A Zona Alpha solo mini campaign.

For regular Zona Alpha players I have changed the context and geography for obvious current reasons.

Zach, Erik, and Cole (ex-military independent “contractors”) were relaxing in a bar after returning from the Exclusion Zone.

Cole noticed out of the corner of his eye that they were being watched by a man sitting by himself in a booth in the back corner of the room.

While pretending to tell a joke to his comrades Cole warned the others who all pretended to burst out laughing. Without causing a stir, the men all moved towards the stranger trapping him in the corner of the booth. Out of sight Zach pushed his revolver into the man’s ribs, while Erik whispered to him to quietly walk with them outside.

Not wanting any trouble, the man said that he was just there to deliver a message that a Sean Read wanted to meet them tomorrow morning at the railway station goods yard to discuss an assignment that could make them very rich men.

The three men had no current “contracts” and decided to convince their boss, Ewan, that it was worth exploring. Ewan was skeptical but as they all needed the money and they had no work in the foreseeable future he agreed, providing they took appropriate precautions.

With Zach on over watch with his sniper rifle and Cole hiding in the shadows with his LMG, Ewan and Erik approached the stranger, partly obscured by the dawn fog. The man was uneasy and obviously very new to these cloak and dagger covert meetings.

Sean finally blurted out that he wanted to be escorted to a research facility and factory in the heart of the Exclusion Zone around Lake Cyryl.

The man used to be the chief engineer at the factory and his daughter requires expensive medical treatment, caused by the fall out form the creation of the exclusion zone, that he cannot afford. He knows where top secret documents were left in the factory that proves that secret experiments at the factory were partly responsible for the cause of the catastrophic series of events that led to the Exclusion Zone. The billionaire entrepreneur owner, or the authorities, would pay serious money for their return.

The owner had organised several unsuccessful attempts at recovering the documents that had failed but Sean knows that they are still in his office near the factory entrance, and if they could get him to the factory he is happy to show the men where they are. All he wants is enough money to pay for his daughters treatment and they could have the rest. The whole exercise would take less than 24 hours of their time.

Ewan felt the exercise was fraught with too much danger. Even if they could find the documents and return them there was no guarantee that they could sell them, and in fact, with so much at stake, they may become a target themselves.

Sean showed them a series of photographs of the factory that he had taken from a helicopter after the Apocalypse that showed them exactly where the documents were and gave them an excellent understanding of what they were facing.

With Zach, and Cole, now out of hiding all three were trying to convince Ewan all over again. The photographs also showed that it was going to be a piece of cake didn’t they? Ewan finally agreed and all four decided to meet at sunset outside the exclusion zone in two days time.

Game note: The game was played using the ZA solo adaptions free download. Option 1 was used utilising the following suggestions:

• 3 feet by 3 feet table;
• crew of four veterans;
• Hot Spots increased to Threat level X 2 + 1 (in this case 1X2+1=3);
• Start with one Hot Spot already triggered;
• As this was my first game and I wasn’t sure how may turns would be needed so I also used the extra turn option (4+D3+1) giving 7 turns.

Avoiding the perimeter guards the party travelled uneventfully throughout the night and arrived at the factory site just as the sun was beginning to rise. Ever vigil the group cautiously entered the hazy site in their Hazchem suits.

Ewan scans ahead to look for any danger

Through the mist, Ewan was surprised by the sight of the bedraggled figures of former employees shuffling towards him. A veteran of many exploits in the exclusion zone Ewan was well aware that these are best dealt with at a distance.

Game note: For the Sewer outlet Hot Spot that was already triggered a four was rolled on the Threat Level 1 Zone Hostile table, which meant that four zombies would appear randomly using distance and scatter dice. They ended up on the road that the party had decided to walk down.

“Zach! Take em down” yelled Ewan. Ewan raised his sniper rifle but was obstructed by a pile of rubbish and some overgrown bushes so moved to the other side of the road where he had a clear shot at the zombie workers.

Zach fired two quick shots at the leading zombies, one fell down; one staggered knocked back by the blast, but kept going.

As the others ran past, Zach heard Cole quip “Nice shooting junior; my grandmother would have done better”!

With Zach busy taking out the zombies, the others ran towards the sewer to check if there were any other hostiles and see what they could find.

The zombies shuffled towards the group that has just ran passed them, getting dangerously close. “Get your finger out, Zach” yelled Ewan.

Game note: This was the end of the first turn. Each of the team are classed as “veterans” which gives them three actions. Zach used one for movement and two for shooting, whereas the others used all three for movement. Sean, the engineer, moves with Ewan as he is familiar with the site, but is only classed as a rookie with a pistol and knife for any combat.

With his “steady hands” Zach again raised the rifle. Three cracks. Three zombies were no longer any problems.

“About bloody time” he heard Cole yell in his ear piece.

In the meantime Ewan, with Sean in tow, moved to the sewer outlet and began a thorough search. He found about $700 worth of salvage, a pair of binoculars and a broken assault rifle that had a red dot sight that looked as if it would be in excellent condition once it was cleaned up.

Game note: Characters must use one action to search a hot point. As Ewan had the “Scrounger” skill he was able to search twice taking two action points, plus the one to move to the sewer. Each character carries a back pack that can carry any amount of salvage. Think small items like a compass, wrist watch etc. if you have problems with this.

Eric and Cole see some movement near the chemical silo and move into a firing position just in case.

Over their headsets Ewan warns the group that they are becoming spread out and should close up before they become isolated and taken out piecemeal. After taking care of the zombies Zach is still back near the factory entrance and needs to catch up.

Game note: Turn 2 has now ended with the party dealing with one hot spot threat and with the exception of Zach are half way towards the objective.

Zach runs from his firing position to catch up with the others.

With Erik ready with his assault rifle Cole throws a rock towards the chemical silo. A resounding echo comes from the empty silo followed by snarling and vicious howls. A group of mutated domestic dogs had been disturbed.

Game note: Whenever a hot spot is disturbed you role a D6 on the zone hostiles table. In this case a three giving four mutated dogs. They are then deployed randomly D10 distance from the centre of the hot spot (the gem location). This placed them right at the stairs of the objective!

Game Note: The hostiles can then make one move into cover or out of sight.

The smart canines placed themselves where they could charge Erik and be behind the cover of the bushes from Cole’s RPK squad machine gun.

Cole fires a bust at the charging carnivores but misses. A second shot takes down the leading brutes. On his head phones Cole hears Zach chirp, “you had better get that grandmother of yours here if you don’t pick up your game”!

Game Note: You probably noticed in the photo above that I do not have any casualty dogs. Just assume they were were-wolves that changed back to their human form when they died!

The mutant dogs then charged the unsuspecting Erik who pulled out his pistol and knife to fight them off. The dogs try to lunge and attack but Erik was too quick for them and lunged back but the dogs also avoided his attempts.

Game Note: an attacker can choose to use a hit to parry any defenders hit. With one hit each the dogs used the parry action negating both.

Erik them moved into action quickly dispatching both of the brutes, who failed to get their fangs into him. Puffing from the exhaustion Erik blurted out “thanks you @#$%wit for throwing that rock without warning”!

A simple “your welcome” was the reply.

Ewan and Sean then moved from the sewer to join the rest of the group.

Game Note: The situation at the end of turn 3:

Erik moves to the hot spot and uses his scrounging skills (twice) to search through the rubble and finds an old back pack. Inside he discovers an intact medical kit, and money and effects worth about $700.

Ewan and Sean move to the top of the stairs of the Engineers Office, ready to open the door, while Zach and Cole move into position to provide covering fire if required.

Game note: The position at the end of an uneventful turn four.

Zach moves to the stop of the stairs and climbs onto the roof to provide a better vantage point. While crossing the roof he hears rustling and squealing noises from inside the office. “watch out boss there’s something in there he yells in the headset”.

Continuing to the “far side” (pun intended) of the roof he hears something scuffling down the air-conditioning duct. Leaning over to take a better look he sees what looks like an office boy running with a newspaper in his hand. Before he gets a chance to fire a shot the kid disappears.

Thinking nothing of it he takes up a position to protect Ewan’s retreat.

Cole moves on top of the stairs and throws an empty shell casing toward the pile of containers where he thought he saw some movement.

Game note: Dicing for the hot spot came up with four bandits ten inches away from the hot spot. As a six was rolled there was also an anomaly spotted (the crystals).

Being in the open the bandits quickly move into cover.

Cole takes aim with his RPK and fires………….

Two of the bandits fall down.

One of the bandits fires at Cole who staggers backwards from the impact nearly falling down the stairs. He clutches his chest glad to find that his body armour had saved him.

Erik opens fire with his assault rifle, and even with his red dot sights he misses. His second burst of fire takes another bandit down.

Erik sees a head appear above the pile of rubble and fires a third burst of fire.

The bandits will not bother the party any more.

Meanwhile Ewan and Sean had entered the Engineer’s Office and were confronted by a swarm of large rodents.

Ewan sprays the swarm with lead from his assault rifle getting rid of the vermin in quick time (Wererats?).

They both start searching the room for the documents, but cannot find them anywhere. Ewan, however, does find a gas mask, a medical kit, and about another $700 dollars worth of salvageable items.

Game note: The position at the end of turn 5:

Erik moved towards the anomaly and searched the area finding some items worth about $500 and a strange stone, that when he went to pick it up with his right hand it automatically moved into it. Before he finished thinking about throwing it to his other hand it automatically moved there, and again before he could put it in his back pack secure area it moved there as well. It seemed to empathically know exactly what Erik was thinking. Erik thought that this would fetch at least $2,000 on the black market. Erik searched again and found a bottle of “electric Juice” a fine blend of Methamphetamine and Vodka, with a twist of lime!

Game note: electric juice grants two additional actions during the turn it is drunk, but the downside is the following turn you are reduced to one.

The others had now gathered around him as he showed them the stone. Cole decided to do try the same things with it, but nothing happened. It seemed only to be empathically connected to Erik.

Game note: the position at the end of turn 6:

The party decided to go back to the Engineer’s Office, where it was safer than being out in the open, to decide what they should do next.

They weren’t sure what course of action to take until Zach remembered seeing the kid with the papers in his hand sliding down the air-conditioning duct and heading deeper into the factory. The trip had already netted some worthwhile salvage, but it was hardly going to be the big payout they had expected. Seeing the kid only had a few minutes start they decided to quickly go after him.

Game Summary:

The game was very enjoyable (except for my opponent) and it really helped me to learn the rules without the pressure of a finish time or date. The game was played over seven days whenever I had time to spare. What I enjoyed most was setting the narrative and story line as this helped work out the objectives for each “episode”. Nothing has been mentioned by chance and will be followed up in a future episode.

I started with a Blue zone scenario (basic) which was good for me to learn with but turned out to be quite easy for a team with four veterans.

From a campaign perspective, for those interested, the crew ended up with $2,100 of salvage, an artifact worth $2,000, and found two medi-kits, a pair of binoculars, a bottle of electric juice, and a gas mask. The crew also received twelve advance points for clearing four hot spots, four for all of the crew surviving the mission, and four for eliminating four groups of hostiles. The group were cheated from achieving the object although they did clear the Engineer’s Office. The five advance points for achieving the objective will be accumulated each episode until they finally succeed in finding the papers or die trying.

The crew have decided to to continue straight into the next episode so cannot utilise the $4,100 or the 20 advances they have accumulated until they return from the exclusion zone. The crew have the option of keeping the artifact or selling it.

Acknowledgements:

• Mercenaries in “womble suits – Eureka Miniatures;
• “Sean”: the engineer – The Assault Group;
• Zombies – one of the many Zombicide games or expansions;
• Dogs – Mantic Games Plague faction booster;
• Bandits – Mantic games Plague faction booster;
• Rat swarms – Games workshop Mordheim 1999 City of the Damned box set (too old for a link).

The Mdf buildings and accessories mainly come from Miniature Scenery, TTCombat, and Sarissa Precision. Scatter terrain is from TTCombat and Crooked Dice.

I mainly use Games Workshop and Vallejo acrylic paints and washes for miniatures and terrain.

As the crew heads off in search of the kid will they be successful? Or will the boy wonder thwart their plans again? Tune in next week, same time, same exclusion zone!

Game Masters note: I don’t normally play solo games as I have plenty of face to face opponents. It was a great way to learn the rules and I had great fun pushing the figures around. The real bonus is the narrative that the game creates as you really get into what the characters (oops figures) are experiencing. A great set of rules!