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.