Week 4 for the Hunter Family AAR

This is a straight forward search encounter. Goal is to acquire at least 3 resources and/or recruit group members. I played this encounter as a joint game with another player, my friend Andy. We started at opposite sides and we could leave by any table edge once we got our resources. Andy's crew and mine never met during the game so I have written this AAR up from Karl's perspective only and not included any of Andy's movements. As it was a joint game not many pics were taken and only sparse notes so I am using more of a story telling style in this AAR. 

Karl looks over at his wife and kid and thinks "geez how are we going to get through this" He thinks back to when they left the supposedly safe zone, they ran for all they were worth towards the treeline seemed to take an age. Once inside the woods they looked back at the safe zone and could hear screams and gunfire and one one of the houses was now in flames. Karl thought to himself "I don't wanna go back to our place. But where to go now? Well the next town get some supplies I guess".

They had seen the odd zombie in the woods, what else can they be called, but they had avoided them. "Lizzie had started referring to them as shuffles, Megan hasn't started to call them anything, me on the other hand" thought Karl "I just think of them as Zouls". Karl gets up walks over to his two girls and sits down next to them. They look up and he says "we haven't got much, I don't wanna go back lets just head over to Smithsville and see what we can find". Lizzie shrugs her shoulder's and Megan, his wife looks at him and half smiles. "You never know it might be better over there" he says, thinking "it isn't going to be."

As they approach Smithville they can see the hospital and decide to head towards it. It's all very quite. Not a soul to be seen. It's eerily quiet the only noise is the litter being blown in the wind.

The town seems deserted and they're getting close now to the hospital. "We just need to make it up the road and turn left and  make it to the hospital. Got to be stuff in there still", thought Karl to himself.

In front of them are 4 detached houses. Behind them is a road of terraced houses. Looks like a couple of them have been on fire at some point. As they move up the street they see for the first time something else that moves, "shuffles" mutters Lizzie. (Karl his wife Megan and their daughter Lizzie move onto the table and generate 9 zombies all of them located near the two detached houses past the first two detached houses).

Karl heads towards the house on his left, "might as well check it out on the way to the hospital" thinks Karl and the girls follow him. They enter the house and find themselves face to face 3 zombies, Megan and Lizzie duck back out, but Karl opens up on the 3 ZED's with his shotgun, killing one and knocking the other two down.

Megan looks to the next house to check on the zombies to see if how close they are and nudges Lizzie. Lizzie looks up the road to see what her mum is looking at. There is a bear of a man looking at them holding a very big gun. He shout's "stay there little girlie's I have plans for you", in a very menacing tone. Standing close by him is a very sexy girl and 3 others step out to join them carrying uzi's. They appear right by a group of 6 ZED's and open up at them, some dropping to the ground. (The girl's ducking back brought them insight of a PEF which was resolved as a 5 strong gang, the leader having a REP of 5. The others were a REP 4, 2 REP 3's and an unarmed REP 2. The gangers won the meet and greet and walk the walk with the girls but with Zombies closer to the gang they start to shoot at the zombies first and move towards the girls as the zombies are more of an immediate threat. The gang kill's one zombie and knocks another down but because the Uzi's only have an impact of 1 most of the zombies hit just carry on. The gang shot a total of 12 shot's. 3 from an assault rifle and 3 each from the Uzi's. This generated another 8 zombies heading towards the gangers).

Megan and Lizzie go back inside the building, Karl shouts at them "Finish them off before they get back up". They each walk over to a downed zombie and put a bullet in it's head. Karl searches the room quickly not finding anything. "Hey babe" shouts Megan at Karl. He turns towards her and she says "not only only have we got to worry about these things, outside is a very large man intent on doing bad things to us". Outside they can hear a lot of gunfire. (Megan and Lizzie pop the weasels of the two downed ZED's and Karl searches the room. The gangers continue to fire at the ZED's but have effectively become surrounded so they don't move. They kill 5 Zombies this time but generate another 7).

Karl looks out one of the windows, sees the big man and thinks "geeze he's huge" Seeing all the zombies out there moving towards the gangers and the fact that the girls said they weren't very friendly he decides to leave the house out the other door. There was no zombie's about so they head straight towards the side of the hospital, puttting as much distance between them and the Gangers as possible. They continue to hear gunfire but also a blood curdling scream which was obviously female. (Karl and co move and thanks to the ZED's generated being away from the house they were in they didn't encounter anything. The ZED's moved but the gangers didn't activate. This allowed the closer ZED's to initiate hand to hand combat. The leader of the gang, his girl and another ganger had to melee the ZED's. The big guy killed his the ZED's on him easily. The ZED that attacked his girl killed her knocked her out of the fight. The other ganger killed the ZED that attacked him. Although 4 ZED's were killed 5 more were generated).

Karl decides it's time to run and the girls try to keep up but he opens up a bit of a gap on them. They continue to hear gunfire from behind them. (I roll a 4 and a 3 for the fast move so Karl can move an extra 8 inches but the girls only 4. The gang continues to fire at the ZED's and fight them. The 4 remaining gangers are all in melee with the ZED's. Another ganger falls. 2 ZED's have started to feast on the unarmed ganger. 4 ZED's attacked the leader and he killed them all. 2 gangers are faced with a single ZED wwhich they disptach easily but the last ganger, the REP 4 faces 3 ZED's and loses miserably being taken out of the fight).

Whilst running down the side of the hospital Karl puts more space between himself and the girls. Karl decides that with no ZED's around he can get to the back of the hospital and check it out first without endangering his girls. Behind the hospital Karl see's 3 cars near the fire escape and heads towards them. They hear less shot's coming from behind them. (I rolled 2 4's for fast moving, so Karl could run but the girls could only move their 8". I decided that as there was no ZED's within 30" they'll be ok activating on their own to catch up. The remaining gangers move away from the ZED's towards the closest board edge firing as they go. Dropping 5 ZED's, generating 4 more).

Karl reaches the first car and searches it. He finds a shotgun and that the car has fuel but no keys. He searches the second and finds a machete. He searches the third car and finds a rifle. The girls just wait for him to finish and watch from the corner of the hospital. Karl goes back to the first car, try's to hotwire it and fails. (The girls failed to activate for 4 turns whilst Karl just kept going. The remaining gangers leave the table).

(Random event: Dog runs out of the back of the hospital followed by 4 zombies. The direction in which the dog runs put's the zombies following it inside the hospital. Between the Karl and the cars and his his Megan is a rear door. So we decide that the dog ran out of that door and the zombies would follow it out of that door).

Karl beckons to the girls to join him. They walk past the dog as it runs off the table and Karl ask's his wife to try and hotwire the car. She fails. Approaching from the other side of the cars is a group of 4 zombies and the 4 zombies walk out of the rear of the hospital. (The girls finally activate and the wife fails to hotwire the car).

Karl gets his daughter to try to hotwire the car and charges at the 4 ZED's that came out of the hospital. Megan shoots at the other 4 zombies and misses as they shuffle closer to her. The daughter succeeds in hotwiring the car but sets the car alram off. Karl manages to kill 2 zombies and knocks one to the ground and wrestles with the fourth trying to keep those teeth away from him. 3 Zed's approach from the corner of the hospital. (I activate first and decide to give the car one last go with Lizzie. I charge Karl into the 4 ZED's and get Megan to shoot the other 4 ZED's approaching them. The 4 zombies move closer to the cars and generate 3 zombies that appear round the corner of the hospital).

The zombies by the car charge at Megan, she fumbles with her pistol and drops it. The first zombie knocks her down stunning her. Karl kills the zombie by putting his knife through it's eye and stabbing the zombie that climbed back to his feet through the temple. He turns round as he starts to hear his wife's screams and watches as a ZED bites right through her jugular spraying blood all over itself turning her screams into gurgles. He stands there watching as his daughter runs up to him and grabs his hand as he starts to walk towards his fallen wife, but Lizzie drags at his arm screaming at him to run. Karl looks at his daughter, looks back at his wife, takes a firm grip on his daughters hand and runs away from the back of the hospital. Away from the Zoul's eating his beautiful wife. (The Zombies activate first and the 4 ZED's charge Megan who fails her charge into combat, meaning she's unarmed for the first round and the zombie knocks her to the ground. She passes her knockdown test whcih doesn't really help her as the other 3 start to feast on her body. I decide to run Karl and Lizzie off the board.

After the encounter I roll to see if the daughter and father stay together, they do and they both also get a REP increase. Karl is now REP 5 and Lizzie REP 4.

I have to say I am so gutted that I lost Megan this way as if I'd just left without trying to get a car she would still be alive.