Day One

Who are you?

Dr. Chris Hill, aged 33 married to Sarah, no kids.
Sarah is at work, so my motivation is to go there first and make sure she is safe and bring her back to the safety of home.

Occupations

I’m a Doctor (a General Practitioner) at a small medical practice about half a mile from where I live. As a Doctor I know how important it is to keep fit, I play sport regularly and am in good condition. (I’ll be a REP4 and use the Civilian Reaction Tests)

Sarah is a part-time Librarian, a keen marathon runner and in excellent physical shape (also a REP 4 Civilian).

Experience

I was in the Territorial Army for five years and have seen active service; I’m a keen shooter, member of the NRA and Little Chalfont RPC. Sarah is also a keen shooter but has not any military or law enforcement experience.

Where you live

We live in a four bedroom semi-detached house in Putteridge which is a suburb of Luton, Bedfordshire, UK.

Supplies

We have a good stock of food (2 units for scenario purposes) wood (just delivered in order to deck part of the garden) and as a keen DIYer I have a good selection of tools.

Weapons

I have a Remington 1100 semi-automatic shotgun 700 rounds of birdshot, 500 rounds of slug and 250 rounds of buckshot. Additionally Sarah and I both have a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle each with 2,000 rounds of .22LR. As you’d expect there is the usual collection of carving/ kitchen knives, DIY tools and my favourite cricket bat available as melee weapons.

Vehicles

We have two vehicles, a car, a BMW 3 series which currently has ¾ of a tank of petrol (3 fuel units) and I have a motorcycle which has a full tank.

Luxury Items

In the house I have about £700, a dozen or so bottles of wine and beer.

Now What?

The plan....

1. Pack the weapons and some food into the car and go to the Library to find Sarah.

2. Go to the Supermarket to stock up on food.

3. Fill up the car and the extra petrol cans in the car with fuel

4. Return home with Sarah; barricade the lower ground windows and doors.

So, all travel will be between different suburban areas, home to library, library to supermarket and petrol station and then back home.

The First Encounter – Go to Sarah’s workplace

I roll a 3,4,for a pass 2d6 result on the ‘Getting There Table’ which means that there was no problem getting to the area of the Library. The board was set up as below..

View of the Library, Shops and Car Park

I rolled 2d6 for the number of ‘Terrified Civilians’ and luckily for me there were only 3 on the board, all situated in front of the shops/ car park.

Turn 1 Activations Zeds/Civis 4, Doc 2

No Zeds on the board so I move the three terrified civilians towards the road and the sound of Doc’s approaching car. The Doc drives along the road towards the entrance of the car park. I roll for the sound of the car attracting Zeds, but none are attracted to the noise of the car (remembering the scenario rule to use the ‘rural’ generation of a score of 6, even though this is a Suburban encounter.)

Turn 2 Activations Zeds /Civis 3, Doc 2

Three terrified students (two males and one female) run out into the road in front of Doc’s car. Screeching to a halt to avoid knocking them down, the Doc is already out of the driver’s door cricket bat in hand as the first guy makes a lunge towards him screaming “They’re coming, they’re after us! Give us your car man!” Doc manages to duck under the flailing arms of the young punk and smacks him around the side of the head with his cricket bat. (Civ 1 rolls a 4,5, and passes 0d6, Doc rolls 1,2,3,5,6 and passes 3d6). Realising he has picked on the wrong person the youth takes off down the road screaming in terror and now with a headache to boot! (The special scenario rules mean that an OOF or OD result vs. a Terrified Civilian means that they run on by you.)

Three terrified civilians run out into the road and force Doc to swerve to a halt.

Turn 3 Activations Zeds/Civis 4, Doc 3 (Total 7, time to generate some Zeds!)

The young panicking female grabbed the Doc “Please, please, you gotta give us your car.” She screams as she grabs the Doc. “Sorry honey, I need it to find my wife” (Civ2 rolls 4,6 and passes 0d6, Doc rolls 1,4,5,5, and passes 1d6 for an OOF result– phew, that was close! I decided that the Doc couldn’t bring himself to use a cricket bat on a defenceless woman so only rolled 4d6). Seeing that her pleas were falling on deaf ears she ran off. Before he knew it Doc was confronted by another teenage punk he was screaming unintelligibly and grabbing Doc by the shirt. “Get out of my way son. Let me pass” Doc yelled. But it was no use, the young buck was too scared or wasn’t interested in understanding what Doc had said, Doc scuffled with the terrified youth (Civ 3 rolls 1,2, passes 2d6, Doc rolls 2,2,4,5,5, and also passes 2d6. Civ 3 rolls 1,4 and passes 1d6, Doc rolls 2,5, and also passes 1d6 – uh oh! Civ 3 rolls 5 and passes 0 d6; Doc rolls 2, and passes 1d6 – phew!) and eventually managed to knock him to the ground. “Clear off or you’ll be sorry” the Doc snarled. Seeing the look in the Doc’s eyes the youth scrambled to his feet and ran off down the street after his friends.

(Wow! The ‘new’ melee rules are great, they certainly add excitement to the game, it is quite a shock to see so many failures come up when you sit there thinking “It’ll be ok I’ve got 5d6 to roll” coming up against multiple Zeds is now far more risky than in ATZ 1.0 – Well that’s my perception anyway.)

Doc drove his car into the car park, got out and approached the Library front door.

Next I rolled for Zed Generation:
For the ‘7’ total on the activation roll (1/2d6 zombies per human) I roll a 6 so get 3 Zeds.
For the noise of the car engine (12d6!) I roll 1,3,3,4,5,6,2,2,3,4,1,1 so luckily only get 1 extra Zed, which gives me a total of 4 to place. Rolling a directional die (I use this instead of the table) two of the Zeds were placed to the left of the Library within the Docs LOS, one along the right-hand side of the building out of LOS and one in the building (will exit the building by the front door when next activated)!! How unlucky can I get! All the Zeds are clustered around the Doc’s objective and I don’t get an Insight Check on the two he can see as they are ‘placed’ Zeds!

As the Doc approached the Library he could see two people alongside the Library, he was glad to see that they didn’t appear to be ‘doing the headless chicken’ like the students he’d encountered. In fact now he came to think of it they were moving kind of slow, almost like puppets. He yelled a greeting, but got no response.

Turn 4 Activations Zeds 4, Doc 2

The two Zeds move down the left-hand side of the building closer to Doc, another figure stumbles out of the Library door and shuffles towards Doc. Out of Doc’s LOS (hidden from view by a dumpster against the wall) the fourth zombie heads down the alley along the right-hand side of the Library.

“Hey buddy are you hurt?” says Doc, “Looks like your having some trouble walking my friend.” At this the man raises his head. Instantly Doc can see that he has gaping chest wounds, half his face is missing and exposed bone is everywhere. The ‘thing’ focuses on Doc and emits a hiss. (Doc has to take a Zed or no Zed Test, rolling on the Civilian Reaction Table I roll a 2,3 for a pass 2d6, so Doc realises the threat and carries on.)

He levels his rifle at the Zed and fires two shots, 2,3, for two misses! Turning to his right he passes down the alley next to the Library and sees another Zed.

(Taking an Insight Test I roll a 2,4 for a pass 2d6 result) Doc raises his rifle and fires two quick shots as he moves (on the Civilian Reaction Table a pass2d6 result means that Doc will snap-fire). I roll to hit and roll a 3,6, for one hit, I roll for damage against Doc’s REP of 4 (using the Easy to Hit Rule) and score a 2 for a result of OD.

I mark the fallen Zombie and the shots fired

Next the Doc continues down the alley, turns left and heads for the back-door of the Library. Then I roll for Zombie Generation caused by the four shots which Doc fired. I roll 2,6,6,6 for three new Zeds (I hope my luck isn’t going bad!!!) one is placed in the car park the other three around and about the front of the Library.

Turn 5 Activations Zeds 5, Doc 4

The Doc moves to the back door of the Library, enters, locks the door behind him and begins calling for Sarah, as the Zeds failed their activation roll they don’t get to move.

Turn 6 Activations Zeds 4, Doc 6

The Zombies move to where they last saw the Doc disappear around the corner, Doc cannot activate.

Turn 7 Activations Zeds 2, Doc 4

Doc uses this activation to search the building yelling for Sarah (consulting the location rules of p66 I roll 1d6 and get a 4) which means that Doc has successfully found Sarah who was hiding in her office under her desk.

The Zeds, attracted by the noise Doc made when he was yelling for Sarah approach the rear door of the Library.

Turn 8 Activations Zeds 2, Doc 4

Doc cautiously peers out of the window and sees that the front of the building is clear, “Let’s go Sarah, the car’s in the car park, follow me, run and don’t stop ‘till we get to the car.” With that he hands Sarah the Ruger 10/22 s/a rifle, unslings the Remington 1100, checks chamber and pushes open the door. (Doc and Sarah take a Fast Move Test, I roll 1d6 for Docs Leader Die and get a 6 for 0 passes, I then roll 2d6 and get a 1,3, for a result of 2 passes (both Doc and Sarah are REP4) meaning that they can run 16” this turn.

Zeds start to pound on the locked rear door of the Library as Doc and Sarah sprint out the front heading for their car.

Running as fast as they can Doc and Sarah reach the car park. Meanwhile, the Zeds burst into the Library through the smashed back-door.

Turn 9 Activation Zeds 4, Doc 2

The Zeds shamble through the building looking for flesh, whilst Doc and Sarah pile into the car and drive off in the direction of the Supermarket and Petrol Station.....TO BE CONTINUED

At last I've managed to find some time to start building the Multi Storey Car-Park which I suggested/ persuaded MadMechaGuy to produce in 15mm.

The first stage is what I call the 'dry build' or 'function test', this is simply so that I can get into my head how the model goes together, which bits it's possible to fix together the wrong way around (before I get to the painting/ texturing/ gluing stage (been there, done that :-)). That all the bits are in the package as they should be and it also gives me a chance to trim any joints/ cuts in the mdf which need 'fettling'...

The ground floor is shown above, with access ramp, lift shaft and security guard's hut.

First floor, one of the centre supports needed some minor trimming, but nothing much....

..and of course lastly the top floor.

Apart from the minor trimming of the support on the first floor it all went together without a hitch. I've decided to do a combination of paint and 'paper-skin' to build this model and see how it turns out. Also included in the pack are various oblong pieces of mdf which you can choose to add (or not) to the outside of the car park for decoration or to cover the outside of the floor/roof supports. At the moment I probably won't use these, but if I change my mind they can easily be added once the model is finished.....

Onto the next step which is to glue together the supports and paint the bits which need painting. FYI I'm going to be using a grey car primer paint and have decided to use the Car Park pdf file from Scalescenes to cover the floors. outside walls, lift shafts and security hut.

Cheers...