SBH - Elizabethan Zombie Wars - "Bringing in the Flock" - AAR#5

One of the great reasons about gaming at a club is you get to go BIG on games and expand beyond the kitchen table and todays offering was no different.

It's been 12 months since the Elizabetan Zombie Wars have had an outing - which is a shame as they are really fun games to run, played out using the Songs of Blades rule set.

Scenario

The people of Shifton had been walled in for several weeks, the cadavers continue to roam the countryside reacting to any movement of the living yet strangely enough ignoring livestock and wildlife it was almost as they they were only drawn to cravings of the flesh of their own kind.

Within Shifton people were begining to starve and lose hope driven partially crazy by the fact that outside the walls their flock and livestock continue to graze as if nothing had changed in recent months.

Desperate to change their fortunes and bolster their much needed supplies small scouting parties had been sent out but they had been forced to ground in barns and cottages in the outlying area as the undead had shambled towards the movement from within Shifton, orders were simple sally out of Shifton sheppard the outlying flocks in and rescue the scouting parties. 

The Miltia commander decides to split his forces rushing to grab the outlying herds before cadavers rise from the plague pits. Firing was proving  ineffectual on the rotting corpses and only serve to attract more of these unfortunate souls which were emerging from the plague pits.

Torn between holding on to the new rounded up flock and their personnel safety mankind is forced into hand to hand combat with the rotting cadavers.

In the centre of the table a firing line is formed to bring down the undead. single zombies are easily dispatched but shot and powder runs out the dead do not.

Ensign Smyth embarks on a solo mission having spotted a wagon of supplies which if captured could provide the village with a much needed boost leaving his comrades he takes his standard and skirts the field looking for his treasure.

In a small stone cottage to the North of the village two scouts burst out of their hiding place hoping to grab some of the flock before they are spotted by the undead but good fortune is not with them, one valiant fighter sees an easy victory in striking down a rotting body only to be knocked to the ground where he is set upon by the undead horde.

The most numerous supplies appears to be around the Blacksmiths and Barn, with sheep and sacks of grain and dried goods aplenty however unfortunately for the living this is where the Cadavers appear most numerous.

 Slowly Ensign Smyth makes his journey towards the wagon within his newly acquired draft animals but his slow movement is drawing more foul followers from the woods to his rear.

 

Hiding in the barn the final scouting party make their presence known as the village militia battles the foul beasts who slow increase in number.

Sensing something was better than nothing and cutting their losses the eastern party of humans make a run for it whilst the Cadavers feed on a poor soul.

Falling back from the advancing corpses the men of Shifton struggle to hold the undead at bay. Three sheep would not be enough to sustain the village for long, but it was not lost on some members of the community that the loss of so many fighting men whilst reducing their defences would also reduce the number of mouths to feed. 

Dark times are indeed ahead for the people of Shifton.