Highway To Hell: A No More Room in Hell Batrep - Part 2

Previously on Highway to Hell
Jed shook like a clockwork toy. “K...K..Ken.” He stammered, his voice caught in a dry throat. There was no way they would hear him over the shrieks of the dead and the screams of the dying. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this. For the second time in the space of a few moments he felt a warm trickle flow down his leg.

Things weren't looking good.

Highway to Hell: Part 2
Dennis looked down off the end of the bus. There were far too many of those festering abominations around. "We're not gonna make it, are we." he stated as his shoulders sagged.
"Don't be too sure." Ken replied, pointing down at the moaning horde of undead that shambled towards the fallen in a feeding frenzy. "They're being drawn to what happened." Ken pushed Dennis' chin back towards their direction of travel and held his shoulders firmly. They faced down the Interstate, right out of the city.
"Don't look."  he said.

'Don't look.'

"I can do this." said Dennis as Ken released his grip. Before Ken could stop him Dennis stepped off the back of the bus. Ken watched in astonishment - what was the man thinking? Remarkably Dennis landed with ease and dashed out along the verge. He urged Ken on with a silent wave. Reluctantly, Ken followed him, covering their rear as they headed up beside the highway.

Reluctantly, Ken followed.

I always wanted to try that
As Jed watched the zombies around the bus he could see the dead-heads were distracted by the run of bad luck that meant Dennis' lackeys were now on the menu.  He grinned as an idea came to mind. He reached into a pocket of his shooting jacket and pulled out two prized possessions. A gift from his brother Emmett, which he had been saving for just such an time.

Jed watched the zombies around the bus.

Slinging his assault rifle over his shoulder he held one of the egg-shaped objects, olive green with yellow stencilled text, in each hand. He pulled the pin on the first grenade with his teeth. "This is for Em, you f*uckers!" he cried as he tossed the grenade into the horde by the bus.

He was expecting fireworks, shuffling corpses torn to sheds in a massive blast, limbs everywhere. What he got was a loud pop, sun spots and rush of air thick with the funk of rotting flesh. Must'a been a misfire, he thought, and yanked the pin from the next grenade. The creatures swarmed towards the blast and more followed, joining the crush. The second grenade landed square in the middle of the heaving mass. Bang! The same pop, but this time he was peppered with a fleck of congealed blood. Just one of the walking corpses dropped, motionless.

"Dammit, why won't you die?" he yelled, quickly realising his mistake. They were headed for him now. Jed didn't waste a moment, he dropped down off the bus and darted across to the refuse truck, following the route that the others had taken, into the back of the dumpster and onto the roof of the cab. He paused at the gap over to the mini, dead hands grasping for him. This was gonna be harder than he thought.

This was gonna be harder than Jed thought.

Almost there
Dennis and Ken kept low as they skirted an ambulance. Masses of shamblers stumbled down the interstate. It seemed like they hadn't been spotted but there was a crowd ahead of them, at least a dozen. Ken pointed to the roadblock ahead. It looked like the authorities had completely stopped traffic, some kind of aid station or checkpoint with a sea of temporary buildings and medical tents. Beyond the roadblock it looked clearer, less of the walkers.

'Head for the compound.' said Ken.

"Head for the compound." said Ken.
"Damn straight." replied Dennis as he raced off into the crowd zig-zagging as if playing some hellish game of tag.

Dennis zig-zagged through the zombies in a hellish game of tag.

"What the..." Ken tried to stop him but was distracted by a movement close by. Out of the car in front of Ken an abomination of a woman stepped, blood an drool dripping from the remains of her jaw. He fired, putting her out of action and the walkers on road turned towards him. They picked up the pace and rushed in. His Remington spat again and again, one down for every shot, but as he took one down, another stumbled forward to take its place. Just as he thought his time was up the crack and zip of rounds passing too close stabbed the air and the dead began to drop.

Ken turned to see Dennis, on the other side of the roadblock, leaning across the hood of an automobile. As the last of the dead fell Dennis waved a big thumbs up, but to Ken's horror he watched as a lone bloated corpse lumbered from the shadows of a tent. Ken grabbed for the radio on his belt, clicked the switch as fast as he could.

"Behind you!" came the static belch as Dennis jumped out of his skin and ducked. The corpulent cadaver crashed into the vehicle, inches from Dennis. As the corpse drunkenly started to rise Dennis reloaded and shot the thing at point blank range in the back of the head.

Out of the Frying Pan

So many of them.

He charged along to the end of the bus raging at his situation.
"Stupid f*cking dead-heads" he shouted, dropping the dead with speculative fire as he went. "Yeah! That's it. You like that?"
Jed didn't stall at the end of the bus like Dennis and Ken. He run full-tilt, ready to jump onto the cab of the yellow truck.

Jed ran full-tilt along the length of the bus.

It was too far. He landed on the cab but he didn't have the impetus to make all the way. Oh sh*t!

Oh sh*t!

Stars, tons of them and hands too, grabbing, grasping and raking his skin. He snapped out of the concussive fog and pulled himself to his feet as a crowd of dead surrounded him. He let rip on full auto and a haze of blackened blood filled the air as he pushed through the crowd in a desperate charge. On he drove, shooting and thrashing against the clawing hands and gnashing jaws, at the end of the truck one of the things leaped out on him, burying it's teeth into his neck. Jed fought it off, thrusting his rifle into it's maw and blasted it's brains into the stratosphere. He felt the crushing bite of another, then another as a maelstrom of hands pulled him down and piled in on him.

It a final moment of desperation he reached into his jacket and pulled the last of his fragmentation grenades. Against the ripping frenzy of the dead he pulled the pin and let the spoon fly off into the horde. He curled into a ball as they bit and tore at him and held onto the grenade with all he had left.
"I f*cking love you Emmett." he said, as the darkness came.

The darkness came.

An unsure reunion
"I owe you one." said Dennis into the radio. The crunch of footsteps on tarmac caught his ear and he wheeled, pistol raised ready to fire. Ken held up his hand and indicated to the gun trained on him.
"We're good." said Ken as Dennis lowered his sidearm.
"Where are the others?" Dennis asked.
The crump of a blast made Dennis jump.
Ken shook his head. He'd watched Jed go down.
"We check this place out and get the hell on out of here."

Outbreak City: 08:45am

Just like our previous ATZ game we had ludicrously bad luck in rolling for zombies at the beginning of the game. Two times in a row we started with just a few zombies short of the maximum. No More Room In Hell is a great set of zombie apocalypse rules. It suits a 'hordes of zombies' style of play and was a welcome change of pace to the All Things Zombie rules. The NMRIH campaign and encounter rules are reminiscent of the D66 Heroquest 'Between Adventures' charts - very flavoursome and there's humour as well as scares.

The 'sheeples' mechanic fits a 'if the zombie apocalypse goes down I'm tripping you first' way of thinking and we realised, much to Jed's detriment, that having plenty of sheeples with you was probably a really good idea, unless you simply wet yourself every time you witnessed them being feasted upon.

In conclusion, we'll certainly be returning to NMRIH for future games.

Highway to Hell: A No More Room in Hell Batrep - Part 1

Whilst All Things Zombie is our go-to zombie game of choice we thought we’d give Iron Ivan’s No More Room in Hell a whirl as part of our Salute-n-zombies-athon. We played the scenario, The Road, for which, as per a previous post, the roads were made specifically for.

Iron Ivan Games put out some pretty solid rule sets with a dedicated fan-base and a quick flick through Matt’s copy of NMRIH lead me to think we were onto a good thing. After all, it’s just the zombie apocalypse...we know what we’re doing right? I mean...Dr Pepper and all that!?... Maybe?

Here’s what happened.

Outbreak City Outskirts: Dawn

The LED sign looked a little out of place in the stillness of the early morning on the I24 out of Outbreak City.

‘INCIDENT: STAY IN YOUR VEHICLE.’

Nothing moved, but the air was heady with a sickly odor you could taste. From the looks of the carnage of haphazardly abandoned vehicles that littered the interstate nobody had paid much attention. Empty cars covered the freeway as far as they could see in the dull light. Trucks, sedans and utility vehicles blocked every route through, at least for anyone not on foot. A few anxious or impatient drivers had ignored the road and skirted around on the soft verges, but it had been no use. Those that tried had mired in the soft mud and marshy ground that bordered the road on both sides. There was a few feet of solid ground either side of the road but otherwise it might as well have been the bayou.

The Road: Scenario Set up.

“Looks like we walk from here.” said Ken as he cut the engine of the pick-up. They would have taken the Hummer, but there were nine of them and there was a little more room in the back.

“Fine by me.” said Jed who, quite literally, rode shotgun.

“You good to do this Dennis? They’re counting on you.” Ken addressed the other passenger in the front of the truck, a man with a shock of red hair who nervously opened the door.

“They need to get out of here. And so do I.” Dennis replied without looking Ken in the eye.

“Is he gonna be ok?” asked Jed as Dennis wandered away patting his thighs repeatedly.

“We’ll see.” said Ken.

The Road.

The people in the back of the truck were a rag-tag band of some of the least likely survivors from the office block. It appeared that they were from some kind of community social group that met in a building across from the office they had holed up in the past few nights. Dennis was their group leader. Ken wasn’t so happy about having them along, he wasn’t sure they would be able to keep up. Thankfully they were all armed, mostly with improvised weapons and small calibre pistols for home defence, but it was something.

Jed flipped the tailgate and slapped the rear-most passenger on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The passengers gingerly dropped down from the truck. They all looked to Dennis, who forced a brief smile and went back to a ritualistic rubbing of hands and drawing and replacing the automatic pistol in the waistband of his jogging pants.

“Keep this with you and keep it on.” said Ken. He twisted the switch on a walkie-talkie and handed it to Dennis. “It’s push to talk.”

“I know how to use it.” snapped Dennis, as he looked up at Ken’s stoic grimace and into his stone cold stare. Dennis’ shoulders sagged. “Thank you, officer.”

Incident: Stay In Your Vehicle.

One hundred yards on they caught sight of a shambling figure that stepped out from behind a truck, it was clear he was one of them. Ken turned to the crowd. “Stay calm. Let’s see if we can keep our distance and skirt around them.”

"Let's see if we can skirt around them."

A deafening yell split the quiet – half scream of terror, half martial battle cry. Dennis rushed forward towards the walker and blazed away with his pistol. He emptied the magazine before anyone could react and every shot went wild or ploughed harmlessly through the walking cadaver. He reached the walker moments later as the slide on his pistol locked back, empty, and the thing lunged at him.

A deafening yell split the quiet.

Jed pushed two anxious looking survivors back behind a delivery truck. With an awkwardly slow movement Dennis twisted as it loomed in on him, broken teeth gnashing after limbs as he clumsily executed a martial arts manoeuvre devoid of any elegance or control. Everyone looked on in stunned silence as, somehow, he picked up his assailant and planted him squarely on its head, snapping the neck in the process.

“Are you trying to draw them all to us? We...” Ken didn’t finish. They swarmed out of nowhere, appearing on every side. “Up there, now!” he yelled, pointing to the tailgate of a utility truck in front.

"Up there, now!"

Dennis wasted no time and clambered into the back of the dumpster. Ken and the others scrambled after him.

Jed saw that the commotion Dennis had caused drew the walkers away from him and the two kids he was with. “Wait here a second.” He said creeping towards a sports coupé.

"Wait here a second."

As they clattered around in the back of the dumpster the moans of the recently deceased increased as they clamoured at the metal walls of the container. “That way.”  said Ken, pointing at a Mini Cooper with its front end in the back of a bus. Dennis sprang up and jumped the gap awkwardly, followed closely by Ken and a man who looked like a college professor.



The dead closed in.

Behind them one of Dennis’ other companions lost his footing and slipped off the roof of the cab. He landed, feet first but the drop sent a jolt through his body. “Sam!” yelled a thuggish youth in the back of the container. The professor yelled for Ken to help but he ignored the horde grasping at him. They dragged him kicking and screaming off the bonnet and fell on him like a pack of hungry dogs. Within seconds Sam was surrounded but somehow, with handgun and fists, he fought them off.

With handgun and fists, Sam fought the zombies off.

Seeing the undead swarm Sam’s way, the thug took his chance. He hopped over the side of the container and dashed for the Mini. But he’d misjudged how many of them there were and was quickly surrounded. They took him down in seconds.

He took his chance, with horrfying consequences.

A pretty girl in a tight vest took a different route and made it to the mini just as they Ken climbed onto the roof of the bus.



Dennis fired into the crowd, close enough to have hit her if she’d still been alive.

“Cease fire and keep moving!” shouted Ken, pushing him on. At the end of the bus they stalled. The next jump, over to the roof of a construction vehicle, looked a little too wide and besides...there was so many of them.

There were so many of them.

The two kids beside Jed clambered onto the sports coupé. Two of the walkers put on a burst of speed and rushed them, arms flailing and teeth bared. The girl hopped out of their reach onto to roof but the other poor kid didn’t stand a chance. He was slammed into the hood with such force Jed figured he must have been dead before they sunk their teeth into him.

Dead before they sunk thier teeth into him.

“Steve!” shrieked the girl reaching after him.

“No, don’t!” Jed shouted. He watched in slow motion as the girl reached down to her boyfriend. One of the walkers turned to her, lashing out at her as the other fed on the boy.

Jed wet himself.

There was no way she was going to match its ferocity. He felt a rush of warmth and wetness in his pants and his hands started to shake. He couldn’t get a clear shot and watched helplessly as she slid off the roof of the car and into its arms and jaws. He backed off and slammed into the delivery truck behind him. It was happening again, just like when they got Emmett.



He closed his eyes and pulled his gaze away. When he looked again, more of those creatures were closing in. He turned and clawed at some hand and footholds on the side of the truck. Up on the roof he looked down on the scene.



Jed pissed his pants...again.

He saw Ken and Dennis a way off, standing at the far end of the bus. Behind them Sam fought his way through a multitude of those things and the pretty girl was struggled to climb onto the bus as a swarm of undead swept in on both of them, he watched the girl slip and slide as more hands reached up and dragged her off the roof into their midst as Sam disappeared under a heaving crowd of flailing limbs in a mist of arterial spray.

The poor girl didn't stand a chance.

Jed shook like a clockwork toy. “K...K..Ken.” He stammered, his voice caught in a dry throat. There was no way they would hear him over the shrieks of the dead and the screams of the dying. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this. For the second time in the space of a few moments he felt a warm trickle flow down his leg.

To be continued...

The Road to Hell – 28mm Roads for Modern (Zombie) Wargames

Can you build a modern road for tabletop zombie games in just a few days?

As stated in my previous post, 4 days prior to our Salute-n-zombie-table-top-gamingathon weekend I foolishly decided that I needed a road for ‘On The Road’ scenario for our play-test game of Iron Ivan Games ‘No More Room In Hell.’ As if I didn’t have enough to do already.

The scenario features a road running the length of a 4’ by 4’ table, jammed packed with, to quote the book ‘as much rubble and destroyed cars as your toy box can provide.’ I didn’t have the rubble but that wasn't what I pictured in my head and I had a shed-load of cars. I just needed the road.

Kinda like this? Image from dennisflood.com

The Idea

The concept was to build, as quickly as possible, a road that could be laid over any gaming surface (city, woodland or desert) that ran the width of the table and looked as much like the World Works Games roads as possible. I really like the WWG roads, however, having got increasingly interested in the hobby side of things I wanted to try and replicate that look as much as possible with a 3D road. Challenging, but seeing the superb standards that many bloggers are showing in their modern basing I thought it was a simple matter of translating the skills to a bigger scale. i.e. treat the roads like bases - long, thing, giant bases.

The Sketch

No sketches actually, but plenty of scribbled calculations. After a few tweaks and adjustments I settled on making the roads approximately 4 inches wide with 12 inch and 24 inch section lengths. To allow for a double width road across a 4’ by 4’ table. I made 10 feet all in all, giving a little extra for creating other city-wide layouts.

The Realisation

6mm MDF was the material of choice. It is about the thinnest I find I can make terrain pieces and keep warping within reasonable limits.

I cut four 24 inch and two 12 inch sections. I covered one side in PVA glue, brushing in the direction of the road, then added sand, sprinkled through a sieve. Note: It is recommended that you don't use the sieve from your kitchen. I did. I had to buy a new one right away.  Whoops - Dog-house!


Sand covered road sections - Pink undersheet optional

Once the PVA was dry I sprayed the roads with Halfords Matt Black Acrylic undercoat. I used a relatively light coat to help fix the sand.

Spray-painting underway.

When the spray paint dried I painted the whole thing with a coat of diluted black house paint, about 1:4 mix of paint to water. This was to fully seal the sand and soak into any parts that regular painting wouldn’t reach.

'Blaaaaaaack!'

Dry-brushing followed with a ½ inch brush with long bristles using Games Workshop Fortress Grey and Space Wolves Grey. I then air-brushed patches, tyre marks and a darkened centre-line on each section using Miniatures Paints #86 - Umber.

Airbrushed centre-lines.

Yellow edging and white centre-lines were added by hand using various acrylic paints, using a ruler as a guide. Then came a few oil stains added with Windsor and Newton Nut Brown Ink.

Someone needs a top-up.

Next, small cracks were painted and highlighted using acrylic paint.



That'll need some attention before the frost hits.

A coat of acrylic spray varnish was added and, once that was dry, flock and a few Army Painter grass tufts and static grass were added to finish off the look.

Army Painter - Grass Tufts

The Result

I am pretty pleased with the final result, especially considering the relatively short time it took to finish. In conclusion, yes, you can build a modern road for tabletop zombie games in just a few days.

The finshed road - 4 days flat.

I didn’t add the flock or the tufts until after the game it was made for (I only bought the tufts at Salute, the day before we played the scenario - The battle report is to follow). There was a small amount of warping in the 24 inch pieces, tolerable but I’d like to find a way to fix it if I can. The airbrush helped considerably with the ‘grubby’ feel. It’s a new purchase and I have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it has been to use. More on the airbrush next time.

Pedal to the Metal!

Epic post for an epic week. Far too much hobby giddiness ensued this week, always a good thing, except for the bank balance.

Jim and Matt from Too Much Unpainted Lead and I attended Salute at the Excel Centre in London this Saturday. Even though I’ve been a war-gamer for more years than I care to recall I’d never been to Salute. Shame on me. It was far bigger than I imagined, not necessarily in scale, but in the huge variety of traders, products and display games that were crammed into the show. After an embarrassing detour we finally arrived at around 11:00 and after our first circuit, where we only looked at traders, it had already gone 14:00. Far too many cool things to mention in just one post, maybe next time.

As we had a few games planned for the Salute weekend I was busy trying to get enough stuff ready to play the scenarios we were running. Two zombie games were planned as well as any other board games we could fit it. A trial of No More Room in Hell from Iron Ivan Games and All Things Zombie from THW filled the miniatures slots and Incursion and Pandemic made up the board game quota.

Outbreak City: 'Midnight Munchies Run' teaser.

I have played Incursion from Grindhouse Games a few times now and it is a pretty darn good game. It has had similar comparisons but describing it as Space-Hulk-Nazi-zombie-diesel-punk fits the bill! Incursion components made up the majority of my show purchases and, inspired by the awesome work of Herrodadog, a full 3D board and play-set is in the works.

Incursion from Grindhouse Games

Pandemic is a fantastic cooperative board game from Z-Man Games where the players do everything they can to stop the spread of deadly contagions and stem the outbreaks as they engulf the world. Although it is not a zombie game, it fit the theme of the weekend superbly. We played twice and lost both times, but only just, perfect.

Pandemic from Z-Man Games

As we were set to play ‘The Road’ scenario for No More Room In Hell I picked up a quite a few new 1/43 scale vehicles. I picked up a few from Sainsburys and recognised a few from Colin’s blog. I also popped into a local collector’s store and found a number of old cars for just £1.99 each. As I’d stated in a previous post, I needed some more generic saloons (most of what I have is fire engines and working vehicles). I have no idea what a Lancia Lybra is, but these 1/43 models from Majorette fit the bill perfectly. To avoid the ‘I wish I had bought those’ problem, I bought one in each colour they had.

It's the doors, you just have to!

Widowmaker.

Blingin'

Wilkinsons Bus: 1/50 but it works for me.

Soft-Top

Genuine 'apocalyptic' reason for sale

"May I present the Lancia...erm, what is it again?"

Once the collection of cars was amassed I quickly made a classic gamer-gaff. Come on, we all do it. 4 days before the weekend, whilst happily finish off my zombies, I confidently decided that I needed to make a new road specifically for the scenario too. The game calls for a road spanning the length of a 4’ by 4’ table...hmmm...idea, sketch, realisation...quick!!!! Expect more on that in a future post.