Thursday, January 28, 2010

ATZ Batrep - Live by the Gun...

After the debacle of the last attempted "Take Back" mission our gang of nefarious stooges limped back into camp to lick their wounds and work out the next plan of action.  After much debate the vote was still split as to what to do next.  Evil Nick, Gabe, and Dad wanted to go back for one last try at a Take Back mission because the possible loot was irresistible.   Evil LTL Mom wanted no part of it after seeing the gang in action the past couple of missions and she has declined to go back as she thinks we are going to get our arses handed to us in this town.  AJ and Brandon are off hunting for jelly donuts and are not present.  Hmm, leaves a rather small group of three.  But the good news is that we hopefully will not generate so many Zeds.  Let's see what happened!

And here's the line up.  Gabe has changed his wardrobe again as he wants a gun as well as a sword.

What the heck is going on!?!?!?  As our Gangers break from cover and approach the town they immediately notice that things are not as they left it.  First off, the soda truck that Gabe left after demolishing the Zeds has been moved and parked on the roadside.  Just behind it is the fuel truck and it is parked as well.  In addition, the police car has been moved and it is parked outside the warehouse entrance along side a Highway Patrol car that our Gangers are sure wans't here last time.  Hmmm, kind of makes you think, don't it?
Our lads carefully move up and take cover behind the trucks.  It is then that they notice the most ominous sign of all.  It is perfectly quiet and there isn't a single Zed in sight!  Methinks something is rotten in Zed Town.

As the boys are peeking around trying to decide what to do next, they smell something burning and then notice that the warehouse is on fire!  It's not long before they see Zeds heading out of the woods to investigate.  Well, here we go, off to another great start I see!

I don't know if it was something to do with the heat from the fire or just some evil fate that follows Nick's gang, but shortly after noticing the fire a cell phone that had been dropped on the road side decides to ring attracting even more Zeds!
 
The boys decide not to stick around and make a fight of it until they have a better understanding of the strange occurrences in the town since their last visit.  They fast move around the trucks and across the street to start working their way around the warehouse.

Just as Nick and Gabe cross the street, the doors to the warehouse office burst open and a Woman in a tattered Police uniform flies out.  She's got a shotgun!  The boys are on the ball, make their insight test, and blaze away at the unfortunate Police Woman.

She goes down in a bloody shambles.  Nick was thinking about trying to talk to her when Gabe opened fire, so he joined in.  It turns out this was the right call as she was a Cop turned Ganger, and definitely not friendly!

The gang keeps heading up the alley to the back of the warehouse with Dad in the lead.  Looks like the coast is clear.  (Note the horrible de-lam in the corner of the warehouse where the humidity has caused it to peel.  If the Earth has an anus, I live there.)

As they run up the street, more Zeds responding to the sound of gunfire shamble out of the woods and follow the group.  Man their close!  I sure hope that our friends activate first.

Then to make matters worse, Dad has a little case of the nerves and fires at the shadows attracting even more Zeds from the surrounding area.

Now I need to back peddle a second and explain a little something.  I had gone in for a couple of minutes to get a drink and a pit stop and when I came back out the kids were fighting.  It seems they had a row over a scooter and Nick ran it into Gabe's knee.  As we resumed, tempers were still flaring and they were still arguing back and forth so when we activated they were threatening to shoot each other.  When it came down to it Gabe decided to retract his threat but Nick didn't.  Nick turned to shoot Gabe, and Gabe drew down to defend himself.  With the same Rep they tied with doubles three times before Nick finally got the drop on Gabe.  He unloaded with a blast from his shotgun at point blank range.

As you might have guessed, Gabe went down.  So we have yet another victim of Nick's quick draw.  So here we are surrounded by Zeds, we have an unknown force of ex-Police Gangers, and our gang is having a fire fight among their own ranks smack dab in the middle of it.  I guess we are just simply hopeless.

At this point Dad decides enough of this nonsense, he is definitely all out of bubblegum now.  He scoots over to the building corner for some cover in case Nick gets lucky and has a chance to return fire and unloads a blast of divine retribution on Nick's backside.

With some mighty fine shooting, Dad drops Evil Nick like a bad habit.  Nick goes OD and Dad then declares that Evil Nick's reign of terror has come to an end.

While all this idiocy is transpiring, the cacophony of gunfire is bringing Zeds like a dinner bell.

This is getting ugly fast.  Dad starts wondering if he can even make it out of town now.

Without the higher Rep of Gabe or Nick, he only passes one die on his fast move test and doesn't quite make his get away.  And you guessed it, the Zeds activate first and slam into Dad's flank making him defend himself at a disadvantage.

 
Dad reaches down into his primeval reserves and fights off the two Zeds!  He makes it out of town alive!
(See those two Zeds in black in the distance?  I just noticed I made a mistake, they should have been feasting on Nick and Gabe right about now.  Oh well, it turns out it didn't matter)

Later that day Dad rolls into camp and everyone asks where Nick and Gabe are.  Dad replies "Zed Chow".
Evil LTL Mom says that the only way this gang will ever succeed at a Take Back mission is if we go for a run down mobile home in the desert.  And then it's still a "maybe".  I think she's right.
Bad Dad has regained control of the gang so maybe they will ride again.
Oh, and we forgot to roll our failed mission die so it may still be worse when we do!

6 comments:

  1. It's a djungle out there! You knew this was going to happen sooner or later, didn't you?

    Did you use PEFs or where did the police-ganger come from?


    Great blog! Thank you!
    Whiteface / Oliver

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  2. I just rolled it before the mission and had them act by die rolls. In this situation my character makes no decisions and just follows along. In this case there was a cop on a building across town as a lookout. Another was on the warehouse but out of LOS of the group. When the fire started he ran down stairs and started alerting the others. There were five more cops in the office in the warehouse and it was just dumb luck that only that one cop came out to investigate, it could have been all 5 and that would have changed things.

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  3. Yet another great batrep, Willy. However, I must say that as an avid card modeller, I really feel your pain over the warping on your beautiful buildings due to the humidity. Man, oh man, that sucks big time!!! I wonder if a stronger glue like the brush on superglue sold at Games Workshop stores might help? It is such a shame to see after all the work you've put into them.
    Back to the batrep, and once again, LTL Mom shows she has more common sense than the rest of the gang put together! Even in evil mode, she rocks!

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  4. Wow, I've been reading all your reports in the past week or so and I really hope my game will be as good as this. We just bought the rules, I made some building but we are still awaiting our zombies. We'll try it out tonight for the first time.

    Keep them coming, they are really fun to read.

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  5. Man, Mom clearly has this survival thing down... Doesn't the gang have a bunch of non-star grunts? My question is why don't you just take everyone in with as much weapons as possible, and go through in a line, shooting everything you see? Haven't played the game, but to me that sounds like the way to do it....

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  6. Bryan, believe me, I'm crying like a baby. I'll get this thing touched up when I have time and I will make sure I have a fully tested solution before doing my hospital or research facility.

    Anonymous! The players do have grunts but we generally have enough players and leave them in camp. On this last mission maybe we should have brought them!
    On just getting the rules, your doing right, jsut start small, get comfy and ask questions when your stumped. In no time you'll have the rules tweaked to your taste and you'll have a blast with them. Just remember, these are fast and loose and made for fun. Don't try to rule lawyer ATZ and let the players be really creative.

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