All Things Zombie Batrep - Day One, Location 2, Home

Hi, friends. I couldn't stay asleep. Got up at 5:30 am. Drank some coffee. Decided to do another location for Day One scenario of ATZ. I'm using rules from Better Dead Than Zed, and some from I, Zombie.  The first location I did was ATM, that went well. I had chosen 4 locations for Day One. Now it's time for location 2, home. 3x3 foot table. Zuzzy mat, homemade roads, houses mainly from Stoelzel's Structures.

Narrative:
Having just hit the ATM for some money, Joe got in his car and headed home, planning to touch base with the family, then go to WalMart and one of the nearby Supermarkets. Calling home on the cell, Joe said "Hi, sweetie. I'll be home soon. Is everyone okay? And do you have the list ready for the things you want me to pick up from the stores?" "Yes, everybody's fine, just a little scared. The list is ready", Joe's wife responded. "Be careful coming home. There's a roadblock at the end of the street, and a Police car was cruising by telling everyone to stay indoors because of a "Civil Emergency". We might not be able to go shopping to get supplies if they're closing roads." "Yeah, Joe said, "we'll see. Everything seems fine here. Okay, I'll let you go. Love you. See you in a bit." Pocketing his cell phone, Joe saw the Police barrier at the end of his street. Big-ass concrete block. "Damn, no way around that. I'll have to park and walk the rest of the way" Joe thought.

That wasn't here this morning. Looking up the street, Joe's destination, the white house, is on the left.

View from the opposite end of the board.

Lucky Joe: Rep 3, Military Reaction Table, Katana, Attributes - Stone Cold and Slow.

Rolled on the Getting There Table, by vehicle. Passed 1 d6 (Rep 3). Rep > location number. Counts as passed 2d6. "Arrive there normally".

PEF Placement

All PEFS placed behind cover and out of LOS.

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 3, Zombies 2

LJ moves 8" up the street. PEF in section 4 now in LOS. False Alarm.

"What's that behind that tree? Oh, stray cat. Gotta stop being so jumpy", Joe thought. 

I did a Fast Move once the PEF was resolved to finish LJ's movement. Used only 1 d6 for additional movement, because of "Slow" attribute, instead of additional 2d6 per the advice of Vampifan. (Thanks, Bryan) Rolled a 5, so moved an additional 5". Man, that fatboy can run. :)

The first PEF resolved is represented by the black dice under the tree. It turned out to be a stray cat. (False Alarm)

Completing the Fast Move. There's a PEF hidden in the tree line to LJ's right (Black dice).

Zombie's Turn: PEF in Section 6 can't move, it's Rep was higher than the ZED activation roll. The REP 2 PEF passed 1d6 and moved "1 section toward the nearest PEF, ending its move in cover". Hmmm, this is getting interesting. LJ's got two PEFs in the sector near him and he doesn't know they're there.

"It's quiet ..., too quiet" LJ mutters to himself.

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 6, Zombies 5.  Rolls are too high for either side to activate, but for Day One Scenarios activation rolls equaling 11 means the Police will approach you. "If unarmed he will tell you to leave the area", if visibly armed he will draw his gun and order you to surrender your weapon." 

I wasn't quite sure how to handle this. It's not illegal to carry a sword around, but you are visibly armed with a katana. I decided to submit it to the Dice Gods. 1-3 on a d6 he arrests LJ, 4-6 he lets him go. Rolled a 5. Yay. What would you guys do?

Policeman: Sir, what are you doing with that sword?

LJ: I'm just taking it home, Officer, I live in the white house behind you.

Policeman: Okay, sir. Just get inside your house and stay there. The Mayor has declared an Emergency Curfew and all citizens are required to remain in their homes and stay off the streets until further notice.

LJ: Yes sir, Officer. No problem.

With that, the policemen gets back in his cruiser, checks the roadblock and heads back up the street.

PEFs must still have not been in LOS because of the trees.

Turn 3
Activation: Humans 4, Zombies 2. LJ rolled too high, can't activate. Both PEFs pass 0d6, can't move either.


Turn 4
Activation: Humans 3, Zombies 2.
LJ moves 8". Off to his right he thinks he sees something in the tree line.

Pic above shows the 2 PEFs hiding in the trees.

PEF Resolution - Rep 2 PEF is a false alarm. Rep 3 PEF rolled on Random Road Encounter. Result was "It's Freakin Hot". Either consume 1 food unit, or Rep is decreased by 1 for the remainder of the scenario. Great, now I'm Rep 2. At least I didn't get all killed up by Zombies. :)


Fast Move an additional 5". Rolling good.

LJ's almost there.

Turn 5

Activation: Humans 2, Zombies 6. All of the PEFS have been resolved, but I figured I still needed to roll because you never know if you'll get doubles (optional PEF generation), a 7 or 11. However, LuckyJoe continues to be lucky and moves 8" to enter his home, ending the scenario successfully, and bloodlessly.

Honey, I'm home. And where's all the damn furniture?

Another lucky run. No Zombies at all, again. LJ is beginning to doubt the existence of Zombies, probably just some media hysteria for ratings. However, next locations will be a Big Box store (need ammo) and a Supermarket (need beer food). 

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for looking. 

Mr. Stoelzel's Neighborhood

You ever notice how a project always gets bigger and bigger? If you remember, I posted a Day One scenario for All Things Zombie a while back. The first destination was an ATM. That went like a breeze. Then my second destination was home. I was getting ready to do that scenario but realized I didn't have enough suburban houses (I live in the burbs of a small town). I had one Plasticville house I was planning to use, but no other suburban houses.  This is the house I was going to use. You may have seen it from an earlier ATZ batrep.

 It sort of resembles my real house in that it's white with black shutters.

My real house.

Anyway, I was going to use the Plasticville house and make some paper houses for the rest of the neighborhood. I chose some Stoelzel Structures paper terrain houses. The houses are very cool and come with playable interiors, and even furnishings. Unfortunately, the paper houses were much larger than the Plasticville house. So, then I had to scratchbuild a loose replica of my house as well as build 3 Stoelzel Structures houses, in order to play the next scenario. I built a Stoelzel Structure Cape Cod style house, Split-Level house, and a Farmhouse. I also bought the Raised Ranch house, but haven't built it yet. I'm using a 3x3 board and a Zuzzy Ruined Forest latex mat for the base of the terrain. That meant I needed roads. So then I had to make roads to place on the mat. I took a page from Morbious's website and made some roads. Instead of using hardboard like he did, I used my cheap vinyl floor tiles, painting them black and adding lane and edge lines with paint pens.  Really quick and cheap and they came out pretty good. I named this post "Mr. Stoelzel's Neighborhood" because 3 of the 4 houses are from his kits, and the last one is a scratchbuild using some of his textures as well as textures from WorldWorks Games.

The Mean Streets. 6 inches wide, 12 inches long. 3 sections traverse the board.

Pic above shows a little of the Stoelzel Farmhouse in the left foreground, the white scratchbuilt house on the right foreground, and the Stoelzel Cape house in the background.

This shot shows the Stoelzel Farmhouse and Split Level on the left and a little of the white scratchbuild on the right foreground.

Here's a shot of the back and side of the scratchbuild LuckyJoe house in the foreground, with the Stoelzel Cape house in the background. The balcony is made from a piece of foamcore with toothpicks (cocktail sticks for our cousins across the pond), and coffee stirrer pieces for the top rail. I use that balcony to spray paint minis and such in real life. Could also prove a good vantage point to cap Zombies in the coming Apocalypse. I'm just sayin'. :)

View from a different angle, showing at least some of all 4 houses.

Yet another angle. The Cape house in the foreground has an upstairs. I may kitbash it to make a Ranch-style one story house. One of the really cool features of all of these Stoelzel Structures houses is they have multiple colors of exterior walls. Usually a yellow, green, red, or blue. You can get a great tabletop variety from just one kit. 

This shot is primarily featuring the Split Level in the foregound right and the Farmhouse in the background. The Split Level was made using one of the alternate color schemes. It also has a chimney which I chose not to use. I did use the chimney for the Farmhouse. That chimney is solid, made with 5 layers of 5mm foamcore cut to size. I like my terrain tough.

Another view down the street. The window frames were made from 1/2" square chicken wire painted white and inserted into the window openings. The shutters were printed and mounted onto mattboard (a technique I learned from Vampifan). Each of the Stoelzel houses has a page of 6 different  colored shutters with 12 shutters of each color (Brown, Green, Black, Blue, Red and White). I really love the variety of builds you get from each kit. For example, the Cape house in the left foreground has five different exterior color schemes, has optional dormers (having 0, 1, 2, or 3 dormers means 4 different houses) and an optional rear roof extension. When you consider all of the possible combinations of colors, dormers, rear roof extension or no extension, you can make a lot of houses from one $4 pdf. 

This shows in the right foreground the red Split Level version I chose, featuring the side and the rear. The little black (asphalt) driveways by the houses are made from pieces of vinyl window blinds painted black. I really like the design of the Split Level house. It makes for a nice change from 1 or 2 story buildings, though I had a hell of a time making the interior stairs between levels. Could have used more detailed instructions. In the background on the left is the white LuckyJoe replica house. It's not a perfect replica, but it's close. I stole the windvane from the Plasticville house for the replica.

This shot shows the back of the red Split Level house. The stairs are my usual kitbash of the Stoelzel Structure stairs. I used his very nice brick texture for the sides of the stairs, mounted onto mattboard ala Vampifan, then used coffee stirrers painted white for the stair steps. The gaps between the stair steps allow you to slip the slotta bases of the minis into the space between steps, so minis can be placed mid stair, if you wish. Across the street you see the LuckyJoe house. Note the red door. My wife and I painted our front door red recently. It gives a nice splash of color against all that black and white. 

Well, that's it for now. I've now got a suburban terrain board to use, and can now proceed to do destination 2, home. Next will be a big box store, and then a Supermarket. Hey, Dave Stoelzel, can you please make a Walmart-ish kit, and a Supermarket? :) Thanks for looking, everyone. Have a great day or evening. 

Long Rifle

A while back I succumbed to another Two Hour Wargames title, "Long Rifle". This is a skirmish game set in the French and Indian War, an era I have always been interested in. My interest has been further peaked following all of the cool FIW goodness on Ray Rousell's "Don't Throw A 1"  blog. So, armed with my THW Long Rifle rulebook and with some Conquest Miniatures Miami Indians and Colonials, I decided to start making some Long Rifle terrain. First piece is a log cabin,  made from 1/4" dowel.

Material used: 1/4 inch round dowel, cereal card for the roof, Hirst Arts fieldstone pieces for the front porch, chimney and fireplace. Alo HA wooden plank pieces for the fireplace mantle. Based on a piece of mdf with sand and static grass on the base, as well as some pieces of air dry clay along the base of the cabin on the long walls. The front door is made from coffee stirrers.

This was a simple build with only 1 window and 1 door. You can see the air dry clay "stones" along the base of the long wall of the cabin in this view.

Pic above shows the rear of the cabin with a Hirst Arts fieldstone chimney. The upper portion lifts off for access to the interior. Hmmm, didn't do too good a job making the upper portion of wall match with the lower. I'll have to fix that.

This shot shows the roof lifted off. A packed dirt floor, whitewashed walls (log cabins tended to be dark) and the rough mantle and fireplace made from Hirst Arts wooden plank and fieldstone molds. No furniture, yet, though there would not have been much.

A side view of the interior.

Same view with a Conquest Miniature Miami Indian for scale.

Here's another view of the cabin with some Conquest Miniatures Miami Indians passing by. I'd hate to be in that cabin and see those Indians out there if they were pissed off.

A closer view of the Miami Indians. These are beautiful sculpts. I went with the Miamis because I live in Ohio and the Miami were once indigenous here.

Showing the Miami from a different angle. There is a lot of detail on these minis. My favorite is the guy in the middle with the rifle and upraised tomahawk.

Oh my God, they're coming right at us!

View from the back. 

This cabin was a fun little build. I used a Dremel to cut the dowels and then notched each log at each end with a grinding bit on the Dremel. Took a little while but worth the effort and the cost was minimal. 

Next up are some Conquest Miniatures Colonials and an Indian Longhouse. I'm planning to make the Longhouse based on the excellent how-to Ray posted here.

Thanks for looking. I know it's a departure from Zombies. I couldn't help thinking that these Miami Indians would make short work of some Zombies with their Tomahawks and Muskets. 

Day One - Campaign Starting: Hit the ATM

The following lead-in to the scenario is rated "R" for bad language. If you want just skip it and go to the batrep below that big paragraph.

It seemed like all the news shows were carrying stories about the outbreak of what some media dicksmack was calling "Chinese Rabies or CR". Apparently a disease caused by some unknown pathogen, it caused its victims to become crazed, shambling, and murderous, biting and eating the flesh of the non-infected. It was reported that the the disease spread by being bitten by an infected person, making the bitten person "turn" within a matter of 12-24 hours into another ravenous thing. "Chinese Rabies, my ass", Joe thought, "they're Zombies". So far there were some reports of CR in big cities, especially ones with international airports, but nothing reported in small towns, yet, like Findlay, where  Joe and his family live. It was a Saturday and the kids and some of the grown kids were home at the house with their Mom. Joe had been scheduled for a 1/2 day at the Acute Clinic where he worked. Relieved at noon by the oncoming, Joe was headed out the door. The oncoming Doc said "I almost called off. There was a case of CR reported in Toledo." "Damn", Joe said, "That's too close. If any of those crazies show up, you should get the hell outta here. I'm gone, good luck." Leaving the clinic, Joe thought that things were getting bad fast. It's only 45 miles to Toledo. Shit, I better get home. I'll call home and make sure everything's okay. Entering the car, a little Hyundai, Joe saw the back seat was still  full of his son Stephen's junk. Most noticeable among the junk was Stephen's replica Katana. He had bought it a yard sale for 20 bucks. Steve had borrowed the car  recently and gone to a Renaissance Fair with some friends. He had the Katana sharpened at the Fair. He said the swordsmith had told him was a very good replica, and was worth considerably more than he had paid for it. It sharpened up very nicely. Might come in handy, Joe thought. Calling home on the cell phone, his wife Patti told him "Everyone is okay, but it looks there's trouble in Toledo according to the news. We might have to get some supplies, can you stop at the ATM and get some cash?" she asked him. "Sure, it's on the way home", Joe said.

And so the scenario begins.
I decided to do 4 destinations. 1- ATM. 2- Home. 3- Box Store. 4- Supermarket.
The following is an account of the trip to the ATM.
Joe Rep 3 Star Retired Military. Attributes: Slow and Stone Cold. Weapon: Katana.
Playing on a 4x4 foot table, I placed the ATM objective 18" from the starting edge.
Rolled on the "Getting There Table" vs. Rep. Passed 1d6 but since my Rep (3) was greater than the location # (1) it counted as passing 2d6 - Arrive there normally.
Parked the car at the table edge 18" from the ATM.
Per the rules, no zombies are placed at the start.
Turn 1
Rolled Activation
Humans 3 Z-4. Total was 7. Gotta check to see if a Zed is generated. On Day One Urban areas count as Suburban for Zombie Generation purposes. Need a 5-6 to get a Zombie. Rolled 4. Too low, no Zed.

Move - Did a fast move using the new Fast Move rule. Wasn't quite sure how to play it with the Slow attribute, but decided to ignore Slow since there's no mention of it in the new rule. Even a fat guy can run fast if he has to, at least for a little while. Maybe I'll Houserule it that Slow reduces the additional move by 1/2.  What are you guys doing?

Moving like a fat blur, our hero Fast moved almost to the ATM at the end of turn 1.

Turn 2
Activation: H -1 Z-6. Another 7, is a Zombie going to show up? Nope, rolled too low again.
Moved to the ATM and collected 3 Luxury items. I guess that's money for this scenario.

Turn 3
Activation: H-6 Z-3. Rolled too high to activate.
Nervous, Joe dropped some of the cash and had to pick it up, count it, and make sure he had it all. "#$%%@%" he muttered.

Turn 4
Activation: H-2 Z-1.
Fast Move: 14 inches toward the table edge.

Almost there.

Turn 5

Activation: H-3 Z2.

Got back in the car and headed for Home (Destination 2).

So, destination 1 is done. Once again my luck held out. Thanks for looking.