Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Day Two Clarendon


Brad and Hannah had taken turns driving through the night and had got around Amarillo without incident by staying on the minor roads.
A sign told them a gas station and diner were up ahead on the outskirts of Clarendon, so keeping the tank topped up seemed a good plan, as well as possibly grabbing a cooked breakfast, coffee, and maybe more information on what the hell's happening (Brad was confident that "the authorities" wouldn't waste any time getting the situation under control - whatever it was), so he prepared to pull over onto the forecourt.........
This game was played with the "First 30 Days - week one" section of the rules, and the main objective was to get information (extent of the outbreak, advice on dealing with zombies, safe areas etc), but of course that relied on some PEF's resolving as fellow citizens........ which they'd be sure to do.... wouldn't they?????
The RV was set to enter from the west, and PEF's were promisingly placed in sectors 2, 4 and 5 as per the photo. Then the "fun" started (have I done this right????)

The group drove onto the table and so I rolled for generating zombies. It's a rural area, so there'd be 1/2D6 per character - but there's also the engine noise of the RV, which adds another 6D6 (halved because of the encounter rating)
30 on 8 dice! Even halved, that drew in 15 zombies!!
I placed them using a D12 and the "clock face", and ended up with a couple behind the RV, one to the left and right, and a mini horde to the front!
The place was crawling with zombies! Suddenly Brad had lost his appetite and didn't really fancy a chinwag over a coffee anymore.
All three PEF's failed to activate, so we don't know if there's any help around or not - Brad passed the "brown pants" test and aimed the RV straight up the road!
The hapless zombies are "struck with devastating results", then the furthest PEF away activated and made straight for the scene...
.... only to resolve as a bad case of nerves - it must have been a reflection in the diner window!
The zombies were real though, and they started moving in.
so Brad kept his foot on the gas, and thought he saw something behind the blue car as he passed it...

.. it must have been 'just a shadow' he said as they drove off down the road towards Childress.

It looks like things are going to be tougher for the pair than I thought - especially if I've understood the rules correctly regarding generating zombies during week one.
I'm off for another read of the book before the next encounter on this road trip on the way to trying to find Hannah's brother Travis in Wichita Falls!

Thanks for reading, and comments most welcome (especially if you know ATZ:FFO better than me!)





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8 comments:

  1. Zabadak12 July 2017 at 01:08

    I think that I'd have kept driving too, given the circumstances!
    IIRC the fifteen zeds you generated are only'potential' zeds all have to have a second roll pendant on the ER of the area they're in. Don't trust my failing memory though as I've changed somany of the ATZ rules to my own version.

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    1. The Wargame Addict12 July 2017 at 13:59

      Thanks Joe - I was expecting a fairly mundane encounter, more to "beef up" the characters a little than anything else.
      In the end, Brad might have passed with his dice roll, but I definitely FAILED the Brown Pants test!
      A very quick but tense game!

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  2. Unknown12 July 2017 at 10:23

    Great post. I'm loving the series. Please keep them coming.

    And I agree with Zabadak. Much better to keep driving. Why give up your life just for a tank of gas?

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    1. The Wargame Addict12 July 2017 at 14:02

      Much appreciated Tim - the next encounter is coming up in a day or two :-)

      Brad's lucky he only wanted a "top up", that was definitely NOT the place to run out of gas!

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  3. Vampifan12 July 2017 at 13:14

    Staying in the car and driving on was the sensible decision to take. As I keep saying, knowing when to run is just as important as knowing when to fight and this was definitely the right time to run.

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    1. The Wargame Addict12 July 2017 at 14:11

      Many thanks Bryan, and your absolutely right, I shudder at the thought of what might have happened if anything went wrong with the RV at that moment - even ramming the three Z's in the road was worrying, it was the first time I'd done it and had visions of stalling, losing control and crashing etc!!

      I found my mistake which caused so many Z's to be generated, but in game terms they must have been swarming there for a reason - maybe there were trapped survivors in the gas station / diner?
      Who knows, perhaps a bunch of zombies will have been drawn away trying to follow the RV and allow the trapped folk a chance to escape??!!

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  4. Da Gobbo12 July 2017 at 16:14

    Nice encounter Greg, keep going that's the best policy!

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  5. The Wargame Addict12 July 2017 at 17:54

    Totally agree Andy, but I'd also add "and don't look back!" ;-)

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