The Split Level, and some Pre-Endgame thoughts

First, sharp-eyed observers may have noticed that there was a new house on the block during the episode "The Neighborhood Watch," namely the "Split Level" house by Stoelzel's Structures.

Not as easy a build as the "Raised Ranch House," and I'd suggest doing the Ranch House first if you are a beginner like I am.  The house has three levels: the ground level, a small second level off to the side, and a third level above the ground level.  It's a interesting layout, but challenging to build.  In particular, there is a cardstock stairwell that has to fit precisely in a gap that has three separate sides: the vertical wall, the floor of the second level, and the floor of the third level.  Do a better job pre-fitting these pieces than I did.

Also the instructions suggest just making the roof out of cardstock.  No way.  I used a piece of taskboard, which is a sort of matte board that is easy to cut and sand but it still very thin, as the foundation for the roof, then cut two foamcore braces using the cardstock braces as a template.  It's a lot more sturdy than just a cardstock room, and you can barely see the edge.

Now onto some thoughts about the last session.  Looking back, I realized that I made a deliberate choice near the end to forego some shooting in fear of summoning more zombies, something that had happened all that day with remarkable frequency.  I had really hoped I could have Robb (and then later Irene) handle a single zombie, but that guy turned out to be one tough cuss.  I should have had Erin shoot him.

I have to say, despite losing both Erin (who I knew was a flight risk after she got a higher Rep than Robb) and Irene in a single encounter, I loved the dramatic feel to the whole thing.  It felt like a season finale of a zombie-themed television show.  I like how groups don't have stable membership, but instead constantly suffer at least the threat of people leaving either by death or departure, and how if the leader doesn't stay "large and in charge" the group will react accordingly.

As a side note, the real life Irene is glad she died trying to rescue me, and feels that the real life Erin would not only grow in ability quickly, being a very intelligent and resourceful woman, but would also have left me at that point to find her family.  Nice to see art imitating life.

But all this got me thinking about what the endgame of this campaign would look like.  There was a discussion about Rep 7 Stars over at Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion, and I've thought that hitting Rep 7 would probably influence game play a great deal, to the point where maybe it would get to be too easy.

So basically, I told myself I'd run the ATZ campaign until either Robb or Irene hit Rep 7, or both of them were dead.  We're halfway there now on the latter.  I have no idea if it is more likely Robb will find his untimely end or if he can scrabble through to epic hero-dom.  He seems almost incapable of getting a Rep increase, so I could end up throwing zombies at him for a long time.

The Village Shoppe

I finished my first "Food Market" from Stoelzel's Structures.  It is a two story building with the shop on the main floor and a stairwell in the back leading up to an apartment.   The roof and the upper floor lifts out, as you can see.  I haven't built any of the interior pieces yet.  Since ATZ:FFO doesn't incorporate rules for inside combat but leaves it fairly abstracted I don't feel the huge impetus to get it done.  Besides, I tend to find the smaller pieces a little fiddly.

A food market and an apartment make for a great encounter location (two, really) for the game, and this is where Team Robb will be heading this weekend, hopefully.

A Second Ranch House

Today I finished up my second Raised Ranch House from the Stoelzel's Structures line.  It is essentially identical to my earlier one, just a different color.  The pdf for the house, which is printed out on cardstock and then mounted on foamcore (I like to use black because it covers more sins), features several different wall colors so you can build an entire neighborhood.  I didn't include pictures of the interior because it looks identical to the interior of the previous house.

Hopefully I'm going to be getting at least more new building this week, and then try again for another session on the weekend.

Our House, in the middle of our street...

Continuing my build-up of my table for the upcoming All Things Zombie: Final Fade Out campaign, I've added a new house.

It is the "Raised Ranch House" from Stoezel's Structures.  What I like the best about it is that the building is made with in the intent of using foamcore to reinforce the walls and floors.  What do I not like?  The biggest thing is the roof, which is almost exactly flush with the side of the building, rather than having it hang over the edge slightly like real roofs do.  But it is pretty cool with a fully detailed interior including a two-car garage, and for the low price of $5.00.  Morever it includes several different color exteriors so you can make different homes that won't be completely identical.

Note: I didn't put the exterior steps on the building because I find cardstock steps particularly fiddly and I can make ones pretty easily from Hirst Arts blocks.

Another Armory

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm bulking up my campaign's material.  With that in mind, I built a second building from the World Works Games Mayhem Armory, this one looking more like, well, an armory.

TV Repair Shop

This is the second in the three free cardstock buildings available from Microtactix at the Wargames Vault and elsewhere.

The building has a recessed doorway and roof, the latter of which gives a "lip" to provide cover should one need it.  Like the other Microtactix buildings, the signs are separate so that you could build duplicate buildings to flesh out your scenery.  I have considered the possibility of reinforcing walls with foamcore to make the buildings more durable and to prevent warping.

What's nice about cardstock buildings is that their construction is not time-consuming.  This small building was built within an hour, probably more like thirty minutes.  With all cardstock construction you really need four tools: an X-acto knife for cutting and scoring, a metal ruler (don't use a wooden or plastic one--I had to have a chunk of a finger stitched back on because of that mistake), a self-healing cutting board, and a glue pen like scrap-bookers use.  The glue pen is useful because the glue shows up blue but dries clear, is easily controlled,  and has little water so that it prevent warping.

Stinky's Pizza Place

Click to enlarge

A while back I was trying to figure out the best solution for creating the urban landscape for my ATZ campaign.  There seems to be four schools of thought:

1. Professionally made 25/28mm terrain.  While there are lots of fantasy and sci-fi ranges out there, modern ranges that are not Middle Eastern "adobe" are hard to come by, not to mention expensive.

2. HO or O Scale railroad terrain.  HO is really too small for 28mm and looks better in 1:72 or 15mm.  O Scale is also expensive, and really the terrain is made for static placement, not to be transported or moved.

3. Scratchbuilt.  I can actually do a fair job of this, but it is will either be quick or attractive, but not both.

4. Cardstock.  A lot of people go this route, including Vampifan from Vampifan's World of the Undead.  I've used cardstock terrain in the past with fantasy, and there's lots available out there.  With that in mind, I made my first piece today, "Stinky's Pizza" by Microtactix.

Microtactix's pieces are more cartoony than WorldWorksGames, but on the upside this particular piece is free and comes with separate signs so you can make up several buildings with different names on them.  This particular piece is also free from DriveThruRPG, making it an even better deal.  It isn't large, but I'm a believer in the "small terrain is better" school of thought.  Four 3" buildings look better on a table than one 12" building.  This set prints out on one page of cardstock, including both the signs and a dumpster (and a crummy looking cardstock delivery boy I won't be using).  Microtactix actually has three free buildings, each with separate signs so one could really do a nice start to a layout without laying out any money beyond the $15 for 250 pages of cardstock that will last your forever and the ink cartridges (probably the one downside to cardstock terrain, aside from general flimsiness).

If you have any experience or tips with cardstock terrain, feel free to share them.