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I'm throwing ideas around at the moment for a zombie survival mode with an endless swarm, where players (of which there will be many as opposed to just 2) will pick out a non-named character of their choice and try to survive the zombie apocalypse.

I'm now trying to work out the statistics for a zombie. I want them to be moderately difficult to kill but also not hideously resilient. I'm considering making them high toughness, 1 wound, EG T6. I don't want to introduce fnp as it will slow things down.

I'm also more interested in zombies being an obstacle than a real danger of death, so I'm going towards S3, 2 attacks each, and can consolidate/pile-in 6" and always do so directly towards the nearest enemy. So if you get in CC and fluff your rolls, they will surround you, which could lead to you being swamped.

The objective of the game is to get extracted, and score points. There will be 6 objectives on the board, which will represent supplies, and there will be many zombies that endlessly respawn from board edges or terrain features.

When playing, play moves clockwise around the table. The "Opponent" is the player to your right (IE the one which just played before you). They move zombies, spawn zombies, and place supply drops.

Players start with a character, with only its cheapest wargear (EG an ork warboss starts with a big choppa and kustom shoota, not a powerklaw and a kombi-rokkit). If it's tied then you can choose.

When a character is within 3" of a supply drop and there are no zombies within 3" of it, they get to upgrade their character with 1 piece of wargear (EG warboss swaps big choppa for powerklaw).

If a character wants to take a relic, they can do so by upgrading the relevant piece of wargear - EG a warboss can upgrade a big choppa to 'eadwoppas killchoppa, or a powerklaw to the killa klaw, but cannot upgrade a big choppa to the killa klaw.

Characters can take multiple relics, because that sounds fun. so cybork, redder armour killa klaw warboss with a dead shiny shoota- wahey!

Players can also take Warlord traits from supply crates, and are not limited to just one.

Players cannot attack each other, they can only target zombies.

Supply crates are also worth 15VP to the player who claims it.

When a supply crate is claimed, the opponent removes it and places it anywhere on the board more than 18" from their own character (or anywhere if their character has died) and more than 6" from any characters.

Zombies play after each player, which can mean a player does a lot of overwatch (free) and fighting.

Zombies have M3 and charge 3D3". They always declare a charge if in 6" range. The Opponent moves them as they see fit.

for every 10 zombies removed from the field, the Opponent can place a unit of 10 zombies (using these models) on the battlefield at the end of the zombies movement phase. these must be placed within 3" of a board edge or terrain feature which looks like it could conceal them (buildings yes, craters no). EG if there are 14 dead zombies, take 10 of them and make a new unit of 10.

The game starts with each player placing 2 or 3 units of zombies anywhere over 9" from any characters. (adjust to suit model count and not seeming excessive).

Keep a tally of zombie kills. You get 1VP for each zombie killed by your character.

At the end of turn 6, roll to randomly select one of the 6 supply drops. This is the Extraction window.

The first player to make it to the extraction window removes their character and scores their points. Then randomly select another supply drop - this becomes the new extraction window.

Repeat this process until all players have either extracted their character, or their characters have died.

Note - nobody skips a go, even if they die. If only 1 player out of 5 is left alive, the other 4 all take turns, meaning 4 rounds of zombies. It gets harder the more people die!

Dying means you halve your VP. if you plan on going down in glory, you'll have to make it extra-glorious.


What do you all think?

You might want to look at 7ths wounding chart to use instead of the current edition. You can bump them to T5 or even T6 but all the Power Klaws and Thunder Hammers will all wound on a 2+. That'd be where I'd start at least.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You might want to look at 7ths wounding chart to use instead of the current edition. You can bump them to T5 or even T6 but all the Power Klaws and Thunder Hammers will all wound on a 2+. That'd be where I'd start at least.

He could also just give them a 5+ invulnerable save to show how hitting anything non-vital like limbs and the like don't do anything to stop the zombies. Between that and T6, the HQ choices should have a rough time killing them until they get their first few upgrades.

 Grimskul wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You might want to look at 7ths wounding chart to use instead of the current edition. You can bump them to T5 or even T6 but all the Power Klaws and Thunder Hammers will all wound on a 2+. That'd be where I'd start at least.

He could also just give them a 5+ invulnerable save to show how hitting anything non-vital like limbs and the like don't do anything to stop the zombies. Between that and T6, the HQ choices should have a rough time killing them until they get their first few upgrades.

I don't like the 5++ since it invalidates the point of many relics and weapons.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You might want to look at 7ths wounding chart to use instead of the current edition. You can bump them to T5 or even T6 but all the Power Klaws and Thunder Hammers will all wound on a 2+. That'd be where I'd start at least.

He could also just give them a 5+ invulnerable save to show how hitting anything non-vital like limbs and the like don't do anything to stop the zombies. Between that and T6, the HQ choices should have a rough time killing them until they get their first few upgrades.

I don't like the 5++ since it invalidates the point of many relics and weapons.

Fair enough, maybe make the 5++ invuln conditional? So that it only applies to weapons that are D2 and below? (Mainly to address that many HQ's begin with 2 damage base weaponry so that it's not immediately invalidated).

Alternatively, he could even make it so they can only ever wounded on a 3+ or 4+ at best, unless they have a relic/weapon ability that says it wounds on a flat to wound roll. Meanwhile a 6 to wound can cause a mortal wound to represent headshots or something.

I mean, the obvious approach if you're worried about the zombies going down to quickly is to give players something smaller than full-on HQ choices. Make them start with a sergeant with a chainsword and work their way up to proper statlines/find better weapons?

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I am hesitant to put any invulns or special wounding caveats on the zombies as these can impact on weapons and relic abilities (EG headwoppas killchoppa does 2 mortal wounds on a 6, so if everyone does 1 mortal wound on a 6 then that becomes less special).

I am pondering making them have a 2+ save, purely to reflect the fact that 90% of impacts will do no damage, but then that just skews toward weapons and relics with high AP.

I think the reasons people will change weapons are:

-higher Stength
-higher AP
-higher Damage
-more attacks
special abilities.

So now, I'm wondering if I should present players with different types of zombie. Maybe 3 types:

Fast - to stop people taking bikes and becoming untouchable
horde - to stop people focusing on single shot/attack weapons
durable - zombie terminators, effectively.

If each player puts down 1 unit of each, as follows:

Fast - unit of 10
horde - unit of 15
elite - unit of 5

and then as they die, they respawn when there are enough of them to make a new unit (even if they are from different units).

Fast ones, I'd keep similar but give them a 5" move and a guaranteed 6" charge. any faster would be broken as they can move between each players turn, so if there are 5 players then you might see a zombie move 25" and then charge 6", so that's helluva quick. T5, 1 wound, 5+ save, 3 attacks S3 AP-

Horde ones, I'd go for 3" move (that's 15" per turn if 5 players) and 2D3" charge. T5 1 wound 5+ save, 2 attacks S3 AP-

Elite ones, I'd go for 3" move, 2D3" charge, T7 2 wounds 2+ save, 1 attack S4 AP-2


So that's a spread of different units to have to deal with rather than an easily tailored to foe.

Elite zombies are worth 1VP, no reason to make them worth more as some characters will kill them just as easily.


As for starting lower, I did ponder doing the progression of basic dude > specialist > specialist sergeant > ... > HQ, but didn't know enough armies well enough to put it together. HQ's are a reasonable base as they tend to have a good selection of wargear (unless you take a wartrike...) and access to relics & warlord traits. Even a deffkilla has access to 7 warlord traits (6 ork basic ones plus one klan one) so if he scores for 7 or less turns he has things to choose from. Once he's got all his upgrades, he just has to kill the zombies and get VP.


I would also like to make an adaption to this which would involve a very small force (250 points, perhaps), where it's just about survival rather than scoring ongoing points - last 5 turns, then the transport will arrive at one location. The rules I'd be aiming for would be:

Ragtag Survivors - you can halve the minimum number of models in a unit, but if you do so you also must halve the number of special weapons etc., rounding up. EG 10 boys with 1 rokkit becomes 5 models with 1 rokkit. 10 veterans with 2 special weapons becomes 5 veterans with 1 special weapon.

Headshot - Zombies don't go down unless you shoot them in the head! A "to hit" roll of 6 always wounds on a 3+, unless it would normally wound on a lower result.

Zombies:
Zombies are T6, with 1 wound. They have 2 attacks which hit on a 4+ at S4. They move 5" per turn and charge D6+3". Zombies move toward the nearest visible enemy unit each turn, and always attempt to charge if they are within range.

Endless Horde:
At the end of the zombies turn, for each 10 zombies dead, replace a unit of 10 zombies anywhere within 5" of a random board edge, and not within 12" of another board edge. This can be within 9" of enemy models.


That's more of a solo mode, which could be for pure survival (how many turns can you last) or it could be to a known timeframe (can you last 6 turns then get to the escape shuttle?) or a mission into zombie territory (there's data in there, get it and get back!).

why not use the old plague zombie sheet?

that had an 4+++

Make Mortals ignore the FNP and you'd have a decently durable plattform since they also were T4.
Allbeit slow and purposefull

Not Online!!! wrote:
why not use the old plague zombie sheet?

that had an 4+++

Make Mortals ignore the FNP and you'd have a decently durable plattform since they also were T4.
Allbeit slow and purposefull

Not a fan of giving 4+++ as it'll slow the game right down, and makes any AP upgrades largely irrelevant.

Thinking through Combat mechanics, I think I'll be looking to tweak the Zombies rules depending on player numbers.

If 1-3 players, zombies are 2 attacks
If 4+ players, zombies are 1 attack and players fighting in the zombies turn halve their attacks (rounding up)

This is because zombies will go multiple times before you have another turn, and it will be nice to fight back each time, but a model with 7 attacks will be way too excessive if they fight 5 times per turn.

We've run zombie mode at our club as a halloween event several times.

We set up a 6'x4' board, with 4 transport vehicles on one side and several markers picked out as zombie spawn points.

Players bring 100pts of models from one codex book. They are allowed to be from any unit, equipped with any weapon you are allowed to bring with that unit, and normal weapon list restrictions do not apply except that you can only declare 1 of your models a "Seargeant" or equivalent (otherwise everyone would just get +1A basically for free). No VEHICLES, MONSTERS, and your unit is automatically capped at an 8" base move even if all the models in the unit should be able to move faster than that.

These models act as a single unit during the game. Players start with at least one of their models touching the far side of the board from the transports.

Zombies are guardsman stats with A2 instead of A1, no save, but have the old version of Necron reanimation protocols (called "The Double Tap" because you have to make sure they're dead. Any model killed by a zombie becomes a zombie, and is added to the nearest zombie unit with all its equipment but it does not use any ranged weapons.

Zombies always move 6" towards the nearest player unit, and Advance if this move will not take them within 12". if they are within 12" in the charge phase they will always charge. They move around any terrain over 2" tall and over any terrain under 2" tall.

The first time a zombie unit comes within 12" of a player unit, the GM rolls a D6 on the 'variant strain' table:

1-3 normal zombies
4 - Spitters. These zombies have a Pistol 2 12" range S3 Ap-2 D1 ranged attack and rather than Advancing at the nearest player unit they move normally and attempt to shoot. They still always try to charge the closest unit within 12".
5 - Leapers. These zombies move 12" with fly and have AP-1 melee attacks. If they were revealed during a zombie turn, they immediately move an additional 6".
6 - Hulks. These zombies have T4, W2, 4+ FNP, S5, and D2 melee attacks.

All the zombies in the zombie pile (except for the models designated to denote the variant strains) start the game on the board, scattering from various spawn points and the center of the board 2d6". When a zombie turn ends, partially destroyed zombie units roll to get back up, and fully destroyed zombie units randomly respawn from the spawn points.

Players initially cannot attack one another, and player units become eligible for attack when they come within 6" of a transport or when they target another player unit. If a player unit starts its turn wholly within 3" of a transport and with no zombies within 1" they may board the transport and start it. at the beginning of the next turn, after other player units have had a chance to board, the transport leaves the board. 15 models maximum can fit into each transport.

Additional special rule: LEAVE THEM! When you declare a fall back move on your turn you can elect to leave behind all models within 1" of zombies. If you do, your unit can take their turn normally as if they had not made a fall back move (you may advance, shoot, charge, etc) but your abandoned models do not take a turn. Instead they stay on the board counting as a separate player unit for the purpose of zombie AI, but then they automatically die and join a unit of zombies at the end of the zombie turn.

The player who gets the most models off the board wins, so playing a unit that's more vulnerable to the predations of the zombies means you have the potential to win bigger by getting more of your guys off, while playing an elite unit obviously means you're less likely to be killed by the zombies. Our most recent game back in 8th our winner was actually a dude who brought a commissar and 18 regular guardsmen who ended up getting 6 models out.

I love that scenario, works well for a ragtag group of survivors and as you said, de-incentivizes people from bringing ultra-elite armies of 2-3 models.

I'm guessing there's no stratagems in play, otherwise a player might just endless-green-tide their whole unit to the other side of the board

Or you could have game-specific stratagems, which I would make things like moving a unit of zombies which is over 18" from your models, "lucky or unlucky?" - reroll zombie type, "miraculous survivor" - after playing the "leave them!" rule, before removing models, pick one model and roll a D6 - if the D6 is over the number of zombies within 1", that model joins your unit again. Also one called "Breaking the Rules" which allows you to attack another player, but all zombies immediately move towards you - something like that.

 some bloke wrote:
I love that scenario, works well for a ragtag group of survivors and as you said, de-incentivizes people from bringing ultra-elite armies of 2-3 models.

I'm guessing there's no stratagems in play, otherwise a player might just endless-green-tide their whole unit to the other side of the board

Or you could have game-specific stratagems, which I would make things like moving a unit of zombies which is over 18" from your models, "lucky or unlucky?" - reroll zombie type, "miraculous survivor" - after playing the "leave them!" rule, before removing models, pick one model and roll a D6 - if the D6 is over the number of zombies within 1", that model joins your unit again. Also one called "Breaking the Rules" which allows you to attack another player, but all zombies immediately move towards you - something like that.

We did no stratagems. Also, obviously, no deep strike.

It inevitably creates an extremely fun scenario when the group just blazes across the board early on, easily blasting through the zombies and losing just one model here one model there, and then you reach The Tipping Point, where several people end up in the position of potentially being the first team to come within 6" of a transport, and the area just before that is RIGHT where the zombies spawn, so the longer you dawdle there the more the odds of a group of zombies just appearing 1" away from your unit increase, so inevitably someone tries to go for it and then chaos ensues when a couple people target them, and that opens them up to be targeted, and as soon as everyone starts attacking each other the zombies get to finally act unmolested, oh it's brilliant. Easily one of my favorite "custom game loosely based on 40k" scenarios, right next to the "everyone bring one superheavy" scenario.