7TV: The Lost Highway

This was a game that we played at the Wells club last week and our first outing using Crooked Dice's 7ombieTV rules. Even though the rules are designed for mainly a 1v1 style game we threw caution to the wind and had 7 players running characters with myself & Steve Jones handling the hordes of the dead

The game was a very slightly modified version of the Gas Run scenario form the rulebook, we made the road bend round the board to give the players the choice of cross country or the longer but faster road

All of the characters are based on the two Left4Dead computer games, as I discussed in an earlier post. They are a mixture of makes including Reaper & Hasslefree. The zombies come from various manufacturers, Cold War, Copplestone, Hasslefree, Tengu to name a few to get you started

The Lost Highway

The aim: get to the gas station across the board to collect fuel for the van, return to the van and leave the board


Here is the initial board layout, it's roughly 3-4 foot square with the van on the right and the gas station on the left (a model from Litko) with some suitable scatter around

Our heroes start along the road, cautious of any nearby scenery that might contain a nasty surprise. Nick stays to guard the van and cover the return if required (he was an umpire played character that would be called upon if needed)

As the characters move along the road a horde of the undead shamble into view causing concern to all the players. Francis rushes forward, "I hate zombies", to deal with the nearest targets, taking down several zombies in following rounds but getting wounded himself

Rochelle moves to his side and successfully heals his wounds to allow the group to keep moving. Whilst this happens, Bill decides that cross country is a good idea. He heads off road but is immediately surrounded by a group of the hungry dead. Is this the end for Bill? Could he once again be sacrificing himself for the rest of the heroes??

No! Instead he hurls a propane tank he was carrying into the midst of the undead and promptly drops back to a safe distance to watch the results. BOOOMMM! Zombies fly all directions from the blast and stuns a large group of them

At the gas station, Coach unfortunately gets distracted by the chocolate machine and it's left to Ellis to grab a can of fuel he finds in the garage

The return trip is just as dangerous (Coach is still distracted by his chocolate) but, with a sizeable number of the undead already dealt with, a lot easier. Finally the van is reached, refuelled and the heroes make their escape!

Aftermath: Considering there was so many people playing the first outing of the game, it ran very smoothly. Yes, we made a few mistakes with the rules (way too much luck for the characters) but it seemed fitting that all of the heroes should survive this first game