Black Helicopters, Dust Storms and Lightning

Should be back on track by tomorrow,
Ed

Gunfight!

From  http://mcmdgames.blogspot.com/

Today's post takes a third view of the Outlaws on a Balcony theme.  This time we look at the incident in the context of an Encounter generated by the Six Gun Sound: Blaze of Glory rule book.

This encounter is called Gunfight 2 (GF2) and represents an unexpected fight between two groups of figures. Either the posse and outlaws have been having a "conversation" and have reached an impasse, or neither side was prepared for the appearance of the other.

Nerves are taut as each man goes for his gun!

As this is a full encounter the first thing I needed to do was to see was where the fight would take place. Rather than rolling for it I decided to have it take place on our friendly local balcony.

Next up was to determine who and how many were on each side. This was also easy. Our two outlaw friends would square off against our posse. As for how many...well the rules would max out the posse at four characters in this case and so I gave Mudslide Sam the day off.

Next was to determine how many saddled horses were about. El Indio wisely had his mount saddled and right out front. The posse had their mounts saddled and in the livery. Poor Nino had his mount unsaddled and in the livery.

There were an additional five saddled horses at the  buildings adjacent to the fight.

I n this sort of show down the first thing to do is to check everyone's nerve by rolling 2d6 versus their Sand.

As it happened every man jack of them Flinched, which essentially canceled this handicap out and all started on nearly equal footing. Nearly equal because when it came time for the draw, El Indio, Unca Bob, and Ling Ho were penalized for carrying long arms.  Nino and El Indio were also penalized for being outnumbered.

The Draw broke down to El Indio versus Unca Bob and The Captain, while Nino faced down Ling Ho and the Swede. Dice equal to Rep plus or minus modifiers were rolled and successes tallied as below. Note that here the dice simply show the number of successes and not the actual dice rolls for the test.

The Captain with four successes scored the highest and as he had scored 3 more successes than El Indio, the Captain got the drop on the outlaw chief. El Indio took a Got the Drop test and in a surprisingly cool headed fashion lowered his weapon and surrendered peaceably.

This left Unca Bob devoid of an opponent and he relaxed accordingly. 

Nino on the other hand scored two more successes than both of his opponents ans shot them both dead! The big man emptied his revolver in the process.

So ended turn 1.

Activation for turn two was a tie so Nino managed to reload before the action continued.

The lawmen got the edge on turn three and both the Captain and Unca Bob fired at Nino.

Nino suffered a total of three hits to his gun arm and dropped out of the fight.

The shooting was over and it was time to move on to the aftermath.

Both outlaws had to undergo the Captured test with a negative modifier for having killed Ling Ho and the Swede.

El Indio was shot while trying to escape.

Nino was taken into custody for trial.

Before Nino could be tried he needed his wounds seen to. Unfortunately for him the town doc had a skill rating of 3.

Nino's gun arm was amputated.

Nino's trial was a short one and the one armed bandit was sentenced to 3 seasons (9 months) in jail. Guess he had a good lawyer or his boyish charm won him some sympathy.

And there you have it, a full encounter from Six Gun Sound.

Hope you enjoyed it and thanks for stopping by.

ATZ - Final Fade Out - Daybreak - Final Act

Here's the end of the set of games Mack and I played earlier this week. They were played in a two hour period, if that, and consisted of three encounters. Some comments on the rules and some story building as well.

Part Three

Walther - Rep 5 Ganger with an Assault Rifle.

 Here's where truth is stranger than fiction. Doubles were rolled for activation
  and as it was equal or less than the ER of 3 it signaled a random event. 3d6 are rolled and "13". It's the cell phone again!

 After Walther plugged the zed he went to answer the phone. Snake eyes were rolled for activation. Another random event! Talk about long odds. The random event was that the last dead zombie really wasn't dead. Instead he gets up and charges!

 With five zombies near by Walther decided to run for it. Being a Rep 5 means he activates more often than the zeds, one benefit that Jim Bob and Tess didn't have. It wasn't long before Walther was free of the zeds and could do more exploring.

 Entering a building resulted in human contact, one Rep 3 Survivor. A Meet & Greet allowed for the two to barter and saw the Survivor trying to join Walther due to his much lower Rep. Mack went for it and they took off.

 Clearing buildings with two characters is easier than going solo in that you have a second character backing you up should things go badly.

 After the second floor was cleared there were loads of zeds walking around. Resting awhile resulted in the zeds losing interest and their bearings and shambling off in different directions.
 All the buildings had been searched but there were still two places to gain loot...Jim Bob Joe and Tess.

 Yikes! Really? Another random event? I've played many ATZ games with little or no random events. Obviously this wasn't one of them. The Rep 3 survivor twisted an ankle, dropped his movement to 6", like  a zed. Worse than that if he failed on a Fast Move test he would trip instead and be stunned for one turn.

 With the hurt ankle the survivor didn't make it to the building.  Worse yet the activation dice was humans 5 and zeds 3. He couldn't activate and the zeds would.

 But Walther could. He could open the door and add the Rep 3 survivor to the group and pull (activate) him inside. Then they could barricade the door. That would occupy the zeds while they looted Tess and climbed out the back.

They then looted Jim Bob Joe. That left one loose end to tie up. That's when I thought to have Walther star-69 the phone, ring back to whomever had called previously. To move the campaign along I decided it would be the Rep 3 survivor. That was putting bow on the package, end of the Encounter.

ATZ - Final Fade Out - Day Break Part Three

After Jim Bob Joe there was Tess, the Ganger chick from Houston. She's a Rep 4 Grunt with an Assault Rifle and an attitude.

Part Two

 Tess decides to stay as far away from the zeds as possible.

 Except as a new human when she enters the table she generates 1/2d6 zombies and scores three new ones.

 Tess activates and successfully Fast Moves across the street and enters a building. She doesn't take any chances and fires full auto, 3 shots. But she generates two more zeds. The bad news is they are generated as soon as the shots are fired. Generating zombies as soon as you shoot is different than the old rules. It takes some time to get used to.The good news is they cannot  activate on the same turn that they are generated.

 But the others can and get closer. The shots attract the zeds that have just finished off Jim Bob Joe. Tess really needs to activate first. Except she doesn't. Even worse she won't activate at all this turn. 

 As the zombies pour through the front door she can melee up to four of them. ATZ vets may wonder how could all those zombies pour through the door at once, isn't it only 2 at a time? In the old rules only two zeds or humans could enter a  building at the same time. Not so in the new rules. You can get as many as you want through the same door just subtract 2" of movement as they enter. Same thing applies for humans.

 Melee takes place one at a time, no splitting d6 anymore. And melee is one round and not continuous so if you tie with an opponent it allows for attempting to break off the melee. But tying gives other opponents the +1d6 evenly matched bonus.

 It's easy to knock down the zombies, not so easy to to kill them anymore. They take melee damage normally with the difference in successes being the Impact. So beat a zed by 1 you better roll a 1. Otherwise it just gets knocked down and can regain its feet and continue the melee.

Melee isn't recommended unless you have a real melee weapon. A one hand ranged weapon makes you count unarmed (-1d6)  in melee while a two handed ranged weapon counts as an improvised melee weapon (0d6). Want to arm yourself with a one hand melee weapon and big ass pistol? Sure can, but one of them will count as being used with your primary hand while the other takes a -1 to Rep for being the secondary hand. But don't fear, maybe you'll get lucky and be ambidextrous.

As we still had more time Mack rolled up another Grunt. This time a  Rep 5 Ganger with an Assault Rifle.

ATZ - Final Fade Out - Day Break Part Two

Continuing the story of Jim Bob Joe, the Rep 4 Grunt. In this version I'll add some game related notes.

Day Break - Part One

The Encounter Rating for the area had risen from 1 to 2 from prior events. Activation dice came up doubles and were equal to this ER. The event was a ringing cell phone 1d6" from Jim Bob. The phone would attract zombies as if three shots were taken. Rolling for the zeds generated one additional zombie. In addition until it is answered it will continue to generate zombies.

Jim Bob moves to answer the phone. This stops the ringing but must be resolved as a PEF. In this case it increases the ER to 3.

Jim Bob enters a building and wins the zombie surprise test. He fires and takes out the one zed but two more are generated. Being in a rural area this is bad luck and a bit more than to be expected.

A new zombie activates and charges Jim Bob to the rear. This means he cannot fire and counts as unarmed for the first round of melee.

 Evenly matched gives all other zombies a +1d6 modifier in melee.

 This gives Jim Bob 5d6 and the zed 4d6. As the zed scored 1 success more Jim Bob goes down. The zed rolls for damage, versus the number of successes more that was scored, and scores a "1" Obviously Dead.

Jim  Bob is finished but we aren't. Still time to play another game so we start with a new Grunt. Rolling on the pre-generated NPC tables its a female Ganger with an Assault Rifle.