Solo Scenario idea

Hey,

after pondering Nala's solo mordheim for weeks I've been thinking up scenarios etc that would be playable on your own.

Think dawn of the dead, 28days/weeks later, and all those sort of films.

Your warband whilst out exploring for Wyrdstone has stumbled a bit far from home, the thrill and chase for Wyrdstone too strong they fail to notice the warped landscape getting even more evil.

Suddenly one of the band hears a noise, followed by a low unhealthy moan, he calls out to the rest of the warband who move on his position to try to work out where the moan is coming from when they hear a scraping noise from behind where they came from... how could they not have seen whatever is making that noise.

A howl comes from the left and a shuffling noise from the right... too late the warband realise their trapped.


In this Scenario the warband are located in the middle of the board within a x'' by x'' square (decide X as the distance you want to allow), number each corner of the board 1-4 and the sides of the table 5-6 (or whatever way you want as long as there are 6 entry points)

once the terrain is setup roll a D6 for the amount of small barricades they may quickly erect in the panic.


Turns

each turn roll three times and put groups of 3 zombies/skeletons at the corresponding entry point and have them use the stats of a zombie, but with only 4 inch movement and no charge ability etc. they move towards the nearest member of the warband each turn.

I reckon a limit of say 30-40 zombies for this scenario and once they are all deployed then no ore appear.

Warband aim:

The warband have to setup and survive until all the zombies are taken down, they cannot escape off the board as it is assumed the zombies not in play are roaming around in mass groups and it is too dangerous to venture out.

I'm not sure if you would award exp etc as it’s a solo played game.

Its actually quite fun, basically you have to outsmart your own dice and keep the warband alive whilst peppering the attacking zombie, eventually they will get into close combat.

I'm not sure if zombies can climb so if they cannot then when 2 zombies or more reach a wall assume they clamber on top of each other in their frenzy for blood allowing the access to the next floor.

Comments?

Enjoy Nala. It’s quite fun and straight forward.



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Some how i think Reiklanders or Shadow warriors may rock in this if the dice go your way since shooty will counter the zombies fear.

i made a game called zombie assault for a single character, posting up now...

Played on a board 12" by 24"

You play as the witch hunter;

M4 Ws4 Bs4 S4 T3 W2 I4 A2 Ld8

Equipment: 2 Pistols

the witch hunter starts the game anywhere on the short board edge. his aim is to reach the other end of the board before being eaten by the zombies!

Zombie;

M4 Ws1 Bs0 S2 T2 W1 I1 A1 Ld2

Shambling: Each zombie moves 4" in the direction of the scatter dice each turn. if a hit is rolled the zombie moves directly towards the witch hunter

There are 6 zombie spawn points. one on the centre of each of the short edges and 2 on each of the long edges (12" from each edge). Each turn D3 zombies appear at one of those points determined randomly by rolling a D6. these zombies may do nothing but shamble onto the board for that turn.

this game was real fun and I spent about 5hrs playing it one weekend. I later made some other characters;

Orc

M4 Ws4 Bs4 S4 T4 W2 I3 A2 Ld7

Equipment: short bow, 2 Choppa (+1S when charging)

Bright Wizard

M4 Ws3 Bs3 S3 T3 W2 I3 A1 Ld7

Equipment: Staff (great weapon)

Spells cast one each turn roll 2d6 you need to get the casting value on these two dice

Fire Ball - Casting value 7

S4 hit to any one model within 12"

Flaming Weapon - Casting Value 8

Gains +1Ws +1S +1A. lasts till the casters next turn

Doom fire - Casting Value 10

place the large blast template over the wizard. every enemy model under it takes a S4 hit.

COOL SCENARIO(s), THANKS MUCHO!

The keys to solo gaming are playing to a story line, & randomness with a healthy dose of the fog of war. The randomness of Fate is why war is discribed as an Art rather than a science.

I've been using the card deck thingy, & a varying activation zone. SO FAR they've been working well. When I organize my notes from HELL, I'll post a clearer picture of what I'm babbling about...sort of .

Having an impartial person to ask "well, what would you DO in this situation?" is another way to add a direction to the story...winks at Duce..poke, poke.

If you're interested in solo games you could take a leaf out of Arkham Horror's book. I'd suggest something along the following lines:

Setup max 3 characters, say 150-200 gold to spend from the standard warbands. Warband set up at centre of the table, mark entry points at each corner at each side. During recovery phase of each turn roll a D8, a D6 and a D3. D8 determines entry point, D6 is number of Zombies appearing at that entry point, D3 is number of ghouls appearing at opposite entry point. Zombies shuffle straight towards nearest warband member and attack.
Ghouls run towards nearest warband member but (and this is important) must end their move behind some sort of cover unless their run will move them into charge range for their next turn (if you see what I mean).

Now, before you start playing you work out a 'critical mass' which is the number of zombies/ghouls that must be within 6" of the centre of the table. Once this point is reached the 'Big Bad' will enter from a random entry point. Big bad should be something nasty, perhaps an Ogre/Rat Ogre or even create your own 'Ghoul King' for the purpose of this.

Special Note: Entry points can be shut down, by moving a warrior up to it and either engaging in hand to hand combat (Treat as WS 3, T4) and scoring OOA result or firing from within 8" (Entry point counts as having cover and T5 for ranged attacks). Once a point is shut down no more creatures can appear from there.

Game end when either:

a) All entry points shut down (provided Big Bad is still off board).
b) All warriors dead
c) Big Bad dead

To make it more fun, add in more creature types (giant spiders, rats, beastmen etc) and totally randomise which ones appear.

Edit: Just had a thought. To make it even more fun, randomly place 3 or 6 BB markers at the start of the game in various locations. Then, when (if) the Big Bad appears, roll to see where he pops up. This means your warriors can get bushwacked by his appearance rather than making him come in from a particular entry point. He could even start within charge distance of someone, if you're really unlucky!

Why do all solo scenarios involve zombies

Eliazar wrote:

Why do all solo scenarios involve zombies

Because they have a set movement pattern that doesn't require tactical thinking on the part of whoever's playing. Imagine trying to play chess against yourself, you end up setting one side to win and playing badly with the other because you know your own strategies. With zombies you have set rules on how they behave so you can't risk being biased towards your warband winning.
They don't need to be zombies, what's important is that you can't influence their tactical 'choices's. If, for instance, you have an undead warband then make the enemies the human mob with burning torches and pitchforks...

Yeah, I understand the necessities a solo scenario comes along, but I have observed a tendency towards zombie scenarios, whereas prison breaks or wolf hunting or similar stuff are a lot less common

A prison break could be quite cool actually, although I'd assume you'd need random patrol patterns for the guards which would make it very luck based. I think people reach for zombies first because they make good mindless disposable enemies although I quite like the idea of throwing my Skaven against a howling mob of humans now. Talk about mindless disposable enemies and mankind's mob mentality fits like a glove...

Well, I think you could have guards with an activation area (as Nala said) as well as having them move 4" along a line and back again. That's what guards do, don't they?

A quick idea would be to have a hero locked up and his friends are trying to rescue him. They sneak up to the prison and from the turn the alarm sounds, the guards will move towards the band while the hero tries to pick his cell lock (I think there are lock picking rules in EiF). After he manages to do so, he joins his band and they win by escaping (or the hero escaping) or killing all the guards. In case they rout, the hero counts as still captured and you have to play again, pay a ransom to get him out... Well, just some quick thoughts, I need to fetch my train now.

Have a nice weekend you all.

Hmm, i think that with a little work the prison break idea could make a great rescue scenario when negotiations are not met and heroes are sold to slavers (note that the capturing warband keeps equipment before selling, ouch!)

It's easy to make any one the NPC as long as there is a set rule which determines their strategy and goals for the game.

Set path, or random path, auto close on the PC when in line of site or in charge range. Something like that anyway.

Prison break = 40k kill team. pm me if you want me to give you the pdf of the rules.

Well you could sub in rats for the undead, but the zombies generally fill the mass dumb role very well.

Another option could be to divide your table into 9 or more sections like a road going from left to right then up a bit then back to the left then up a bit and then to the right, you then roll on the random encounters table to see what bad thing happens in each section.

The good thing about the scenario is that you coul dhave 2 rival warbands stuck in middle working together but quietly trying to screw the other whilst fighitng off a zombie horde. Or if its 2 of the same races (2x merc warbads) they may work together and share the rewards.

Night of the Dead is a great scenario and can be formatted to suit your gaming needs, you can increase or decrease the amount of random zombies, dogs, rats and etc.

Try it out...you an easily make it a solo play by reducing the amount of zombies.

Funny thing is that with the solo style Zombie thingys, I've YET to use Zombies. I've borrowed things from the 40K Kill Teams, added the Activation Zone, used the Card Trick from The Sword & The Flames, AND given each opposing Warband a "Mission" that doesn't necessarily mean killing off their opponents. Thus far I've played two to four Warbands trying to achieve separate "Missions" without having a "Rigged" game feel; i.e., there is NO predictable winner.

Mordheim IS ESPECIALLY well suited for solo gaming in that the "Loser" may VERY WELL come out ahead of the "Winner" in the "Spoils of War" department. For someone running a more traditional campaign, it's also an EXCELLENT way to create interesting filler material for the fluff aspect of the LARGER game. All that it lacks is the commarderie of a "proper" wargame, but c'est la vie !

Hm, I was reading through he scenarios again and was wondering about experience.

In case one would like to design some kind of solo campaign (for those who don't have any fellow players at all), it would be nice to get some XP, wouldn't it? However, considering there are dozens of zombies in the above scenarios, your warband would be extremely experienced after one battle. Any suggestions?

I think it is especially a zombie problem, as with prison breaks or similiar, there probably wouldn't be that many foes.

Award experience per 5 foes downed, not for each zombie down.

Other potential enemies can be

1- Giant rats. Adventures in the sewers

2- Go and hunt a giant / ogre / troll. he has some goblins as helpers, that will not engage and try to stay 20 away from you, but will pepper your warband with arrows from afar.

3- The paradigmatic zombies.
- In "run for your live" escenarios they move towards the closest enemy if 8" or less away from them. If not, they scatter
- In "last stand" escenarios they move directly towards the nearest enemy. You can use sacrificial characters to save the other characters in your band (done dozens of times in B series zombie movies)

There must be otrher options but this is from the top of my head.

Maximum 3 characters in the warband. 150 ponts warbands. Animals do not count here, so you can have 3 witch hunters and 3 dogs (if you had enough points). Makes for good. Makes for good killer teams of leader, veteran and youngblood

XP: +1 per 5 enemies downed.

Just some random thoughts.

Cheers,

How ´bout:

Escorting a caravan/trader/rich maiden. All sorts of nasty things lies hidden at set points down the road, but only marked with a "nasty-thingie-counter". Roll a D6 for each counter (set the required result as needed after a bit of playtesting) within 12" every turn to see if something turns up, and if so, a D6 to see whatever the nasty thing is (obviously 6 different kinds of nastys, or 3 if you're short on models). These nastys will run for the madien, or the traders wagon. If they reach them they start running for the closest edge (with their loot), and must be stoped, otherwise the warband will lose their payment and advances. You get the point.

Theodeus wrote:

How 'bout: [...]

That sounds great! Nala, did you, by any chance, manage to get your notes typed?

Thank you, warlord Eliazar! [gains 4 xp and advances]


EDIT: Nah, still a youngblood as it seems.

Eliazar wrote:

Nala, did you, by any chance, manage to get your notes typed?

Sorry, no. With the imminent possibility/necessity of a relocation things have been TOTALLY WHACKO here. I've just been knocking out pieces that I've previously prepped at [for moi ] a prolific pace, AND trying NOT to think about what the future holds in store [not thinking is NORMALLY a specialty with moi ].

Just wanted to say that it's quite possible to co-op in one of these "solo scenarios" - if you're tired of beating each others all time.

Popmouth wrote:

Just wanted to say that it's quite possible to co-op in one of these "solo scenarios" - if you're tired of beating each others all time.

Could as you said co-opit with 4 heroes vs undead waves, kind of liek left 4 dead. zombies have an agro range and each town section has a random special encounter.

Plus could make a roll for each hero when entering/just before leaving a section to find what items are available from scavanging (Things like herb pack which heals, arrows, etc) and what type if any larger undead appear as well as the number of minor undead.

I would make a suggestion of reading up on the rules for Warhammer Quest or D&D to get some ideas.

I started on such a project years ago but stopped as I got interested in other things.