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http://www.miniaturemarket.com/mgma55.html

Really hard for me to pass this up, but as I haven't gotten the basic set I think I'll pass. Your Mars attack Martians could use the reinforcements though.

I dunno that's too many IMO. Possibly more than I have in total. I already have two big stompys and a few saucers. If I was gonna make a full wargames army maybe...

Besides battle systems needs all that money

Intrigued by your idea for random chance in your narrative photos. Would like to see it in action sometime soon.

Yeah it's not quite as quick once I start playing it like it's a game with AI but... still relatively quick, my recorded notes were taken from 9-10pm. I took the rules so far out for a spin as twelve survivors try to cross past a small town-ish area outside of a military base. Most of them made it, but it got really dicey at the end I'm gonna get the photos on my machine tonight. I'd like to do a report but it may be too much, we'll see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got them into the gallery but I'm spent. Will see what I can do this week but it's sleep or doom.

Alright so this is a playtest of the initial scenario in the theoretical campaign, you basically start out with somewhere between 10-15 survivors (probably closer to 10) and try to get to safety with as many as possible. All the people that survived in a particular block/neighborhood/what have you. First mission is trying to get them out of danger, then they'll serve as your roster to use for making teams down the road. Will uploading in chunks incase I get interrupted.


Eva the cop with a shotgun, Agent Saddler with a pistol and briefcase full of bricks, Vasquez with a scoped rifle, Scotty (practically a liability), and Ashley with her little SMG. They quickly move up to the abandoned government building and dispatch the single crawling zombie they found inside.


As yet unnamed shotgun guy, Agent Crask, O'Hara, Troy with a crossbow, Deke with his army surplus m16, and another policeman with a shotgun. This half of the survivors were tasked with looting the cargo containers to find some useful gear and supplies before the group got out of the area. Unfortunately Crask found a shipping container full of zombies! Can our beleaguered survivors thin the herd before they're overcome?


Since they were spawned before the zombie phase of the game these walkers will get to act on this turn meaning that Crask and our shotgun toting friend are in line to get mauled!


In an act of desperation (hmm.. let's just call him Chuck eh?) Chuck uses the rapid fire option to fire twice this turn. At such close range he managed to shatter two zombies but rapid fire depletes your ammunition.



Officer Stevens moves up and unloads all of his rounds into the approaching pack also dropping two thanks to his close range shotgun. (I'm still working out if rapid fire should be a full round or if you can do it and still move, since it runs you out of ammo I'm leaning towards the second option).


Troy and O'hara did their best to finish the remaining zombies but failed to connect in a meaningful way, maybe they don't know to shoot for the head yet? Unfortunately Chuck was unable to fight off the single remaining hazmat suited walker and got mauled to death.


Thanks to all of the gunfire the threat level has increased and the buildings and table have started spawning a higher number of zombies. The noise from the guns has alerted those walkers and crawlers nearby to a potential feast! Each building will continue to potentially spawn more zombies until it's been checked out by a survivor (and that action is liable to show several zombies inside the building still!), and the map itself will continue to spawn indefinitely (though the threat level can vary). Here, the crawler has moved forward a bit and two more zombies have wandered out looking for a snack.


Mad at himself for failing to kill the zombie and save Chuck, Troy takes careful aim and puts the creature down at the next opportunity. The rest of the survivors decide it's best to get a move on now that shots have been fired and more zombies are coming than expected. It's just too dangerous to loot those containers with more zombies already around!


Did I forget to introduce Craig? Whoops. Here he can be seen dropping another zombie as it rounds the corner of Taco Mars, Craig had been trying to loot the supply crate in the previous round but now those walkers are getting too close for comfort!


Saddler, Vasquez, and Ashley fire down range in hopes of thinning out the growing mob so they can clear out the Taco Mars and move on towards the far end of the map.



Taco Mars proves to have been a very happening spot as more zombies continue to pour from it's broken doors.


Craig had better scram or his looting days will be over, those former soldier zombies have body armor on and are a fair bit tougher to kill!


The way forward is anything but clear!


Our diminished group of survivors trying to clear the unsafe container yard.


A lot of fire goes downfield at the armored soldier zombie.


The former denizens of Taco Mars are met with much lead resistance!


Unfortunately Eva has run out of ammunition.


But agent Saddler is keeping the heat on the approaching monsters.


More zombies pour out of Taco Mars and the outskirts of the map, that dog in particular looks to be quite dangerous!





Eva and Saddler lead their group around the bus to escape the growing hordes and link up with the rest of the group.


With their fellow survivors close at hand the second group downs the soldier zombie and moves to meet up.


Even more zombies pour out of Taco Mars and the ravenous hound nearly closes the distance to the first group of survivors!


While more zombies start to follow in the wake of all this violence, this place is really getting unsafe!


Even more zombies start to wander in from the edges of the map, more than one in the path of our survivors as they try to escape!


Craig fires at close range to put that menacing beast down.


The survivors meet up and commiserate the loss of Chuck while they make plans to escape.


Distraught at the growing numbers of zombies beginning to surround them, the two groups of survivors link up just pas the bus/tank wreck. Agent Crask puts down a zombie coming in past the cargo containers, and a couple more zombies are taken out of the path of escape by other survivors.


The previously spawned zombies lumber after the survivors and the dangerous zombie dog is put down before it can drag them down (zombie dogs can move just as fast as a survivor running flat out, twice as fast as a normal zombie, and can really ruin your plans of escape!).


Even as the survivors glob into one larger group, more zombies continue to close in on them.



As the number of walkers gets to be less manageable and the survivors start running out of ammo, they make a cautious advance through whatever is in their way.


Several zombies are put down and won't be following our survivors anymore, but was this a wise use of their remaining ammunition, what might lay before them?


The survivors are beset on all sides, every building near them seems to be teeming with zombies and the walkers are coming out of the woodwork. Another frighteningly quick reanimated hound puts the group in great peril as more walkers close in from the container yard.


Evidence of just how surrounded these poor survivors are looking to get (I start spawning zombies at the very edges of the table, but to keep the action up I tend to crop the effective size of the battlefield as the survivors cross it to keep fresh spawns closer and more relevant).


There isn't much further to go but the survivors have got to get within walking distance of the edge of the map, running off the map could be suicidal if there were any theoretical zombies out there! More tough solider zombies keep spawning as well which poses a real problem for our low-on-bullets survivors!


Desperate to thin out the horde troy moves forward to clear the small building but finds that it's got two more zombies in it!


The zombie dog is put down as the survivors who still have guns (and the two or three weapons they looted back in the container yard are starting to run dry too!) desperately try to thin out the advancing hordes.


The desperate survivors herd up with the weak and unarmed towards the center. One of the waste-shed zombies is destroyed but many more are closing as yet another weapon runs out of bullets!


In the end Troy is overpowered by the crawler he unearthed, nobody could get it down in time!


Things are starting to look truly desperate!


Officer Stevens makes a bold move to push forward and clear out the soldier zombie who is now blocking the best path out of the area, but he not only fails to kill the monster but runs out of shells in the process!


Three of the unarmed women work together to drag the mangled troy away from the walker who has been shot down by O'Hara, while the others press forward towards the exit. Deke's backup reserves of ammo really help out as he's able to finish off a soldier zombie who's nearly caught up to the gang.


Menaced from all sides, it's time to get out of there NOW.


And things look even worse after the zombie phase with more spawns and further shambling encroachment.


So many biters closing in!


Everyone keeps pressing for the exit, Ashley and Eva dragging troy while Stevens brings up the rear trying to keep them safe. Saddler finally runs out of bullets trying to thin the herd keeping pace.


Their backs are really to the wall now! Multiple zombies are in striking distance for next turn and Officer Stevens has run afoul of the third zombie dog spawned in this scenario, brutal, and there's no time for anyone to go back after him!


Stevens! Noooo! Tat tat tat!




One final pot shot from fleeing survivors puts down the zombie dog but these guys have *got* to get out of there.


The nearest walkers close on Stevens buying the survivors a few seconds to get well clear so they can start trotting away.


Wow, what a swarm there at the end.


Here's our remaining group. They managed to loot some medicine and tried to stabilize troy but he didn't make it in the end.



This played pretty quick though taking notes makes it take longer. I've also decided to take notes by hand as they're more accurate than using my voice recorder each round, and I can match the pictures up a bit better. I've got another one like this to upload at some point, and will probably do more as I keep moving on. I'll probably post rules for feed back soon too, but I'd like to get them a bit more organized and type them up (just in my notebooks atm).

Painted a scarecrow dude too (avatar) and a little more work here or there, but not getting a whole lot done lately.

I've got to get used to that new avatar. The game looks like it was pretty fun. What ruleset were you using? Pulp Alley? Did you use 4 Deadzone mats for this? That looks like it covers a huge area. I don't think I even have a space large enough to do 2 mats,.

I also recognize most of the figures, but where does Chuck come from? I don't recognize him.

Good stuff, more than happy to give you some feedback on the rules when you post them. They look very fun!

Thanks.

Barzam this was the first test of a set of technically generic but currently specific to zombie survival rules I'm playing with . As simple as possible all action is decided with one or two d6s and there is some usage of scatter dice, and other dice types for stuff like loot tables and building spawn amounts by size.

I used four deadzone mats on my 4x8 plywood-over-cheap-air-hockey-table semi permanent board. Chuck is one of the novas vira from mars attacks. I'll be raiding my WGF survivors sprues to get my other two copies to have different gear.

I think I may break out my 6x paper mars attacks mats sometime and try to flatten them out. I wonder if there is any way to press roll them onto some kind of stiff backing to help them be flat and crisp...

Thanks Para, I wanna refine them some more, a lot of it is disjointed scribblings and notes. ATM the core mechanic is very simple but there's s wide range of actions. I'll need to do some extensive olaytesting too. At the moment I've had groups pretty successfully completing scenarios with no casualties and while I want that to be possible I don't want it to be automatic. Think roguelike/ftl/Oregon trail... I want players to be able to win a campaign, but you probably won't be able to get everyone to safety by the end.

Campaign stuff will form the bulk of the rules as I want to have a different run every time with bandit raids, possible negotiations turned into shoot outs and so on.

So is the plan to have this adaptable for other settings, like a handful of survivors attempting to escape a Tyranid horde or a band of adventurers stumbling across an army of orcs and letting fly with swords, spells and arrows? Or is it just Zombies?

Ah, he's Novas Vira. I totally forgot about those guys.

Have you looked into 2 Hour Wargames' stuff? It sounds like you have a few similar ideas. The zombie spawning in particular sounds similar to the mechanic from Red Ops 5 the way gunfire was attracting the undead.

Red Ops 5 is based on All Things Zombie, which is the Grand daddy of Zombie Miniatures games. Honestly it's an enjoyable game, and the zombie AI and spawn mechanic were pioneering at the time, but it's kind of dated, and a bit clunky.

Grim, I didn't catch what rules you are using. Is it something homebrewed, or are you just adapting something else ?

Awesome BatRep BTW

I have not looked into two hour wargames, something to bookmark for the future perhaps .

Homebrew which is why I'll probably rely on some of you guys to proofread and talk me out of stupid mechanics

I'm reworking how I take notes during games, trying out pen and paper for the next few. They play so quickly I may consider doing a video report some time but I doubt I have the sound and light setup to make it a good one. Another game is in the queue and I've gone over at least half a dozen other runs. Takes well under an hour to run a scenario, with notes it may be an hour, maybe. I've gotta test and balance *everything* though lol.

Making the post now, filling the report up in the next few minutes if I don't get interrupted. This is the second game I've run through using the rules, I've done several since but haven't been doing a report a piece as it takes a lot longer, these are better for findings or whatever, not the testing itself.

So our group from the first scenario has made it to a relatively safe place but they're going to need supplies if they want to stay alive. A group of four volunteers is plumbing the depths of the trashed army base and it's surrounding small town and environs. The objectives here are to loot at least 4 usable items -- be it more weapons or things like durable superior clothing, food, water, medicine, and so on -- (each may have additional campaign uses but right now it's basically VP, some of which may be useful guns), to explore at least one building, and to reach at least halfway up the map (or it wouldn't be much of a scouting/exploration run now would it?). Let's see if Craig, Crask, Vasquez, and Eva can complete their mission, eh?


The field, a small collection of offices and facilities outside one of the entrances to the Scott Air Force base. This map is 2x4' and has four buildings capable of spawning zombies, as well as a spawn for the map itself (which may or may not have a balance tweak in the future).


The placement of our heroes.


Craig-'I hope this goes smoother than our heroic escape yesterday...', Crask-'You and me both pal, you and me both.'


Eva and Vasquez chose to be a bit more stoic and simply scout out their surroundings.


Crask decided to take charge of his wing of the group, he advised Craig "Alright kid get set to cover that building over there, but wait till we're set up before we knock the door in". Craig grunted an affirmative and took stock of his remaining shells. Vasquez reported to Eva, "I'm gonna cover you guys from up in that tower, try not to let me get surrounded by those... things" to which Eva replied "Right, I'm gonna check this container. Something comes up behind us you let us know." Eva then unlatched the shipping container and rummaged around until she found a crowbar and some sturdy army uniforms.


As the wary survivors got set up for their next move an armored soldier walker stumbled out from the entrance of the military complex. Another zombie wandered outside of the nearby administration building.


(Round 2) Crask checked out the yellow machine shop, "Looks like we're clear this time kid, see what you can find".


Craig obliged him by quickly overturning containers boxes and so on, but "Sorry boss, but there isn't much of use in this crap heap".


Vasquez motioned to Eva to alert her of the walkers latest on the scene, and Eva moved up to guard the tower's ladder. No new walkers came onto the field this time around.



(round 3)
Having spotted Vasquez up on the tower both zombies have been heading steadily for her position since they came onto the scene. Craig doubled checked the building but there just wasn't anything to be found, "Damn it, this isn't going too well boss." Hoping to lure the zombies back a bit further and handle things quietly, Crask moved back closer to Craig and told him "Just get ready kid, we need to take these things out quiet like so we can keep looking". Eva also faded back a bit but only enough to keep the walker interested in her and unaware of her friends. Vasquez nervously checked her aim on both walkers but held her shot, knowing from the last encounter with these things that more will come running once the bullets start to fly. Since things were still quiet, no new zombies have shown up yet.


(bad orientation, sorry, round 4) (here we see a new rule being tested, distract). Following the procedure the four had hashed out while walking to the site, Eva held her ground a bit while Craig moved up to the deceased hazmat worker and whistled, catcalled and otherwise made an ass of himself in it's general direction "Hey, ugly! Yeah that's right you don't want that skinny cop chick you want some grade A beef right here don'cha?". The walker spun around in mid stride almost toppling and began to hiss and growl and gurgle at Craig as it reached out for him, desperately hungry. Eva used it's distracted state to collapse it's skull with the butt of her shotgun, just as planned. "Good work, Craig. Let's keep this up so we can get back in one piece. Hey Crask keep an eye on that one he's getting close!". And Eva wasn't wrong, though Crask had been keeping an eye out just fine and wasn't caught aware as the undead soldier approached.


"Bit close for comfort guys! Let's put this thing down before I lose my cool and start shootin!" Crask quickly stated, clearly getting more than a bit nervous so close to the armored soldier zombie. So far so good though, this was the only zombie in the area that they knew about.


(round 5) With the other zombie down Eva moved to support Crask, rushing behind the trooper zombie and cat calling it. It almost ignored her but at the last minute it switched gears to come after her. Crask wasted no time rushing up behind it and breaking it's neck with a loose board that was laying around.


"Good work guys!" softy called Vasquez, still diligently checking the field for more walkers. Craig didn't waste any time, once he knew the others had the trooper under control he ran up to the next building in line, hand on the doorknob but waiting for everyone to get set back up. Vasquez finally spotted another walker creeping out of the storage shack up the way and whispered word to her companions.


(round 6)
Craig quietly opened the door to the admin building with a white-knuckled grip on the stock of his shotgun. "gak! Oh gak guys there's at least four of them in there!" Craig cried out as he fumbled to fire his weapon into the closest of the approaching cluster. He managed to down the legless ex-woman who crawled out first but another crawler was advancing on him right in front of two more walkers, one with the same armor as the last zombie the group had killed. Crask took careful aim and put one right below the helmet of the trooper, putting it down, but leaving two more to menace Craig, and they were nearly on top of him! Vasquez too careful aim but the thing in her sights lurched unexpectedly and the shot went too high. Desperate not to lose another companion Eva sprung out from behind the road block and unloaded her shotgun at close range. She'd been carefully conserving her ammo but with Craig's life on the line she fired shell after shell into the approaching zombies, barely managing to stop them before they could reach him. Eva succeded, but ran out of shells in the process. "gak! gak gak gak! Craig, are you alright man?!" To which Craig responded breathlessly "Jesus feth! Thank's Eva, those sonsabitches were almost on top of me!"


Vasquez called down "Better hurry guys, I've got a feeling we're gonna have a pack of trouble in a few minutes...". She wasn't making idle banter either, no less than four zombies stumbled out into the burning daylight in response to the gunfire. (the typical default low-level/quiet spawn rate for the map and buildings is threat level 1, which is a d6-5, or only new zombies on a six. The gunfire this round shifted it to level two which is a d6-3, so from 16%/1 zombie up to 50% chance for one or more. Eventually level three rolls a d3 or 100% every round but no faster than level 2, just guaranteed. I haven't even tried out a potential level 4 at 1d6 per point per round, but it would have to be a mostly running away type of scenario or something, that's a loooot of zombies!).


(round 7)
Things are really heating up as four zombies have come out of hiding to mob the survivors. Craig ransacked the building and came out with a crate with food, another crowbar, and some drinking water. "Hey guy's, this one wasn't so ba... Oh gak!" Craig cried out as another hazmat suited walker lunged after him with a stiff-legged gait.


Crack'ooom! "I've got you covered Craig" Vasquez called out as she planted that very same walker with her rifle. Eva trotted past Craig and snagged the crowbar out of his crate, putting it to use on the cargo crates just outside the admin building, desperate for any weapon. "Well I'll be damned. The Lord provides people, so sayeth these shells!" Eva waxed evangelical as she found more shells for her shotgun, what are the odds?


Crask focused on the matter at hand taking careful aim at the trooper zombie missing a leg limping his way, but he didn't manage to put it down.


(round 8)
The sustained gunfire lured more monsters to the area, including a dangerous zombie hound.


Eva quickly reloaded her weapon and put a pack of holes in the approaching soldier zombie. Crask fired diligently at the approaching zombies but his gun ran dry, "Crap guys, I'm out!". Vasquez took careful aim and silenced the zombie dog threatening her friends.


Craig ambled out of the building with a load of cold weather coats on hangers in his arms "Hey guys I know it's a bit early but I thought we coul...gak! Where do they keep coming from, we gotta get outa here!". More walkers approached and things were indeed getting a fair bit harrier.


(round 9)
Vasquez aimed and fired again but to no avail this time. Eva fires her newly found shells and downs another approaching zombie, gotcha!


Craig put his shotgun to use for the first time since he started looting but fires his last shell to no outcome, "Crap!". With a nod from Crask (also out of bullets) Craig catcalled the zombie to keep it attentive of him and the agent sneaked behind and brained the super shopper zombie. As will sometimes happen, this zombie had some personal items that turned out to be useful, after a quick frisk Crask found himself a sexy little accessory pistol in her purse, re armed baby! He would come to need the bullets, five more zombies lurched onto the field at this point!


(round 10)
Crask called out "We've gotta move people, I'm gonna run up and get the lay of the land and we are out of here!".


Crask quickly ran to the center line to confirm the lay of the land though the prevalence of walkers had kind of already ruled this zone out as an escape route. Vasquez continued to have poor luck with her rifle, perhaps unnerved by the walkers piling up below her near the tower's ladder. Eva managed to put down another zombie with her shotgun and Craig went about looting the stack of crates by the admin building. No guns, but he did manage to loot some quality foodstuffs. Not less than SIX more zombies ambled into the area at this point, nuts!


(round 11)
Vasquez got proactive about downing zombies encroaching on her position.


Eva moved up and finished clearing the ladder.


Craig tried looting one last time but had no luck, he moved to catch up with Eva and was passed by Crask fleeing the approaching swarm.


And I meant swarm, a couple more zombies arrived here, but the ones already around were bad enough!


(round 12)
Eva plugged one more zombie as everyone prepared to leave the field. Only a couple more zombies wandered in and they're behind the rest, get in line people!


(round 13)
Everyone spent their time clearing the field, and look at what's trailing them!


Everyone alive and with fairly bulging bags to boot!


The team just wasn't ready for these numbers, but at least they were only trying to scout the area and get some gear.


Overrun!

And there's the second scenario. More to come. Watching both kids as I type this so I'll add some more thoughts when I get the chance!

That batrep was fun and inspirational. I wish I could go back five years and go with clear bases instead of the plastic bases I use-- they look really good on the DZ mats. Also, weren't you going to post more photos of Battlezones for me to copy?

10 or 15 more photos and a few more rounds still coming.

Thanks Josh, I really do like the clear bases What were you looking for in specific, stuff from my collection or some of the neater shapes I've found on the internet? I've been trying to stick with painted terrain but I can make an effort to photo and post the rest of my stuff (sorry, I barely get a chance to get down here and am pretty forgetful =/).

Cool Batrep.

Thanks. Sadly takes probably as long to edit and post (if not longer) than it does to play May have to try the video thing, then you can all be annoyed by my voice muahaha.

Got a couple of survivors nearly done, may wait to finish them till their batch is caught up though.. do the eyes all at once and dip them at the same time. I need to find a good place to store the mobile paint station upstairs so I can sneak moments of painting goodness in more often.

That's an amazing looking pair of games you've written up there. Looks like a hell of a lot of fun, and visually it looks amazing as well. I reckon your MA scenery would work there very well with the survivors having a real "moderns" look to them

Thanks
Yeah, that would be Ideal, I just don't have enough of it done yet. I've put in for two 'city blocks' worth of post apoc battle systems terrain and may well double that between add-ons and residential homes before it's all said and done so expect reports this time next year to have a phenomenal increase in architecture aesthetic

Mars attacks terrain is on my back burner though, need to bring it forward.

I really need to scrape together a team of deadzone-derived survivors to play around with, as they fit the scenery and spikey zombies better.

 GrimDork wrote:
10 or 15 more photos and a few more rounds still coming.

Thanks Josh, I really do like the clear bases What were you looking for in specific, stuff from my collection or some of the neater shapes I've found on the internet? I've been trying to stick with painted terrain but I can make an effort to photo and post the rest of my stuff (sorry, I barely get a chance to get down here and am pretty forgetful =/).

I would be happy with either. I'm already planning to steal that tower design.

I need half a dozen more scifi buildings if I'm gonna have a decent 4x4 spread without leaning heavily on vehicles/transports/wide open spots... so I should start on those kinda soon. If I see anything else while I'm perusing the internet I'll be sure to share it here as well.

Just for you here's a neat little tank trap kind of thing I saw on the table of the guys who did a couple of Warpath bat reps during the kickstarter. Just three little triangle pieces but pretty neat.

That's pretty cool. Those come in the landing pad kit, right? I only ever got one, so I may not be able to build any of these, but I may be able to crank something out using scrap plasticard.

That's nice and simple. Looks great, although it's enormous.

Loved the report, really entertaining. All the terrain and models make for a spectacular report. Really interested in more, although it must have taken hours to play, collate, edit and type. You bless us with your effort.

I'm not entirely sure if I love the use of triangles on this thing myself, as you can do some really neat things to the buildings by injecting the new angles... but one is probably worth having. It *is* fairly large as a tank trap, what with being as large as a tank. I figure they plop one of these down in a 6" space between two buildings (wide road width relatively) and now big vehicles can't get past. Probably injected it with some kind of space/future concrete otherwise the tank could just blow past the building panels.

Thanks Archer. Just wait till I get the scenery and figures matching up, some space/future minis to go with the current terrain, and some more contemporary buildings to fit the modern survivors.

Great battle reports there! Pics really capture the action and storytelling. Some intense moments there. Look forward to more!

Thanks, more in the works. To help out, I've just finished six more survivors with a bit more of a focus on close combat. Need to get some more zombies done though there are a couple of other things I'm eager to get to soon as well so we'll see.

You can never have enough zombies.

Unless of course you intend on painting them all. Then I guess there are some practical limits.

Yeah that's a truth. I've got a lot of stuff built and primed so going back and building more seems backwards with so much ready... But I do need moar zombies..