Welcome

A Warm Welcome to my Blog




Monday 29 October 2018

Granny and Pops - Where are you

Betsie has to go and bury Pops - if he's still there and find out if Granny and the girls are dead or alive.

After what should have been a normal moonshine delivery trip into Horseman Flats had turned in to a nightmare for Pops, Granny and their 3 granddaughters the only one known to be still alive is Betsie May. (see the previous post for how they got into this state)

So a trip back into town to see if she can find out what's happened to Granny, Ellie May and Daisy May, and give Pops a decent burial.

She also needs to collect the pick up truck with the fuel, get the supplies, as well as find Tank, if he is still there. Molly, Wang Mei and the kid decide to go and help her. Betsie May and Mollie have smg’s, Wang Mei is armed with a wood chopping axe but she is also a master of Kung Fu, the Kid is just a liability.

Horseman Flats – looking very quiet and a little brooding.

There are a random number of zombies on the table (turned out to be 4) and 3 roving PEF’s (Possible Enemy Forces) also kicking about.

The white card squares are the encounter markers. I have lost the table that showed what they were, but they will become apparent as the story unfolds – I hope.

You can maybe just see Betsie May lurking in the bottom right corner of the board. The group have to cross the town to the corrugated iron building on the left side where they hope to find Pops and bury the old man, then go to the Deli, the building in the far left corner looking for Granny and the other two and then leave the table. Easy as that.

Straight away one of the PEF’s comes streaking out of the house and across the road straight at them. It's Lola chased by a Clutch of Zombies. Betsie's nerve fails her and she ducks back behind the shed. Molly opens fire with her smg and rolls 1,1,1, her gun jams irreparably.

Wang Mei charges out wielding the axe two handed like some desperate Viking and attacks 2 of the zeds, swiftly followed by Molly wielding the now useless smg as some kind of primitive club.

Herd of Cows, Murder of Crows, Clutch of Zombies – what do you think.

Lola encouraged by Wang Mei and Molly has turned around and also attacks the zeds. Betsie is nowhere to be seen. A desperate fight ensues, Wang Mei and Mollie are both victorious but Lola only manages to hold her zed to a close draw. Come on she is only using a wine goblet as a weapon, what do you expect. The odds are now stacked against the lone shambling creature, and it is beaten to the floor by Lola with help from the other two.

Just as Lola is kicking the zombie to death, James Lamour the National Guardsman comes round the corner of the row of terraces further up the street. James was one of the Guardsmen who had cornered Wang Mei in the shed in the last story. She recognises him straight away and sees red.

She charges up the street yelling words that are unprintable even on my blog, she's swinging the big axe, he gets the jitters, doesn’t fire - just stands there. This is not going to end well.

Fighting is done by throwing a number of D6 dice depending on how good you are, weapons etc. She has 6 dice to his 2, but he hold out 1, then 2 then 3 times before falling to the ground Out of the Fight (OOF) in the 4th round of melee. She takes his shotgun for Molly, and his pistol and truncheon for Lola.

Molly and Wang Mei decide to search the forge first, where they find a base ball bat and then the barn - where they find Tank.

“Hey Tank, Betsie is outside”, he sort of growls and then with out any warning attacks Molly and kills her before Wang Mei can help. She buries her axe in his head and he flops to the floor dead. Another zombie she exclaims disgustedly.

Well that didn't go as well as I hoped.

RIP Molly - dead on the floor - zed bodies (skulls) all around and in the distance another 4 shambling figures are slowly making their way down the street towards them. The girls rush across the street into the terrace of houses and find a small arms cache. Good news, they are going to need it.

You may be wondering why the little girl is so grey and looks zombieish. Simple really - she's the only little girl figure I had, I should have thought of that when I did the encounter table in the previous game.

They come out of the house on the far side, Wang Mei is 1st out and runs straight into a zed, she has 6 dice to it’s 1 and still takes 4 turns of melee to kill it. The fight with the Guardsman was brutal and she must be getting tired.

The girls form a conga line and set off for the corrugated building. Over to their right is another Clutch of Zombies who see them but …

They see James the guardsman and start to chew on him rather than chase after the girls. The die indicates how long he lasts before they are ready to feed again. Good die for the girls, not so good for James.

The girls see a zed and fail their bottle test and all run away from it, the zed gives chase. Slowly.

Bugger this running around thinks Betsie and she turns and attacks the zombie with the base ball bat and can only manage a draw. Damn these zombies are tough.

Next turn she kills it and moves off to the barn to see if she can find and bury Pops. The other two look in the pickup and luckily the keys are still in the ignition, I guess the zeds haven’t learned to drive yet.

They all enter the barn, Pops is there laying on the floor, but he is groaning and cussing in equal measure. A lucky dice roll and he is still alive, not happy but alive, Wang Mei and the kid stay to look after him.

Betsie and Lola go looking for Granny and the other two grand daughters last seen in the Deli. There is lots of blood but no sign of them, the blood trail goes out the back door.
Betsie follows the trail which leads to the road out of town, Lola checks out the E Type, plenty of gas but no keys and then she heads off to the right where there is another parked car.
This is all going quite easily.

This does have keys and she starts up and drives back to the barn. Not a clever move the noise generates 2 zeds and the ones eating James have finished the entrée and are now ready for the main course. They move towards the noise.

The next turn the girls fail to activate but the zeds do and so get closer. Next turn Lola runs into the barn to get Pops and Wang Mei but leaves the engine running, which attracts more zombies. And it was all going so well.

Betsie runs back but is cut off from the barn by zeds.

She can see others coming.

She attacks the nearest, killing it with the bat, and shouts to her mates that she will lead these zeds off and for them to meet her at the Pearson house outside of town.
So she sets off running in the opposite direction, she is the lone figure going down the road to the right, as fast as her little lead legs can carry her.

Followed by a large Clutch of Zombies. The car engine is still running, the noise generating still more zombies, but most of these follow down the road after Betsie and the rest of the zeds.

With most of the Zeds gone Wang Mei, Lola and Pops sneak out of the barn to the truck. There are only 2 zeds baring the way.

Wang Mei decides to attack them, leaving Lola to get Pops and the Kid away in the pickup truck, "I’ll get the car and follow you" she says optimistically. Pops is moving slowly due to his wounds and needs to be assisted. He does seem to be leaning very heavily on Lola but I guess we all would.

Wang Mei has killed the 2 zombies, Lola has got Pops and the kid in the truck, and only has to get in herself, start it up and they are out of here.

But it doesn’t start, not this go, not next go, meanwhile Wang Mei has got into the Audi, the engine is still running, she reverses into the group of zeds behind her and drives down the road towards the pickup. Lola finally gets the truck started and sets off.

They are driving down the road neck and neck and I’m feeling quite confident that they will get away when this yellow hated zombie jumps out right in their path.

Wang Mei hits it, killing it outright, but looses control of the car, runs into Lola who also looses control and…

They both crash into the walls by the side of the road and stop, there is a lot of noise, generating even more zombies. However they were both very lucky and didn’t stall the engines, they also passed their guts test and so remained calm. Note the yellow hated zed, regenerated immediately, I was running out of figures.

Here are the rest of them, shambling up the street looking for food.

Lola managed to reverse the truck out of the wall, but Wang Mei was inactive, I guess suffering from shock, problem is she is blocking the road. The zeds are getting closer.

And CLOSER.

Lola gets the truck moving forward but Wang Mei is still in shock, Zeds are banging on the roof and trying to tear the doors off, only a question of time before it gets really nasty.

But finally with a good dice roll Wang Mei got her act together and drove off like a bat out of hell, closely followed by Lola, with zeds trying to hang on but unable to do so.

Well another close call, what a game, I was sweating a bit at the end, it all seemed under control until that daft Lola left the car engine running, hasn’t she read the rules, that’s the worse thing she could have done to generate zombies.

Then to be driving down the road – home free and to lose control at the last minute, I thought – they are all going to die, what a bad way to end, but they didn’t die – big sigh of relief.

So - if they all meet up at the Pearson place will they decide to call it a day and go back to the cabin in the mountains or will they continue the search for Granny and the other two girls.

Another of my contributions to Zomtober ;)

If you are still here – thanks for reading.

Saturday 20 October 2018

Granny and Pops go to Town in Zomtober!

The scenario - You are a small family who live in the Ozark Mountains in Virginia and come from generations of moonshiners, you “only go to town about twice a year” to sell your moonshine to Jack Handsome who runs a bar in Horseman Flatts, his is the only bar for miles around.
You will stock up on food from Molly at the Horseman's Deli where your food will be in crates in the back room,she knows when and what you will collect.
Your other urgent requirement is fuel which you get from Jeramiah Pile, a strange old man. He will have your fuel in drums locked in the barn next to his garage, the keys are usually hung up on a nail in the garage.
Lastly, young love - Daisy May wants to meet up with her boyfriend Tank, he is the watchman working at the container yard and usually sleeps in the watchman’s shed by the gate into the yard.

Your family consists of Pops, Granny and the 3 young uns, your grand children, Betsie May, Ellie May and Daisy May, their parents died in a car crash while being chased by the revenue men and they have lived in the mountains with you ever since, moonshining is in their blood too.

Here is a picture of them taken just before this trip, all happy and smiles, well Pops and Granny don’t smile much, but you know what I mean.

Pops is the head of the family, in name at least, both he and Granny trained in Kung Fu when they were young and still have the knack of it, he isn’t afraid to punch anyone on the nose. He is as brave as a lion where his family are concerned but unfortunately as dumb as a bean.

Granny well “everyone knows she’s the brains behind Pa, she says she’s 68 but you know she’s only 64” she leads and he follows, she is still able to recollect her heydays of  kung fu fighting but is not so brave - as befits an intelligent person.

Betsie May the eldest, is also the leader of the young uns, she takes after Granny with the brains and Pops with the bravery but she can’t shoot or fight for toffee, in fact she doesn't like toffee.

Ellie May, the middle un, on the other hand can fight and shoot but is as chicken as a yellow rooster, unfortunately she's a stubborn rooster.

Daisy May the youngest, coddled by the family all her life she is the liability in every respect but one, as brave as Pops, she will stand up to anyone or anything but does not have the skills to deal with what she has stood up to. The rest of the family, especially Pops are having to bail her out of situations she can't handle.

OK got that - because there will be questions later. These were some of the pre-game notes I handed out err - Pre-game, in one of my few games recently with a live co-opted partner.


Horseman Flatts
You are travelling at night and will arrive in Horseman Flatts at daybreak, before the police are up and about, you have a set date when you come to town and the guys you are going to meet will know you are coming.
However, and there's always an however, you usually take a trip down to the valley on the night before you go to town and make a phone call from the diner on the main road to Jack and confirm everything is OK. This time the diner was empty, looked like it had been abandoned in a bit of a hurry and worse the phone line was dead. Could be that business was bad and they had just moved on but it left you a little uneasy.
You have decided to take some back up, Pops and Ellie have pump action shotguns, Granny a side by side shot gun and a knife in her boot top (she led a wild youth), Betsie a machine pistol and Daisy a big ass sub machine gun, you have licences for these and if locked in the cab of the vehicles the police will be happy enough about this, not happy about the moonshine though.

These are the places you need to visit.


The Hillbillies are arriving in town in a big truck with Granny driving and Daisy May and Ellie May as passengers followed by Betsie who is driving the Red Pickup with Pops riding shotgun, his eyesight is a little suspect and road signs have a way of coming up and surprising him from time to time.

The truck has the hooch onboard and this has to be offloaded at the bar, you need to find Jack Handsome to accept and pay for this. Then you need to collect the food from Horsemans Deli, finding Molly so you can pay for it.

The Pickup has empty fuel barrels, these need exchanging at the garage for full ones, you need to find Jeramiah to pay for them and then you need to find Tank, Daisy May’s boyfriend.

Then have a celebration Pizza at Stinkeys before going home, sounds easy. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? Well yes I kinda did. Extra points for naming the film the quote is from, and the two songs that the words in “red” are also from.

Last but not least, you will always help your friends and in spite of the moonshine are quite a law abiding bunch.


Ok this is how the game panned out.


Turn 1 - The Billies make their 1st move, Granny, Ellie and Daisy lead in the big truck, they are aiming to drive round to the bar and drop off the hooch before going on to the Deli for the food. They do not see the strange figure with the shambling gait who wanders out into the middle of the road. Gawd Damn mutters Pops as Betsie who is driving the pickup, slams on the brakes to avoid him/it/what, and they screech to a halt, only feet from him/it/what.

Looks drunk to me says Pops to himself, no one else seems to listen to him much these days.

Turn 2 – Granny speeds on down the road, oblivious to what is happening behind her, she does see a drunk on the sidewalk ahead at the junction, strange at this time of morning but hell it’s good for business if the guys in Horseman Flatts are drinking so much they are still staggering down the road at this time rather than being tucked up in bed.

Betsie is trying to start the pickup after her emergency stop and the wild eyed man is gazing at her through the window, a bit off putting especially as she realizes he seems to have a lot of blood around his left eye, and is right leg and arm seem to be hanging a bit loose, wonder if he has been run over by a previous truck!!, maybe we should get out and help him.

Turn 3 – Granny turns the corner at the end of the road and she and the girls get out of the truck, there are a couple of bikers lounging on the street corner, they exchange hellos.

Things have taken a peculiar turn and 2 other strange drunken men have run (at a slow shamble) out of the terrace of houses and are now banging and tearing at the car, slobbering over the windscreen and trying to get in but they seem to have trouble understanding how the door handle works. Betsie May finally realizes something is seriously wrong here and cowers back in her seat, transfixed.

Granny and Ellie May, exchanging “Hi's" with the bikers.

Betsy May walks over to talk to the drunk by the sidewalk and realizes his head is on one side, his neck is broken so badly that he can't support his head, what the hell is going on he must be dead with that injury but he is walking about.

“WALKING DEAD” !!!!!!!

Turn 4 – Pops gets out of the truck. Umm is this a good move!!! "Hey you he shouts, stop drooling on my truck".
“Brains” is the only thing the creature responds with, so Pops chambers a round and blows the nearest creatures brains out, all over the sidewalk and worse than that, over the hood of the truck, 'damn, there’s going to be trouble he thinks, Granny's going to give me hell for messing up the truck'.

Turn 5 – Granny and Ellie pull the truck around onto the forecourt and enter the bar, Bad news as there's no one home and it has been looted, 'wonder if Joe is OK, if not who is going to pay us for the hooch what do you think' Ellie, 'ummm' says Ellie.

Just out of picture you can see Daisy Mays blonde head, she decides that the dead should be lying down and blows the walking deads head off, it obligingly become the lying down dead.

Daisy Mays dead zed. I need to re-cycle my zombies.

The two remaining zombies, not drunks, rush slowly around the truck and attack Pops, not a good move for them and with his Kung Billie Fu he drops them to the ground with a couple of chops and a neat spin kick, neat for someone of 68. Bugger this for a game of cowboys, come on Betsie lets get a move on he says climbing back in to the truck.

Turn 6 – Things are looking up for Granny’s crew, the 2 bikers have decided to help out and also she has found Jack Handsome, he was hiding in the building next door to the Bar, he still wants the booze and has the cash ready. Another of those zombie creatures is approaching and Harley Davidson goes to deal with it.

Pops and Betsie drive to the garage to get the fuel and Jerahiah is waiting, he gives them the low down on what has been happening, a zombie outbreak, no idea what it is about, some talk about experiments up north that have gone wrong, but the buggers are all over now, quite a few in town, the law seems to be losing the fight and the National Guard have been called out, not seen them round here though he mutters.

They load up the fuel quickly and Jeramiah refuses Pops offer of a lift out of town. 'If I turn my back some thieving son of a gun will take all I have built up over the years. I’ll stick it out here thanks'. This is maybe not his best decision ever.

Still offloading hooch

Still offloading hooch, but there's more movement on the streets, all of it slow and shambling.

Still offloading hooch but Pops and Betsie have got the fuel and are driving round to see if they can find Tank, they stop and shout over to Granny and tell her what Jerry said, 'yes Jack has been filling us in on the details, sounds bad, we have killed a couple of the monsters and there’s more about. We will get the food next and be ready to go as soon as possible', 'Ok' replies Pops and they drive on.

Turn ? lost track but must be about 9 – Granny and the girls have finished off loading the hooch and enter the Deli looking for Molly and the food, it should all be ready and waiting.

Unfortunately Molly is gone, the place is in uproar, they have discovered looters in the process of cleaning out the place, everyone goes for their guns and hells teeth the looters fire first. Granny and Ellie go down out of the fight, bleeding bad. Daisy just stands there, the shock is too great. What was turning out to be an easy day in town has just gone down the pan. The two Bikers, Vincent and Harley shoot two zeds and there is a lot of noise, the situation is going to Devcon 1, or is it Devcon 3 I'm never sure which way it goes but whichever is the one where “the sh*t has hit the fan”

Pops and Betsie park the pickup and head round to Tanks shed. The girl to the left of the picture is Chardonet who has been running around in circles looking for a place to hide for the past few moves.
I forgot to mention her!

This is the situation at the end of turn 9 after zed generation. The looters, Big Dave, Desire and Fat Willy are shown on the roof because this building is solid and the roof does not come off, which is a shame because all the others do. The fight is taking place inside and the Billies are in there too, although they probably regret going in now.

The zeds are on the roof of the other building because I couldn't be bothered to lift it off and put them inside as they would be coming straight back out next turn, - sorry.

An overhead view of the same scene.

Turn 10 – Pops and Betsie find Molly the Deli owner in Tanks shed but Tank is not there. She ran from the looters and has been hiding for a few hours now, wondering what to do and when Pops suggests she join up with them is only too willing to accept his offer.

Turn 13 – sorry lost a bit of time here, things getting tense and forgot to take photos. To catch up Turn 11 the looters shot Daisy who was out of the fight but not dead. The big group of zeds came streaming out of the square building.

Pops Betsie and Molly went in to the big corrugated shed, inside were 2 National Guardsmen making very amorous advances to Wang Mei. She is the grand daughter of the Kung Fu master who taught Pops and Granny so many years ago and is Pops favourite person, who is not a Billie, in the whole world, there’s going to be blood on the floor here.

Turn 12 – Looters thinking about life the world and what they are going to do next (in other words were inactive.) Zeds continued streaming. Pops shot 1 of the guardsmen, but the other returned fire and Pops was down, things are really going down hill fast.

Turn 13 Molly and Betsie run out of the shed one side, the remaining national guardsman runs out the other, Pops lies in a pool of blood and Wang Mei tries to help him but decides he must be dead.

The Zeds are swarming around the Deli.

Over view of swarming zeds, Harley and Vincent by the truck, shooting zeds and thinking it’s gone very quiet in the Deli, I wonder what has happened to the girls and there seems to be a lot of zeds about and we have a truck right here and it would be a shame to loose such a nice truck and maybe we should see how well it drives …. Pops and the dead National Guardsman having a lay down in the corrugated building and just to the north of them is the other guardsman in the corner by the wall and he is thinking, beam me up Scotty.

Turn 15 – I lost 14 but Wang Mei, Molly and Betsie ran from the corrugated building and here in 15 are being attacked by a gang of zeds, Wang Mei kills the road worker in the yellow hat.

Desire, Fat Willy and Big Dave decide that even though they have just shot Granny and the girls they can not leave them to the Zeds and start dragging them back through the Deli, the zeds still have not figured out how to use door handles and remain milling around outside.
There were 2 of us playing this cooperatively against the rules and my mate said, I think the looters might save the girls from the zombies. Fat chance I thought. But as the figures have a characteristic to do exceptionally good or bad things, we rolled some dice and surprisingly they decided to rescue the girls from the zombies.

Harley and Vincent “Black” Lightening jump in the truck and make an escape.

General overview of situation some time around then.

Turn ???? Wang Mei is killing another zed while Molly finds a little girl in a garden shed and Betsie runs in to a house in a desperate bid to find Tank and try and retrieve something from the situation.

Zeds finally break in to the deli but it’s empty, the looters behaving out of character (good dice roll for Granny) carried the 3 Hillbilly women off to safety, blood streaming from gunshot wounds but better than being eaten.

Fades to black as the girls run away from the Zombies and also escape.

Well to sum up, this started off as a complex series of events and tasks and was going very well, 1st 2 tasks completed and then it all went down hill Granny Ellie and Daisy shot down and now dragged off gawd knows where by bad ass looters, the truck stolen by bikers. Pops left for dead, the pickup with the fuel left behind, no food and they did not find Tank. Only Betsie May survived, luckily she has 2 friends Wang Mei and Molly with her plus a dead weight child, who is looking a little grey around the edges.

This my only contribution to Zombtober.

Well if you're still here - thanks for reading