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Wednesday 27 December 2017

Bikers Breakout

Well here goes, my first game post, a game involving Zombies, Bikers, Cops and Militiamen using 2 Hour Wargame Rules, Chain Reaction and a bit of ATZ as well.

I have had an awful lot of trouble posting this, probably because I wrote it in Word and Blogger does not like Words format, I may have overcome this problem. I will have to wait and see. Any advice gratefully received.
 
As I said in the preamble post I am intending to keep a record of games and this one goes back 5 years, however I have just written it up from notes and pics taken at the time, so you could argue that it is a current report. :-)
It's a simple game with a simple scenario written by a simple man, I enjoyed it then and just as much with this write up, and this is what I was hoping to achieve creating the blog, although posting difficulties nearly ensured the very 1st post was the last. :-(
 
I had a very witty opening section to the post but that got lost in the fiasco of trying to post, so you have to put up with this boring one. One thing to note is that text refers to the picture above it, hopefully that would have been clear when you read the report.

THE GAME
 
The local militia had heard that Vincent “Black” Lightening and his biker babe Angie were in the bar in a seedy part of town. They are isolated from the rest of their gang and would be a soft target, well as it turned out - not so very soft.

Captain Andy Donovan's orders were to bring the Bikers in alive, but he thought dead would be better, and safer.
 
The Cops
Captain Andy Donovan (Known as Big Andy behind his back), with Hans Ludenstein and Enrico  Diaz were the 1st on the scene and due to a lucky dice for PEF, James and Willhelm came to reinforce them.
 
The Bikers
Vincent and Angie pictured here with the bar behind them. They had chosen a bad place to drink, not because of the clientele, or the danger of salmonella or being bitten by a rat. No the real danger was that the bar has no back exit and no windows except at the front by the door.
 
The beer was good but the location was bad.
 
The front of the bar. The lights are on and someone is home.
 
Overview of the board.

The bar is between the forklift truck and the white car, the cops have the front of the bar covered. You can just see Hans hiding behind the tyres to the left of the bar, Captain Donovan is behind the blue truck and Enrico behind the green truck.

The militia did not know that Vincent and Angies bikes were in the corrugated shed behind Hans, but it probably wouldn’t have made any difference to their plan.

Turn 1
The militia are in place, Captain Donovan shouts for Vincent and Angie to throw out their guns and come out with their hands in the air.
 
Knowing that there is only 1 exit and he has it covered  - well only an idiot or a mad man would try and make a run for it.
 
Turn 2
Here you can see “Mad man” Vincent and his girl Angie in the bar, they will be known in future as V & A, like the museum but not quite as sophisticated.
 
Well Vincent fails his Brains test and passes his guts test, and shouting “you ain’t gonna take me alive copper” he fasts moves out into the street running for the bikes, Angie with guts factor of 5 had no problem following him, she also had as few brains as Vincent and so didn’t try to stop him.

This was a very dumb thing to do - partly because they didn’t know where the militia were placed, and partly because they also failed their fast move test and so didn’t get very far, they were plumb in the firing line of all three Militiamen.
 
However fortune favours the dumb and brave sometimes and they beat the militia to the draw (insight test), and as they were both reasonable shots and because they were lucky with their firing dice and etc, etc
 
Angie hit Big Andy Donovan and he went down Out Of the Fight (OOF) and Vincent hit Hans and also put him OOF. 2 and zero, looking good so far. Enrico by the green truck passed the leader down test but didn’t fire. The saying that attack is the best form of defence is proving true here.
 
One of the zombies is moving towards Enrico and behind it the card counter represents a PEF (Possible Enemy Force), this turns out to be the other 2 militia. In this scenario the PEF’s were not all bad things.
 
Turn 2
V & A fast move to the corrugated shed and make it to the door.
 

Turn 2
PEF resolved and the 2 militia move forward behind the zombie, Enrico sandwiched between the 2 zeds turns to his left and calmly guns down the zombie in the blue blood stained suit, not bad for a rookie. Of course if he had missed then the shot may have hit his comrades who were behind the zombie. You can see why he is a rookie.

Turn 3
More zeds generated by shooting and the 1st one reaches Captain Donovan who is not dead but just OOF. However when the zombie starts to feed he becomes dead. The other 2 Militiamen attack the lone zed behind Enrico and fail miserably, they only managed to achieve a draw, this is some tough Zed.
 
V & A look at the door and realize they are going to have to turn the handle to get inside. (they are inactive)
 
Turn 4
V & A enter the shed, see 2 zombies and kill them, the bikes are virtual ones, I don’t have any and so used my imagination, this is a game with lead men so I obviously have a good imagination. Vincent is out of ammo.
 
If anyone knows who makes 28mm bike please let me know I would appreciate it. Cheers.
 
Enrico the rookie decides James and Willhelm can manage the zombie between them and chases after V & A
 
He was wrong, wus James gets beaten to the floor before Willhelm kills the zombie.
 
Turn 5
I made a mistake it was wus Willhelm who was OOF, wus James was not a wus and beat the zed and then turn 5 beat the next one. Sorry I will try and keep it together a bit better in the future.

Turn 5 still
Another zed entered the shed and Angie killed it, Vincent forgot to load his shotgun, well I forgot to test for him to load it and so decided in the excitement he had forgotten. It’s the blame culture we live in, it can’t be my fault so it has to be a little lead figures fault. It works for me J

James Lamour shot a zed but threw double 1 so I decided his shotgun had jammed irreparably.
 
Turn 6
Only militia active, Enrico bursts into the shed snap fires at Vincent and misses, Vincent ducks back but Angie returns fire and kills Enrico.
 
A black skull counter indicates the figure is Obviously Dead (OD) and a red skull indicates it is Out of the Fight (OOF) but you’ve worked that out by now I expect.

Turn 7
V & A climb on their virtual bikes and wheel them outside, where V is attacked by a zombie, he has forgotten to load his shotgun for a 2nd time, so can’t fire but as he’s an ace fighter I’m not worried.
It’s a long story but in my game rules zombies have a brawl factor of 1 and Vincent’s is 5 so he should win easily.
 
Brawling in these rules is done by rolling a number of D6 that are equivalent to your Brawl factor. So Vincent rolls 5D6 and the zed rolls 1D6. You pass dice by rolling 1, 2 or 3 and fail with 4,5,6, it’s a bit counter intuitive but for those of us who always roll poor dice it’s good.
If you pass a dice and your opponent does not then you win. If you both pass dice then you only re-roll the pass dice for the next round, and if you pass and your opponent does not then you win.
 
I have 3 rounds of combat per game turn, so if after 3 rounds both opponents still have passed dice then the fight continues afresh next turn.
 
Ed explains this much more clearly in the 2 Hour Rulebooks than I have – sorry, but hopefully you get the gist.
 
1st round Vincent rolls 5D he fails 3D and passes 2D, the zombie passes his 1D, so next round Vincent rolls 2D and fails 1D and passes 1D but the zed also passes his 1D. This is what makes these combat rules exciting. Vincent is now down to the 1D and so is the zombie, the final round and Vincent passes his 1D but the zombie finally fails his dice roll and is killed. VERY CLOSE. Maybe he will remember to load his shotgun next time.
 
Turn 8
James Lamour runs forward and takes a shot at V & A as they ride past, however I had forgotten to get him to pick up Willhelm’s shotgun and as his own was jammed he just swore a bit, then a bit more when he realized he was the only human still alive, surrounded by zeds and with a broken shotgun. I knew I should have joined the navy, he thinks.
 
Turn 9
James jumps the wall and picks up Hans Ludenstein’s shotgun.
 
V & A disappear off the board having made their getaway, the legend of this escape grows with each telling.
 
Turn 10
James shoots 1 of the attacking zeds and kills 2 others in melee, he has a quite low Brawl factor of 3 so was very lucky.

However as they say it’s better to be lucky than dead!! Well I think that’s how the saying goes.

Turn 11
James kills the remaining zed in melee, picks up Hans and goes home. His legend does not grow, there is an enquiry into why 5 top militia let Vincent and Angie escape and also had 3 of their own men eaten by zombies. It did not reflect well in his record which was probably a little unfair, however running round with a broken gun almost certainly let V & A escape and also nearly got himself killed.
 
Group shot of the Zombies for the Undead Herald, the weekly paper read by all zombies who still have eyes.
 
A fast, furious and fun game, one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Forgetting to reload Vincent’s shotgun TWICE added drama and then when I realized Militiaman James Lamour was running round with a jammed shotgun as well it just added the icing on the cake.
 
I like to try and bring unpredictability into my solo games by design, but it is even better when it happens spontaneously like this.
 
I would be pleased to hear what you thought about the game and any suggestions you have to improve either the scenario or my write up.
 
If there's anybody out there let me know – thanks for reading – Cheers.

25 comments:

  1. Good fun, as always!
    Lon (Marianas Gamer)

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    1. Hi Lon you've made a small piece of history, the first person to comment on my brand spanking new blog, I'm very pleased it was you. Cheers

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  2. A great read with some excellent mood-setting minis and scenery!

    I've tried getting my head around the THW rulesets but always came a cropper at the reaction rules. I've yet to find a tutorial clear enough to penetrate my skull, which is frustrating because every AAR I've read shows how fun and flexible the rules can be for solo players in particular...

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    1. Hi Idle, it took me quite a while to get my head around them as well. All I can say is that once I had grasped them it changed solo gaming from a bit of a bore to being very exciting. Weird.
      I've played around with the rules in general and is easy to create new reaction tests for specific scenario's using what is essentially a decision tree.

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    2. Sounds like Pulp Alley's effect for me - a good set of solo rules can make a lonely gamer's life just that little bit more colourful! I will continue to take running jumps into the rules, then, grazed knees be danged!

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  3. Well that was a great way to kick off a blog, I'd a blast reading this & love the fact that you not only forgot to reload the gun once but twice lol this is stuff I do myself & it nice to see you admitting to such things as it lets the reader know that what they read is what happen, I'm a big believer in always been honest with my readers.

    Like I said a great start & I look forward to seen more Vagabond :)

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    1. Hi Frank - thanks for your comments I'm pleased you enjoyed the read.
      I tried following your blog when I was there a couple of days ago but it doesn't seem to have worked, I will get it sorted out.
      Cheers

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  4. Great start to your new blog; a perfect mix of words and pictures. I really like your buildings- very well done.

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    1. Cheers mate that's very encouraging.

      The buildings are all card and textures from the internet and free. I built them originally intending to replace them as and when time occurred and five years later they are still going strong and time is spent on other things. The quality of the print is far better than my painting ability. I have to say I'm pleased with them but I know they are not everyone's cup of tea.

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  5. A most excellent start to your blog, John. That was a lot of fun and it perfectly showed just how unpredictable things can be in ATZ, which is why it is such a great game. I loved the humour of your batreps, something you do so well.
    For bikes, you can get them from a number of sources. Wargames Terrain Workshop sells them with bikers but if you drop Dave a line, he'll sell them to you without the riders.

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    1. I'm pleased you enjoyed it Bryan. Basically I use the Chain Reaction Rules or my interpretation of them as well as quite a lot came from your game reports. You provided very detailed information and I grabbed what I liked, which was a lot. I have since bought ATZ but use that as a supplement rather than the prime rules.
      Thanks for the info on the Bikes I will have a look at it.
      Cheers

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  6. Great game report

    Here's another motorbike model - I think it can also be made rider-less
    https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/project-z/products/apocalypse-bike-hero-frame

    There's also this one
    http://moonrakerminiatures.com/motorbikes.htm

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    1. Thanks for the links, now you remind me I have seen the moonraker ones. I met DougEM4 from Moonraker early Nov down in Devon with Mad Lord Snapcase at DevLAM. I have the T-shirt to prove it, although my hangover has now gone.
      By the way I think you have a classic avatar. Where abouts in Yorkshire are you?

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    2. Catterick Garrison. Though I am a civilian.

      The Garrison uses the Tudor Rose on it's signs, etc., so it was just something that appealed to me when I went looking for a Blogger avatar.

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    3. A nice part of the world. Swaledale is probably my fav part of the UK.

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  7. Great game report John. Your usual excellent set-up. I was going to suggest the Warlord bikes from Project Z but I see someone has beaten me to it. Keep up the good work.

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    1. Cheers Martin, thanks for taking the time to let me know you were here.

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  8. Cracking AAR to 'launch' the blog John :-)
    Suggestions? Don't change a thing mate - I love everything about it.... the terrain, mini's, scenario, the narrative, and especially your humour!
    Excellent stuff and here's to more in the future.

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    1. Thanks Greg pleased you liked it, most of my game reports are in a similar vein, long winded with lots of pictures, probably need a good cup of tea before you start to read :-)

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  9. What a great AAR!

    As for the bikes, I got some excellent ones from China - 4 for £3 something with free P&P
    http://dagobbosgrotto.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/motorbikes.html

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  10. Great aar, chaotic but looked lioke a lot of fun.
    West Wing make a gang of Bikers, last time I looked they were £20 for 10 bikes and riders, but by all accounts they're a bit of a bugger to put together.

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    1. I think most games are chaotic when you try and describe them although not at the time.

      Thanks for the info on the bikes I never realized there were so many of there.

      Thanks for taking the time to read this.
      Cheers

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    2. "Poundlandworldbuys" also have a blister pack of 3 and there are quite a few other bikes about in the "Hot Wheels " range too.
      There's a photo the former here :
      http://zabadakszombieworld.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/interesting-finds.html

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    3. Thanks Joe for the suggestion, I'll keep an eye out for these but I think I shall try and get the ones dGG suggested, they are still on eBay.

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