I and the wee lad are interested in zombies, thanks to me collecting the Evil Dead TV show, Dawn of the Dead remake, and a bunch of Carpenter movies (I gave up streaming services, when I realized I was spending $50+ a month on stuff I didn't even watch. I wondered "how many secondhand DVDs can I buy with half this budget?" The answer is: a lot.)
Also, I can highly recommend the PC game Cepheus Protocol on Steam. Every got frustrated with how inept the military/Umbrella Corp etc were at containing a zombie outbreak?
In Cepheus Protocol, YOU control the army! Control up to 80 individual soldiers, choppers, HUMVEEs, set up evac routes - if you have seen it in a movie, it's probably in the game.
It's definitely a game made by enthusiasts vs bland Ea/Ubisoft shovelware. Ever wonder what a Little Bird with a pair of SAW gunners on the skids would do to a zombie rush? If a Striker LAV could take on a Resident Evil-esque juggernaut?
I've had a lot of fun; my first playthrough I expanded very cautiously, methodically securing sectors; the second time I aggressively patrolled and made daring forward evac points to pull the civilians out of the hot zone to reduce the potential infected. I then lost a mission when zombies swarmed my evac Chinook and they were taken back to my carrier homebase...
The downside; there's so much going, the framerate slows a lot in the endgame, and it's not sure what scale it wants to be; controlling individual soldiers is fun, but tricky and seems a bit pointless when you control 80 of them....
....it's prompted a few more thoughts about wargames that struggle with this; i.e. tracking individual ammo and turning flashlights off or on is fine if you control 8 soldiers, but not 80.... It's a great game with an identity crisis. It's not sure if it wants to be Jagged Alliance or Company of Heroes.
So here is a zombie game we played. I made up the rules on the spot:
Dice Mechanics
d10, roll under stat/tn (low roll = good)
Turn Sequence:
1.Any human who wants to shoot, shoots at max accuracy/rof etc.
2.Then, both sides take turns moving.
a. Zombies can only move and melee.
b. Humans can move+melee, move+move (sprint), or move+shoot (snap shot, -2)
Movement
Everyone has a 6" base move, but humans have the options of an extra +6" (sprint)
Climbing an object over head height takes a turn.
Melee
Humans strike first, with 6 or less hitting; if they win they push back any zombies regardless of damage
Zombies strike next, also with a 6 or less hitting. They don't push back as they are grabbing the human.
Shooting
Weapons have an 'effective range' of 12" but unlimited range beyond that with a -2 long range modifier.
A '6' of less hits, with -2 for long range, -2 if target obscured etc.
A roll of '1' is an auto-kill (headshot)
Damage
A roll of 4 or less kills either side. (zombies are tough, but also have only teeth to damage with)
Weapons
FAMAS Rifle. 2 shots, 1 shot if move+fire.
SAW. 3 shots, cannot move+fire.
Sniper rifle. 1 shot. May re-roll to hit or to damage; cannot move+fire.
Since I explained it aloud and my 9 year old grasped it straight away, and we had a decent game, I'd call these rules a success.
Random Rules
Aim is to explore and find the "special thing.". Each building entered, skip a turn and roll d10 to search.
A search roll of 1,2 = spawns that amount of zombies 12" away or board edge - whatever is closer, direction determined by triangle on the top number on a d10.
A '0' on the search roll means the "special thing" cure for virus, patient zero, or whatever - is found and the humans can exfiltrate back off their starting board edge.
Each time a human fires, roll d10 (like the search roll.) Again a 1-2 spawns zombies in random direction - they are attracted by gunfire!
Horde Mode: If dad gets bored after too many game turns, then a roll of 1, 2, AND 3 spawns that many zombies. However the chance of finding the 'thing' also increases to 9 or 0 on a search roll.
Dad, "Fair" Master of Zombies: As a pseudo gamesmaster, I always activate the closest zombies first and move them by the most direct route to the closest visible opponent. No tactical flanking etc.
Thoughts:
The zombies were realistically tough and got shot repeatedly (sometimes 4-5x) without dying. The gunshots attracted other zombies faster than they could be downed. Which was fine but I felt it may be less fun for a 9 year old.
So I changed the rules so any to hit roll of 2 under the target stat was a headshot i.e, if you need a 6 but rolled a 4 it was instant kill.
However MY 9 year old then complained killing zombies was too easy. He reckons next time, a to hit roll of 1 or 2 for headshots max; i.e. basically the same as the zombie spawn chance of 1-2.
Interestingly he played the human forces like I do Cepheus Protocol, avoiding cover/buildings (where melee zombies can ambush you) and keeping out in the open with clear lines of sight.
He used the sniper and SAW mostly to cover the others moving around, and used the sniper for long shots - as I intended. I'd probably nerf the sniper up close - i.e effective range is 12" and OVER, with a close range penalty - to avoid clutch sniper shots in rooms.
Game Design Musing
I am experimenting with shoot-then-resolve damage-then-move; due to my tank homebrew rules having me wonder why we always move-then-shoot-then-resolve damage.
A lot of modern combat seems to be fire, suppress, then move around; rather than cavalierly dashing around and hoping not to get caught in the open by alert fully functional enemy; like in most wargames.
Shooting first, with an emphasis on suppression rather than killing (wargames tend to be spectacularly bloody compared to real life lethality) might be worth exploring.
Not sure if I've posted this yet but my wife allowed me a display cupboard which I (nervously) assembled - yeek panes of glass - which will contain some of my less obscure models. So LoTR and Tiger tanks - yes; super-cavitating submarines and Quar - no...
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