Dead of Night: At Death's Door

"You're gonna pick me up, right?" - Nick
"Sure, but you know we're dumping you out the back when you die." - Me

This week the group (Jon Mark, Nick, Terry, Bill, Jared and me)  played scenario two of Dead of Night.  I was interested in how it played with six players.  Jon Mark and I had speculated that it would be harder the more players were present, so we put the hypothesis to the test.

The scenario's blurb was this:
"After a dramatic escape from the house, our heroes take to the open road.  After a few hours driving and picking up the odd survivor, they find the way ahead blocked by what seems to be a derelict military facility, with a huge gate across the road.  The power is out and the facility appears deserted, except for a few zombies milling around.  In order to proceed, our heroes will need to find a way to open the gate.  Unfortunately, the sound of the vehicle and the smell of their flesh begins to attract attention..."

We basically started on the left side of the board and had to open the gate and get off the right side of the board.  Easy peasy, right?

Note - Translucent zombies = two zombies.  Gray zombies = one zombie.

As you can see, there are already zeds nearby .  All we're presented with are windows that will get us into the facility.  We split up immediately, figuring that we can cover more ground quickly, before the zombies multiply too rapidly.

To make things a tad easier for us, Jon Mark drives the van closer to the gate.  We figure that it'll be that much closer for us to jump into later in the game.  Wise choice!

Nick decides to play the part of Carl (see last week's blog post) and was bitten on his first turn.  He lamented that he was screwed, doomed, yada yada, but we assured him that he was fine...for a while.  He started the game with two first aid kits, so he had time.

Things progressed well.  While we didn't find firearms, we did find fire axes and bats.  Those will do in a pinch!

We found the building housing the generator and gate control easily enough.  Finding fuel?  Not so much.  We explored the buildings past the gate, but none of them offered a fuel canister.  What to do?

Nick came up with a solution.  He was a dead man.  Eventually, his ability to replenish his energy would be depleted and he'd become one of them.  He was going to grab the gas cylinder we'd found earlier, walk it to the gate and detonate it.  Not only would it breach the gate, it would kill him and any deaders within three spaces from him.  Not the best idea, but without a fuel canister, we didn't have another choice.  Yes, fuel canisters and gas cylinders are different in this game.  Fuel is, well, fuel.  It's used to power vehicles, chainsaws, generators, Molotov cocktails and bombs.  Gas is pretty much a bomb.  Period.

Since that was the plan, one of us had to back the van out of the blast radius.  I was closest and jumped in the driver's seat.  I was soon surrounded by zombies.  Not a huge worry in this game, as there would have to be a lot of zeds to force their way into the van and I wouldn't let that happen.  What I instead did was drive over just about every single one of those suckers!  My body count skyrocketed!

Trouble's comin'!

Back it up...

 

...and pull it forward.

Pretty cleaned out!

While I was running over undead flesh, a couple other things happened.  First, Jared found a rifle.  Bill and Jon Mark promptly gave him all their rounds and he began his own mass shooting.  He managed to clear out pretty much all the threats in the center of the board closest to the gate and left himself in position to handle any new zeds.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

The second thing that happened was Terry, after following Nick to the rooms containing the gas cylinder, located a fuel canister in the generator room!  In game mechanics, it was a card draw that located the canister, but in game play terms it went something like this:

CLANK!
"Damn, that hurt my toe!  What was that?!"
(flips up canvas tarp)
"A fuel canister?!  How'd we miss that one...like five times?!?!?!"

A fuel canister?  Really?!

So a new, new plan was made.  Nick fuels the generator, starts it and then activates the gate mechanism.  I drive the van through the gate and pick up everyone for the win.  Except, maybe not.  Nick is still dying and in his wounded state starts thinking that maybe he won't be invited to the after-party in the Van of Victory.  I assure him that I'm honorable...with a smirk on my face.  The quotes at the top of this blog entry?  Insert them here.

Give me the idol and I throw you the whip!

 Nick does the right thing and opens the gate.  I do the right thing and drive by him pick him up along with everyone else.  Not a moment too soon either, as the dead heads were coming in as fast and furious as shuffling zombies can.

Hurry and get us out of here!

Um, guys?  You comin'?

We almost made it off the board.  Only one person can drive (me) and we were two spaces short of victory.  Remember when I mentioned that it would take a lot of zombies to break into the van.  This qualifies...

I hear 'em comin'!

Surrounded!

 Not to worry, though.  I rolled well and only needed a little nudge to get us off the board.  Victory!

A post-game collation of points indicated that Jon Mark "won" by swinging his fire axe, with Jared's rifle marksmanship coming in second and me third with vehicular zedslaughter.

A great game!  I think we'll complete the trifecta next week!