Monday 31 January 2011

LOST IN THE WILDERNESS: Starting Characters

With a brand new campaign, we’ll be starting off with a group of Protagonists and watching their progress over the coming months as they struggle to stay alive being hunted by dark beasts and undead monsters.
Some characters won’t make it and as time goes on, the survivors will meet and make friends with new characters who will join their group. If they aren’t killed, the survivors will quickly learn skills and gather weapons that will help them to survive.
That’s if they survive…
Scenario 1 will see five friends finding themselves in the middle of a zombie infested town. Not all of them will make it but let’s find out who they are while we still can.
For now we’ll just touch on their personalities. We don’t want to get too attached just yet.
JACK
Jack is a cocky young ladies man: tall and athletic, with a love of fast cars and late night drinking binges.




CHRISTIE
Jack’s latest conquest: a flirty nineteen year old whose only interests are clothes, TV and dating.

HERMAN
Andrew’s college roommate: a dour grim-faced individual with a hearty spontaneous laugh and a good bond of friendship with Jack.


VICTORIA
A slightly aloof young woman whose career is already on the fast track. She's hanging with the group because she hopes to get together with Herman, even though she finds herself coming into regular conflict with Jack.




ANDREW
The joker of the group but a brave young man with a protective eye on Victoria.


Only time will tell which of them will survive...

Sunday 30 January 2011

LOST IN THE WILDERNESS: Scenario One - First Contact

SITUATION
Five lost friends on a road trip stop in a deserted village to ask for directions from a strange silent figure that walks away when they call to him. Worried about how lost they’re getting, they go after him but when they catch him up they discover he is one of the living dead, reaching out with cold hands to grasp them. Christie screams as she realises that now their route back to the car is blocked because the whole village is infested with zombies!
OBJECTIVE:
The protagonists must get back to their car and drive off either board edge that it is NOT deployed next to.
PROTAGONISTS
Jack, Christie, Herman, Andrew, Victoria.
ARMAMENT
None.  All characters can fight hand to hand with 1 Bash Dice.
ANTAGONISTS
Zombies!
2 per protagonist in clusters of 2. Plus 1 zombie that they followed.
BOARD LAYOUT
4’x4’ board with a small town in the centre littered with tumbledown ruins.
DEPLOYMENT: PROTAGONISTS
Place car within 6” of the centre of one board edge. Andrew and Victoria are placed within 6” of car. Jack, Christie and Herman are placed within 6” of the centre of the opposite board edge.
DEPLOYMENT: ANTAGONISTS
1 zombie is placed within 6” of Jack, Christie and Herman. Spread the other clusters evenly through the town either in buildings or out of sight of the car.
ZOMBIE AWARENESS
All zombies are AWARE of Christie’s scream. Place a marker next to her initial deployment. Zombies may always choose to move toward this spot unless something else makes them AWARE or until their player chooses to set them back to WANDERING.
OPPORTUNITIES
While fully in a building, a protagonist may spend 4 actions to search for a useable weapon, finding one on a d6 roll of 2+. Roll on the following table to determine the weapon found:
1-3
Blunt Instrument
2 Bash Dice
4-5
Bladed Weapon
2 Lethal Dice

6

Shotgun
3 Lethal Dice (2 max per target)
1d6 Ammo in gun
Further 6 action search of house reveals 1d6 Reloads on a 3+

Friday 28 January 2011

Welcome to the City of the Dead

Hi. And welcome to Necropolis.


Necropolis is a skirmish miniatures game that I designed about eight years ago. I'd been playing mainly Games Workshop wargames for a few years and wanted to do something of my own.

I’d always been attracted to horror in all its forms, from film and novels, comic books, roleplaying games and my own imagination. I wanted to create a game that would simulate the situations, pace and twists and turns of a horror movie. More than this I wanted it to simulate the mix of personalities that tend to crop up in horror films and the ongoing struggle to survive.
After many dozens of play test games I’ve honed the rules for Necropolis to a point where I’m fairly happy with them, although I’ll continue to develop them as time goes on.
Necropolis isn’t like other miniatures games (that I have come across) in that the play style can vary greatly from scenario to scenario and the mission objectives are rarely as simple as “kill your opponents.” Quite the contrary, Necropolis tends to pit the heroes against opponents they have no hope of “winning “against.
In one game the heroes might be working covertly, sneaking past their enemies with no ammunition in their weapons. In another, they might be fully loaded down, trying to clear an area of zombies so they can set up camp. In a third they might be having a shootout with a gang of cannibalistic killers or trying to hunt a slug-like monster that is slowly taking control of members of the group.
This site will contain the complete developing rules for the game, as well as following the ongoing storyline of the campaign I will be running. This campaign will follow the fortunes of a group of survivors and the people they meet as they struggle to survive within the city of the dead.
On top of that I’ll showcase scenery and miniatures I use in the game and give painting, modelling and tactics tips as time goes on.
Time can sometimes be tight but my goal will be to post articles every two to three days.