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I know, crazy idea but please, hear me out.

My idea is this... A 4 player game. Each player controls 1 model, I think roughly equivalent to IG veterans in carapace armour, but with 2 wounds, armed with a bolt pistol or lasgun, I'm not sure which. They start in a central area, 12" from the middle. The board resembles a deserted square in a hive city, with barricades between buildings, about 3 to 6 depending on how brave you are
Behind the barricades, the 'zombies' spawn. I'd say something along the lines of plague zombies, maybe without FNP to begin with. They move D6" toward the nearest visible player once they are over the barriers. Each barrier has 3HP. When a zombie reaches a barrier they roll 1D6, and on a 4+, 1HP is lost. The barriers self repair at the end of every round. D6+round number zombies spawn each round, roughly divided between the barriers, making things tougher as the rounds go on. The idea is simple; survive as many rounds as you can. That's the basic rules, if you guys receive it well, I have some more advanced rules such as upgrading/'purchasing' weapons, repairing barriers, and so on.

All c+c welcome, preferably no spamming/insulting etc etc etc. thanks for anyone who contributes

EDIT 28/08/13 so after much work (12 pages so far) this is the latest WIP version of the rules, with some minor changes and some acknowledgements added from the last one

This...actually sounds like fun. I do have one request. Can I swap my bolt pistol/lasgun and carapace armour for a chainsword and shotgun?

Sounds a bit boring tbh. You'd have to seriously snazz up the weapons with crazy rules to make the game more interactive and enjoyable

I like it. I'd star off with a Laspistol though to simulate that the CoD guys only start with a M1911.

I did something similar one a boattrip once on a trip to Warhamer world. Similar in that it had waves of hording models vs a small group of IG soldiers, in this case Nids.


In my game what I did was calculate the pts cost of the models' slain and gave that value to the IG as a "cash" of a kind which he could spend at the beginning of each round to bring in new models or weapons. Maybe something similar? For each zombie slain the character gets 4pts. At any point instead of doing X he may take Y at the pts listed?

@deadshot that was my next point if it was received. You received X pts per kill, if you got a precision shot to hit you score X+2. In the central building in the square is the "mystery box" where you'd roll on a 2D6 chart for a weapon, anything from a Sniper to a heavy flamer or assault cannon!
@happyjew I was going to make the shotgun and boltgun "wall guns" bought from one of the bits of debris for circa 5 pts. The chainsword... Y'know what it is a cow so have that to start.
@dakkamite, with the mystery box some weapons are available. I was thinking of being able to upgrade weapons too, not sure how though.

Thanks for the comments so far

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
@happyjew I was going to make the shotgun and boltgun "wall guns" bought from one of the bits of debris for circa 5 pts. The chainsword... Y'know what it is a cow so have that to start.r

To be fair I would have preferred a Chainfist, but that was pushing it a bit.

And it is not just a shotgun. It is a twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

Remington... Not the 870MCS from CoD I'm sure but for simplicity's sake just let it be a regular shotgun. And no, you cannot have a chainfist, tbh a power maul is the best cc weapon in this game, no int drop and more str.

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
Remington... Not the 870MCS from CoD I'm sure but for simplicity's sake just let it be a regular shotgun. And no, you cannot have a chainfist, tbh a power maul is the best cc weapon in this game, no int drop and more str.

Somebody needs to see The Evil Dead series...

Yeah yeah, back on topic methinks otherwise this thread WILL degenerate and fail. Have you got any good suggestions for improvements?

Great idea, though, you should make the guardsmen's wounds regenerate as well, maybe on equal number rounds, so round 2, 4 etc etc on a roll of 3+, basically so they have a chance of not being screwed down to one wound and be a sitting duck for the rest of the game.

Secondly, when a player is 'killed' they are one the floor for 2 turns before dying - armed with say a bolt pistol, they can move 1" per turn and fire as normal, if a team member reaches them within the 2 rounds, on a 2+ the model on the floor is revived with 1 wound. The guy on the floor can fire so they can clear some zombies around them making a daring rescue possible - best bit is, in the later rounds with loads of zombies, tough and self preserving decisions will be made by the other players.

I'd mix it in with a bit of a gears of war horde mode as well, on round 10 - maybe earlier if the guardsmen keep dying - have a boss round that scales up, spawn at first or plague bearers, ;ater working it's way up to a greater daemon.

Also, have another mystery box - one for armour upgrades, but have your guardsmen start with flak armour, let them buy carpace and power armour on wall location and in the mystery box is armour + stat upgrades, so power armour that confers +1 wound, or carpace armour that confers +1 WS and A. for a roll of 12 I'd go all out, Termie armour with option to trade to a storm bolter and powerfist (you may already have better weapons so wouldn't want to autotrade) and +1 stat on everything - so basically, a marine captain if you have full wounds already - only termie armour in it though.

Man, my imagination is going wild, I want to play this.

I like your style, I'll work them in but bear in mind these are guard not SM they can't wear termi or power armour. Artificer would work well, as would refractor fields.
I thought for boss rounds we would do like the classic h
"Hellhounds" with flesh hounds but they're too tough. Perhaps seekers of slaanesh? But I don't think bosses like greater daemons will work, too tough

If there was a decent way to upgrade equipment (perhaps a lot of things that do double wound or something great daemons might be ok.

I would love to see the zombie player get special units every so many waves like one that can infiltrate out of LOS, hounds, units that break barracdes etc. keeps the zombi player happy as its not just uuuuururrrrrrrrrrr brrrraaaiiiinnnn.

@desubot, I agree that something every 5 rounds would be good. Seekers, spawn, but not too mad or people won't want big rounds

Guardsmen can totally wear termie armour and power armour - like any human can, they just never get the chance too, far too valuable for the lowly grunts.

Anyway, I think you should embrace the mental randomness of zombies as it gets into the later rounds, and daemonic termi armour that improves all your stats is a totally viable thing to happen

I'm only suggesting it to make it more zombies like, as you will get the same sort of tactics as players in CoD - the mental head case charging around going mental all up in the zombies face - all the guardsmen should have relentless by the way, I think that would be necessary otherwise they would no doubt get overwhelmed by round 6 if they had to always stand still to shoot effectively - the camper trying to gain as many points from the safest location, the selfish player not interested in any other players other than turning them self into a one man army...

And Greater daemons at round 20 if a boss round was every 5 rounds is totally viable - if the players can nuke potentially 60 to 100+ zombies in the round before, then a greater daemon is totally within their skill set.

I thought marine armour needed marine biology or it would be too heavy? Anyway.... Relentless yes, particularly for BIG weapons, I'm picturing Harker types with heavy bolters.
Still unsure on the greater daemon because if you kill that what else is there after? I'll sleep on it

Ohhh, I read the rule wrong, I thought it was D6+round number per barrier, not total per round, should totally be per barrier mwahahaha.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
I thought marine armour needed marine biology or it would be too heavy? Anyway.... Relentless yes, particularly for BIG weapons, I'm picturing Harker types with heavy bolters.
Still unsure on the greater daemon because if you kill that what else is there after? I'll sleep on it

You win the game, that's what happens. You'd end up with a leader board of players.

Man, GW needs to get on this, it's how the next Last Stand should be on the next DoW game - if it ever comes out mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
I thought marine armour needed marine biology or it would be too heavy? Anyway.... Relentless yes, particularly for BIG weapons, I'm picturing Harker types with heavy bolters.
Still unsure on the greater daemon because if you kill that what else is there after? I'll sleep on it

There's loads of different types of power armour, you don't NEED a black carapace or be super human to operate it, sisters of battle are testament to that, as are some inquisitors and their henchmen if the inquisitor happens to be rich and well connected.

Well there is Civilian power armor. more similarly to sisters of battle power armor.
so PA would be possible.

Remember GW are useless so that won't happen. I was hoping for an endless/min 100 round game to give the idea of insurmountable odds for these guardsmen stuck in hell.
On another note, is it possible to work in the perk machines?

What if say the guardsmen could unlock arenas with cash collected from zombies, thus unlocking more wall weapons, more zombie spawn points, and more mystery boxes? That way if you wanted to, you could make an entire gauntlet of traps, doors, spawn points, etc. using a whole 6x4 board, or maybe an 8x4, that would be some crazy stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im probably going to playtest this with my brother here at home and see how it works out. This certainly does sound interesting. What shall it be named?

Zone Mortalis board.... God that would be fun. I like the idea of multiple arenas but if the map gets too big and the guard get split up, they're dead especially in the boss levels. However, 2 or 3 with things like flames of hot shot las guns on the wall would be enjoyable, great idea.
As for a name.... I have got no idea whatsoever.... Anyone got a psychic line to the Emperor? Or failing that Jervis and Rick at GW?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And let us know how the game goes, considering this was an idea with a couple of mates in a particularly boring lesson of double chemistry I'm amazed its been at least run with

I don't think they would get split up, unlocked rooms mean better weapons, you're going to need more than a shotgun to take down the boss rounds.

People will move towards the best weapons and if they don't well, they're idiots who have cost their mates the game.

What you should do with your friends is if you have enough to have 2 x 4 man teams and leader board it, or if you have 4 then each person controls 2 guardsmen, get some competition on the go haha!

Maybe you could also have teleportation modules in it to potentially get your team out of a bind if they get cornered, if you have ever played Cluedo with the secret passages you would know what I mean, at one corner in the room you can activate a teleporter if you stay on it for more than 2 in round turns and pass an initiative test then every team member within 4 inches teleports to point B and to combat abuse of it, it's a one shot thing, once you've used it then that's it, no more at all.

Another idea to have is to have a mystery box that unlocks psychic powers but that may start getting tooo crazy.

Lastly, I wouldn't discount granting your guardsmen roles at the start of the game - in the vein of most games -

The Soldier/Tank - Better stats and more damage taking ability, 3 wounds, better armour, better melee maybe?
Medic - the only guy that can revive the grounded guys - grants FNP to team mates within 6 inches
Engineer/heavy - can set up a limited ammo(only works for 2 rounds maybe?) sentry gun - roll for the gun, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, assault cannons etc etc.
Scout - faster movement, hit and run maybe?

Those could use some work maybe and I know it's getting away from the pure idea of the game but it opens more possibilities yet could make it simpler by not having to keep track of all the stat/perk upgrades and would encourage team work - no one is going to be want to be that far away from the medic really.

The teleporter is good, don't make it a one off, maybe it shuts down for 2 or 3 rounds.
I don't think classes would be a good idea, everyone WON'T want to be medic because it ramps up the pressure on that one player, and everyone would want to be soldier or engineer as they are the killiest.
I think the team game would be better suited as a supplement, sort of like the 'grief' mode from CoD
Psychic box... No. Just no. Too crazy even for zombies

If you're going to make it re-usable, have it in the center of the board and make it random, roll 3D6 and a scatter dice, you move that many inches in that distance, it would be a total desperation move, the models wouldn't misshap as it wouldn't be deepstrike, but it could mean you totally end up going straight into the horde haha! For the sake of terrain, you would always move far enough so you don't land on it.

Oh, weapon to add into the mystery box - a demo charge! BOOM!

Instead of Daemon Princes, just give the zombies some kind of boost every ten rounds. +1 T, then FNP, then a 6+ invuln, Shrouded, +1 T again...

Perhaps grenade launcher would be better? But I suppose a demo charge wouldn't be sooooo bad....
Speaking of grenades, I think each guardsman should carry frag and krak grenades, 3 of each that replenish at the end of the round

Demo charge is a one shot weapon though, that sort of counteracts it's killyness as you're going to have to then go get yourself a new gun straight after.

Or it doesn't replace your gun, it just becomes a 1 shot special grenade.

It couldn't replace your gun for sure, otherwise said guardsman is very dead
@waaaghpower, I would agree to that instead of bosses, though the odd special round is still fun imo

If it is only 1 model per player, you could set it up so that once a player has been killed, his undead model returns back into play on the opposite team.

This way all the players could remain playing in the game till the end.

Undead player models could have pumped stats or retain their protective equipment/CC weapons to add more pressure on the defenders - hopefully making the games shorter so there can be many games and a fast turn around of survivors/zombie players.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
If it is only 1 model per player, you could set it up so that once a player has been killed, his undead model returns back into play on the opposite team.

This way all the players could remain playing in the game till the end.

Undead player models could have pumped stats or retain their protective equipment/CC weapons to add more pressure on the defenders - hopefully making the games shorter so there can be many games and a fast turn around of survivors/zombie players.

I like that, probably keep the armour and give them 2 cc weapons. Maybe roll a D6 each turn, on a 6 they move 2D6" instead of 1D6", and gain furious charge as bloodlust mixed with anger at being allowed to die by their teammates surfaces, but on a 1 they gain some semblance of humanity briefly and attack the nearest zombie instead, if they die them they stay dead if they live they revert to zombie for the next turn?

Sounds pretty good actually. Maybe not a game you'd play regularly like you would with normal 40k, but it'd be a fun scenario to play every now and again.

Maybe have "weapon boxes" littered around. You'd start with say, a Laspistol/Lasgun. Have a GM note what weapons (i.e. Shotgun, Plasma Gun) are in what boxes and that's another, fun element added to the game.