Dead Heat - Professional Zombie Racing

Following along on our lazy Saturday nonsense gaming theme, we decided to give Dead Heat a try today as well.  Dead Heat is another new rules set I've been needing to get a handle on.  It is from (big surprise) Two Hour Wargames and I have big plans to add it into our campaigns of All Things Zombie etc..  This was our first try at it.

The Zeds and their respective Baiters:  All six of the Zeds are prime contenders in top form, rated at Rep 4.  All six of the Baiters are Rep 3 noobs who are aspiring to make a reputation for themselves.  Yes, the baiter on the far right is a chimp!

I simply couldn't bring myself to play on paper with chits so I had to devise something temporary until I get my Zombie racing stadium built.  In the end I got out a bunch of Heroscape hexes and simply put some colored electrical tape across the zones.  Here are the Zeds and Baiters in their starting positions.  By the way, the paper diagram in the book doesn't give enough room to place 6 Zeds with spaces between so I added a couple of rows to my track.

To start you simply roll D6 equal to Rep and count successes (1,2, or 3).  Right away we have a laggard on the right and the rest of the Zeds are off.

Now each turn you get to place your baiter from 1 to 3 hexes from his Zed.  The closer you place him the faster your Zed can potentially move, but on the flip side, the Zed is more likely to catch your baiter so there is a bit of danger there.  As you get better at the game I can see where you could cause all kinds of trouble for other baiters by your placement but we played this pretty clean and straight as we are just learning.  Nick was playing the Priest, the Agent, and the Skateboard dude, I was playing the chimp and the girls.  Nick started out playing very conservatively, always placing three hexes away.  I placed at two hexes to see what would happen.

My ballerina is clearly a natural baiter.  Her Zed streaks out ahead easily outdistancing everyone.

Then next turn the dice Gods turn against poor Nick.  All three of his baiters get caught on the same turn, and all three get munched on because they failed their All Fall Down tests!

Ballerina girl is still streaking along with no competition.  Chimpies Zed gets side tracked by the feast.

One of the Zeds who finished their feast decides to turn on the schoolgirl kick boxer and catches her from the side but she manages to escape!

Ballerina girl is now at the 3/4 mark and it seems there is no stopping her.  There is a traffic jam developing back across the track where the baiterless Zeds are roaming free.

The schoolgirl decides to get away from that roaming Zed and starts to take her Zed towards the side line.  Meanwhile the chimp is playing with two Zeds now.  Ballerina is closing on the finish line now.

Luck runs out for the schoolgirl as she trips and the Zed is on her in a flash.

More disaster strikes.  The faultless performance of the ballerina girl comes to an end.  As she and her Zed cross the finish line she trips and gets caught and munched on.  Bummer deal as she was doing so well.

That means that only Chimpie is left.  He decides to place his last move in the corner two hexes away from his Zed.  He is afraid to go the other way because of the Zed feasting there.

This turns out to be a big mistake as the chimp gets tripped up and caught.  Monkey brains for dinner anyone?

The six survivors from the match in order of finish from left to right.  The lady in the sweat pants and jogging bra was clearly the fastest Zed.  Kind of funny how it works out that way isn't it?  Too bad they are all Zeds!  Not a single one of the Rep 3 noobs managed to survive in order to race another day.  Signing out from Gulf Zedway Park,
LTL Dad