There appeared at the June PW meeting a young lad - A fellow I had never seen - who marched in, asked for a couple of tables, and proceeded to set up a huge play-house, of Barbie- doll size dimensions. Several of us hooted, but this deterred him not. Finally, we asked for an explanation and it turned out that we were about to take part in a human-versus-zombie skirmish, based on the 1969 film, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, by George Romero. 54mm figures were used, and, I have to admit, they were of superior craftsmanship... there were zombies with axes in their heads, zombies with crowbars poking right through them, zombies with knives sticking out of them... not to mention the "good guys", six humans whose job it was to merely survive. All very well crafted and painted. I must also admit that I am a closet zombie fan (I followed the "don't ask, don't tell" rule) and have seen just about every zombie movie made: DAWN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and ZOMBIES ATTACK AT DAWN, and ZOMBIES ARE IN MY KITCHEN, and ZOMBIES ARE EATING MY SOUP, and so on... every one of these classic productions. And so I immediately volunteered as a player in the game. Initially, I was assigned a good looking couple named Tom and Judy, but about five minutes into the game, a young player- person-lady named Cleo laid claim to Judy; Cleo had charge of the female contingent of the human characters: Helen and Judy. The reason for the Barbie-size house, said our host, was that it provided a two floor scenario - plus an attic - and, because of its size, had plenty of room for groping into the interior to move the 54mm people about. Tom and Judy started out on the ground floor of the house in the kitchen. Neither had any weapons, and so when our host pointed out that, just outside the kitchen window, was a tree stump with an ax embedded in it, I had Tom jump out the window and, at 15 inches per move, run over to the stump. The sequence had four phases: 1. Random event... here, a chittie was selected, and all sorts of things could happen. Zombies appeared, or a human could "search" for weapons, etc. 2. Fires... the host said that if any fires were started, held use this phase to control the fires. This phase was never used; no fires were started. 3.Humans move... depending upon their capabilities, the humans moved around 10 inches per action. They each had 2 actions, but most of the time, the second action was used to pick something up, or to smash a zombie, or fire a weapon, etc. 4.Zombies move... the host tossed a 6-sided die for the zombies. On the average they moved about 11 inches per action. On Turn #2, Tom grabbed his ax, and I noted that Judy, still in the kitchen, had benefitted from a randomly drawn "search" event, and found a loaded gun! The other humans, in anticipation of a zombie attack, were busily boarding up the windows and doors to the house. The "boarding up" procedures were quite clever, and I shall appropriate them for my own rules with thanks to the originators. a. Take Harry and Helen, for example. Suppose Helen was at a door, while Harry was 7 inches away. Harry could dash to the door using up 7 inches of his total 24-inch movement. b.Harry's remaining 17 inches were used as "boarding up" points. If Helen moved at 9 inches per action, she could use both of her actions (18 boarding up points) to help board up the door, making a total of 17+18, or 35 boarding up points. C.Later on, when the zombies arrived, they, too, could use their movement to "unboard" the door. With 2 actions, each at 11 inches, the zombie could remove 22 of Harry's and Helen's points. d.This might seem to be a stand-off, with the humans applying their points each turn, and the zombie knocking points off each turn. But when a zombie- friend arrived, here were another 22 "unboarding" points. And a third zombie would add yet another 22 points. Which means that as the zombies gathered, sooner or later they would batter down the door or window. Harry and Helen just couldn't keep up with them. e.Adding to Harry's and Helen's and the other humans' problems was that they had an assortment of doors and windows to block. There were only six of them, but there were many, many zombies. Speaking of boarding up procedures, I must report that when Tom finally returned to the house after picking up his ax, he found that his erstwhile friends had boarded up every entrance; Tom was out, they were in. With friends like that... The reason that Tom delayed in getting back to the house was that just after he had grabbed his ax, he was attacked by a zombie. The host diced, each turn, for the zombie entry locations. Tom seemed to attract the zombies... no matter where he went, they appeared right on his tail. Tom could outrun the zombies (15 inches per action to 11 inches per action) but I wanted Tom to win the Kill A Zombie prize for the most zombies knocked off. "Kill A Zombie" is probably a misnomer, since they were already dead... but you get the idea. At first, I thought Tom could easily hold his own in a fight. When a single zombie struck at him, it could only score with a toss of '1' on a 6-sided die. In contrast, Tom scored with a toss of 1-to-4, and for the first two encounters, it was Tom:2, Zombies:O. But the odds were stacked against our hero... came the time, around Turn #7, when three zombies ganged upon the lad. That's when the announcement was made that: a. The first zombie scored on a 1. b. The second zombie scored on a 1 or 2. c. The third zombie scored on a 1, 2 or 3. The zombie melee manual specified a maximum of 3-on-1. But three zombies were more than enough. And so Tom went down. The crowd of zombies surrounding him had to pause for a turn... our host said it was a sort of lunch break; they were munching on poor Tom, getting their vitamins before going after the rest of the crew. Relieved of the chores of pushing Tom around, I took note of what was happening to the other humans. There was Judy, way up in the attic of the house. She was clutching her gun, some food, the keys to the car (there was a car parked outside the house), and a can of gasoline (the car had no gas in it). Evidently, she had been quite lucky in her random event searches. The rest of the crew were up on the second floor; the first floor was full of zombies and they were coming up the stairs. Stairs could be boarded up at "half value" ... it was relatively easy for the zombies to penetrate them. Judy saw nothing but disaster if she remained with the others. And so she went out on the second story porch and leapt off, clutching her gas can and car keys, thinking that she could make it to the car. Helas for Judy! A trio of zombies converged on her, and a moment or two later, they were enjoying a Judy-snack. A double Helas! for Judy... she acted prematurely... a couple of dice tosses later, and the host announced that dawn had come, and the zombies would melt away in the sunlight. Back to PW Review July 1995 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com