Victorian Zombie Campaign Journal Game 1

 

Scenario 1 – The Old Church

The rival Zombie-hunting teams have stumbled across an old church that has hidden Treasure items, and also seems to be a source of Zombies.

Set-up

In the centre of the 3’ x 3’ table is a church. Each side of the church has a spawning point, where Zombies can appear from.  Each corner of the church has a cache of Treasure. The remainder of the table is dressed with graves and tombs and a cemetery wall, as well as some buildings in various states of (dis)repair.

Before the game begins, players each place caches of (lower-valued) supplies in the usual manner. Players then each place two Zombies in the same manner as the supplies.

Players deploy their teams from jump-off points in the corners of the table in the usual way, and they will also activate using the card-driven sequence dictated by the rules.

Card Choice

Survivor	Zombie	Tank Zombie	Zombie Horde	The Round ends.	Random Occurrence Card
4	4	0	0	1	0

 

Special rules

At the end of each round, one Zombie appears randomly at one of the Zombie spawning points.

Victory points

Each of the Treasure tokens captured from the church is worth 5 Victory points.  To gain the Victory points though, the figure acquiring them has to survive the game.

 

The Adventure

The game began with the deployment of items of interest (supplies), according to the campaign rules, and then with deployment of Zombies and the Treasure items according to the scenario rules.

Henry and Alan had each spent 8 of their initial 10 points on characters and equipment, so they rolled off for Initiative. Henry won, and opted for the Northwest corner of the board as a deployment point; Alan took the Southeast corner.

Martin had opted to spend all his 10 points, so he was obliged to deploy last. He chose the Northeast corner.

No one was allowed any skills in this first scenario, but it immediately became apparent that some different strategies were being adopted by the different teams. One of our reasons for selecting a Victorian-era setting was the expectation that teams might be less inclined to load up on firearms.

Nevertheless, Martin’s Bow Street Runners had a shotgun, which they would later use very effectively; the remainder of his armed figures were assumed to have their police truncheons. Two of Henry’s Butcher Street Boys had pistols and another had a billy-club, while three of Alan’s Society of Africa members had opted for melee weapons.

By the campaign rules, two or each team’s members had to be unarmed in the first scenario, and we had agreed that all subsequent new team members would start out that way.

 

Fig 1: Henry and Martin examine the terrain from its West and North sides

At the start of the game, the Zombies were all roaming around outside the churchyard. This practically guaranteed early encounters with the humans, who started out by locating and acquiring the items of interest which were laying around for the taking, between the buildings.

 

Fig 2: Dr Somerfield and her team collect an item of interest and run into a Zombie

All three teams quickly encountered Zombies – the Society of Africa on the Eastern side of the churchyard and also near its Southeast corner, the Butcher St Boys in an alley on its Northwest corner, and the Bow St Runners near the churchyard gate on its Northern side.

 

Fig 3: The Butcher St Boys run into several Zombies in the alleys beside the churchyard

 

 

Fig 4: The Bow Street Runners seize the cemetery gate from the Zombies guarding it

 

 

Fig 5: Lord Dunce and Rev Green from the Society run into another Zombie

 

Fortunately for the human players, all of these encounters went badly for the Zombies, with the Bow St Runners, in particular, commencing a run of Zombie kills which would become truly impressive by the end of the scenario.

After dispatching most of the Zombies outside the churchyard, all three teams advanced towards the church, with a view to grabbing as much of the Treasure items as possible. The Bow St Runners could use the gate which they had captured, but the other two teams had to resort to scaling the cemetery walls.

 

Fig 6 - The Butcher St Boys scale the cemetery wall

As it turned out, the Butcher St Boys almost landed right on top of a Zombie which was lurking in the shadow of the wall. They were also quickly attacked  by a second Zombie, which wounded one of their pistol-armed members, and was promptly shot for its trouble. Fortunately, their wounded team member did not roll an “Infected” result, so he had a chance to recover after the scenario.

The rest of the team achieved a quick “Knock Down” combat result against the first Zombie, but then they left  the wounded member of their team to finish it off, while they moved deeper into the churchyard. Their wounded team member spent a number of actions unsuccessfully trying to finish off the “Knocked-Down” Zombie with a pistol at close range.

 

Fig 7 - The Butcher St Boys knock down one Zombie but are wounded by another

Meanwhile, in the Society of Africa’s deployment area, Rev Green carried an item of interest back to their deployment point to leave with their leader, Dr Kate Somerfield, while Lord Dunce watched his back and fended off a series of unsuccessful attacks from the Zombie they had “Knocked Down” but failed to eliminate earlier, by the South cemetery wall.

 

Fig 8 - Lord Dunce defends the Society of Africa's deployment point

Eventually, this Zombie was despatched by the Rev Green moving back into melee range and giving it a solid whack with his heavy Bible.  This led, incidentally, to a lengthy debate about how we thought  multiple-figure combats ought to work, since they were not well-covered in the rules.

The teams’ various assaults on the church, with the intention of grabbing Treasure items, was now well under way. All Zombies at the Northern end of the churchyard had now been dealt with, allowing the Bow St Runners and Butcher St Boys to grab Treasure tokens with little risk. At the Southeast corner, the Society of Africa also sent two of its members over the cemetery wall, intent on making a quick grab for the Treasure marker located there.

Under the scenario rules, grabbing Treasure tokens triggered Zombie spawnings, however, and at that point the card-driven movement sequence came to the Zombies’ aid as well. Suddenly the churchyard was full of fresh Zombies, and all three teams were under attack.

The Society of Africa suffered worse, perhaps because they were the only team at the Southern end of the church. As they tried to escape with a Treasure item, one of their number was attacked, wounded and “Infected” by a Zombie.

 

Fig 9: The Society of Africa grab a church Treasure, but one of them is wounded and Infected

The Zombie is successfully despatched, but as the wounded team member tried to limp off the board, he was overcome by the Zombie “Infection”, and “zombified” before his horrified team-mates’ eyes.

At the North end of the church, both the Butcher St Boys and the Bow St Runners also found themselves under attack, but were able to finish off the fresh Zombies with their guns. The Bow St Runners embarked on a veritable Zombie killing-spree, even going so far as to take out the Zombie “Knocked Down” earlier but not finished off by the Butcher St Boys. To add insult to injury, they did it with an almost impossible long-range shot from their shotgun, right under the nose of the wounded Butcher St man, who had spent several turns futilely trying to finish the Zombie off at close range with a pistol.

The Butcher St Boys meanwhile, looked like getting themselves into trouble at the Southwest corner of the church. The card-driven movement sequence resulted in yet more Zombie spawning, and the random placement resulted in two members of their team being all but surrounded by Zombies. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, they wisely retreated, rather than make a grab for the last-remaining Treasure token.

At that point, the Society of Africa also decided to call it a day. Their remaining team members gathered what they had collected and retreated off the table next to their jump-off point, thus ending the scenario.

Tallying the Adventure

The campaign rules allow for wounded humans to recover by dicing for their wounds, after a scenario ends. Failure to achieve the needed score means they will carry their wounds into the next scenario.

The Butcher St Boys wounded member successfully recovered from his wound.

The Society of Africa had a member who was not only wounded and “Infected”, but had actually “Zombified”. After some discussion, he was allowed a recovery throw, and he promptly rolled a 12 on 2D6!  This provoked some debate on how recovery should work, and we did not really resolve that, but it was agreed that the 12 should allow him to survive for now, despite his “Zombification”.

We want to re-visit this before the next scenario, with a view to creating some definitive rules on Recovery; at this point the “cure” of the “Infected” SoA man will not be regarded as permanent, if we can think of a fun way to work it into a scenario.

Under the campaign rules, Victory Points were awarded for gathering Treasure and other items of interest, and for killing Zombies.

Each team had successfully gathered a Treasure token, and a few of the lower-valued items of interest. 

Martin’s Bow St Runners had killed far more Zombies than the other two teams put together  – no less than 8!

This alone gave him the victory in this scenario, and plenty of points with which to grow his team for the next one, subject to the rules restrictions, of course.

 

Victorian Zombie Campaign: Background

 A Zombie Campaign

Campaign Journal compiled by Alan, of Tring Wargames Club ©2021

 

Background

Henry, Martin, and Alan from Tring Wargames Club had long wanted to run a zombie campaign, and a few trial wargames had been played to assess some suitable rules.

In 2020, as we are all aware, Covid struck, and all plans had to be put on hold for 18 months, as any face-to-face wargaming was out of the question. Then, in July 2021, as things started to open up again, we re-visited the concept, and decided we still wanted to give it a go.

The basic concept was very simple. Zombies appear to have invaded the East End of late 19^th century London. For now, little more is known – where they came from, why, or what is their goal, beyond what we all know about zombies, of course – they kill people and eat them!

 So far, the authorities have failed to act decisively, dismissing reports of dangerous creatures and perhaps a mysterious disease at loose in London’s East End as fanciful nonsense, invented by the Press for the consumption of the masses.

The Press themselves do not seem to know what to think. The memory of Jack the Ripper is still haunting peoples’ minds from just a couple of years earlier. The Press came in for much scrutiny in its aftermath, and were widely criticised for fuelling mass hysteria with lurid and fanciful accounts. For now, they are remaining quietly alert, while sending reporters into the streets of London to investigate and unearth any evidence.

All this means of course, that anyone trying to hunt down the zombies or learn more about them can expect little to no help from the authorities, or the military.

The three players are each free to recruit a team or gang of zombie hunters, who will start out with little in the way of skills or weapons, and in the style of all good role-playing campaigns, they will have the opportunity to acquire skills and weapons as the different scenarios unfold – assuming they survive, of course.

Rules, Terrain, and Figures

We had already decided to use a version of a zombie rule-set known as ARSE - Akula’s Rules: Skirmish Edition. These had been modified by Henry to be a better fit for Victorian London – no modern weapons like machine-guns or flamethrowers, for example, but were otherwise kept as simple and intuitive as possible. We anticipated modifying the rules on the fly, as we came upon situations they were unable to handle.

ARSE is card-driven; each time a card is turned over, it dictates what can be activated – zombies can move and spawn, human players’ teams can activate, and so on. There is also an End of Turn card, which as you might imagine, ends the turn, similar to the Tiffin card in the Too Fat Lardies’ It Ain’t Half Hot Mum rules.  The rules for each individual scenario will dictate how the card deck is set up for it, so that later we can include cards for activating special (i.e. much nastier) types of zombies, which will not appear in the early scenarios.

Henry was our scenario builder, and he came up with a collection of 10 scenarios, derived from Frostgrave, and tailored to match the terrain we already had. All of the terrain already existed – Henry and Martin had collections of suitable buildings, and Alan had some D&D terrain which would be useful for building interiors, cellars, crypts, etc.

Figures were easy. We all had modest collections of zombies, albeit not all really ideal for Victorian London settings, but between us more than enough for the purpose.  We were each free to put together a team of zombie-hunters, using figures from our own collections – the only restriction being that they had to “fit” in a Victorian London setting, so no Neanderthals or Starship Troopers.

Henry’s Team – The Butcher Street Boys

Henry’s team comprised a group of detectives, presumably assigned to investigate the zombie rumours by Scotland Yard. Apparently the Baker Street Boys were otherwise engaged, and we don’t know what happened to the candlestick-makers – it’s possible they already fell foul of the zombies?

Martin’s Team – The Bow Street Runners

Martin’s team were, not altogether surprisingly, policemen, ordinary bobbies, or perhaps to be more in line with the Victorian setting, peelers. They appeared initially to be unaware of the Butcher Street team, and a healthy rivalry between the two groups soon became apparent.

Alan’s Team – The Society of Africa

The Society was created about 40 years ago to fund exploration and discovery of the Dark Continent. The leader of the team, Dr Kate Somerfield, is the daughter of the founder and his wife, who disappeared on an expedition to the Upper Congo basin, but not before fantastic stories had emerged, of re-animated bodies and cannibalistic creatures, all wrapped up in fanciful tales of a “death cult”.

Needless to say, these stories were dismissed as native folk-tales and imagination by serious scientists, but now a new expedition has returned from the same region, and its arrival back in London coincided with the start of the reports of zombies in the East End.

There is as yet no proof, but the Society is concerned that whatever strange “disease” it found 20 years ago has now been brought back to London by the new expedition.

CAMPAIGN RULES 

Points

	Notes	Cost pts
Each figure	Unarmed	1
Mêlée weapon	Eg Staff, cricket bat, truncheon	1
Pistol	Revolver	1
Petrol Bomb	Can carry three bottles.	2
Rifle	Very rare and expensive	5
Shotgun	A farmers weapon	3
Sword	A gentleman’s weapon	2
Mêlée skill	The art of the boxer or oriental fight specialism	1
Firearm skill	A trained marksman	1
Doctor Skill	Skilled in the science of healing	1

 

Notes

·       Can carry or use one weapon only.

·       Only one skill can be applied per figure.

·       Each figure can activate with two actions, which must be different except movement.

 

Treasure and articles of interest

·       These are items of value and may be hidden.

·       One action to pick up item, which will generate a immediate zombie spawn 2” randomly from point.

·       Carrying an item slows the movement rate down by 1” per 2 items.

·       Carrying an item apply -1 in the hit mêlée per 2 items.

·       Carrying an item apply -1 in the hit shooting per 2 items.

·       Only counts as victory points if the figure survives the game..

 

Campaign

Start with 10 points to spend on your band/gang/unit. Initial restrictions limit of 5 figures, max 2 fire armed min of 2 figures unarmed and no skills.

Subsequent teams can grow by I figure per game to a max of 10.

Can only add a weapon or one skill per figure per game with a

Max. of one weapon per figure or one skill per figure. Unspent points are retained in your bases store and are carried over or spent before each scenario.

 

Setting Up the Table

Deployment of gangs is done in order of initiative. Initiative is decided in the order of the quantity of points retained in each supply base. The highest choosing their deployment corner and deploy the unit not more than 6” from the corner chosen. Ties decided by a die roll.

 

Placement of supplies is again decided by the quantity of points retained in the supply base. Supplies must be placed more than 9” from the player’s deployment zone and more than 6” from any other supply tokens.

 After Game:

1) Recovery of Wounds

Roll 2xD6

-1 per wound

-5 if fatally wounded or infected

 

Modified result less than 2 Permanently Dead

Modified result 3-5 one wound remains

Modified result 6+ recovered

 

2) Victory Points

Per Zombie killed +1

Per item collected +1

Scenario points. As per scenario.

 

3) Using Victory Points – After Game

Initial restrictions limit of 5 figures, max 2 fire armed min of 2 figures unarmed and no skills.

Subsequent teams can grow by I figure per game to a max of 10.

Can only add a weapon or one skill per figure per game with a

Max. of one weapon per figure or one skill per figure. Unspent points are retained in your bases store and are carried over or spent before each scenario.

 

Doctor Skill

“Doctor”: Each Doctor may dispense first aid in each Round (costs one action). Any wounded human in base to base contact” of a may remove one wound marker, for each action spent healing (ie doing nothing else). NB cannot resurrect a dead casualty!

Nb in game use only.