Pinnacle of Zombie Games?

[spafe]

Just as a quick reference point, we did a big zombie game to wrap up our campaign at the start of the year...

https://yaktribe.games/community/threads/cricket-club-nights-campaign.3896/page-2#post-75935

That one had 5 gangs (well 4 and enforcers in the middle), 3 zombie start points... the zombies all moved 2d6, had standard stats from outlander book. We said they didn't go down/pinned... but a down result in combat would result in them going ooa. So they were tough to shoot, but in combat (where it was risky!) you could dispatch them. Meant that one on one you were fine, but you risked then being jumped by 3, which would be game over a lot of the time as they still gained +1 to their roll for being 2nd/3rd in combat.

We had over 50 zombies on the board... a zombie player, who would rougly group his into bunches to go after different gangs... meaning he'd roll movement for 'those 6 heading towards the enforcers' and we'd all chip in to help move them however far to keep the game pace.

I dont know how we'd decide without a zombie player... so where they'd move/how etc is a puzzle, but the rest worked quite well... I would suggest d6+4 movement... as it means they can be quicker that gangers, but not loads quicker. The group/horde bit I think works well and if we were to do it again I'd be pinching that idea.

The splitting groups... if its a big enough group, the 'nearest sound/thing' might be different for different parts of the hrode... that's how it would split to me.

We did awarded 1 xp per zombie killed. with the zombies recycling I think we got to a kill count of 150 or so, but that was between 5 gangs.

 

[korabas]

Btw, my friend looked at the zombicide figs and said they are a little smaller than standard necro/40k.

From my memory they are more true scale than heroic a little like older Infinity models.

 

[Necroplayer]

Bump...
Thread too good to let die!

 

[Blood Donor]

Bump...
Thread too good to let die!

No real reason to worry about that with a thread on this topic. Even if it dies, its reanimated corpse will still be bustling around trying to scrape the brains out yo noggin.

 

[Boltzmann]

...brains?...

 

[dabbk]

Sooo, anything in the Vault yet?

I have to admit, I got tempted by a 50% sales by Warlords some time ago, and got myself one of each of these:
https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/project-z/products/apocalypse-biker-gang-frame
https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/project-z/products/apocalypse-bike-hero-frame
https://store.warlordgames.com/coll...ucts/female-apocalypse-survivors-bodies-frame
https://store.warlordgames.com/coll...cts/female-apocalypse-survivors-weapons-frame
https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/project-z/products/apocalypse-survivors-male-frame
https://store.warlordgames.com/coll...ducts/apocalypse-survivors-male-weapons-frame
(I know, no zombie was dumb of me).
Those are great sculpts, nothing to say about it. Except: they are realistic scale 28mm, not heroic scale 28mm, and it shows. I can upload comparison pictures for anyone interested, but long story short, it would not work as I expected them to as a bits bank.

So, I am now left out with these sprues, and thought about just assembling them to play Project Z Rules seem very simple, but I like the NPC zombie aspect. Would love to play them as Necrozombies, though.
Another option would be to make rules for the survivors in Necromunda (eg civilians?), and for the bikers (eg... well I don't know, orlocks?).

Not sure yet, but would appreciate any pointers and comments

 

[KRVSH]

Do you mean other NPC rules for Necromunda? That's not that bad, really! Especially for the weaker characters not everybody likes to play.

 

[dabbk]

Well, yeah: solo play is a thing, so any NPC rules may find its audience

 

[KRVSH]

Not even just for solos, it would make any game interesting, if you have something else happening at the same time. It's just not as easy as most other characters wouldn't be as dumb as zombies.

 

[dabbk]

Right, but then you have to find the right balance between too complicated and too boring.
Space Hulk gets rules for the Aliens that work well solo, the algorithm is not too hard to go through, and interesting to play against.
Ive seen games that use a deck of cards to generate randomness, or to provide a script for npcs. Ive heard of a game that uses an app on your phone or tablet.

So, yeah. Not sure how itd work in a satisfactory manner for npcs more complex than aliens or zombies. There'll prob be an AI system in the forthcoming Necromunda computer game, but hopefully its mechanisms will be more complex than what you can do tabletop..

 

[KRVSH]

The hard part is making other decisions than eat and survive. There probably has to be movement towards an objective and/or an escape.

 

[Blood Donor]

I think it is called Skull Deep in the Dead, but Worlds End Publishing has a really good solo play scenario for This is Not a Test for fighting off hoards of zombies. I think its like $6 for the .pdf, and since there are a great deal of similarities transferred to the main game from Necromunda, they should transplant (or at least inspire) with minimal work. The rules for This is Not a Test are rather good for NPC creatures and critters.

 

[heclypoo117]

so does anyone have a pdf of any rules for zombie/ solo game playing in necromunda?

 

[MedMos]

Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse by Ash Barker (published by Osprey?) also has mechanics for zombies. With all the rules for zombies and solo play accumulating out there, like TNT mentioned by @Blood Donor and multiple other recent games like Rangers of Shadow Deep, it should be a fairly simple thing to customize something. Someone "just" has to do it...

 

[Ben_S]

Seeing this thread bumped, I was just thinking of Last Days. Is it any good?

 

[heclypoo117]

Seeing this thread bumped, I was just thinking of Last Days. Is it any good?

You can check the game out on

, I 've never played it but it looks interesting.

 

[Blood Donor]

I had no idea Ash had made those rules, very cool addition to the genre.

 

[Aulenback]

And of course, for Necromunda Rules Zombie Survival Horror, there was the scenario already built in the Tales From The Underhive by Steve Anastasoff, collected in Battles in the Underhive. You can easily find it here in the vault by searching "Tales from the Underhive" if you somehow don't know it already. But I expect that you do.

The scenario starts with only a small handful of gangers, and D6 zombies, and adds D6 zombies each turn - but the real threat is from the zombie plague infection, more than anything else, as it was written, and the not knowing where to find an escape point.

Automating zombie movement would not be difficult, in the scenario. Just have all zombies shamble toward the nearest non-zombie. Leading the zombies on a merry chase could be the job of one character, while others search for an exit [until they get too close, and s/he goes down...]. Automating the discovery/revelation of the escape point might come down to dicing to see if a given point on the table edge checked is the escape pathway? Or a handful of cards? [Say, six possibles, six playing cards including the Ace of Spades are shuffled and stacked, spend a turn checking and not moving [ooooohhhhh!!], and then draw the top card, until an exit is confirmed?]

 

[Tiny]

Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse is IMO the best zombie game. Rules are very similar to Necromunda but sufficiently different to be a different game. Lots of different fighter archetypes. Zombies work with a fairly simple AI. Campaign is great.