A post-apocalyptic city is a dangerous place to be. You may just want to see out the rest of your days in hiding but this is an impossibility in reality. The key to survival is movement and every group of survivors must frequently venture out into the dangerous streets to search for needed supplies. Though it is the undead who rule the streets, survivors also need to be wary of other groups and in particular biker gangs whose behaviour has become even less savoury in the post-apocalyptic world.
We thus pitted a survivor team against a biker gang, using two character cards a side, in a slightly adjusted (see below) version of scenario 1 from the Project Z Survivors Guide for Dummies, found in the Project Z starter box.
Note: This game was played on a 2×2 board, primarily to make use of a handy modern street board we have available in the Warlord Games HQ store. This is significantly smaller than the scenario’s recommended size, and made for an extremely fast-placed, bloody and all-round tougher game for the players as you’ll see. We definitely made it hard for ourselves! To compensate a small amount, the Zombie spawn markers were moved to the board’s edges, though by the same token, the loot markers were far closer together.
Turn One
Biker Gang has the initiative for the first turn, and double down on their advantage by utilizing their 10” movement to zoom to the centre of the board and nab two of the central loot markers, whilst their fellows on foot scooped up the one closer to their table edge. Though this did leave them in the lurch and somewhat unsupported in the face of the zombie groups encroaching from both sides. The bikers cared not, however, as they had an alternative objective in mind…
Victory comes in many forms -The ‘Dancing in the Streets’ scenario stipulates that each loot marker held by a team at the end of the game is worth a victory point. This is combined with any special rules brought by the team to the tabletop. For survivor teams, this means that each loot marker retrieved is effectively worth two victory points. For biker gangs, the ‘We Are Tough’ special rule comes into place – they gain an additional victory point for every opposing character slain during the game.
On the other side of the board, the survivors fanned out from their alley entry point, far more concerned about the approaching undead than the biker’s opposite seemed to be, aiming to drop as many of the zombies bearing down on them from either flank as possible, though some were already close to being within melee range.
The bikers forfeited any shooting, having moved in the preceding phase, but the gang prospects brought their arms to bear on the nearby Zombies, in an effort to avoid an encircling of their small gang. Combined uzi and shotgun fire successfully ‘shock’ the nearest zombie, the only one at this point capable of engaging the prospects in close combat. They had bought themselves a turn, though the zombie would be getting back up, and two more were soon to join the horde in the upkeep phase.
The survivors on the far side fared little better, with one unloading a Full-Auto assault rifle on the zombies. Combined with various other small arms, only a single zombie is felled, whilst two are shocked. The assault rifle-toting survivor is unfortunate indeed, not only did their 10 Full-Auto shots amount to very little but they are caught up, engaged in close quarters and downed, becoming the first zombie meal of the day. At least they won’t have to go through the trouble of reloading their assault rifle.
Ammo Control – Every time a firearm is discharged in Project Z, its owner receives a reload token which must be rolled to remove during the upkeep phase. Some weapons, particularly those of an automatic nature are particularly difficult to reload and receive an additional token when fired, such as an Assault Rifle’s Fire Selector when opting for Full Auto. All tokens must be cleared before the weapon can be fired again. Sometimes, therefore, firing at will may not be in a player’s best interest.
On the survivors’ right flank a second survivor is caught in combat and downed. A less than fortuitous beginning to the loot grab for these dwindling survivors. One zombie down, four more join their ranks during the upkeep phase.
Loot Markers Claimed: Biker Gang – 3 Survivor Team – 1
Turn Two
A Faster Next Time Survival Card ensures the Survivor team gains initiative for the second turn. Desperate times call for an appropriately foolhardy charge toward the bikers in order to ‘liberate’ the loot whilst simultaneously grabbing the final unclaimed marker in the centre. A group of three survivors thus break out ahead of the wider team, armed collectively with a baseball bat, Molotov cocktail and a brace of pistols. The remainder of the survivors attempt to form up a defensive firepower wall at their rear, though things don’t look good.
Opposite, the gang prospects can do little to support their mounted comrades, preoccupied as they are by no less than ten Zombies ambling hungrily forward for their quarry.
Molotov Cocktails have but a single-use in game, and the survivor in question made sure it counted, managing easily to shock the two bikers before they can even react. Wary of an incoming close quarters engagement that could instantly wipe both bikers from the board, a grit token is spent to instantly recover one of the shocked results. To their rear, and despite having a successful spate of reloading the previous turn, the remaining survivors can do very little to offset the oncoming tide of undead, leaving the blood-soaked streets scattered with reload tokens, but very few felled zombies.
The close combat phase is a brutal and bloody affair, with the three melee-tooled survivors leaping on the two bikers, and despite their earlier swift recovery via grit token, the remaining biker is shocked by way of the crowbar and swiftly finished off by the baseball bat.
Loot Markers Claimed: Biker Gang – 1 Survivor Team – 1
Turn Three
The survivors once again take initiative, through natural dice rolling this time. Though they are far diminished in number, they are faring a whole lot better than the gang prospects; whose prospects of survival, let alone full-fledged gang status, are pretty much non-existent by this point. Outnumbered by survivors and undead alike, they firmly set their sights on revenge and put chase to the survivors that had just hoovered up the loot markers formerly held by the gangers on bikes, whose attentions were now turned to clearing a path and getting the hell out of there.
Back at the alley, one of the survivors finds themselves surrounded. With nowhere to go but the alley (and with some carefully considered movement), they become the pawn of a sacrifice play, tactically drawing a large cluster of zombies away from the trio who were all legging it from the centre of the board each carrying loot. Alas, the chap with the baseball bat, having been marked for death by the gang prospect is shotgunned in the back and is shocked, the prospect running out to finish the job up close and personal. Vengeance is swift and brutal.
All the remaining living are hemmed in by the undead, an unliving wall of gnashing teeth and rotted grasping hands; though guns blare and crowbars swipe, very few of the undead fall, and evermore are joining their ranks.
Loot Markers Claimed: Biker Gang – 1 Survivor Team – 2
Turn Four
The remaining gang prospect does their utmost to exact revenge on the two remaining survivors (some would say fruitlessly as they were all to become victims of the undead in due course anyway) but only manages to inflict flesh wounds on the survivors and in turn is brought down – with a great deal of resistance – by a swarm of five zombies.
It was at this point that the game was called. With little to no chance of survival for two more rounds (including escalation) and nowhere to go, the remaining two survivors, pinned against the wall resign themselves to their fate. Thus with no survivors left on either side and no loot gained, the streets belong to the undead. There is a technical victory for the Biker gang for killing a single survivor, but at a great and terrible cost.
Victory Points: Biker Gang – 1 Survivor Team – 0
Get Started with Project Z
All the miniatures used in this game come from the Project Z starter box. Packed with highly customizable miniatures and all the rules, dice and accessories needed to play the game, this starter box gives you all you need to survive and fight post-apocalyptic battles against the undead on the tabletop.
