2018-12-19: Mantic's The Walking Dead, Prelude to Woodbury, Scenario 1, Part 1

I have not had much hobby mojo the past week, so I thought that I should spend some of my last day this side of Christmas without having to sleep six-seven hours on some solo gaming.

I dug out Mantic's The Walking Dead: All out War - Prelude to Woodbury, Brian Blake and some painted walkers, the mats I made for the scenarios, and the deck holders I printed for the Equipment, Supplies, and Event cards.

After setting up, I skimmed the rules for the first scenario, so that I would not miss something important in the heat of the action.

After assessing the situation, I decided that sneaking was the way to go for most movement, as Brian probably would want to avoid unnecessary attention from the shambling carcasses.

I do not think it would have made a big difference if Brian had run past the dead girl, but at least he got to use both his actions that way.

In the Event Phase Brian was now in the Kill Zone of the pigtailed pest, so she lurched at him.

The Event Card added +1 to the Threat Level, but it was still 'All Quiet', so no further happened.

As there was now a Melee at the start of the Melee Phase, the Threat Level rose by another +1. It seemed that it would not be quiet for long...

NOTE:
I did not raise the Threat Level by +1 in the End Phases of this game, as the rules say nothing about this, and I only noticed it on the Solo Play Quick Reference after the game (actually, when I was in the middle of the second scenario), and even after double-checking, I could not find anything about it in the rules. I shall go back and play all three scenarios with the full set of rules when I have worked my way through the second and third scenarios.

Brian went on the offensive, rolling two pips and a '!' against the walkers blank, meaning he did not only damage the zombie, but actually destroyed its brain, removing it from the game!

As mentioned, I did not raise the Threat Level at the end of each turn, so we now skip to the Action Phase of Turn 2.

Being the cunning git he is, Brian sneaked onto the Supply Counter in the corner.

With his second Action, he searched the supplies, and found - some bandages.

"These may come in handy later," he thought by himself, frowning at the fat walker standing oblivious only a few yards away.

The Event Phase saw Mr. Blake well beyond the Kill Zone of the closest corpse, and the sneaking strategy thus paid off this time.

Another 'The Hunger' Event Card turned up.

Again, the +1 in the upper left corner of the card had to be applied to the Threat Level before resolving the effect - and as this meant that the Threat Tracker now moved into the Low Threat range, I had to move one walker towards the closest survivor.

I  could have moved the walker at the far side of the board, but as Brian would have to face Homer Zimpson, anyways, I thought he might just as well do it now.

There was now a Melee, and the Threat Level rose by 1, again.

Brian, self confident after his recent success, took a swing at the bloated biter, but, alas, lost the fight by one pip, taking 1 Damage (the amount of pips his result was beaten with).

Note, that the walker had a '!' result, which under the full rules would have meant that Brian was bitten, which often spells doom for the living.

When I replay the scenarios with the full rules, it will be interesting to see if I can win scenarios before the protagonist succumbs to wounds and/or infection.

Brian lost the fight, and he should have been moved 1" directly away from his opponent, but as he was standing in the corner, the zombie had to be Pushed Back instead.

This concluded the second turn, and I did not manage to edit more pics  before leaving for work this evening, so you will have to wait until tomorrow for the nail-biting conclusion to this little adventure.