Dead of Night: Dead Heat

It was a fun night at the casa.  I had a full house: Ken, Jon Mark, Terry, Bill, Nick and myself.  I made poppers and the drinks and wasabi peas were flowing freely.  Ken surprised me by bringing me walker reinforcements.  We decided that the blue clowns would equal four zombies in the game.  The rest would equal one, but provide variety to the horde's mix.  Thanks, Ken!

 

The plot was as follows:  "Leaving the military facility behind, our heroes are back on the road (minus Nick's character, who was thrown out the back of the Van of Victory when his death rattle was heard).  Speeding through the night and growing tired, the driver (me, unfortunately) fails to spot a burned out truck stretched across the road.  Our heroes barely escape with their lives as their vehicle rolls over and catches fire.  They manage to scramble out and escape the explosion, but much of the equipment they had gathered is lost in the flames.  Luckily, they spot a light through the trees.  There is a house, but the light is from a fire which has begun to engulf the ground floor.  There are a few zombies in the vicinity and if our heroes' luck changes, they should be able to resupply and find a new vehicle without too much trouble..."

The rules for this scenario state that we each only get to keep one item from previous games and start with 1-6 life points.  So...we kept the rifle (Kenny) and fire axe (Jon Mark) and a ton of ammo on our personages.  Evidently the crash was pretty severe as all of us had either one, two, or three life points to start.

The beginning of the game

 With all of us injured, the game started slowly.  Some of the group headed for the garage and shed while the rest limped toward the house.

Some wise-acre made the comment of "Hey!  Nobody got bitten in the first round!"  We all soundly accused him of hexing us for the rest of the game and dooming at least one of us to become undead...

...little did I know that it would be me.  I had ran into the cellar and encountered three zombies.  They promptly took a sampling of my flesh before I could head toward the stairs.  Already wounded and almost unable to move, it would take a miracle to get me out of this one.

The ants are starting to march

Meanwhile, exploration of the garage yielded no escape vehicle.  That meant that we were in it for the duration and would need to explore the burning house.

Did you hear it?  Yep.  It's the generator.

 Here's why I like games like these.  Literally right before Nick searched the shed, the card was drawn that turned on the power to the buildings.  Then when Nick searched, he 'found' the generator.  It's a moment straight out of a movie.  "Hey!  The lights came on!  What's that I hear?" (steps into the shed) "Well whaddya know?  It's the generator!"

 With the lights on in the house, Bill started searching the rooms.  He first checked the room that was slowly becoming engulfed in flames, then a storage room, then the kitchen.  He found food, but was unable to bring it to me in time to save my life.  My guy died a lonely death.  On some farm house's cellar stairs.  Wounded.  Alone.  Desperately trying to crawl up the stairs to his friends and help.  Clawing hands pulling him back down the stairs, his last thoughts are full of pain and fear.  Then...

I'm a rock star zombie!

 The rest of the group explored the main floor of the house in short order, while the mass of undead moved inexorably closer.

We had decided earlier in the night that our starting point, which were zombie spawn points, would only activate when unoccupied.  To that end, Terry stayed in place for a looonnnnng time, healing his wounds and poleaxing any undead vermin that spawned next to him.  It kept a lot of zeds off the board while we explored and was a fine bit of gamesmanship.

Bring it, suckahs!

Eventually, he bolted for the house.  On his way to the upstairs, he encountered my rock 'n' roll corpse.  He didn't give it much thought before finalizing my death.  Thanks for that, Terry.

Ken was already upstairs, ready to search for anything of value.

The horde approaches...

Ken and Terry plundered the upstairs, but didn't find too much of value.

Lotta notta squatta

 Finally, Ken decided that stairs are too passe', so he jumped out the window.  It cost him half his life points, but he stands as the only person to have jumped.

It's a long way down!

Whee!

That was a hard landing!

The fire spreads and the horde grows...the constants of this scenario.

A plan was needed.  The survivors were piling up the kills, but the zeds were still drawing near.  To make matters worse, the lights went out, plummeting everyone back into darkness.  It was decided to hole up in the shed and wait it out.  With dawn comes the end of the game, so finding a defensible position was paramount to success.  Between the firearms, sword and fire axe, the gang kept the shed fairly clear of zombies for the rest of the game.

At some point, a new term was created.  Nickrophilia.  I'll let you figure out its meaning.

Finally, the card was drawn...

As the card stated, the undead were piled up and burned.  It was a victory for humanity!

 Final tally?  Jon Mark, aka "Lizzie Borden", was again the victor with a whopping 48 kills.  With only a fire axe and a bad attitude.  That's the stuff legends are made of!  Nick came in second, followed by Ken and Bill, I think.  Terry was in the mix somewhere as well.  Not that it matters, 48 friggin' axe kills!

A great series of games.  Stories from said games will be around for years to come, which is the whole reason to play, right?  Priceless.