I'm delighted to announce my Weird War Z rules based on the excellent Two Hour Wargames' reaction system are completed and ready for playtesting. And as my previous post shows, the models for this are coming along nicely.
However, the rules are nothing like the final result I had originally expected to
write. Let me explain.
When I stumbled
across Studio Miniatures’ Die Verdammten, I was immediately hooked on the idea
of an alternate weird war two setting for some Zombie wargaming. This seemed doubly fortuitous as I was at the
time sourcing miniatures for All Things Zombie.
2014 was shaping up to be a very good year in my gaming history! It seemed an obvious choice to get some more
miniatures (what a shame!) and simply play a second world war setting with the
ATZ rules and simply add in the weapons profiles from NUTS! What could be simpler?
Famous last
words.
The rules I have completed are an amalgamation of three sets produced by Two Hour Wargames. Chain Reaction 3.1, the original 2005 Origins
Award winning All Things Zombie, and the 2005 edition of NUTS! Yes, 2005 was another
very good year for my gaming!
How did
this happen? Let me explain…
I’m a massive
fan of the Two Hour Wargame reaction system.
I came across them when I decided I wanted to play a more realistic
game. I had been jaded by the IGO UGO
mechanic that pervades most systems to this day. It didn’t represent the ebb and flow of
battle I had read about. I also wanted a
system that took away the absolute command and control of many rule sets. This was why I really like the PIP system of
DBA, DBM and their derivatives.
So when I found
NUTS! I was immediately sold. So too was
everyone I introduced to the game in the following months. Soon more and more THW rule sets were added
to my collection.
Why then did
this end up a mix of so many rulebooks?
Well, ATZ is all
about surviving after the apocalypse has struck and the whole world has gone
mad. Pockets of survivors try and eke
out an existence in a world dominated by Zeds.
Now, that’s fantastic, but the game mechanics don’t deliver a World War
Two Setting when the apocalypse is only just beginning. It quickly became apparent that whilst I
needed a lot of ATZ rules for, well…the Zombies, I needed more of the reaction
system created in NUTS! Soldiers needed to act like soldiers in 1945 and not like 21st century survivors. So many of the
rules that made it into WWZ are lifted right out of NUTS!.
But not all of
them. Particularly when it came to
damage. In NUTS! You basically only have
a 1 in 6 chance of causing an Obviously Dead regardless of the Impact rating of
the weapon. This will keep the game
going and not in quite as bloody a manner as ATZ. Whilst this is good, if I allowed the Pop Goes
the Weasel and special Shooting at Zombies rules into WWZ alongside the NUTS! Damage tables, it would clearly
make it an awful lot easier to kill Zeds than any living troops. Which didn’t sound either right or true to
the horror genre itself. So to keep the
Zed rules in, I had to make it easier to kill humans by allowing all the ATZ
damage tables in. Admittedly this makes
the game a lot more bloody, but that seems right for the setting. As I've said before, setting is everything!
Into this mix
comes CR3.1, particularly in terms of post battle REP increase or
decrease. I did this simply because I
like the more streamlined approach it gives. There’s less book keeping
involved. Plus, the chance to
detrimentally affect REP due to failure seemed to fit the atmosphere of this
game too.
Another area of departure was the enemy reaction section. I didn't need PEF's (Possible Enemy Forces) as this rule was catered for by the In Sight rules for encountering terrain in NUTS! And whilst All Things Zombie gives all the necessary rules for determining the action of the Zeds in the game, it didn't explain how the various humans would react in the game.
I resolved this by adding in a number of new charts that reflected the actions of civilians, Volkssturm, Hitler Jugend, Volksgrenadiers and Heer Infantry dependant on the prior actions of the players and the varying proximity of Nazi Zeds. CR3.1 was a great help in pulling this section of my rules together.
So the final rules are something a lot more than adding a few NUTS! weapons lists to the ATZ rulebook. It’s been great putting
it together, seeing which worked best for my specific setting. Of course, the true test of the pudding is in
the eating, and that means handing them over to my gaming group.
I'll let you know how it turns out when we get everything together to let us play it!
All that remains is for me to thank Ed Teixeira for creating such a wonderful set of rules I have been able to plunder to create my own.
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