Zombie Nerf War II Report
We just got back from Zombie Nerf War last night, and I declare it a success! We had a bit of trouble getting started, as usual. Since we switched it to Sunday, a number of people were too hung over to play, or showed up late. We ended up having 9 players instead of the 20 we had hoped for, so we had to scale things back a bit. Instead of playing in the farm that Hess had arranged, we just went to his house, where there was some pretty interesting terrain.
The setup surrounded a small house, which was not enterable. The Hunter safe zone was next to the house (as was the beer), and in front of it stood a ridiculously steep grassy hill (at least a 45 degree grade in parts), split into two parts by a strip of thick conifers. Behind it was a large section of woods with some small paths and clearings, and various degrees of steepness. There was also a beat up old car back a little ways, which became the zombie’s main rally point.
We tried a few rules variations, most with 2 hunters and 7 zombies. We reduced the available ammo from ZNWI significantly, and decided to try a 1-shot kill game. This was over very fast, as it was way too easy for the hunters and they won effortlessly. The next few games went much better. The hunters usually got off to a good start, but something would always go wrong and it went quickly downhill from there as the zombies established dominance. Instead of the ammo drops in the woods, we gave the zombies extra guns and ammo packs, which you could take if you killed them. This made it possible in one game for the hunters to run completely out of ammo, and the only way to get it back would have been killing a zombie for theirs, which they had no way of accomplishing. To address this, we added a melee weapon in the form of some small foam nunchucks, with which you had to score a head shot to kill. It was a bit silly, but the reach and difficulty of use were perfect. In close combat one-on-one, you could do well with it, but get two or three of them on you and you’re dead.
We also experimented with two capture-the-flag scenarios, using rage zombies, one-shot kills, and unlimited ammo refills at the base. The rage zombies additionally did not need to be tagged back in; they simply sit for 45 seconds then come back again on their own. In the first game, there were two flags and the winning team had to have both at their base to win. The humans did very well at the start, but they slowly got turned before they could get their flag back, and the zombies ended up getting an elimination victory before we could make it back up the hill to drop the flags. The second game used the same rules, except only the hunters had to return a flag, the rage zombie team started with just one player, and hunter to zombie conversions were instant. This was a very close game, and the hunters brought the flag back in very close persuit with only two of their team left.
Overall, the game play was excellent. It rained quite a lot, making the steep and varied terrain more of an obstacle than the other team, which worked out very well with so few people. Hopefully ZNWIII will involve more players and a slightly less potentially lethal arena.
