Mik's Minis: Michael Douglas, Zombie Hunter
The quaint, little town of East Fork, Arizona
Last night we played a great game based on the Song of Blades and Heroes engine called Fear and Faith by Ganesha Games. I honestly don’t know if this is a standalone game, or an expansion for the core rule. All Iknow is that it’s dirt cheap at $8 bucks.
We played a modern day zombie scenario, run with three players; Jon and I controlled human teams, and Chri3 controlled the third “team”, the zombie horde itself. Since it was Chrispy’s copy of the rules, his awesome terrain, and his figs, he adjudicated the rules.
Classic car enthusiasts stop for 44oz, cherry flavored refreshments
You may remember Chrispy’s great Cowtown terrain by Ertl we used in Gutshot! not too long ago. Well not to be outdone, this time he’s picked up a bunch of 1:43 scale cars, and a table full of O-scale model train buildings. The table truly looked more like a diorama than wargames terrain, and that was before we put down any figures too.
The Civilians
The survivors were a mix of Reaper and Copplestone figs and were quite the motley assortment of humans. A couple of Elvis impersonators, Douglas from ‘Falling Down’, Shaun (of the Dead), a hot chick with a chainsaw, and a ten year old girl complete pistol.
The Zombie Interdiction Task Force
The government arrived on the scene in two squad cars. Four MP5-armed SWAT officers took cover behind the armored doors of their cruisers while the British liaison stalked forward, twin pistols at the ready. She’s had experience with this sort of thing before.
Shambling forth
From the convenient store burst the zombies, led by a Necromancer. He wasn’t a true necromancer, being a modern setting, but he did have some weird science/arcane abilities. I forget the title Chrispy gave him however.
He didn’t last long. My British liaison was pretty impressive on the tabletop, and she made short work of the ‘magician’. Being the leader of the band, he was her primary target. It was a shame to see him go down so quickly because he had a host of magical abilities he never got to use. The only one that went off was a transfix on my character in melee. She shrugged it off pretty easily the next round however, and that’s when she took him out.
Surprise!
Bursting through the side window of the house came the psychopathic, chainsaw-wielding maniac. Not Undead, but certainly a threat. He saw his ally fallen (helped by the double-tap help of one of the SWAT team), and surmised it must be the slinky girl going guns akimbo. As Chri3 charged the maniac into melee he rolled double boxcars, disabling the chainsaw before it ever got to be used! I dodged quite the bullet on that one.
Taking back their town
Jon moved his stalwart survivors closer to the horde. His heroes might not have training, but they had grit, determination, and an arsenal of weapons…including a single grenade. Unless you do an “aim” action, it’s impossible to kill the zombies outright (no head shot). Gunfire and the like will knock them back, or down, in which case you get a moment’s reprieve. Also, your odds of taking a zombie out while they’re prone are greatly increased.
My “artsy” shot
Braiiiinnnnnssss…
BADA BOOM!
Well Jon finally through his grenade! Being a civilian, his character may have overlooked the effects of both a blast radius as well as shrapnel. The grenade was incredibly effective, almost too effective though as the blast also killed an Elvis impersonator.
We didn’t have vehicle rules, but that didn’t stop me from having a SWAT officer jump back in the car, and take off down the road, skid to a 180? stop, jump out, take cover behind his door, and start blasting undead! Cinematic indeed. Yes, we took video of it.
Mopping up
It was a pretty handed victory for the humans, all is fair in the Zombpocalypse. The main drawback to Chri3′ side were his two character models who should have performed much better. Die rolls always factor a little bit into it, but going up against my über character, each of them in turn, spelled their doom. If the maniac had been on the other side of the board, he could’ve easily plowed through a couple of civilians with ease. And with the mage, he had a whole bag of tricks he never got to use because he was locked in combat with me hero.
The zombies did their job, and even though they weren’t super powerful, they were hard to kill and most importantly, relentless. There was an ever-present threat to their advance that remained throughout the game. Plus, the book has rules for all kinds of zombies, we used the stock undead, but there’s also fast zombies, spitter zombies with ranged attacks, and the like. Plus, the book covers other threats too like werewolves and vampires!
We had fun, end of story. We had a lot of fun to be truthful. The rules were just familiar enough, and just easy enough where we could sit back and enjoy the game without worrying too much about what we could or couldn’t do. The zombie genre is always a fun one, and what can I say about the table itself? It looked like a real town, and it was done with very minimal effort. With a little bit of work and effort, you could have some top notch terrain.
Yeah, it’s safe to say I’m hooked. It’s also safe to say that Chri3 is REALLY hooked. He sent about ten texts/pic messages to his fiancee during the game apologizing in advance for all the money he’s going to be spending on the Zombpocalypse. He had been struggling with what scale to use, but seeing it all in glorious 28mm sealed the deal methinks.
I’ve already got an idea for my own ‘band’ of survivors. I’ll get to paint some cool models I’ve had my eye on for some time, do a little conversion work, and voila, I’m done. It’s not as few models as I could get away with in, say, a game of Gutshot!, but it’d still be less models than I’d need for a Necromunda gang or the like. Besides, my collection is sorely lacking in the modern department, so this fixes that to an extent. Plus, it’d be just plain cool to do.