The Young Ones on Vacation - HeroQuest Skirmish battle report part 7

You can find part 6 of this battle report over here.

TURN 7

Turn 7 opens with the Hero Phase and Vyvyan finding himself in melee with a Zombie Shuffler, with two more Shuffler's closely behind it. Vyv lets fly with his Cricket Bat granting him a massive six dice Attack roll. Vyv scores a lethal four Skulls in that roll, and the zombie isn't able to negate such a massive hit. Vyv slams the zombie's head to mush, and the monster does down twitching on the front porch. "Take that, you bastard," he quips.

Vyv, now free to move, rolls 9" for movement and runs inside the now unlocked front door of the cottage. He slams it shut behind him and leans hard against it. Musing on what just happened as he inspects the blood and gore on his cricket bat, he turns to camera and says: "You know, some people find cricket to be an incredibly boring game. But I find it to be completely brilliant."

Technical note: for this scenario, to open a locked door or lock an unlocked door, requires an Action. However, to open and close an unlocked door does not require the Hero to expend their action for the turn.

Vyv gives the zombie a two-finger salute.

SPG however isn't having as much fun as Vyvyan. Rolling 7" for movement and, seeing the gathering zombies moving around the water's edge, the hamster decides to swim back to the little island in the centre of the pond. At least there he is safe for now. But there appears to be no way for the poor hamster to outpace his perusers by swimming right now. He would need a massive movement roll to get across the pond and far enough away from the Shufflers, and that's increasingly beginning to look less and less likely.

Now it's the Security Teams turn and the only member left of that team is Trooper 2. Having watched the horrid death of his Sergent at the hands of the Zombie Runner, he elects to seek revenge for his fallen comrade and opens fire on the Runner.

Trooper 2 shoots and scores two Skulls on the Runner. In response, the Runner manages to only roll one Black Shield in defence. With only one Body Point left, the Runner fails to negate one of the hits and has its head shot off by the vengeful Trooper. Blam!

And with that, the Monsters now get their turn.

With no visible non-zombie in easy reach to chew on, the zombies move to the closest visible non-zombie that they can see or just recently observed.

The two Shufflers that were coming after Vyvyan gather around the blocked front door to the cottage.

Vyv raises his bat to the window; "Want to play some cricket?"

SPG's admirers gather further around the pond looking for some Hamster snacks.

"Ock, bugger off you lot!"

Trooper 2 also attracts a fan base of zombies interested in inspecting the troopers insides.

With all the zombies now on the table, there are no more available to come onto the playing area. But there are enough zombies here already. 

And with that, Turn 7 comes to an end.

The Young Ones on Vacation - HeroQuest Skirmish battle report part 6

You can find part 5 of this battle report over here.

TURN 6

The turn opened with SPG rolling 7" for movement. Running across the small island and diving into the water on the other side, the hamster makes for the far side of the pond. SPG hopes to escape the gathering zombies on the other side of the pond and get out into open ground where he can catch up with Vyvyan.

Meanwhile, Vyvyan rolls a total of 6" for movement and, now with the keys to the cottage, makes for the front door. With more than enough movement to get there, and using his single action, he hurriedly opens the door.

Now the Security Team has its action phase. The Sergent is still locked in a melee with the Zombie Runner and is about to be surrounded by Zombie Shufflers. He needs to kill the Runner and get out of there as he already has a single Body hit.

Rolling his attack, the Sergent scores two Skulls, but the Runner manages to shake off one hit by rolling a single Black Shield in its Defence roll. So now both the Sergent and the Runner have a single Body hit each. This is very bad news for the Sergent.

Trooper 2, who last turn climbed onto the Humvee, now has a chance to shoot at the gathering crowd of zombies. He can't shoot the Runner as that would risk hitting his Sergent, so he elects to shoot the firefighter zombie that's just below him.

Shooting, the trooper scores two Skulls on the Shuffler, killing the firefighter zombie instantly when it fails to roll any Black Shields in defence.

There is no way Trooper 2 is getting down into the gathering zombie hoard and so he elects to stay right where he is.

So now it's the Monster Phase and each group of zombies move toward the closest non-zombie model on the table visible to them.

The Shufflers at the pond spy SPG making for the opposite bank and shuffle on to greet him there hoping in their undead minds to snack on the hamster's tiny brain.

"Ock, this is neigh good."

Meanwhile, as Vyv was busy with the locked door, the Shufflers following him come up behind him. Vyv turns just in time to see the closest female zombie making a lunge for his throat.

The female zombie attacks but fails to land a blow of Vyvyan, who quickly readies his cricket bat for next turn. So now Vyv and the Zombie are locked in melee going into Turn 7.

Meanwhile the other zombies on the field, and that includes a Brute, shuffle towards the carpark and the closest visible non-zombie. The happens to be Trooper 2.

The Security Sergent meanwhile is in a world of hurt. He is still in melee with the Runner zombie but whilst they scuffle three Shuffler zombies come up and surround him. He only has one Body point left so it's decidedly not looking good for the old chap.

The Runner, being in melee already with the Sergent already, gets first strike on the man. Rolling two Skulls in attack to the Sergent's defensive roll of two Skulls, means that the poor old man is out of luck. Two undefended strikes kill the Sergent outright and the zombies start a frenzy of scratching and biting at his fresh corpse as Trooper 2 looks on in horror.

Last, but not least, the five zombies waiting to come on to the board now enter and move their 5" towards Trooper 2 who happens to be the closest visible non-zombie.

With only three zombies now available, two Shufflers and a Brute, they are lined up on the board edge for Turn 7. The Zombie Hoard has grown significantly in the turns leading up to Turn 7. Things do not look at all good for our heroes Vyvyan and SPG.

Until next time.

The Young Ones on Vacation - HeroQuest Skirmish battle report part 5

You can find part 4 of this battle report over here.

TURN 5

The Hero Phase opened up with Vyvyan rolling a total of 8" for movement, making it to the fourth plot point, the keys to the groundskeeper's cabin. Rummaging through the entrails Vyv grabs the blood-soaked keys.

SPG now makes his move, the hamster rolling only 2" for movement. With zombies waiting at the water's edge, he turns tail and swims back to the small island in the pond. No good going that way, he'll have to try finding another way out.

The Hero Phase done, it's over to the Security Team Phase.

The Sergent, who is still locked in melee with a Zombie Shuffler, lets fly with his fists. But he only manages to roll a single Skull which the zombie shrugs off by rolling a Black Shield on its Defence die roll.

Trooper 3 now slugs it out with the Shuffler that he is engaged in melee with. Tropper 3 rolls a single Skull in attack which the zombie easily shrugs off by rolling two Black Shields on its own defence die roll.

Both the Sergent and Trooper 3 remain locked in combat. Not a good situation to be in as more zombies bare down on them.

Trooper 2 now helps out. He also is engaged in the melee fight with the Shuffler that attacked Trooper 3. Trooper 2 knows that there is another zombie right behind him and that they are in dire straits. Letting fly, the trooper scores two Skulls on the zombie which fails to deflect the attacks and finally gets put down.

Trooper 2 now has a movement action left (the Sergent and Trooper 3 missing their movement due to still being locked in melee). As such, the trooper rolls for movement and scores 10" of movement. Seeing what's behind him and knowing he would be better off using his blaster, he opts to scramble up onto the top of the Humvee. There he should be ready to start taking out the approaching zombies next turn.

But now it's the Monster Phase, and there are plenty of zombies on the field. A group of zombies can now clearly see SPG and, being closest to the hamster, shuffle on over to the ponds edge. SPG's situation is starting to look very precarious.

Meanwhile, a group of three Zombie Shufflers now spy Vyvyan and being closest to him, meander on over to the med student as he starts shaking off the blood and viscera from his hands.

Next, the Zombie Runner rolls its movement dice for the turn and clearly has enough movement to close in on the Security Sergent and engage him in melee. The Runner is closely followed by two other Shufflers who remain just out of melee. But the zombie firefighter Shuffler that was behind the Humvee moves in to engage Trooper 3 in melee.

As that happens, the remaining Shufflers on the board spy Trooper 2 on top of the Humvee and start to converge on the entrance to the carpark. Amongst them is a Zombie Brute.

Finally, five more Shufflers appear on the edge of the table awaiting to come on next turn. These zombies clearly having been drawn to the field by all the activity and noise generated by the scuffle with the Security Team.

The Shuffler engaged in melee with the Security Sergent now attacks a scores a single Skull result on the dice. The Sergent manages to shrug this off with a single White Shield roll in his Defence die roll.

The Runner however proves its aggressive nature pummelling the Sergent with two Skull results during its attack. The Sergent isn't so fortunate this time and manages only to deflect one hit by rolling one White Shield again in his Defence die roll. The Sergent, with 2 Body, takes a single hit.

It's here that I realised that I made a mistake with regards to the Troopers. The Sergent has 2 Body Points but the Troopers themselves only have one Body Point each. As such, Trooper 3 is a dead man walking. So, I elected to have him succumb to his wounds and die outright. Kind of explains why he was fighting so poorly. Anyway, sorry zombie fireman. No dust-up for you today.

And with that, the Monster Phase comes to a close and so does Turn 5. Things are looking pretty bleak for the Security Team and challenging for our Heroes Vyvyan and SPG. Hmmmm wonder what happens next.

We interrupt this broadcast...

 

Whilst we await the next instalment of the HeroQuest Skirmish battle report where the Young Ones find themselves in the Zombie Apocalypse, I thought I'd share something I'm working on. See if you can guess just what it is.

A Street Judge, Judge Dredd, and a Rookie Judge

More on this in the future... (see what I did there?)