Saturday, September 14, 2013

Friday Night Game: All Flesh Must Be Eaten one-shot

Since my Evil Campaign fell apart for various reasons (player not showing up, character deaths and another player moving out of town for school), my gaming group has started doing one-shot games on Friday nights. This week, Jay started running an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game with three of us playing (including myself).

The Low-Down:
A year ago, the dead began to walk. Unlike zombies in most fiction, these things were fast, smart and hard to put down. The army set up a safe zone, but the area shrank in size because they couldn't hold that much ground. Before long the area was the size of a small town with only a few dozen souls surviving the horrors outside the fence. The military has total control over the remaining survivors, and while they don't live in total squalor, many of them get just enough to get by. The military sends out sanctioned civilian teams to scavenge the surrounding area for supplies, but the teams don't get to keep what they find and they only get to bring back what they're told to get. This has allowed a black market supplied by illegal teams. Our team is one of those teams.

The characters:

Phil, the Vietnam vet (played by me): A tough old son of a bitch, jack-of-all-trades that still has some issues to work out from his time In Country. Phil has survived because of the skills and 'sixth sense' he developed in the jungles of south east Asia. It doesn't hurt that he's a crack shot with a rifle and a fair shot with just about any other kind of gun. He isn't all that great in melee because his targets rarely get that close. Calls the zombies 'Charlies.'

Doc, the guitar playing former paramedic: The character that can patch us up when we take a bullet or a zombie bite, Doc is pretty cautious and also survived due to his own special senses. While not a crack shot or a master brawler, Doc can hold his own in a fight.

Nutjob, the quantum physicist, martial artist, occultist that talks to grass (no, I am not making any of that up, it's all on his character sheet): Nutjob is the melee hitter of the group but isn't exactly all there up stairs. He will engage in conversations with the grass and do the craziest things in combat.

Our adventure begins as we leave the compound via a secret tunnel under the fences and part of the outside world. Halfway down the tunnel, the roof has partially collapsed. We can still fit through the gap, but the tunnel is now exposed to open air and whatever else is out there. Nutjob pokes his head out of the hole and sees one of the compound's guards standing in what once was a suburban backyard, having a smoke. Getting distracted by the grass, Phil tries to pull him back down, only to get kung-fu kicked aside. Eventually, Nutjob remembers what we're suppose to be doing and the three of us keep moving down the tunnel... To find another guard waiting at the end of the tunnel. Phil manages to make enough noise so ever a deaf rock would know he was there. A fight starts as both guards start firing into the tunnel, with Phil blowing the leg off of one of them and Nutjob shattering the arm of another, sending him into shock. The group grabs a few things, including one of the M-16's, an armor vest and a helmet, then hides the bodies.
Even knowing their way back might be blown, the group moves on towards their next objective, a medical clinic that hasn't been hit yet. While moving around the dead town, gunshots and screams ring out from a near-by apartment building. Nutjob runs off to help out, while the weighed down Doc trails behind (guess who took the armor?), with Phil unwilling to abandon the medic. When Nutjob reaches the third floor hallways, he finds two zombies beating on the door of one of the apartments, trying to get in. Nutjob doesn't even hesitate, and starts to fire at the zombies with his .45 handgun. While Phil and Doc keep running to help their... Team member, the zombies close on Nutjob and he goes all Bruce Lee on their undead asses. When the others do arrive, they find Nutjob bleeding from some serious scratches and one of the zombies already down for the count. Unable to risk hitting Nutjob (at least while Doc is watching), Phil tries to draw a bead on the 'Charlie' and tells Nutjob to get down. Of course, the god damn screwball doesn't listen but he does manage to take care of the zombie on his own. While Doc checks out Nutjob, Phil kicks in the door they the zombies were beating on and finds a man fighting for his life against another zombie and another man bleeding from his neck. Unwilling to risk killing or deafening the man, he calls for help and rushes to the wounded man. Nutjob responds to the call, tackling the zombie, while Phil and Doc try to save the wounded man's life. Nutjob kicks the zombie out of the window and then jumps out after it, landing on the top of a car. While Doc keeps working on the bleeding man, Phil takes the men's guns and tells the other survivor to hang tight while they finish stabilizing the wounded man. He finds out that these men are an official scavenging team, and Phil 'suggests' they forget all about them. Meanwhile, Nutjob kicks a door off the car he landed on and finishes the zombie. Once everyone is ready, the team moves on, leaving the other survivors their guns and moving out of the area.
The team arrives at the clinic and has a quick lunch before moving in to the clinic. Phil and Doc both get a sense something is 'wrong' with the clinic, while Nutjob kung-fu's the door open. After a moment, a loud rumbling comes from inside the clinic and an 8' 7" monster of a zombie comes running out of the shattered doors. With pulsing blue veins and tough grey skin, the team manages to keep their bladders under control before the thing charges them. Doc puts a round in the thing's head, blowing out a chunk, while Phil opens fire with his rifle. He puts one in the center of the monster's chest, then as the thing keeps coming, puts the last four rounds in the creature's leg hoping to slow it down. Nutjob, having failed to climb the building, runs up and manages to get on it's shoulders and reaches his hand inside the thing's brains. He starts pulling while it thrashes around, before finally severing the monster's spine with his knife. Carefully, Doc and Phil approach the monster, only to find the thing is still functioning with it's brain missing and the spine severed. Phil reloads his rifle and puts a round in the heart. The beast finally dies and begins to shrink. Nutjob determines that the monster, and the rest of the zombies, are all some kind of Black Magic creations. After searching the clinic, the team finds a room full of gore. Disturbed, but unwilling to leave empty handed, they recover a large amount of supplies. They head out, looking to make it to their dead-drop so they can leave the supplies somewhere safe before heading back to the compound.
As they get close to the drop site, they see a horde of midget zombies milling around a tall building, on the ground and on top of the building. They fall back to a tall building and scale a fire escape to get to the top. As they reach the top, a loud scream is carried on the wind from the horde of sawed-off zombies, picked up by many more voices. When they check the tower, the zombies are gone, but the second story of the building (and perhaps lower) is covered in gore.
Our team takes a deep breath to think....

And that's where we ended the game for the night. After some discussion, we decided to continue the game next week. Stay tuned...

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Some New Additions

A very quick update here about the new pages. After giving it some thought, I figured putting up some more pages would help me keep track of my Kickstarters and games I sink money into.

This weekend, I hope to put up another Blast From The Past and next week I should have a pile of painted Bones to show off.