And now for Part 2 of our epic CabinCon game of The Walking Dead: All Out War. If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here.
disclaimer: The Walking Dead: All Out War game has not been released as of this post. All miniatures, scenery, and components are either mocked up or proxies from other games.
Cabin Fever
Running low on gas, our heroes make back to the cabin and immediately take stock of the situation. They scavenge for weapons and gear from the cabin. The truck’s CB comes to life with a loud hiss. A rescue helicopter is searching for survivors to be airlifted to a safezone. After relaying the cabin’s location, the search team tell the heroes to sit tight and await rescue. The team builds some makeshift barricades and it isn’t long before they start to hear the unnerving sound of the dead approaching…
Armed and ready, the team splits into two groups, protecting the front of the cabin closest to the road, and the open vulnerable side.
A large mass of walkers congregated near the back of the cabin. The team had access to a few half-full gas cans so we made some improvised explosives. The gas can/molotov cocktail works perfectly and takes out quite a few walkers.
With the back taken care of, the front of the cabin starts to see more walkers, attracted to fighting and explosion.
Unfortunately, the gas can explosion didn’t destroy as many walkers as we hoped. And now some of the walkers that didn’t perish in the initial blast and heat rise again, only this time on fire. The explosion itself also brought even more dead to the party.
The team retreats back to the front of the cabin and when things start to look really desperate, the team hears the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. Their is no safe place to land so it drops a ladder down in the road near the front corner of the cabin lot.
The sounds draws the walkers to the front where one of the heroes was making his last stand.
The main group of heroes, wounded and slow, are swarmed by a fresh group of undead. Reese, determined to hold back the flaming horde, holds his ground. Finally, our last two heroes are pinned behind the truck and our makeshift barricade, while more dead pour in that gap, trapping them. Rescue is just within reach but the dead are relentless.
The team concocts a bold plan- throw the last gas can bomb at the horde around Reese. It works! The walkers are all knocked down and Reese is cooked but still alive. We use the distraction to get Taylor, previously savaged by the dead and looking like he has one foot in the grave already, to the helicopter and rescued. Jeremy, pinned with me behind the truck makes a break for the ladder as well while I distract walkers my way.
I join Colton, now getting into trouble with walkers as well. Since all of the walkers surrounding Reese are still down, he makes a run for the helicopter. Our comrade from the restaurant, Vincent Blade-y Hands falls to the swarm but Sterling is able to break free and escape.
Before Taylor passes out in the helicopter, he realizes that he still has the truck keys. Seeing his friends still in trouble, he hits the car alarm button, distracting the walkers and allowing the rest of us to break free and get up the ladder
RESCUED!
Aftermath
This session started with everyone getting new equipment and increasing a stat per the campaign rules. Like most RPG/RPG-light games, this progression always gives the character more development opportunities and gets the players more invested in the game.
I knew a danger with playing another session would be keeping interest. All too often, we’ll have a great first game experience and everyone wants to try it again but the second game falls flat as it fails to capture the magic of the initial game. Kind of like movie sequels, I guess.
I had to manipulate the game a little more this time as I didn’t understand how powerful our group would be fully armed. It started off a bit too easy with a few walkers surrounding the cabin and they were easily picked off. I started throwing full groups of walkers at us and that helped ratchet up the danger.
The group had some great ideas for getting out of the different situations:
- Taylor turning on the truck alarm was particularly brilliant as he was basically out of the game due to being the first rescued.
- Sterling tried (and failed) to convince Blade-y Hands to sacrifice himself for the group.
- Reese telling the group to center the gas bomb on himself in the hopes of getting rid of the swarm around him.
I had a lot of fun running and playing the event and it had a great ending that seemed to satisfy everyone. It also left a lot of story ideas to continue on in case we have another session:
Taylor was wounded and bitten in the chopper with only one health remaining… will he survive? Will he turn? How will that affect the helicopter rescue? Several other heroes were bitten and wounded as well. What of their fate? Where are they going and who is the crazy rescue pilot?