ZOMBIE STAGECOACH

 I'd seen some batreps for various games of Zombie RV online, which had caught my attention. This is a neat little set of rules by Dave Bezio (currently available for free on Wargames vault  here)

My only problem is that, although I have a bunch of post apocalyptic gangs that would do for survivors,  I do not have any modern zombies or much suitable terrain. But I do have a load of cowboys, wild west buildings and, thanks to buying into the Zombicide Undead or Alive Kickstarter, a bunch of western zombies! So I am dialling back Zombie RV a century or so to Zombie Stagecoach! How would John Wayne have coped with that?

Kirstie can over to give the rules a try, and here is our gang of survivors.

Jack and Jill. sibling ex-stage robbers, Ol'Pete, who used to ride shotgun for Wells Fargo and El Hombre, a Mexican with his family heirloom, a big sword.

Jack, Shooter +1, pistol and a melee weapon. (Kirstie)

Jill, Thief (move silently on 4+), pistol and extra ammo. (Kirstie)

Pete, Tough (+1 to grit rolls), shotgun and melee weapon. (Me)

El Hombre, Brawler +1, melee weapon. (Me)

L-R, Jill, Jack, Ol'Pete and El Hombre.

I am using a variation of the Trailor Trash scenario in the rules. Jack and Jill's cousin Judy is hiding out on the family farm. The gang just need to find her in one of the buildings and return to the stagecoach with her, if she is alive, or kill her if she is a zombie.

This is the layout of the farm. the zombie spawn point is by the corner of the barn.

We played through this scenario twice and both time had the same result, we found Judy, unzombiefied fortunately, but lost one of the gang. We basically tried the same tactic both times. Jack and Pete moved up the middle, shooting zombies and attracting attention, whilst Jill headed for the barn and El Hombre checked out the shed and farm house (shack). Our problem was that shooting isn't very effecive, you only kill zombies or a 5 or 6, or a 6 at long range, which wasn't helped by keeping running out of ammo! And we were quickly swamped by zombies. Each game we only just got away, mainly because of the difficulty the zombies had crossing the fence, they cannot climb in these rules, so had to move to the gaps to pass through.

Here are a few pictures of the games.

Every time El Hombre checked a building it had zombies in it!

So in the second game he checked through the shed's back window first.

This led to a game of chase as the zombies lumbered out the door and around the back of the building...

....El Hombre ran around the front and into the shed to search it. Then as the Zombies moved back around the front to the door, he climbed out of the window and legged it!

Another bunch of zombies spawning, this game gives you a LOT of zombies, 3 or 4 new ones every turn, plus whatever is in the buildings.

When the barn got filled with zombies, Judy, Pete and El Hombre positioned themselves at the door, so the zombies could only get at them one on one. Single zombies are not very effective in melee, they really need to gang up on survivors to be a serious threat. This was much better that the first game, when a Pete ended up surrounded by zombies and eaten!

                                       
Jill had a little problem getting to the stagecoach, but she distracted the zombies to let the rest of the gang get on the stage. They then drove the stage around and picked her up from the end of the fence before the zombies could catch up.

We had a lot of fun and the rules have some great mechanisms, for a simple set. I particularly like the way noise is handled. But we felt they were too many zombies and it was too hard to kill them. We will definitely be playing this again, but might put a few house rules into the mix. 

Ideas we discussed included:

Spawning fewer zombies each turn

Making shooting more effective, +1 at short range instead of -1 at long range

Swapping zombie push back 1-3" for a knockdown and taking their entire next turn to stand up.

We will play around with a few things and see where we go, but the essence of the rules are great and it's fun to play!!