Testing Grekwood Zombies Rules PART 2

...and so it continues...

TURN 7:

All four members cautiously move forward into the gap between the lorry and the red car, while Xavier protects their backs. Gina, Adele and Ben decide to reduce the number of zombies coming from down the road (which are now visible to all) , but they ALL miss (terrible shooting and I feel another wave of panic begin to spread!!). Xavier tries to slow the mass of party zombies coming down the and shoots the maid zombie reducing her to a stumbler. 

Since the survivors are moving around a vehicle, some zombies cannot see the survivors any more, so the zombies who are closest  (coming up from the local store)will head towards the last place they saw the survivors as they don’t know where the survivors plan to go. Well they don’t have much brains!

Finally, luck is on our side, we rolled a 19 which means no new zombies appear!!

TURN 8:

All the survivors continue to move extremely cautiously. Gina moves through the gap in the vehicles and around the back of the lorry, while Ben moves around the red car to protect Gina’s back. Xavier and Adele cover the others whilst moving backwards. They all shoot…but miss!!! Arghhh Now’s not the time for bad shooting with all those zeds getting closer!!

7 more zeds appear at 2 different locations… will this town ever run out of zombies?!

TURN 9:

With the zombies closing in, the survivors see that the wooded area (aka Dragon Park) is relatively clear/empty. They need to increase the distance between themselves and the zombies as there are just too many of them, so they decide to leave the protection of the cars, pick up the speed, and jog into the park. They don’t run as the view isn’t 100% clear as zombies could be hiding behind trees.

Since they are jogging they get a negative modifier, and unluckily everyone misses yet again, what’s wrong guys? Good job there’s now some distance between them and the approaching hordes!

The zombies creep forward, but luckily no new zombies appear. Maybe the town has finally run out of zombies (yeah.. I doubt it…).

TURN 10:

Since there is a little more distance between the survivors and zombies, the survivors decide to stop jogging, and walk deeper into the park, while heading towards their primary objective, Grekwood General Hospital. Both guys manage to hit and kill oncoming zombies, while both women score hits which only wound. But at least that’s better than the misses they have all been having lately!

As the zombies move in, 7 new zombies appear at locations 1 and 3. Luckily 3 is on the other side of the table so it most likely won’t affect them.

TURN 11:

The survivors see that the Hospital fire escape is close, so they head straight for it. Xavier and Adele both miss. Ben searches for a shot through the woods, sees a nurse, shoots, and kills her… “yes!” he says under his breath. Gina sees the pregnant zombie, and hesitates, but realises she has to shoot, and ends up killing her.

All zombies move towards the survivors, but luckily no new zombies appear.

TURN 12:

The group now move to the bottom of the fire escape stairs and take a quick look to see if there are any zombies present. Luckily it’s clear. Knowing there is nothing on the stairs, all turn their back to the fire escape for one last shot. Ben quickly fires, but misses everything…he doesn’t even hit a tree (it was that bad!). Xavier and Adele both shoot and kill 2 more unlucky zombies. With no zombie too close, Gina searches for a visible shot, and amazingly she spots a zombie through a tiny gap in the trees! She raises one of her guns, looks down the barrel and through the gap in the tree, and pulls the trigger. Boom! It’s a kill!

This is our favourite photo (to the right) of the whole game. We used “line of sight” a lot to determine who we could see, or what we could shoot, and this just takes it to a whole new level of “real” line of sight! The gap between the trees was SO small, but enough for Gina to see a potential kill.

Because the survivors have reached the base of the stairs, this now activates the zombies in the hospital wards closest to the survivors (the zombies we placed on the roof when setting everything up). We do the location rolls using a 6 sided dice, and determine that there are 4 zeds on the middle floor in the ward, and 5 zeds in the middle floor day room. Now the hospital entry points are activated, it means there are now 8 entry points total.

New zombies appear at 4 locations, these now being entry point 7, 2, 5 and 7 again. 11 zombies total with 2 being on the ground floor of the hospital.

TURN 13:

After an almost all round successful turn of shooting, the survivors go up the first flight of stairs to increase the distance from the zombies. A “normal” walking pace takes you up 1 flight of stairs per move. They see that the day room on that level 1 is full of zombies, so they have a choice, either fire, OR use the rest of their “move” to get to the bottom of the second flight of stairs. Since they only moved 4” it meant they could either shoot, or turn their move into a run and move a total of 8”.

Not wanting to get trapped by the zombies coming from the forest, they decide to risk it and to carry on to the next level.

Luckily no new zombies appeared.

TURN 14:

The survivors scrambled up the stairs. Amazingly, the day room was empty which allowed the survivors to gain access to the hospital. …and so the game had ended!

END OF GAME

Overall not bad! It’s the first game we have done where we have actually reached the primary objective and the first game where we never had any injuries!

The game turned out to be a rather strange one for most zed reinforcements all seemed to come down the back alley where the party zombies came from. I suppose [in reality] that’s where the housing estate is so the game actually gave a ‘real’ result.

When we started we thought we would have been forced more toward the general store, rather than the straight line option we actually got. If more reinforcements had come in at the back edge, then everything may have turned out differently.

With our survivors entering the hospital, the next game will be to get the meds and scarper! (when this game will happen I don't know... so for now, that's all folks! Hope you have enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the rules which will be posted up on our website in the next week. Everything has been delayed as I have been ill for about 2 weeks, but I am finally starting to do better, so apologies for the wait!

All comments as usual are welcome.

Testing Grekwood Zombie Rules PART 1

My last post showed how we roughly set up the table, so now we’re all ready to go into action. Using our FREE downloadable fast play rules (which will be online in the next few days), we mention that any zeds in the open on the playing surface would automatically be attracted to the survivors.  I’m not going to give a play by play account of what happened, so I won’t bore you with all the specifics, but you can get all those from the rules!  For ease of play we assumed all the starting zombies were walkers.

So we begin:

TURN 1:

Our four heroes: Adele, Ben, Gina and Xavier pulled up in their car, with their head count trophies neatly stored in the back. The actual street seemed quiet. Everything seemed clear but there was an almighty ruckus coming from the back alley behind the houses to their left. 

The group moved cautiously down the road. But unknown to them, there was a zombie in the house to their left. 

We rolled for priority using a 20 sided dice, and unfortunately the zombie was first to strike. This meant he caught the survivors by surprise (never good on your first move!). The house zombie therefore entered the street but luckily he was rubbish and failed to bite Ben [the closest survivor to him].

Ben “baseball bat”, alerted by the noise of the approaching zombie, manages to spin around and clobber him with his bat and lands a critical hit! The zombie is no more…  One down 7 billion to go whoo hooo!

Meanwhile…. the zombies in the back alley have sensed there are survivors near, and begin to pile into the back gardens and rear of the nearby houses (You can roll to see if doors are open/unlocked, or you can assume all are open).

The rest of the zombies on the playing surface now move towards the survivors, in as straight a line as possible. Since the survivors were taken by surprise by the first zombie, we needed to see how it affected their morale. So we rolled, and everyone failed!!!. The gang, now scared, automatically started to run away… well, that was a quick game!

Rather than running off the board or jumping back in their car [as would be normal], we decided to leg it down the road towards the petrol tanker (which appeared clear).

TURN 2:

Since our survivors are routing, they have to be dealt with first. Being startled they ran down the road at maximum speed towards the lorry which meant they are unable to shoot.

All the zombies therefore continue to head directly towards the survivors. The party zombies in the alley way continue to move towards the survivors previously known location as they can’t see them. This means they are now moving through the houses!

We now checked to see if more zombies appear on the board… but luck is on our side, and no new zeds appear!

Morale is tested once again at the end of the turn to check if the rout is stopped. One zed is within 8”, but there are obstacles in the way and nothing to “startle” them. No survivors are injured, so using the necessary modifiers (please see rules) every survivor manages to recover from the rout. Yay!

TURN 3:

Having recovered from the rout, the survivors get their bearings and become aware of the party zombies piling out of the house by their car. Nooo!! That’s the get-a-way vehicle is now compromised! (Photo left)

The gang of survivors decide to move forward at a normal pace [Each type of movement has it’s own modifier for combat].

Using the cars as a shield, they decide to shoot at the closest zombie to them, the “shopping lady zed” (image below). Adelle from Admin is quick to fire but misses, but Ben hits and wounds the zed. He turns to Adelle, smiles, and says “Yeaahh! That’s ‘ow it’s done”. Being wounded the shopping lady zed is now reduced from a walker to a stumbler as the shot didn’t kill her. Gina 2 guns attempts to finish the zed off but also misses!! Luckily Xavier shoots and kills. Yep… the men saved the day (the women had better stats on paper!) So that's two zeds down!! 

The zombies all move at a regular zombie pace and the new arrivals are calculated using the zombie reinforcement table. Zombies will enter the board at 5 locations, these being location 5, 1, 5, 3 and 3 again. Rolling a 6 sided dice, we determined how many turn up at each location. 12 new zombies appeared in total. They were as follows:

5 at location 5, 6 at location 3, and finally 1 lonely zombie at location 1.

TURN 4:

After the combined successful killing of the shopping lady, the survivors continued to walk cautiously up to the next car (the black one), where they were faced with more zombies coming from around the corner of the local store. Adelle decides to shoot first at the female zombie which is getting a little too close. She manages to wound her, and Ben quickly follows up with a killing shot. Xavier tries his luck and shoots at the other close zombie... He scores a critical hit! 

Gina “2 Guns”, with no zombies too close, decides to go for a long range shot, and unbelievably scores a hit which kills a zombie all the way in Dragon Park! Seems like the girls are getting their own back on the lads!!

The zombies all move closer again, with more zombies appearing on the table at 4 different locations, these being locations 1, 1, 4 and 3. A total of 11 new zombies appeared. 4 appeared at location 1, 4 at location 4, and finally 3 at location 3.

Turn 5:

The party zombie horde behind the survivors seems to be growing quickly, so the survivors decide that they desperately need to put some extra distance between them. They move to a  jogging pace which gives them a negative modifier when shooting. They see that there are zombies to their right coming around the side of the local store so they have 2 options:

1)      Attempt to kill the oncoming store zombies and get to the local store (plan B) with no idea what’s inside or,

2)      Head straight towards the lorry which looks clear, but they are not sure if there is anything on the other side.

After some quick thinking, they decide to head towards the clearer area by the left of the  lorry and take out some zombies. Since they are now jogging, they have a -1 modifier to their skill level. We rolled to see who gained priority and who was able to shoot first (this isn’t essential, but it can help if you are keeping score of zombie kills/ammo etc). Gina and Ben both shoot and miss by a mile! (Gina rolled a 20, and Ben rolled 19!). Xavier managed to kill the male zombie sporting the yellow tank top, and Adele managed to wound another. 

The zombies etch closer and their groans become louder and louder. Fresh zombies appear at 2 locations, bringing a total of 8 new zombies to the board.

TURN 6:

Adele decides to move cautiously to the corner of the houses to get a better look of what lurks around the corner. It’s not good…there are more zombies coming from the 5^th entry point.  Xavier slowly walks towards the lorry, with Gina closely following behind. Ben moves in-between both Adele and Xavier. 

Xavier and Ben both shoot but somehow miss!!! Noo!!!!!!! Luckily, Adele (with a + modifier since she’s moving slowly), and, Gina save the day and both score hits which kill. Another one for the girls!

The zombies all move again, but only 4 new zombies appear at 2 different locations.

Now with a large horde of zombies coming at them from behind, two smaller groups coming from either side, and a lorry blocking their view of the front...what will they do next?! ...Stay turned...

I don't want to make these posts too long, so in a day or two I will post another with the second half! I will leave you with a photo of the party horde coming up the road from the rear as you can see the side horde in the above photo.

Cheers  to everyone who has taken the time to read this so far. Any comments are welcome!

10% OFF Most Accessories

I have decided to give a 10% discount (through email order, not through the website) on most of the accessories I stock.

When you hover over "Accessories" on the menu, you will see sub sections called "Scenery", "Sculpting" and "Other". I have decided to give a 10% discount on everything under those 3 sections (apart from putty).

September 30th is the last day of the deal. You MUST email me with your order and I will send you a payment request, as it is not available through the website. Any website orders will NOT get the discount.

POSTAGE still applies to all orders.

Here's a little photo:

Click to ZOOOOOMMM

Cheers guys, spread the news with anyone you might think will be interested :)

Merry Christmas!! :)

I want to start by thanking those who have recently started following my blog. I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) to all those who celebrate something this time of year.

Ok, so not too much to say apart from we've been working on more roads. I think I may create a page on the website just for road downloads. We want them to be as versatile as possible, and are therefore creating all options you might need.


I have recently uploaded a new set of "Town" roads (right). You'll notice that this pack has paved pavements, which are those that are more seen in towns.

We also have the "town" packs which include single yellow lines and double yellows. So keep an eye out for those as they will probably be online in the next few days or so.


My Laptop
So, it's known that me and laptops apparently just don't work. I have no idea why. Here's a brief history:

2005 - Went from PC to laptop. The screen eventually broke, and turned all whites yellow. (So nothing I did). I think my mum had this as she didn't mind about the screen. But it eventually broke down a couple of years ago.

Second Laptop (2006- end of 2008) I bought this to replace the other one. I think the hinge on the screen broke, and then the laptop got a virus (my mistake!!). The hinge was always flimsy. But yeah... virus was my fault. I was expecting a parcel from Fed Ex, so it only seemed ok to open the attachment as I thought it was my order. Epic fail! But again, I never open up stuff I don't know, but this seemed legit as I was expecting an email from Fed Ex...

3rd laptop (2008 - present) - Given to me by the university ... it still works! But I eventually gave this laptop to Kate, and had to change the hard drive after a "blue screen of death".

4th - (end of 2009 - 2012) I bought this one as Kate now had my Uni one. The screen eventually broke on that one this year, and then for some reason it stopped working all together. No idea why.

May this year (2012 to present)... I bought my current laptop. Last week the charger connection stopped working unless I put loads of pressure on it, which was difficult to charge, and involved placing heavy books on the laptop charger connection, whilst the laptop was standing on its side.

So bought a new cable, and that didn't work. So I knew it was an internal issue. So I opened up the casing (which isn't so difficult when you know how! ... Google..) and I noticed there was a slight gap in one of the bits of solder. Now I'm talking microscopic, it was SO small. So I got out my soldering kit (I have one as I rewired two of my guitars a few years ago), and I put solder on the joint.

The laptop didn't work at all then! So I removed some of the solder, but not all of it, and now it works...whooooo Huzzah! So yay, the laptop lives... which is good because it's not even a year old!!

So yeah, not really sure why they break so much. Maybe it's because I use them all day every day..

Anyway.... Merry Christmas, and have a great new year :)