoney having taken care of the zombie in the red board shorts, hooded Steve decides to take care of the remaining zombie that had just attacked Emma. He ambles over and pops the weasel.

“Put the gun down,” yells Mahoney. Steve ignores him.
Baseball Bob is torn. The two folks in front of him had rushed to the aid of his family and him and now were in danger, but his wife had been killed and his daughter had run into the store. He decides to kill the zombies, secure the situation, save his daughter and help the nice folk out if he can.
Ignoring the order of Officer Girle, he rushes one of the downed zombies, lifts his baseball bat and dashes its skull apart.
The noise from the police car arriving and the shots fired attracts another four zombies. What had been a quick trip down to the shops was turning into a blood bath. Even with the help of the police, there appeared to be more zombies than ever. 

Officer Girle can see that Amanda is hurt and is the priority for help. He advances from his squad car and as he does so he fires two shots at a zombie on the way but both rounds miss.

Bob attacks a zombie that is still on the ground but he isn’t able to smash its head in.
Officer Mahoney fires twice at the zombie that had just rounded the corner near Emma. He hits it once and puts it down for good.
Steve decides that he doesn’t want to give up his pistol so he grabs Emma and they run off, leaving the others to fend for themselves.
Rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do, Tim and Amanda watch at Officer Girle comes to help them.
Meanwhile the remaining zombies start to close in on the humans. Two of them get up near Bob and one of them gets close enough to charge Officer Girl but he fires twice and knocks it down.

Four more zombies are attracted by the shooting and a blood curdling scream can be heard from the store as two of them find little Susie. She is quickly grabbed by one of the zombies but evades the next. “Help Daddy!!!” she yells.

Before he can do anything, a zombie lunges at Bob. He goes wild, not caring for himself and knocks the zed down. But a second advances on him and this time he brains it, finishing the monster for good.
The zombie that Officer Girle had previously shot gets up whilst another charges him. He fires at her once with his service pistol but fails to hit. She grabs him and biting his arm drags the officer to the ground and starts to feast on him. The other zombies, seeing the feast, ignore Tim and Amanda and head straight for the ill fated Girle.

Tim and Amanda run as fast as they can from the scene, leaving their car and the carnage of the day behind. As they go they can hear more shots, as Officer Mahoney tries to defend himself and more clunks clunks clunks of the baseball bat as Bob tries to fight his way to his daughter.


AFTER GAME DISCUSSION
Well that was tense. Way too tense. I need a beer and it’s only 10:00am. I think the mission is a failure too because we didn’t get to search or find anything. In the end 16 zombies and two humans were killed.
We were so close, so very close to dying on a couple of occasions. The axe really helped but as you can see by the fate of Officer Girle, one bad roll of the die and you’re zombie chowder. And there were a few times where we only just got even results with the zeds.
I feel shame and guilt over leaving Bob and his daughter and also for the death of Officer Girle who had come to our aid, but I guess that’s almost the point of the game. Sometimes you’ve got to make hard decisions in order to survive and you have to learn to live with them later. 
 DEW

11 comments:

  1. Phew! That was a rollercoaster (I think I need a beer myself after reading it - and it's only 10:30am!)
    The encounter certainly did emphasise the facts that a) you can't afford to ride your luck for too long, b) whatever your plans are, the game will do its best to mess them up, and c) your morales WILL be tested when you interact with other survivors :-)

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    1. I hear you. When Officer Girle went down my own personal morale broke. It was lucky and bad all at once. I figured I was going to get caught in another melee but then all the zeds ran straight past us to feast on him. At that point I just thought that I've got to get out of here. Luckily I rolled a 1 and a 3 for moving fast and we were able to book it 12" to the table edge.

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  2. I totally agree with Greg's comments above. You made the right decision to run away at the end. Quite often it is more important to run than to stay and fight, so don't feel bad about it. The police arriving when they did was a stroke of luck at the time but bad dice rolling let them down. All in all, a great batrep, Tim.

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    1. Thanks Bryan. I've got to work out what our next move is now. Part of my wants to go and get my truck back. I love that damned thing. But part of me is scared......

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  3. I think the morale dilemma you set yourself is a good thing and that you're wary of your characters chances goingbackto get their truck shows just involved you arewith them - it;s allpart of the way the gamesucks you in to the zed world.
    I've really enjoyed this Day 2 scenario and sequemce of events, mostly because it was so tense all the time!

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  4. Thanks Joe. I talked about the next steps with my missus last night. The fact that we had a reasonably focused debate on the way forward just proves what you're saying. She is becoming invested in the outcomes for her character, and she doesn't even play the game!

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  5. Whew! I think you've done very well to survive so far. As the creator of the "twisted ankle" random event for ATZ, I feel slightly guilty that your missus suffered it...

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    1. Yeah mate she was a bit miffed when I told her about it. "Ohh how come I got the twisted ankle? Was it because I'm a girl?"

      "No darl, it was a random roll."

      She didn't buy that for a minute.

      Well I'l be really happy to pass on to her now that we know who is responsible for that little evil entry in the random event table! :^)

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  6. Heroics and survival rarely go together, so the way that game was going, escaping the slaughter seems a reasonable call. Great cinematic moments in the batrep: I've never played zombie games, but found it really engaging!

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    1. Hi Tony.

      There is certainly a certain something to the rules. They are reasonably simple in many respects but the missions and the campaign system really tie together the game and there is enough events that happen in the game to keep it quite tense.

      Zombies are an almost perfect opponent too for solo gaming because they are easy to apply a 'computer' system to them for their behavior.

      It's pretty rules light (compared to Pathfinder). Works well.

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  7. OUTSTANDING!
    Im w/ you, when they 'bite' the officer, I knew it was over for him and my heart dropped.
    As for Steve, 'give up my gun' in THAT situation? Not going to happen.
    Bob & daughter: W/out a miracle, sadly they too have little - no hope.
    Officer Mahony: Im guessing he would try to save the little girl, but he wont be coming out either.

    Maybe it was sheer panic, but if I had been trying to get to my truck and ran past it, I'd have jumped in, fired up and Floored it out of there!

    Now have to ask..
    your cars are 1/56 diecast? Where did you get them? Im sure they were not cheap, but the closest Ive seen here in the states are 1/48 models.

    But Im very curious, Where did you get your Police officers? Now Im wishing I had not sold those old 'Clix' police mini's I had.

    Thanks for a great Bat Rep and pics.

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