Bolt Action Zombie

It has been a long time since I have done anything hobby wise, and thus just as long since I have made a post on one of my blogs.

 I lot of real life factors have ganged up on me and taken the motivation from me in relation to my hobbies. But at last I see light at the end of the tunnel, and I even did a bit of play testing on my zombie variant for the Bolt Action rules.

  I intend to surprise my mate that I play with with a WWW2 game, so I wanted to get the mechanics of "BAZ" worked out before it is time to play the game.

 To this end, I have put a few WW2 British commandos on the table, rolled for a random number of zombies (nine in total) and played out a few turns to see how things go.

WW2 British Commandos face a new deadly opponent

 Basic mechanics for the zombie rules I am using at the moment and will be refined:

•  As this is a skirmish game, I am using the "Bolt Action Skirmish" concept I knocked together for the basis of the game, as seen on my other blog

•  Zombies move slightly slower than the living: 4" per turn 

• Loud noises attract more zombies: for every shot/loud noise made during a turn add 1 counter to a spawn pool.  At the end of the turn, roll spawn poold6. For every 6 rolled, a new zombie appears.

•  If hit, as zombie is considered pinned. This is basically a stun or a knockback depending on how you want to think of it as.  To remove this pin, the zombie must use a rally order.

• When rolling damage, a zombie is only killed on a 6+ just like soldiers are (see skirmish variant).  

• Zombies that start a game turn 2" or closer to another zombie form a group and move as one. 

• Zombies will move towards and attack the closest visible living target. If a target is hidden, they will move in a random direction each turn until they find a target, or towards the last loud noise made during the game (i.e. gun shots or explosions).

• Zombies that form groups gain +1 to melee for each zombie in the group for attacking and wounding for each zombie after the first one. Thus three zombies have +2 to hit and +2 for damage. Anymore than five zombies is considered a hoard.

• Zombie groups/hoards that  take pins leave the pinned zombie(s) behind when it moves. This may reduce the hoard to a group and a group to individuals.

• Melee is handled like shooting: attacker rolls d6 to hit, then rolls damage, if any. Defender does not return the attack as per the main rules book, but may act when it is their turn.

•  Unless up against 'super zombies' (like those in the film "Blood Snow" for example) all zombies are considered to be inexperienced, thus have Troop Quality of 8,  suffer -1 to hit when attacking and take damage on 3+.

• Living figures (civilians or soldiers for example) must pass an orders test to enter in to melee with a zombie or when attacked by a zombie. They also take morale tests on an individual basis when the unit suffers casualties.  Groups of zombies impose a -1 to the troop quality of the figure making a test, and hoards impose a -2.

• Smoke and night have no effect on zombies.

• Zombies set on fire die at the end of the turn regardless of any damage rolled for against them.

• A figure killed by a zombie will turn into a zombie on a die roll of 6 on a d6. Check each turn, adding +1 to the roll until the figure rises from the dead. Anytime a natural '1' is rolled, the figure is considered dead and will not reanimate.  Figures bitten but remaining alive stand a chance of being infected, but I will work on this for campaign games at a later date.

• Every time a zombie takes down a target, roll 1d6. On a 5 or 6 they zombie stops to feed on the hapless victim and will only return to the game if a rally test is passed.

That covers the basics of the Bolt Action Zombie rules, and I intend to add skills to the game once I work out the nuts and bolts of the game. Skills will enable individual figures to do extra damage and so on like the unit special rules.

It is these rules that I intend to use for the next PBB if and when it gets up and running. 

Hopefully my budget will allow me to get a couple of boxes of Studio Games Nazi zombies to go up against my Commandos. In the mean time my Mantic zombies will do the job.