Sunday 6 June 2010

My ATZ Campaign - Day One Parts 2 & 3

The introduction to my ATZ camapign has proved to be my most popular post so far, going by the number of hits and comments. Thanks to everyone who dropped by and big thanks to everyone who left a comment, either here or on one of the forums where it was pimped. Following comments made by Pudson I'm going to start with this -
HOUSE RULES
If ever there is a lull in the action then you can ignore the result of the activation dice solely for the purpose of activating your character. If the activation dice indicate a random encounter then that cannot be ignored and must be rolled for. My view is that if there is no chance of combat does it really matter if a character can move or not? Having him unable to move only slows the game down unnecessarily. You may disagree, which is why I have made this a house rule. Once there is an enemy figure on the board then the result of the activation dice must be adhered to.

DAY ONE CONTINUES
LOCATION 2 (3) - The Car Park
Being on foot and heavily burdened with luxury items, Vampifan decided to retrieve his pick-up truck from a small car park in the centre of Mayhem City. As the rulebook states "this isn't a "peaceful day on the roads" so when you move from one location to the other roll 2d6 versus your Rep and consult the Getting There Table." (see p.64) Vampifan passed 1d6, which meant he would treat his destination as if arriving one location later i.e. as if this was his third location. I rolled 2d6 to see how many civilians would populate the area and rolled a result of 8. I placed them on the board and then rolled the activation dice for turn 1.
TURN 1.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan =1, Zombies =3
The game begins after Vampifan makes a normal 8" move onto the board. The activation dice indicate nothing special. Vampifan makes another normal move and spies the car park not far away.
TURN 2.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=1, Zombies=4
With the car park being so close, Vampifan decided to put on a spurt of speed and so took a Fast Move test (see p.12). He only passed 1d6 and thus increased his movement to 12". Note that if Vampifan had passed 2d6 he would not have been able to move 16" because I gave him the Slow Attribute (see p.7) to represent him being too fat and thus unfit. The best he can ever score on the Fast Move test is pass 1d6.
TURN 3.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=6, Zombies=1.
Uh, oh! A roll of 7 indicates that a zombie might appear. As mentioned in Location 1 last time, a score of 5 or 6 on 1d6 indicates that a zombie has arrived on the scene. This is because on Day One all urban areas are classed as suburban areas. I duly rolled a 5 and sure enough a zombie would arrive. My house rule regarding activation no longer applied once I rolled for the zombie. As Vampifan was only a Rep:3 Civilian he could not activate this turn.
Here's the zombie and the scatter die indicated that she be placed on the grassland between the semi-detached houses and the small park. This teenage female was recently a cosplayer before she became a victim of the zombie plague. She moved 6" towards the nearest humans - the five coloured folk in the small park.
TURN 4.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=5, Zombies=6.
This was an interesting activation result. Although individually the scores were too high for anyone to activate, added together they came to 11 and that meant that a single police officer would appear and approach the hero (see p.65). I rolled on the Police List on p.8 to determine his stats. A result of 8 on 2d6 revealed that he was a Rep:4 Police Officer. He was armed with a BA Pistol. I placed him next to Vampifan's pick-up truck.
TURN 5.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=2, Zombie=4
The five civilians in the park had to take the Zed Or No Zed test as the young zombie prepared to charge. All were classed as unarmed Rep:3 Civilians. Two passed 2d6 and were able to Carry On (the businessman in the hat and his hulking bodyguard). The other three each passed 1d6. Whoever the zombie charged would have to take a Being Charged test. Quite naturally, the zombie charged the nearest target - a Rastafarian gentleman. He passed 1d6 on the Being Charged test, allowing him to melee normally. Although he rolled 3d6 for his melee attack he only scored one success. The zombie rolled 1d6 for its melee attack and it too, scored one success. The combat was a draw and both opponents would fight again next turn.
Vampifan moved next to his pick-up truck. Because he was visibly unarmed, the police officer told him to leave the area.
"Sir, we've had reports of a disturbance in this area," the cop said. "I advise you to leave now."
"No problem, officer," Vampifan replied. "Let me put my groceries in the back of my truck and I'll be on my way."
TURN 6.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=3, Zombies=4
Another 7 on the activation dice. However, this time I rolled a 1 on the zombie reinforcements die so none turned up. The zombie continued her attack on the Rastafarian but this time she passed 0d6 and he passed 2d6. He jammed his fingers into her eyes and killed her instantly. Hearing the commotion, the cop crossed the car park to see what was going on. Vampifan got into his pick-up truck and drove away, ending this part of the scenario. Because this was Vampifan's third location his vehicle was safe and sound. So far so good.

LOCATION 4 - The Gun Store
Now that he was travelling by vehicle, Vampifan felt confident of reaching his next destination quickly. His confidence was well placed as I scored two successes on the Getting There table, meaning he arrived there normally. My Mayhem Armoury is not a big building, so I classed it as a Retail Store, which is smaller than a Retail "Box" Store. I rolled 2d6 for the number of civilians in the neighbourhood and ended up with 6 of them.
TURN 1.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=1, Zombies=4
The pick-up truck has a normal speed of 18" per turn (see p.25) but because he was driving in a busy city centre, Vampifan drove at half that speed, i.e. 9" per turn. He drove along the street, wondering why there were so few people here. Perhaps it had something to do with the numerous outbreaks of violence that were erupting all over the city, according to the radio broadcast. He shivered as he recalled the pale-looking guy who had attacked that young boy near to the ATM machine earlier today. Creepy!
TURN 2.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=5, Zombies=4
I ignored the activation dice and allowed Vampifan to park the pick-up truck opposite the gunstore.
TURN 3.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=2, Zombies=5
Vampifan stepped out of the pick-up truck and headed across the street to gunstore, wondering how many boxes of .44 Magnum rounds he ought to buy.
TURN 4.   ACTIVATION - Vampifan=3, Zombies=3.
Okay, here was something new and interesting on the activation dice - a roll of doubles. What this meant was that Vampifan would encounter 1d6 Terrified Civilians (see p.65). The rulebook mentions that "during the first days of the outbreak there will be widespread panic amongst the population. The Terrified Civilians rule represents these panicked crowds." I was desperately hoping for as low a score as possible when I rolled the d6, but alas, I rolled a 5. This was not good news for Vampifan. The five Terrified Civilians surged forward out of the gunstore, straight towards Vampifan. His only chance of getting past them was to fight them one by one!
This fight represented Vampifan having to literally fight his way through the crowd. Each Terrified Civilian was classed as Rep:2, and would roll 2d6 in melee combat. Vampifan was still unarmed, so he rolled 3d6 for being Rep:3. He had to defeat each civilian individually before he could move on. If he scored an Out of the Fight or Obviously Dead result on them, they would run past him, allowing him to fight the next in line until they were all gone. In the first fight, Vampifan scored two successes and the Civilian just one. Vampifan won, so one down, four to go.
In the second fight, Vampifan scored zero successes (uh, oh!) and the Civilian scored two successes, giving a result of Obviously Dead! As Vampifan fell to the ground, the world turned black. It was game over! Is this the end of Vampifan? Has my campaign come to an abrupt stop before it's had a chance to begin? Better tune in next time, folks!

21 comments:

  1. This is great, what happens next for Vampifan? I really need to know!

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  2. What next for Vampifan? The suspense is killing me.

    As its unarmed civilians perhaps old Vampifan has just been knocked to the ground and lays there unconscious. Maybe in the next game he has some sort of penalty for being KOd?

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  3. Where did you get the buildings? They look like paper ...

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  4. Great report, but as a "STAR" you can not die by a lesser Rep Attack, main character can't be killed by a walk on character (except zombie who don't follow cinematographic rules).
    Also, nice trick with police officer "get out over here" stuff. :D

    hope my english isn't too hard to understand.

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  5. @ Mr.Retzer : yes it's paper, it's World Works games products (read the beginnign of this blog ;D ).

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  6. Wow, so many comments in such a short space of time. To Phil and Danny, sorry, but you'll just have to wait a little bit longer. I'll be posting part 3 of this scenario and you'll find out the truth then. Yeah, I know, I'm a sod! But ending the post at that particular point was far too good an opportunity to pass up.

    @ Mr. Retzer. Ulu is absolutely right about the buildings being WWG card models. He's also right to state that it is mentioned at the start of the introduction to this scenario. If you click on the label marked WWG in the sidebar, you'll see all of my card models that I've made. Be warned, however, there are a lot!

    @Ulu. No need to apologise for your English - you make perfect sense. Also, you know your ATZ rules very well. You are spot on that a Star can't be killed by a character with a lower Rep... but this fight does not follow the normal rules. Those who know ATZ:BDTZ well will know what Vampifan's fate is. Those who don't are just going to have to wait a short while longer.

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  7. Lol, I catch the meaning of your last sentence. I really enjoy Chain Reaction 3 and ATZ:BDTZ and Haven Campaign Book, and I will certainly buy the last ATZ product (a only-pdf scenario) and post other AAR on my blog. But I'm a zombie in my wargaming project advance....

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  8. I had a lot of problems with terrified civilians,too [i](and I used a telescopic baton!)[/i]. I wasn't able to finish even one location. When I mentioned this on the yahoo group Ed's answer was:

    "LOL. You're Star you should try Cheating Death..."

    So this is still possible on Day One.


    BTW, in my opinion it really does matter if a character can move or not even if there's no chance for combat. Say you want to go to a location 6 movements away: with your house rules you will reach this location after six activations, having rolled the dice six times. Always with the possibility of rolling a 7, an 11 or a double.
    If you don't use your house rule you will not be able to activate in some rounds. So you need probably 8 activations to reach your target and rolling eight times. So in this example there will be two more possibilities for random encounters.

    Whiteface / Oliver

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  9. @ Whiteface : He always rolls for activation but don't use the result unless it has a "special" effect (see House Rules).
    Why nobody read entirely your post, Vampifan ? :D

    Waiting for a paper wheel tutorial....

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  10. No, I don't read it that way. I understand it this way:

    1.) he rolls dice
    2.) checks for special result
    3.) Moves without caring if activated or not

    If going by the unmodified rules there would be more dice rolls to move the same distance (depending on the number of die rolls without activation). Rolling the dice more often would result in more chances for random encounters.

    This is obvious just my guess, but maybe Vampifan will comment on this himself. :o)

    Whiteface / Oliver

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  11. Clam down, calm down, folks. To clarify, Oliver has it right.

    1.) I roll activation dice.
    2.) I check for any special result.
    3.) If no special result is indicated, I move without caring if activated or not, but only under certain circumstances. Once an encounter has been generated I abandon my house rule and stick to the official rules.

    However, Oliver brings up an excellent point in stating if there is a time limit to get somewhere then my house rule is unfair. Well spotted, young man! I knew there was a flaw in my logic, I was just waiting to see who would spot it first... ahem! Cough, cough!

    Don't worry, once I start playing with higher Rep characters I'll ditch this house rule. Do you have any idea how nerve wracking it is to play a Rep:3 Star? All I wanted to do was speed the game up a bit when nothing was happening instead of constantly stopping and starting waiting to roll 3 or less on a d6.

    @Ulu. Don't worry I haven't forgotten about my tutorial I promised on making WWG vehicles. I'll show you how to make the perfect wheel!

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  12. Do I know how nerve wracking it is to play a Rep:3 Star?
    No, how could I? Most of the time I was lying on the ground, beaten into unconsciousness by a mob of terrified civilians.

    @Ulu & Vampifan: sry, without sound of voice and with English not being my first language my previous post may have appeared more harsh than intended [i.e. not harsh at all ;o)]


    Whiteface / young man Oliver

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  13. No offence taken, Oliver, and no apology needed by me. The problem with the written word is that it does not always convey the spirit of your meaning. This is why I so like emoticons on Internet forums, but even they can be misinterpreted. It must be even harder when English isn't your native language.

    I had to laugh at your comment about what it's like to be a Rep:3 Star. We're brothers in arms, huh? Been there, got the T-shirt... and the wounds to prove it!

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  14. No offense taken too. Not my first language either.

    Even in my nightmare, I can't represent REP 3 Star.

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  15. First of all, I'm sorry I'm late!!! Secondly, AARRRRRGGGHHHHH! No way man, no way! Remember the Larger than Life rule, you cannot go worse than OOF to a non-Zombie who is same or lower rep so Vamp is still in the game man! Not game over dude!
    What a great game so far, I love the layout and mins.

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  16. Hi, Willy. Betcha didn't expect that ending! I haven't forgotten the Larger Than Life rule. Ulu also mentioned it and I'm sure there are other ATZ fans saying the same thing. For now I'm keeping my lips sealed but note that when Vampifan defeated the first Terrified Civilian how the rules changed regarding Out of the Fight and Obviously Dead results. Well... I'll reveal all tomorrow. Be sure to tune in!

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  17. Bryan,
    Actually the ending didn't surprise me that much because I have played a bunch of rep 3 characters before! And the same thing happened to me a lot!

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  18. I can well believe it! You sure take your life in your hands when you play a Rep:3 character.

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  19. Well, as new to this as I am, I just bought the ATZ rules based on the first two batreps. I have been using '7OMBIES' to play mini campaign-type games. These are fantastic rules, the idea of it being a tv show is brilliant, but the ATZ rules has more detail to allow a 'real' campaign to grow and evolve. I'll keep reading...............

    D.x

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