Customising ATZ encounters (Part 2)

I have managed to get my ATZ encounter idea to a functional stage this week, so I thought I'd give it a test run.

I did make a couple of revisions from my last post on the subject. These were:

1) The table for generating the number of citizens or zombies has been incorporated into the card itself. Turns out there was enough space to do this and it worked fine.

2) The other encounters (i.e. not the zombies or Rep 3 citizens) are now in their own deck. Why? Well, it means that I can have a static deck that is not changed, and a different deck consisting of all the other encounters that can be modified as I want between games without having to rebuild the core deck each time. Instead, I created 'Special Encounter' cards, which go in to the Zombie/Citizen deck and indicate that you need to draw from the second deck. Also, some of the cards ended up asking for specific cards to be pulled (more on this later) and by having all of them in one big deck, you don't end up spoiling future 'surprises' when you look for other cards.

So the rules now look like this:

ATZ Encounter Deck

To build the deck, start by including zombie cards based upon how long it has been since the outbreak. These cards represent a roll of 1d3 or 1d6 depending on the card:

Days	Cards with 1d3 zombies	Cards with 1d6 zombies
1-10	8	4
11-20	6	6
21-30	4	8
31+	2	10

 To this deck of 12 cards, add cards representing 1d3 citizens, again based on the days since the outbreak:

Days	Civilian cards
1-10	6
11-20	4
21-30	2
31+	None!

Finally, add a number of  'Special Encounter' cards to bring the number of cards in the deck to 24. When one of these is drawn, take the top card from a separate deck consisting of all the possible encounters you have figures for. This deck can be adjusted as you get new figures or if you want more of a specific encounter (i.e. More National Guard encounters near a quarantine zone).

Whenever a PEF is resolved during the game, draw the top card from the main deck and follow the instructions.



Having revised the rules and printed the cards, I took the system for a test run.

Cards in the starting deck

I decided to set the encounter between the 11th and 20th day of the outbreak. So I took 6x 1d3 zombie cards, 6x 1d6 zombie cards and 4x 1d3 Citizen cards. (You should be able to see the table of modifiers on each card in the picture. These are just drafts, so the photo quality is not great, but they get the job done).

Special Encounter cards and the Special Encounter deck

To finish off the deck, I added 8 Special Encounter cards, bringing the deck to 24. Then I assembled a second deck with cards for all the miniatures I have available (I am sorely lacking regular police and military forces!)

I started by wanting to select a character for myself. Suddenly I realised why it was a good idea to keep the special encounters separate! I could just randomly draw the top card of the Special Encounter deck and take whatever that was as my starting group. I was lucky and drew 'Chopper Ed'!

Chop, chop!

I decided to play a simple scenario. Ed had to enter the residential building and farmhouse to check for survivors before making his way off the table. As it was on the outskirts of town, I designated the area 'Suburban' and set the encounter during the day.

Initial lay out

Ed entered on the road at the right table edge. PEFs (green tokens) were placed as per the rules and so were the starting zombies. As this is a test of the card rules and not a full batrep, I won't give a turn by turn account.

A PEF moved towards Ed in the first couple of turns, but was nothing much:

Two zombies. No problem!

 
Ed was doing okay, searching the first house with no problem, until he got to the white car by the front of the church...A random event meant a cell phone started to ring. It stayed that way the rest of the game (Presumably if was one of those persistent PPI calls) attracting zombies each turn...

Not the time to stop and take a call... (yellow counter = phone location)

The second PEF was when things took a slight turn for the worse. It turned out to be two SWAT team members, who, as a result of the Meet & Greet test, demanded Ed turn in his weapons.

Rep 5 with Assault Rifles... not worth trying to resist!

Not fancying his chances, Ed did what he was instructed, leaving him unarmed and still with a farmhouse to explore! At this stage there was still a PEF on the table. Ed decided to investigate it in case it was a group he could ally himself with.

No such luck! It turned out to be the SWAT leader and a couple more of his team! I guess this must have been a group who were planning on sweeping the town for survivors...

More well equipped men who deny Ed his right to bear arms during an apocalypse!

This is an example of one of the cards which might 'look' for others of the same type. I drew the SWAT Leader, who has a special rule which asks for a d6 roll. On a 4+ he is not alone and you need to roll to see if he is with SWAT Team Card A (1-3), SWAT Team Card B (4-6) or both (6). If a card is already in play (such as SWAT Card B was) it is ignored. As it was, I rolled a 1-3 and pulled out SWAT Card A from the deck.

So that was a whole bunch of SWAT on the table, none of which were likely to lend Ed a gun! With all the PEFs resolved and the zombies drawing closer, Ed decided to take a chance and enter the house...

It doesn't end well...

Turns out there were 3 zombies in the farmhouse... Ed bravely dispatched two with his bare hands, but the final one overwhelmed him...

So there you have it. Aside from the lack of variety, which was just down to luck of the draw, it worked very well. I'll definitely be using this system for future games. The deck of pre-generated characters is also fun for randomly selecting a group for a one off game as well.

As ever, any thoughts or comments are most welcome. And thanks for reading!