Evo Z tactics

[locarno24]

I just got hold of Apocalypse Z yesterday, and a friend and I are looking to have a game fairly soon.

We'll probably try the basic scenario a few times to get our heads around it, but we're also looking at a small-ish 500 point skirmish fairly early on.

He's immediately expressed a desire to play the zombies - mostly due to the ability to field pure awesome in the form of zombie monkeys - which leaves me playing as lunch...sorry, as the enclave survivors. I'm looking for any tactical/list advice. I'd rather not go in for anything too complex for a force since I'll still be getting my head around what enemy units do, let alone my own.

I'd expect - since it's Gaz - that the opposing force will consist of three ten-strong hordes of zombies and one ten-strong horde of zombie monkeys, since that's how he can get the maximum number of monkeys in his list.


I'm assuming that I'm going to end up with a fairly static force - I'm going to have to have at least a couple of militia squads, and probably three, with an extra squad of something to fill out the force.

I'm thinking of two ten-man squads with hunting rifles, one ten-man squad with 12-guages, a police lieutenant with the extra-action-thingey*, and a mid-sized unit of riot police. The plan is to find somewhere in my deployment zone and dig in, with the riot police acting as a mobile defensive wall and the guys with shotguns and the lieutenant backing them up (with the shotgun's D6+2, with another +1 from Aim for the Head, I reckon they have a 50/50 chance of dropping a zombie with every shot fired).

Militia will be tasked to shoot the monkeys first - since they have bloody dodge saves getting a kill score doesn't help - then to Aim for the Head of the thirty-odd normal zombies heading towards them and pray the riot police and shotgun squad can deal with the zombie monkeys. I don't want to advance out into no-mans land because I can't Aim for the Head and shoot if I moved, and militia have no place getting close to zombies.
(For that matter, nor do most units. Are penal units as utter dross as I suspect they are?)

Besides which, I'm concerned that any building I move towards may prove to contain zombie monkeys in ambush.


Any tactical advice generally welcomed; Enclave militia seem to be a very static force (compared to SST Evo Mobile Infantry, anyway, and that's the only real point of reference I have. Sadly dropping a platoon of Grizzly Exosuits on the zombies is probably a non-starter.).





*technical term, there

 

[Paladin]

I can't offer much beyond, spread out and DO NOT HOLD STILL. Don't be afraid to double move and get away on occasion. The exception being you can find a tall enough building or lots of cover where the advance is delayed.

More troops can lead to more enemies as they come back as enemies. Depends on your opponent's style.

 

[Wargoat]

When you shoot: USE PURIFIER ROUNDS AND AIM FOR THE HEAD!!!

 

[basaint]

So Locar
how'd the battle go? The few times i was lucky enough to play Riot police were the shit.

Updates

 

[locarno24]

I'm tempted to check if the 12-guage is meant to use the same statline as the Benelli, since (a) it doesn't have a statline listed and (b) It's utter, utter filth....


The game went pretty well. I lost, but in a straight, scenario-less fight against a respawning enemy, that's inevitable...

The shotgun squad with the police lieutenant were the stars of the show, really. The riot police dealt with the monkeys and brought down several normal zombies, but it was mostly shotgun fire that won the day. The fact that you don't have to bother aiming means I can move, then double tap with the unit, and zombies are too slow to catch up with me.

Will try playing a scenario, I think.

 

[basaint]

Locar-
You stateside or Euro?

Saint

 

[locarno24]

Preston - the top left-hand bit of England.

Probably going to get another game some time next week. Looking forward to trying out watcher special forces - combining a weapon with a decent range and access to purifier rounds looks (at least at first glance) like it should be awesome.


I've somewhat abused a copy of Vassal40k to produce something with a passing resemblence to Battlefield Evo - 3 blank round bases of various sizes with a direction pointer, some 'throwable' D6's and D10's (for assigning to targets) and it's pretty much good to go.

The only other thing I'd do - if I had the time, patience, and above all a graphics program other than powerpoint, would be to create some 'transparent' images of NATO Iconography that I can drop over a base.

Plus a few.....non-standard...icons for the zombies, of course.

 

[basaint]

Crap, another Brit! so no playing for me

You know what you could do and it would be simple is just you PCpaint, draw the shapes and just get the transparency paper (and yur printer) and Viola`.

Btw, you said icons for Zombies-you not using minis for em? The ones I use are from my Zombies!!! game and you can get a bag of 100 of them cheap.

 

[locarno24]

The icons were (again) for vassal.

Miniatures aren't a problem; our local wargames store has quite a stock of them due to one of the employee's preferences for 'Zombie Hotel' - his own version of a zombie apocalypse game.

(I should point out that the zombies in that one were much less tough but there were significantly more of them. We have 200 of them, and you got a team of eight or so players with one soldier each.....)