Hello, zombie lovers, and thank you for your patience over the last year and a half. As some of you you may already know PZM ceased trading due to various real world conflicts and I had to take an impromptu hiatus from all things hobby.
Things continued to get real over the last 18 months with my studying demands going into overdrive, me having to resume work at the same time and, as an unexpected bonus, a new baby falling into my lap. I did manage to lose 20kg during that time though so at least my self-esteem survived the adult-pocalypse.
So what's the plan?
With the advent of my new career and my swelling familial responsibilities, the torpedo that hit the PZM store remains effective and I sadly won't be resuming sales. However, I've been away from the table for far too long and it's definitely time to get my game on.
To whit, I have in the works a small campaign designed specifically for friend to Zeke (and all round champion of gaming) Jim from Hive City Terrain. This campaign will be played and logged over the next month or two so standby for the introduction post very soon. I'll be floating some new campaign ideas and showing off a new personal sculpt so stay tuned.
Whatever, here's the sculpt:
I'd just seen Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
This guy will be functioning as a sort of GM-controlled guide for Jim's character as he embarks on his sojourn through the Z-poc. Jim was also good enough to do me a few resin casts so expect some variations from the original sculpt (and this is not just because the baseball bat was too fragile...ahem).
That's all for now, guys, but I honestly cannot wait to get back to the table and get interacting with this awesome community once more.
And so we arrive at the conclusion of our adventure with Smudge, Cornetto, Coach and Lupe touching down on a Nova Scotia highway just outside Camp Nova.
Appropriate sonic delights
Already it's clear that the camp is barren of all life, human or zed. The soldier had been right.
The road cutting through the camp terminates in front of a three-storey office block that shows signs of a hasty fortification, evidence of a rushed last stand.
The group decide to start investigating there...
Camp Nova
Staying frosty
I constructed a floor plan to represent the offices using the building interior rules from I, Zombie.
The group break through the poorly barricaded front entrance and immediately recognise the signs of a desperate fight for survival.
Supplies and bedding litter the floor, signs of this once being a sanctuary form the roaming dead...the blood on floor showed its demise.
What have we walked into
The stairwell has been destroyed, no doubt as a means of further hindering the zeds.
The group gather up some wooden pallets from around the building and use some survivor ingenuity to ascend to the 2nd floor.
That was fun
At first glance, the 2nd floor seems as bereft of life as the rest of the camp. The survivors split up to search the individual offices.
The 2nd floor
The group splits up
Smudge and Lupe stick together and search the first office. The evidence of a massacre keeps piling up as decrepit zed torso, clearly a critically injured survivor that had been hurriedly left for dead, crawls idly towards them. Smudge wastes no time in casually stomping its head.
Curb stomped
Coach enters the adjacent office and is immediately hit by the smell of gasoline, a half emptied jerry can sits on the floor with the severed, chewed hand of whomever had tried to burn the building down still grasping the handle.
What the hell happened here
Cornetto and Coach search the remaining offices finding two abandoned zeds.
Cornetto shotguns a zed
Coach grabs his axe
The floor now clear, the survivors climb up to the 3rd floor. The floor is very quiet and, unlike the rest of the camp, devoid of any signs of fighting.
Eerily quiet
They call out to check for zeds and proceed to the first office...where they meet with quite a surprise.
Who goes there?
The 2014 survivors!
A.J., Jim and Sunny (the escaped survivors from Safe House 2014) hold their fire, just happy to see live faces.
They explain that after their evacuation to the oil rig Romero an outbreak on board forced them off once more. Camp Nova had been safe haven for a time but eventually the plague always finds a way in.
The camp was completely routed, many of the zeds showing powers and abilities previously unseen as if the virus was growing stronger. The military had been keeping tabs on the level of infestation and at last count, it was complete.
Our survivors relay their own experiences on this score and the reality of the losing battle of the living was finally sinking in.
Whatever the situation may be, it was time to leave the desolate Camp Nova. But where will they go?
"If we heard you arrive in that plane..."
"...then so did they."
With the camp rapidly filling with zeds the survivors make a break for it, their goal to reach the Humvees at the camp entrance, get them running and get out of dodge.
Cornetto and Sunny run the gauntlet, charging back-to-back directly through the centre of the horde.
You and me, bro
Coach and Jim break right, aiming to skirt around the perimeter, but they get tied up in melee with some zeds. Coach gets locked in combat with a Siren emerging from the hangar and Jim tackles a torso.
Punching through
Smudge, Lupe and A.J. move left, blasting anything in their path and banking on losing the zeds in the maze of tents.
Tents of terror
A.J. takes some pot shots
After a miraculously uneventful charge through the horde, Cornetto inspects the closest Humvee while Sunny stands guard.
The damn thing's fuel tank is dry.
Nothing but dust
Coach finishes the Siren and makes his way to Cornetto's Humvee with the fuel he found in the offices. Good thinking, Coach.
"I'm done here."
A.J's skills as a pro baller are still sharp and he sprints through the tents to the other Humvee. He finds it fully armed and ready to go and hops up on the mounted M60 to cover Smudge and Lupe's arrival.
Oh yeah
Lupe get in to man the turret
Cornetto moves into the middle of the road running through camp to greet a couple a zeds that are getting too close. One of the zeds looks stronger than the other and Sunny joins the fight to try and bring him down.
An epic battle ensues
Smudge, Lupe and A.J. begin motoring through the camp, mowing down tents and zeds with the mounted guns as they go.
A suicidal zombie mount the vehicle and starts to attack Lupe through the window.
Time to kick ass
BRRRAP, BRAP!
The zed snaps at Lupe for several turns, Smudge unable to shake him off.
This guy won't give up
Smudge skids to a halt and jumps out to rip the zed from the window and finish him off. (That zed must've hung on for about 5 turns. Lunatic.)
Get outa there
Cornetto and Sunny finally destroy the Brute but he takes a chunk out of Sunny's neck before going down.
Cornetto applies pressure to the wound and starts dragging his compadre to Coach's Humvee, double headshotting two zeds blocking the way (it was an amazing shot).
"Sunny, no!"
"Hang in there, buddy!"
Coach finishes gassing up
Smudge's Humvee starts to get mobbed by the remaining zeds in the camp, drawn in by A.J's chattering M60. However, the baller has plenty of ammo left and hoses the gathering dead.
Smudge guns the engine and backs over the remaining zeds toward the camp entrance.
Zeds gather
Like fish in a barrel
Jim and Cornetto mount up with Coach and drive into the road to cover Smudge's retreat.
Time to go
Smudge splatters a last zed across his bonnet as a final farewell to Camp Nova.
Later!
Safely on the road, the Humvees trundle off the board, leaving the destruction of Camp Nova behind them.
And a final gunshot sings out across the desolation as Sunny succumbs to his wounds...
Camp Nova in ruins
Victorious?
There we have it. Our survivors make it out more or less intact but drive on toward an uncertain future.
Final thoughts:
There were some great moments and lessons over the course of the campaign:
My camera needs replaced...badly
Machetes are awesome
The new zombie types add some welcome new flavour
You may have noticed that some of the survivors' armament changed slightly during the campaign.
I actually pre-painted some loose weapons and packs from the Wargames Factorykits for this purpose and I highly recommend them as nice little touches to a campaign for times when players find new gear.
I had great fun running the campaign as GM but missed having my own survivor to care for. Maybe next year.
Well, that's about all. I doubt this will be the last we'll see of our survivors and I am planning a new ongoing campaign as we speak.
But for now I hope you all enjoyed Safe House 2015.
So with the drama of Act 2 still reverberating through everyone's minds, Bridges breaks the tension with information regarding a possible change of transport to Camp Nova.
Jasper and Joe leave separately in the Camaro in search of the soldier that Joe released earlier, hoping to help him by way of recompense.
Bridges offers to take the rest of the group to a small airstrip a few miles away, used by fire fighters to tackle forest fires, although it hasn't been manned in many years and there is no guarantee of finding operational aircraft.
Worth a look though.
Pines Airfield
The hanger looks promising
No surprise, then, that the objective of this game was to get to the hangar and check the plane within.
A change in tone
The group speed onto the board in their vehicles and begin the joyful task of mowing down any zeds in their path.
Smudge's newly adorned Humvee impales a Siren before it can let out its deathly shriek.
"For Blakie!"
Once the path is clear, Bridges leads the party to the hangar and Smudge takes a look at the plane.
It turns out that the plane is in a state of disrepair, with holes in the fuselage and a worn engine and no fuel to speak of but Smudge reckons he can fix it if they can find the right parts.
Not dead yet
Meanwhile, Brandi takes out her frustrations after losing Blake on the rest of the zeds beginning to surround them. She rampages around the hangar in the pickup, demolishing the horde with out mercy.
Ride of the Valkyrie
The zeds fall in droves
At the edge of the area, Brandi is alerted to a ringing phone behind a nearby bush. It turns out to be in the possession of one among a group of zeds and Brandi knows how to shut it up.
BOOPDEEBOOPDEEBOOP
Did you hear something?
Coach climbs atop the hangar and with an M16 recovered from the bodies of the dead soldiers back in Little Leith, he drops the last zed on the table with a stunning long-distance headshot.
Snap!
(Is that Ross sleeping??)
And so ends this short encounter. No fuss, no muss and a clear objective to keep everyone's minds and hands occupied.
Time to find those parts...
Game 8
Will Fly Again
The group find themselves at a salvage yard not too far from the airstrip, their goal to find aviation fuel, engine parts and aluminium sheeting to repair the plane.
Only Coach, Smudge,Brandi and Lupe are taking part in the salvage.
Jackpot
Smudge wastes no time and commandeers a forklift to begin loading fuel into the veicles.
"I've always wanted a sot in one of these."
Brandi and Coach skirt perimeter, quietly killing a cluster of zeds barring the way to the rear of the yard.
Machete and axe...
...the perfect tools for the job
Lupe stands watch on top of the Humvee and busies herself popping zeds one by one. She gets surrounded but is not overwhelmed and finishes off the last of the undead.
Standing guard
Taking names
Coach and Brandi start gathering sheet metal from around the yard and load it up unhindered.
Smudge, having finished loading the fuel, inspects the dead helicopter at the end of the yard. He manages to salvage the engine parts he needs and with that the mission is complete.
Engineer for life
Heading home
Everyone gets back to the airstrip safe and sound and they begin unloading their haul, ready to work on the plane.
Game 9
On a Wing and a Prayer
A few days of work later and Smudge has managed to patch up the old plane's fuselage. The rest of the group surround the airstrip, Coach watching from atop the hangar, Lupe on top of the water tower at the end of the road with Blake's M16 and Brandi and Bridges keeping watch from the vehicles.
I decidedthat for this encounter it would take ten turns of acivation for Smudge and Cornetto (our pilot) to complete the repairs necessary to get airborne.
Final repairs
Brandi and Bridges form a perimeter
Lupe keeps her gun trained
The game begins with some standard zed control with Coach and Lupe taking pot-shots at the few roaming the woods.
Then the sound of an overworked engine draws quickly closer and Shovely Joe's Camaro comes screaming up the tarmac, the moaning horde in pursuit.
Bring the noise
Making an enterance
Jasper and Joe bring their car to a halt outside the hangar.
Jasper jumps out to greet Brandi but their reunion is less than joyful...
Together again
Jasper explained that he and Joe had managed to find the soldier. Having explained the events from Pine Bridge, the pair discovered that the soldier was part of a larger force garrisoned in a nearby town, part of an ongoing effort to retake the country.
The survivors were offered sanctuary at the camp and there they discovered the disturbing truth: Nova Scotia hadn't been heard from in months and the likelihood of Camp Nova still being in operation was questionable at best.
Armed with this news, our survivors have a choice; to continue their search for safe haven in Canada or to join the soldiers back the way they came and help in any way they can...
In the end, only Brandi, Joe and Jasper choose to stay behind and the rest ready themselves for the (hopefully) long flight ahead...
The repairs are complete
The trio stay behind...
...as the rest take to the skies.
And so our final act draws to a close with our remaining heroes leaving the ground far behind them.
But it's not over yet. Join us very soon for the Safe House 2015 finale.
