Tuesday 29 October 2013

Escape from Zombie Town : A Zombie Battle Report

In order to celebrate a rather successful Zomtober, Charlie and I decided to take all our zombies and our freshly painted zombie survivors to the Wargames Store on the Wirral for a game. It gave us a chance to game in a built up urban environment, because I haven't got much scenery suitable for a Zombie Apocalypse setting. 

Once again we used FUBAR, modified with a few house rules to make each of the survivors unique. The scenario was a simple 'get across the table top and off the opposite side' affair.

In FUBAR both the zombies and the characters activate on a dice roll, which is excellent as if creates a lot of unpredictability and drama, while helping to recreate the whole zombie movie vibe: Foolhardy survivors dashing off ahead on their own, and others lagging behind to be picked off by the packs of zombies. In our house rules we have zombies spawning at random in packs of five, and roll a single activation for the whole pack. Survivors roll to activate separately, as if they were one man squads. 


The survivors move through a ruined landscape of a factory destroyed in a fire. If they can only make it across the canal they will be safe.

The survivors (from L to R) Graham the office worker, Scott the mall cop, Hank the construction worker, Stan the gangster,
Giovanni the chef/hit-man, Marcus the bad ass biker

The survivors get a glimpse of some of the Dead shambling around on the road up ahead. If they can just make it to the foot bridge over the canal before the Dead spot them they should be safe. 

Hank dashes off ahead, but realises too late that another pack of the Dead has cut off their rout to the footbridge. There is nothing left but to fight their way through.

More Dead start swarming across the road bridge, attracted by the living. Things are looking dangerous now. 

'I've got your back son.'
The professional chef/hit-man Giovanni moves up behind Hank to give covering fire. 

Startled by the gunfire Graham starts to hangs back, but realise too late his mistake, as more Dead begin lumbering out of the ruined factory complex!

Hurrrm! Brains! Graham starts to run as the Dead surge after him. 

By now the rest of the survivors have managed to shoot their way through the Dead to reach the footbridge over the canal. But the Dead are closing in on them. 

Graham makes it to the top of the ramp, pursued by a pack of the Dead thirsting for his brains. More Dead  start pouring in from every direction. Will Graham make it too the footbridge?

The Dead grab Graham. He manages to brain one of them with his crowbar, as the rest surge around him, dragging at his flesh with their vicious claws. 

On the footbridge Scott and Giovanni try desperately to hold off the ever growing numbers of Dead, trying to buy time for Graham and the others to make it to safety. 

It's too late for Graham, as the Dead finally tear him limb from limb. 

Giovanni, ever the professional, holds the bridge long enough for the rest of the survivors to make it off the bridge to safety. The steady tap tap of his assault rifle drops one Dead after another as he cautiously falls back. 

The remaining survivors (Hank, Giovanni, Scott, Marcus and Stan) make it to relative safety  and live to fight another day. Graham has presumably joined the ranks of the Dead. 

This was a great game and was full of highlights and excitement. Once again FUBAR proved itself a worthy rule set for a pick-up-and-play zombie game, providing the right mix of drama and action. 

I would like to commend the Wargames Store for their help. They were very friendly and so were the other customers who all took time out to come over and see what Charlie and I were up to. The gaming table was very suitable for the game, and gave us some good ideas. 

I hope you like the AAR, and find it a fitting tribute to all the bloggers  who have joined in this Zomtober. 

6 comments:

Vampifan said...

That was a great read and may I compliment you on some mighty fine photographs. The whole game looked like a lot of fun and I wish I'd been there with you.

Barks said...

Cool report!

Simon Quinton said...

Great game report. Looked like it was a lot of fun. Nice one Rob!

Clint said...

I did enjoy the report. Always good to see some zombie action.

Jay said...

Fun report (and I'm not a Zed guy). Plus the derelict car piece of scenery is a sweet piece of eye candy. Great job.

Michael Awdry said...

Wonderful report and great shots.