“There are no heroes here. Just a few men and women running around in the dark with half-empty magazines.” – The Forever Winter
Setup: Primary - Area Search. Objectives at centres of top right/bottom right table quarters, and table centre. Secondary - Scavenge. Two objectives within 6" of top right corner. Three search tokens, two within 6" of top right corner, one within 6" of bottom left corner. Sentries (4 zombies) begin in top right corner. Hero starts within 6" of top left corner.
City Docks, Z+39
Shortly after the last mission, Morgan's unit disintegrates; too many casualties, too much horror, not enough rations. Morgan considers his teammates, decides he doesn't trust any of them enough to cover his back in the apocalypse, and fades away one night. Almost a fortnight later, he finds himself alone, picking his way through the docks, one last foray through the city before he heads out into the countryside to hole up and review his admittedly limited options; it's getting too dangerous in the urban areas.
Morgan fails to notice that most of the loot and all of the zombies initially in the area are on top of a building to the northeast of the docks, and so wanders towards the waterfront. The zombies mill around on the roof, attracted to something in one corner.
As Morgan makes his way around a pile of crates, he finally sees there are zeds on the roof. He also sees something interesting just off the boardwalk and moves up to investigate - but before he can do so, he hears a noise in the warehouse behind him. At the same time, the zombies, not the most alert of opponents but too smart to walk mindlessly off the edge of the roof, realise he is there and start racing down the stairs to the ground floor.
The vampires in the warehouse - for such they are - don't need to risk emerging into the daylight, for they have pistols, and all of them fire at him. Miraculously, only two hit, and neither does more than graze him; he ducks into cover behind some nearby crates. The noise startles a stealthy survivor who was searching behind a pile of crates to Morgan's southwest, and he sticks his head cautiously around the corner.
Morgan considers his options for a heartbeat. Half a dozen guns between him and the exit from the docks; four zombies charging at him from their tower; a survivor with unknown intentions also between him and the exit. He needs to get away from all of them, and that means diving off the docks into the cold water below. He runs as far as he dares along the nearest jetty and dives in, hoping he can swim better than the zombies.
The new survivor decides that discretion is the better part of not becoming part of a Zombie Feast, and runs away from the docks, hoping the zeds will go for Morgan.
By the time the vampires get line of sight on where he was, Morgan is swimming out to sea, intending to circle back to shore once everyone else has given up on him.
As it turns out, he can swim better than zombies, and for reasons he is unaware of, whoever was shooting at him doesn't follow up.
GM Notes
Well, Morgan's Bennies didn't last long, but they did save him from being gunned down by vampires; he has one left to last him until episode 8. Since vampires in the ATZ R&R deck can apparently come in six-packs with firearms, I decided they should be the most junior kind, which means they are not Invulnerable. They can still be injured by sunlight, though, so opted to stay in the warehouse in the hope of bringing Morgan down with gunfire. (I realised partway through writing this up that actually his Bennies shouldn't refresh until the end of this session, but "no do-overs" works in the solo PC's favour as well as against him.)
All SWADE zombies can run and use firearms, but Morgan was lucky on his "running" dice on the first couple of turns in the water, and while SWADE zeds can also swim, on average luck a human will pull away from them a couple of yards per turn, so I called it after a few dice rolls.
This time, I decided not to bother posting screenshots of turns where all that happened was Morgan moving across the map, only showing what happened once combat was joined.
Credits: Map - Loke Battlemats. Tokens - Fiery Dragon. Rules - SWADE, GFSQ campaign rules, ATZ R&R deck.
