Painting in March

 This was another productive month (at least by my standards). So far ,posting a monthly result is certainly encouraging me to pick up a brush when time is available.

I had planned a 3-4 player Zombie Stagecoach game for the later part of the month, so that occupied a lot of my painting time.

But not all, some more Martian Fighting machines of various sizes.

A mob of Wild West zombies (or is it a horde? a plague? an infestation? What do you call a group of zombies?)

A mutated coyote thing, from the Zombicide Undead or Alive boxed set, very nasty.

An even nastier (and hungrier) big mutated critter!

 

Fast zombies and an undead mariachi player.

Zombie Stagecoach 4

 Kirstie and I played through our next game of Zombie Stagecoach. this was a new scenario I'd created, as we had worked our way through Wild West versions of the original scenarios in Zombie RV.

We were investigating a small town, which appeared to be deserted at first glance. I have added in the requirement to find food supplies in order for the survivors to operate at full effect in the subsequent scenarios, and renamed "Supplies" in the original rules as "Something Useful", which allows the reroll of 1 die roll. The survivors require 1 food per PC, anyone who is not fed will start the next game with 1 wound.

Here is the table layout. No zombies in sight, but that won't be the case for long! We decided to run down the street and start with the buildings furthest away, on the assumption that if we needed to retreat, we could outrun the zombies back to the stage.

Turn 1 and already some undead have wandered along.

What should Jill do here? Just take aim with her shotgun...

...BOOM

!

More zombies appear, these have a nasty (tough) zombie in their midst.

The gang got lucky with the first two buildings, both had food, 1 had Something useful as well and, most importantly, no zombies inside. Jill is now checking out the undertaker. hope there are no customers left inside!

Another building with no zombies, and a quick search found more food.

In the meantime Ol'Pete and Jack are keeping the zombies busy in the main street.

A bunch of the undead seem to be outflanking the guys. But see that flash of blue at the window?

Having searched the building and found a bottle of rotgut whiskey (Molotov cocktail), Jenny has moved up to the window with her trusty Winchester.

In the meantime Pete lets rip with his shotgun. Both barrels clear the street pretty effectively. The jenny bags the nasty zombie from her vantage point.

With 3 food in the bag, Jill moves on to search another building, while the rest conduct a fighting retreat.

Just as well she had rolled an extra action this turn, opening the door reveals two zombies. A blast from her shotgun kills one and knocks the other to the ground.  She steps into the office.

Hurry up, it's getting a mite busy outside. The zombie climbs back on its feet, but fails to hit Jill, who crushes it's skull with her shotgun butt. Search the office finds another food and a stick of dynamite. That will come in useful!

As more and more zombies swarm forward our gang of heroes? run back to the stagecoach and make their escape.

This scenario seemed almost too easy, the dice gods were definitely smiling on us. We didn't find any zombies inside building until the last one we searched, and the first three buildings all yielded food supplies, which made things really easy. It allowed us to avoid contact with zombies for most of the game and scoot back to the stage before they could overrun us with superior numbers.

When we tried the scenario again, just to make sure, we left one survivor dead and just escaped with two of the others wounded!

A Great Weekend of Gaming

 My younger mate Mark came over to stay for an annual gaming weekend this week.  We have been doing this for a few years now, Mark and his wife Kate, have two young daughters (now 5 and 7) and this provides an escape for gaming and adult company. To be fair, we have started a similar weekend escape for Kate. She is a history buff and enthusiastic about steam engineering. My sister Broni volunteers for our local heritage railway, so last year Kate came over for a couple of nights of drinking cocktails, then a day on the railway where Broni wangled her a private visit to the signal bow and a ride on the footplate of a steam locomotive.

Back to gaming, I had a packed schedule planned. 

Friday: Mark arrived, had a beer and settled in, followed by dinner, then beer and a game of Frostgrave.

Saturday: am Frostgrave, then Ian joined us for lunch, followed by more beer and a game of Zombie Stagecoach (wild west Zombie RV).

Sunday: More Frostgrave followed by lunch at a Turkish restaurant, before Mark headed home.

Great fun and a lot of laughs was had by all. Here are some photos of the games in no particular order.

Frostgrave first.

Mark's wizard channelling an ACW General. "Watch out for that crossbowman Master!". "Pah! he couldn't hit an elephant at that distance!"

Twang! Thunk! Ugh!

Three of Mark's warband close in on one of mine trying to collect a treasure.

But picking up the chest alerted the Giant Worm lurking beneath the surface. Guess who was closest?

Yep! That one's the starter!

and this one's the main course!

The Zombie Stagecoach. Mark and Ian each had a gang of survivors and I GM'ed the zombie.

The town looked quiet, too quiet!

It looks like Emily's in trouble!

Now is not the time for the shotgun to run out of ammo!

The melee just got bigger!

The reason there are noise markers next to the shed is that 3 of Ian's gang are hiding inside. "Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, we ain't hunting wabbits". 

They were hoping the zombies would follow little Timmy, who was running across the street screaming, after being startled out of his hiding place when one of Mark's gang searched the barn.

And it worked!

Ian's character Ol' George attracting the zombies attention before heroically leading them on a merry dance, allowing the rest of his gang to sneak up and search the last two buildings.

An excellent weekend. We are already planning the next one!

ZOMBIE STAGECOACH 2

 Kirstie and I tried out another game of Zombie Stagecoach, my Wild West take on Zombie RV.

We wanted to try out a few house rules, as our first games had been very difficult.

We changed shooting to have +1 at close range, instead of -1 at long range and a zombie push back 1-3" now becomes a knockdown, taking their entire next turn to stand up.

The table layout. There are two spawning points, one on either side of the table. Search points are the house, the shack and the piles of barrels and boxes.

Our group of heroes, R-L Ol' Pete, cousin Judy and siblings Jack and Jill.

We actually played this scenario twice, the first time was really easy for the survivors, the fences made it quite easy to avoid most of the zombies by climbing back and forth over them. So we played a second game without the fences, which was more challenging.

Judy and Pete rush forward to the first search point.

Jack and Jill both rolled a bonus move, so the advanced towards the house, pausing to take a shot at a zombie on the way. jill just knocked hers down, but Jack took one out with a head shot.

Just as well, as more started to arrive.

One lumbered towards jack but just before he reached him, Jack took him down.

have found some more supplies , Pete lined up on an approaching zombie only to hear the dreaded "click", out of ammo (rolled a 1!). He used his supplies for a re-roll and this time blasted the zombie with his shotgun, while Judy moved up and took a shot at the Zombie in front of the house, that had just struggled back onto it's feet. But she only scored another knockdown.

Yet more zombies appear and lumber towards the gang.

Pete moved up to the shack and pushed the door open, only to find two zombies inside!

Judy moved over to the pile of barrels, them took another shot at the same zombie, finally killing it this time.

Jill crept into the house, fortunately it was empty of zombies, but also empty of anything useful.

Jack kept up  a hail of lead at the oncoming zombies.

Pete blasted one of the zombies in the shack, but was leapt on by the other. Pete was wounded, but managed to fend him off. He them smashed the zombie's skull with his shotgun butt.

Moving quietly out the back of the house, Jill reached the last search point, but found nothing.

From her position behind the barrels, Judy picked off some of the zombies closing in on Jack. Having a Shooter with a rifle was proving to be really useful.

More zombies arrived, including a Big 'Un!

Even more appeared behind the shack. Pete took a shot out the back window, but rolled another one! He used his last lot of supplies but rolled 1 yet again!

Jack kept backing off, shooting Zombies as he went. At one point he ran out of ammo, but used his supplies to reroll and this time killed his target. He was quite relieved when a shot from Judy took the big zombie's head off.

Yet more zombies arriving!

With everywhere searched now, the gang pulled back towards the stage, pausing to take down any zombies that blocked Jill's path.

The gang pilled into the stage and rode off, just before the mass of zombies closed in.

We had managed to escape with only one character suffering a wound, but not much to show for our efforts. Judy's shooting skill combined with a rifle had been a godsend, but might not be so useful if there had been less open ground. Supplies had proved vital, just one re-roll each in the game had been a life-saver more than once.

Great fun!