Come with me, if you want to live!

Our Thursday Night Group at the Game Parlor in Chantilly VA has a Halloween tradition of playing a somewhat fantastic, usually humorously themed game run by one of our compadres, Nick. Nick was busy this year so Steve stepped in to create a zombie horde game. Steve (Gibson) might be recognizable as the guy who runs Circus Magicus, one of my favorite racing games. Steve created a scenario with multiple goals and multiple factions (always a crowd favorite). The basic rules system was ARES, with some modifications for zombies that mostly came out of ALL THINGS ZOMBIE.



You chose your goal by selecting a card from the "objectives" pile. Like many Steve games, this had a HUGE pile of dirty trick cards.



For every two zombies you killed, you got a dirty trick card back. Nice innovation there.

The basic layout of the town looked like this:



Big Brown Monstery looking things (run by Drew) were invading the town from point A. I never figured out what they were supposed to be or what his objective was.

URUKs were invading from point B. Their objective was to lead the zombie of their dead captain offboard to capture them. Not sure who ran these.

Harry ran the woodland elvish guys, which is typical for him. I forget what his ojective was, but he didn't come close, I know that much. He was roughly between point B and C.



Nick started the monks that came in around point C. Their job was to climb the steeple of the church and ring the alarm bell.

Nigel just helped referee and mother-hen the game.

Jack ran the Blue knight guys who came in on my right rougly around midway between G & E.



There was also a force of Goblins that started at point E. Their goal was something to do with getting to the Winchester (the Inn).



Coming in late, my choices were limited to a group of knights.







I came in roughly around point H. Steve handed me a pile of purple objective cards most of which read something like "Save umpty fratz villagers" or "Kill this many zombies". However, one card read "Go into the graveyard and raise the Dark Lord from his ageless slumber"

That's the ticket for me, I think. I didn't say they were nice knights.



Oh, the last two fellers were Art running the steam Golems (roughly, point H) and some other guy running the Mercenaries at Point I. I can't remember Art's goals but the mercenary player was trying to kill zombies.

Let the Craziness Begin

Art's steam golems march out on the left, on some objective to take them close into the city. They had firepower, but they made a lot of noise. Any +1 sized creature generated two zombie spawning point (a penny) and regular foot troops only generated one. You did this whenever you committed to any action, so you had to be rolling for zombie spawn constatntly.





Zombies are easy to kill, so they rotate in an out like Zulus in Roarkes Drift games.
Here's a zombie staging area, along with the other kinds of troops you can summon during the game, the Town Gaurd and Villagers. The Town Guards realy suck.



Anyhow Art marches north, and, noticing that I started the game VERY CLOSE TO MY OBJECTIVE (did you notice that one?), he flung a "zombies fill up the graveyard" nasty trick on me. Gee, thanks Art. Well, we wouldn't want it to be too easy.

Jack's blue knights (I think... they were some clickie figure) move out with their bowmen behind. The howmen are not long for this world. Nonchalantly, Jack wings another "dead shall walk" cards at me. I'll remember that.



Zombies start activating everywhere, cutting down the slower moving and poorer armored archers.



Meanwhile, I get to the edge of the graveyard, easily enough-- but am met by a large hoarde of undead zummoned by Jack and Art. Fiends!!!



Zombie activation works like this: every time you do something noisy, like attacking or moving, a penny is placed down on the table, or two if you are cav or really big. For each penny roll a 1D6, 6 generating a new zombie. This is lifted from ALL THINGS ZOMBIE, I think.

Zombies come in on a direction die roll with a distance dice (like grenade throws) so they usually don't start close to you. If I get into the graveyard, I'll actually be pretty safe for a while, even if I'm generating zombies right and left.

Can't hold too much of a grudge against Jack right now; his rear guard just got turned into canapes for the undeead.

And the zombies say:

NummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummy

Being kind of short and organic, the Goblins are not having that hard a time of it. For once, they are actually kind of quiet.



At the other end of the table, the Uruks seem to be having success. Here they are luring the heck out of all the zombies at their end.



I think at this point somebody was generating Villagers as a victory condition, and they showed up right in the middle of a zombie pack. Bad luck for you!

And the zombies say:

NummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummy

Here, Nick's monks are very close to the church (he has some thugs along). I'm dropping dirty tricks in HIS direction, so he can't achieve his victory before I achive mine.

Like those zombies, Nick?




Oh, dear. Here come more of them. Run, Nick, Run!




Heh heh heh heh

At this end, Drew was running his "big brown things". Don't ask me what they were or what they were doing, but man, could they kill zombies. It was the brown things saying "nummie nummie" this time.



Here's the center of town, with various groups converging. I believe Art just figured out how many zombies get summoned when you fire off a steam cannon.



Actually, the mercenaries took the brunt of that one since they all generated next to them. However, since they were SUPPOSED to be killing zombies, they were loving life.



Another view of mercenaries and steam golems colliding.. Man can they generate a zombie summoning racket.



Of course, it may be too much of a good thing!



The goblins continue to be no muss, no fuss.. here they are close to their objective and they've hardly summoned any zombies at all.



Of course, with the streets packed tight with all these factions fighting to pass through, the zombies don't care if YOU summoned them or not, you're here, and you're LUNCH!!!



Hey, I bet these villagers will be happy for all these factions to leave town, eh? Oh, that's right, they're toast, they don't really have an opinion at the moment.



Close to end game... the streets are swirling with frightened groups, dead villagers and zombies. Bad luck for those cows back there. I wonder if THEY come back from the dead?



Unseen by many, my evil knights triumph!!!! Even Steve thought I was the winner of this one.



Ta Da!

A great Halloween game, lots of fun and interaction and dirty tricks. I loved it!