Hey all! First of all let me say Kudos to you guys at Exploding Goat Games for coming up with a great supplement to a fantastic game. I missed out on the early days of Battlefield Evolution but I recently jumped into it hardcore and was ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to see a Zombie War supplement being published. Btw, your cover art is fantastic and the moment I show somebody that, they raise an eyebrow and immediately want to thumb through it.
I tried out some quick Zombie rules with the B:Evo game based off of Apoc Z (I sort of got blindsided by some friends who wanted to play so I tried to wing it after only one skim of the book) and they had a lot of fun. I was sure I didn't do everything by the book (because I didn't know it yet) but even a remotely Zombie related ruleset for B:Evo is awesome.
I used to play Startship Troopers when it first came out and I really enjoyed the knockback rule they had where you could push a figure back an inch or two if you hit them and they made their armor save. this allowed you to slow down the bugs before they got close and even hold them back for a while if you were good. During the quick Zombie demo I ran with my friends, I threw this rule in the game for the heck of it. When a zombie made a successful armor save, they were pushed back 1 inch. The players in the game loved it; One guy had back to back squads on a bridge, set up SAWs for the extra dice, and poured fire into an oncoming zombie horde from both sides of the river. The player had a lot of fun knocking them back and giving him maybe one extra turn to come up with a plan. Then, after the game I read that some/most zombies have the Unstoppable trait which means they are immune to pushback. Is this the same "knockback" that I knew of? Was this mechanic deliberately left out of the Apoc Z ruleset for a reason? Just curious.
My only other questions are below. 1) How come most units have a 7+ kill score when the humans in B:Evo have a 6+ kill score? 2) How do zombie hordes kill anyone when they can only react? Can't long range weapons or sniper teams just pick them off without any threat of retaliation?
That's all I've got for now, but I'm excited about playing this game with friends more often. We've only demo'd the game and people are already talking about an ongoing storyline campaign. I'm sure I'll reply with more questions later on.
Thanks for the positive feedback! The cover art by Marc Lee is phenomenal! I found it on a site called DeviantArt and licensed it from him... very, VERY glad I did so!
The Unstoppable trait is indeed meant to stop zombies from being pushed back in combat. We wanted to get a feel of the "crush" of the undead horde closing in on the humans. The best way I can describe it is the scene in Shawn of the Dead when his group is outside of the bar and the press of undead flesh is bearing down on them and they have no choice to retreat.
The answer to your other questions...
"1) How come most units have a 7+ kill score when the humans in B:Evo have a 6+ kill score?"
We wanted the zombies to be nigh onstoppable from regular small arms fire. The basic logic behind this is that, while you might hit the zombie with the rounds you're firing, you won't do critical damage all that often. If you hit a live human in the heart... well... he drops like a sack of rotten potatoes. If you hit a zombie in the heart... well... it keeps on coming (not so much use for the cardiac muscle when you're dead, you see). "2) How do zombie hordes kill anyone when they can only react? Can't long range weapons or sniper teams just pick them off without any threat of retaliation?"
The zombies can act on their own. You activate them the same way a human player would activate a unit. The reactions from the zombies are actually a way to get them into dinner-distance as soon as possible. Since they don't have many ranged options (unless you like using Zombie Super Soldiers...they ROCK), they need to rely on their toughness (high kill scores and super-duper saves) to close on lunch!!!
In summary: You can activate zombies just like any other unit in BF Evo. Use the reactions to sidle on up to the dinner table that much faster!!
Thanks for the answers to my questions. We've played a couple more games and more and more of my friends become hooked. I'll hopefully post some pics of our games in the near future (and on the Mongoose site).
My friends and I are going with a current day Afghanistan combat campaign with B:Evo rules that is being expanded with the Apoc-Z rules as their units find out more and more about the infection. It has been quite fun!
Now, I have a couple more questions... 1) Most of the Zombie units have a close combat of d10 and most humans have an instant kill score of 7+. It makes sense considering how zombies need only bite, not kill, in order to cause a casualty. But we had a rules balancing question come up during a game regarding some vehicles. I had a player who took a Badger 113 APC with a mounted .50 cal and it very easily was shredded by a group of about 5-8 zombie horde models. The d10 close combat dice were brutal and actually instant killed it twice in a single turn. The 130+ point APC pounded away with a d6+1 Peircing/1 .50 caliber gun for several turns causing little damage only to be completely destroyed by 50-80 points of zombies with ease. I noticed that the B:Modern Combat book has a humvee that is slower and easier to kill than the humvee in Apoc Z... has there been more thought about balancing tanks and APCs into the Apoc Z rules?
We were thinking about adding in some house rules where Size 1 zombie units cannot cause a Kill hit on a tank, or possibly making it so that any hits beyond the first in a turn cause a "suppression" effect on a tank instead of it being torn to pieces. For instance, if a horde of 10 zombies surrounds a Bradley and they roll attacks, only the first hit causes damage but if enough additional dice are applied to the tank, then it will lose actions during the next turn.
2) Our current games include a lot of city fighting. I've liberally applied zombie horde units into or around buildings. Are there any house rules or ideas for "fortifying" a building to keep zombie units out for a limited amount of time? This question came up during a game when a Future Force Ranger squad slipped behind the zombie line and rushed a building which had civilians on the roof. Zombies chased them, but the question came up when the Ranger player wanted to barricade the door and wait for a UH-60 Blackhawk to arrive. The plan was to attach the civilian and themselves to the rappel lines via a Ready action and then get lifted off the building. I had the zombies trying to break down the door, but couldn't think of a way to balance it so it made sense. Any ideas on fortifying buildings/doors/stairways etc?
Sorry for the extremely delayed response. Things have been kind of hectic lately with my actual day job and life in general. I'm gonna have our rules guru Kermit (the man behind the rules for Z) hop onto the forums and answer these.. he knows what he's talking about and can speak more directly for his rationale in developing rules.
