Chicago Skirmish Wargames

You’ve been holed up in downtown Chicago trying to survive but that all changed when the dead blew through the city like a bad wind. Now you’ve got to keep moving if you want to stay alive; you’ve even been thinking of joining forces with the other survivors instead of going it alone.  There’s strength in numbers, hell, if it works for the dead, why can’t it work for the living too?

Welcome to Chapter One of our Walking Dead: All Out War campaign! Our introductory scenario served to set the tone of the campaign, as well as introduce the players to the rules and concepts of the game. Each player started with a single survivor at one end of the map. They had no weapons, armor, or special skills.

They had to move carefully across the map towards a subway entrance, and use the tunnels to leave the city limits. By searching cars, junk piles, and other debris, they could find weapons, armor, and even additional survivors! Buildings were searchable, but due to being filled with the dead, 2 survivors needed to be in contact with a doorway to pull it off safely.

Loot piles were not randomized for each player's initial 4 searches to keep them on generally even footing. Players were awarded XP for making off the board via the subway, and each zombie killed. As the survivors are all generally good people, and we are focused on a cooperative experience, negative XP values could be awarded for harming another player's survivors. We didn't need to do this. Everyone did a fine job of working together to keep each other safe.

Thanks to our hosts, Greenfire Games, We did a live stream of the scenario:

Rather than list a blow by blow accounting, I'll show some highlights:

The layout did a fine job of capturing the feel of Chicago, including elevated train tracks!

Mike's leader, Mad Dog (on the right), was the first person to find a new team mate. On the left is his runner, Bob.

At the far end of the table from the objective, there was a huge zombie horde. These moved forward every time any survivor took an action, causing additional tension. There was no going back!

At one point in the game, the car alarm went off in this truck, causing regular mayhem, and drawing zombies closer...

This caused some very dangerous situations where survivors were surrounded...

Unbeknownst to the survivors, there was a marksman with a sniper rifle hiding on the rooftops, keeping things from getting too serious. Who was this man, and why was he helping the group? We don't know yet... Maybe we will find out in a future chapter.

At one point, a building caught fire. This did not really cause an in-game effect, but it looked cool!

By the end of the game, each player had 3 survivors to control, and some basic weapons to keep them safer.

All the survivors made it out alive, but some ended up with permanent injuries.

Stay tuned for the chapter 1 interlude story... Chapter 2 is coming soon after that. We have a lot of exciting things planned for this campaign!

Additional pictures:

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