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My first video battle report is out for the table top survival horror wargame I have been designing in my free time. The rule set is free to download, see link in my sig. I am open to any feedback/comments/suggestions, always looking for stuff to improve upon. Hope you all enjoy!

BioSyndrome Battle Report 1

Here is a link to the youtube channel. I started uploading more videos to include tactica and rule demos. Please post any feedback you may have, I am open to any ideas regarding the ruleset. (again, it is free via digital download).

http://www.youtube.com/user/Scheitelpunkt?feature=mhee

Awesome terrain! Seriously, the crashed police car, barb wire border, green liquid tanks, draped crates, bloody helipad, etc. Sweep helicopter too, it reminds me of a Left 4 Dead map. Really cool and thematic for the game.

You really need to sound more interested in your narration though. You had a couple sighs and yawns when you were talking. Keep it lively! And like you said in the video, some higher visibility dice would be great.

Would you consider a rule that lets you shoot through a door (to lessened effect)? Seems like a classic horror movie moment where they blast through a door, stop firing, hear a thud on the other side and blood pooling under the doorframe.

Anyway looks like a fun game. I remember the rules from before so I'm glad to see you're still working on the game.
But yeah I like the reload on 1, autokill on 8. The zombies having a chance to come back to life is cool too. I'm surprised the army troops were nearly as good (or better? Couldn't tell) than the zombies in melee, but I guess zombies have sheer volume to make up for it. Definitely whittling down the zombies before they reach you and start tearing apart soldiers.

I agree, the terrain is awesome. I had it custom made specifically for this game, and I just got a new addition: a smoking hmmwv wreck, will use it in the next video.

Will work on the narration part, I'm new to the whole video battle reports and have a long way to go and a lot to improve upon. I appreciate the honest feedback, I'll make a effort to try and not narrate at like 11 at night.. ha. Having a job, wife, and 6th month old isn't helping in the free time department.

Yes, shooting through doors sounds like a great idea. I'll add it into the optional rule section of the rulebook, will have to playtest, thinking maybe you can use a action to listen through the door (if the door is closed the unit wouldn't know if there were zombies there) and take a negative modifier on your shooting attack or a increased armor save for the target.

The jammed weapon / out of ammo and head shots rules work really well, and can be quite decisive at a bad time, ie stuck by a door and having a jammed weapon makes you choose to use your action on the door or to fix the weapon. adds some tactical decisions to spice up gameplay.

vanilla zombie walkers and vanilla coalition troops have about the same number of attacks, though different to hit requirements (coalition needs 3+ / zombies need 4+) and the coalition have combat knives giving them a 6+ armor penetration chance. zombies also have a much worse armor save 7+ compared to a soldiers 5+. anyways so far it seems to balance out alright, zombies do seem to be quite crunchy though.. army traits play a big part in how to use your army tactically, in that full battle report i took "rangers' giving my soldiers 3 total melee attacks instead of 2.

Anyways, feel free to subscribe to the youtube channel if you'd like to see more! I need all the help I can get! I'm browsing your "dinosaur cowboys" site right now, looks interesting! I'm a big fan of dinosaurs, I'll download the rules and give them a go, just need to find some dino minis to use..

Yeah it's really awesome stuff. I'll be interested to see the crashed hummy too, since that fits perfectly with the Coalition forces.
Actually speaking of the Coalition, are they meant to be USA-centric, or just a generic "not zombies!" force?

Haha I can understand being exhausted. As soon as you said "The camera is a little shaky because my wife is holding the baby" I figured that contributed to some of the narration exhaustion

No idea if the door thing would be balanced or part of the theme you're going for, but with that listen idea you have it could play very well into tense scenarios where a Coalition squad is clearing a building and has no idea if the next room is empty.

Yeah nothing like running out of ammo to stress a situation. Very elegant solution compared to having to track individual shots as well.

That all makes sense for how the attacks break down. I think I was more used to something like Space Hulk where the Terminators are feeble (1 attack) once the Genestealers (3 attacks) get to close combat. It seems easy for a soldier to get surrounded once things go badly though.

I'll definitely be watching future reports. What are your plans for the game long term? Going to try to publish it or are you just making the rules for fun and your own enjoyment?

I'd be interested to hear what you think of Dinosaur Cowboys, even if you don't get a chance to play I always appreciate a read through of the rules.

the coalition isn't meant to be tied to any one country. you can be the bundeswher or the canadian armed forces or whatever your wish really. Just swap out the M16 for the main battle rifle of your army , french would be the famas and germans would use a G36 h&k and do it for the rest of the weapons. I used US weapons for the book as a guideline for stats, no reason you couldn't swap them out, I just decided to model my coalition army as marines. I will add this into the book under the army creation guidelines (section were you can really make up your own army just using the stats from one of the originals).

the door idea is good. It will work well with some of the game types, especially the co-op one I am working on now and with the pen and paper rpg rules that I will be releasing in the future.

Glad to hear you'll be watching future reports! Right now I'm just keeping it simple by trying to get as far as I can writing and playtesting the ruleset. I would love to have a hard cover book published at some point in time, i'm one of those gamers that just has to have a hard cover book while im gaming, i think it adds to the ambiance especially in games like d&d or warhammer 40k. I have been tossing around a idea of using a 3d printer to make some of my own models, i just so happen to have went to college for 3d modeling and animations, though i do not think it is cost effective yet and i do not want to get to far ahead of myself with illusions of grandeur.

I downloaded dinosaur cowboys, haven't gave it a solid look through yet though, just got off a 24 hour shift. I'll send you a pm or see if i can join your website and give you some feedback!

New Battle Report available featuring Survivors VS Zombie Horde.

BioSyndrome Battle Report 2

NIce! Great improvement from the first report, especially your narrating tone. Probably had more sleep this time? The more visible D8s helped too. Not sure if the video ended prematurely, it just sort of cut out as you were measuring a shot to the Brute so I couldn't see the conclusion.
Cool to see the rag tag survivors instead of just the military forces. I got a bit of a Left 4 Dead vibe from it (which is a positive in my books! ) especially with the Tank-esque "Brute" and the breakable walls. The walls are a super cool rule - destroyable terrain is never used enough in games. I like how it's a roll that additional zombies can modify to represent the mass of bodies slamming against the concrete. That and the fact that you had the wall magnetized is awesome. As before the scenery was very atmospheric and the addition of some plastic vehicles and barrels added some nice variety. Not sure if you have more vehicles but doing a fight in a parking lot could be exciting with all the natural "corridors" created by the cars.
Improvisation always seems like a big part of zombie movies, so maybe going further along the route of breakable walls could be a fun option. For example shootable propane tanks, tables that can be flipped for cover, precariously placed cinder blocks that can be knocked over, gas lines that can be hit to start a spray of flame, etc.

As to your last post that makes sense for the military forces being able to come from any country. Would you consider switching out the weapon names to something more generic, or trying to model other armies with slightly different stats? You mention army creation guidelines but I was more thinking providing a base set of 8 or 9 major world powers so players can use their local force.

That'll be interesting if you go the hardcopy route. There certainly are a lot of easy print-and-play options these days. I agree on the feel of having a printed rulebook is part of the appeal of the hobby. All about the tactile elements in tabletop games.

Speaking of tactile stuff, you might consider custom tokens for Jammed/Reload instead of using your blue D6s. I got a bunch made from Litko for Dinosaur Cowboys and they turned out great (which you can see here). Speaking of which I forgot to tell you I had done a themed Halloween battle with zombies a while back. Definitely didn't have the same quality of figures (considering I used Skaven for my "fast" zombies, haha), but it might be an interesting read for you: Halloween at the Old Bunker.

You could also consider doing a ton of options with shotguns. Zombies and shotguns go so well together after all. Since you're already taking a lot of cues from real world weapons you could get into a bit more detail. For example, short barrel vs long barrel, open choke vs tight choke (one could be a spray), slugs vs buckshot (easy to switch in the heat of battle, maybe have one knockback or pierce?), etc. Being able to have a mixed force of sawed off shotguns loaded with buckshot to long barrel police action pumps with slugs could be neato. The survivors being able to choose a lot of different attacks based on the situation could add some depth and choice, and also force the zombie player to think a bit more about their placement (ie: if you have piercing they wouldn't want to line up).
You could even do different actions, so they could choose a double barrel (and potentially unload both barrels in a desperate situation, maybe even knocking the shooter back or doing slight damage to them from the kick), or pump, or semi-auto, etc.

Also for the Runner zombies you mentioned going from 8" to 10" movement. What about having the additional speed be an upgrade? So they start at 8" base and can get 1" for X number of points. Or they have 4" base movement but roll a D8", so between 5" and 12". Not sure if you like random movement though or if that would bog the game down with extra rolls (although it could be done once for each "squad" of zombies). Or they could do some kind of "reckless run" ability where they get an extra +4" movement but are easier to hit/kill when they use that ability?

I like the "Brains" ability of the zombies where they can eat the dead to restore health. You could get extra visceral and have different bonuses for consuming different body parts. Go for the heart and get +1" movement and +1 to hit rolls for a turn or something. Grab those intestines and the dead survivor has a chance to rise as a normal zombie, etc. Might provide some more options if the attacking zombies are already at full health (as was the case here).

Also "Armor Save" for a zombie sounds a bit...weird? I know it's a common term and all, but there must be something more thematic that could be used instead?

This post ended up being way longer than I expected, but I was writing stuff as it came to me while watching the report.

you need to refresh the youtube page and skip to 28min in to continue to video, my internet connection went out halfway through the upload, i was able to resume it but i think it left a problem halfway through the battle report. Skipping past 27 min seems to solve it... I might have to re upload it.

The breakable walls was an idea brewed by green leaf terrain and a employee of blue table painting, it works out great! i also have the fence lines i can use it with as well. I want to integrate more actions and more interactible stuff into the terrain. adds flavor to the game.

i had thought of using generic names for the guns as well, i might ask the rest of the community to see if they would prefer that, it does make more sense and give more flexibility to making your own custom armies.

I'd definately like to make some custom tokens, I will look into that this weekend. The d6's work alright but i think some tokens might work better.

I can add a optional upgrade ability for specific zombie units that adds to their movement. that might work well for the brute since his movement really makes him less of a threat as he should be. I like the idea of consuming different body parts for different bonuses, i could make a chart or something. I am making a mutation table already for random mutations for the biomonsters.

Yeah the zombies don't really have any "armor" though I liked the idea of all units at least having a 8+ save to reflect a small chance to save health point damage, in the zombies case i guess you could look at it like you shot their hand and it doesn't actually do any real damage to them or a survivor who got shot through their clothes or something along those lines. If anyone can think of something better to call it other than a armor save I'm open to suggestions. has to encompass armor, chances to miss, cover bonus ect.

your thoughts on the shotgun have given me another idea, weapon upgrades for all the different weapons that give you different attack options like you stated. I'll think about it this weekend and see if i can add in a weapon upgrade chart with the master weapon list. I could also add specialized ammunitions too.

Thanks again for all the feedback! check out the rest of the video if you have time, i think i am going to re upload it though to fix that issue. on a side note, i looked over the DC rules and took some notes for ideas and feedback for you. I am at work right now, will send you them in a pm tomorrow.

Hey, just spotted these and got to say, videos go a long way to help encourage people to play.

Reading through the comments, Generic named guns would be a bonus. Not everyone can recognize guns by real names like "M9", where as "Assault rifle", "Revolver" etc are a lot easier to recognize.

As for zombie armour, don't forget, zombie's aren't going to go through shock or die from bloodloss like a normal person. A small gunshot to the stomach is probably going to put the average man down or kill him from shock, the zombie's don't really even need their organs. Their save really would be a mix of "Hitting the head" and "Making paste of the body".

Have you considered splitting the forces into multiple small units, or as an optional rule? Not everyone is big on the "IGO UGO" system, and even put's some people off what is otherwise a great game entirely. Considering there can easily be close to 30 zombies, i'm not suggesting 1 at a time, but perhaps moving a small pack of zombies first, and then the survivors can move a small group etc back and forth.

Thanks! More videos are on the way, just need to find some time this weekend to edit and upload.

You are right about the zombie armor saves, I agree.

I could make a optional rule, for example I move 50 points worth of troops, you move 50 points worth of troops, then leave it up to the players which game system they want to use. I will have to think on it, I know what you mean by the I go, you go stuff. Sometimes games end up being one sided all from one good turn of dice rolls. I'm sure I can come up with a good original idea, much like the jammed and head shot rules. I'm playing a game this saturday, afterwards I'll try some different stuff out.

What do you think about changing the names of all the weapons to generic stuff, like assault rifle instead of a M16? More than a few people have suggested it, if you have thoughts I'd love to hear em!