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Raiders of Zombie Island

Posted December 21st, 2009 at 03:23 PM by kolakoski
Updated November 10th, 2013 at 11:04 PM by kolakoski
This is a variant of Velenne's Zombie Island, the rules of which are as follows:

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"ZOMBIE ISLAND

"Secret government experimnts gone awry! Team up with or against your friends, haul your raft ashore and race to find information, a potential cure, or devastating traps all while evading the walking dead!


"TERRAIN REQUIREMENTS: This scenario can be as resource-intensiveas you want it to be. if you are short on glyphs, you may need to be creative with your hidden items. Ideally you should have: 8 Artifact Glyphs, 3 Pit Trap Glyphs, 3 Revive Glyphs, and 3 Healer Glyphs.

"BUILD NOTES: Build your map however you want, with whatever materials you hae available. Iprefer maps with heavy jungle and ruins, some swamps, and a cave but there's no reason you can't have a snowy island. Or a lava island! or all of the above! And make it big, because you're going to be using a lot of zombies. all you need to make sure you have is multiple sand hexes to use as beachheads at various points around the island. Cover as much or as little of the island's edge as you want the teams to have access to.

"SETUP:

Choosing sides:

For 2 players: both players will play the human heroes andthe zombies. Each player may draft up to 300 points worth of Heroes. There will always be 10 squads of Zombies of Morindan. Each player should have a separate "Zombies of Morindan" army card and take a turn with the zombies after his hero turn. Zombie heroes join the zombie army of whoever gets the kill.

3 players: 2 hero players (300 points each), 1 zombie player. The zombie player takes a turn after each Hero turn.

4 players: 2 hero players (300 points each), 2 zombie players.

5 players: 3 hero players (250 points each), 2 zombie players.

6 players: 3 hero players (200 points each), 3 zombie players.

Hero Players:

Players may draft Unique human or elven heroes only.

Hero players are encouraged to politick and backstab each other during their hunt for the island's secrets. Allegiances may change at any time!

Deploy on a single 7-hex tile unattached to the map. The first player to win initiative may attach his tile to any sand hex on the island, but may not touch the other "boats".

Zombie Players:

Deploy 30 zombies randomly on the map but not within 6 hexes of any sand space

If you do not have enough Zombies of Morindan, it's ok, use proxies!

Deloy all glyphs face-down randomly but evenly across the map.

"SPECIAL RULES:

Zombies!


Zombie Plague: If a human hero is wounded by a zombie, place a marker of your choice (black, brown, purple, whatever you have handy) on the card. That hero is now infected with Zombie Plague. At the end of each round, roll 1 undefendable attack die againstthat hero. If this kills the hero, it becomes a Zombie Hero at the beginning of the coming round.

Nothing Can Stop The Horde: At the end of each round, each zombie player rolls a single attack die. If a skull is rolled, that player deploys two destroyed zombies back onto the board next to any hidden glyph. If a shield is rolled, redeploy only one zombie. If a blank is rolled, no zombies are returned tothe board. If there are no more hidden glyphs, the zombies may not use "Nothing Can Stop The Horde".

Zombie Hero: Any hero killed by a zombie or its plague becomes a Zombie Hero. Units killed during a round are left on the map to incubate. Remove any wound markers on that card and give it to the zombie player who dealt the killing blow. Zombie Heroes have a movement of 4 and a range of 1 and any ranged special attacks must be used against adjacent enemies. These figures otherwise retain all the abilities they had in life and must be killed again or revived (see below) to remove them from the game.

Braaiinnss: Zombies are mindless beasts who may never disengage from an opponent.

Glyphs: When a player moves onto a space with a hidden glyph, he may look at it without showing the other players. Pit Trap and Curse glyphs are resolved immediately. Otherwise, the player may place it face-down on the army card of the figure which stepped on it and may continue moving the figure as normal. Face-down glyphs on an army card you control may be passed at any time during that figure's turn to any adjacent, friendly hero.

Artifact glyphs represent knowledge pertaining to the zombies and the experiments on the island. When a player reveals this glyph, place it face-down on the army card of that figure.

Revive glyphs are cures to the plague. These are also placed on the army card of the figure that revealed it and may be used without spending an action on that unit's turn.

Curse glyphs are insidious traps laid for interlopers. A figure revealing this glyph is immediately infected with Zombie Plague.

If a unit should die (or become zombified) before it can return to the boat or use its glyph, it drops the glyph in the space it died in.

Boats

Hero Players may escape the island via any boat, even one they didn't the island on!

In order to escape the island, simply end your turn with a hero in any player's starting area and declare your intention to leave the island. The boat containing that hero is separated from the map and any zombies or Zombie Heroes on the boat must be killed before that player's Artifact glyphs can be tallied. If the boat contains heroes from another team, they may attempt to kill your hero in order to claim the glyphs for themselves! Regardless of the outcome, that boat may not return to Zombie Island.

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

The player to return the most Artifact glyphs to his boat and escape the island wins!"

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RAIDERS OF ZOMBIE ISLAND

Play Zombie Island with the following changes:

Glyphs: Instead of the glyphs (and their rules) named, place a number (your choice) of both the pre-Master Met 3 glyphs and the Master Set 3 glyphs on the map face down, but the number must be at least 2, and there must be the same number of pre-Master Set 3 glyphs as there are Master Set 3 glyphs. Use their normal Heroscape rules.

Units: Each player may draft 500 (or more, to taste) points of Human or Elven heroes and squads.

The Ark:

Rather than a plethora of Artifacts, there is only one to get off the island: the Ark. It is represented by a glyph (or anything small enough to serve). It is considered too cumbersome to be carried by one figure (and our heroes, even bonded, may not dirty their hands with such mundane tasks). Thus it can only be carried by at least 2 squad figures (choose one's army card to place the Ark upon), that must be adjacent to one another when they pick up the Ark, and at the end of any turn they are carrying it. If they end any turn not adjacent, the carrying player must declare where along the way the Ark was dropped. Otherwise, the Ark is treated like an Artifact in the Zombie Island rules.

Boats:


Same rules as for Zombie Island, except the boats consist of 3, 7-hex tiles. Place 1 additional boat on the beach for every 2 players (rounding down, so, for 3 players, 1 pre-beached boat), representing the abandoned boats of previous adventurers who are now dead or zombified.

Victory Conditions:

Get the Ark off the island as though it were an Artifact in the Zombie Island rules.

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Other than the presence of the Zombies and the Ark, the combination of permanent and mobile glyphs, in the same game, and its tactical implications, in one fell swoop, make heroes heroic again, and make Heroscape exponentially broader and deeper.

Peace,

David

P.S.: A closer perusal of the rules for Zombie Island shows how many mistakes Chas and I made while playing it last week (see my blog entry Return to Zombie Island).
Total Comments 4

Comments

Old
chas's Avatar
As Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh-In: "Ve-ry interesting!" Guess we'll have to set up another island. Here's another rule to include,which I'll be experimenting with from now on:

Integrating MS3 Rule by Chas:
In outside games, as opposed to Dungeon Crawls, all spaces next to any type of tree or bush count as 'Dungeon' spaces (where none are being used) for Special Abilities, and Shadow tiles may be placed.
Posted December 22nd, 2009 at 01:11 PM by chas chas is offline
Old
So, what maps is everyone using to play this?
Posted March 9th, 2010 at 04:17 PM by 2amp 2amp is offline
Old
Curious what Human and Elf unique heroes would you consider some of the better choices?

I'm considering doing this at a con, and possibly giving everyone the same team.

One possibly combo I thought of:
Syvarris 100
Dendrick 100
Carr 100

I'd kind of like to get it down to just one Hero with ranged. But I'm not sure who other good melee fighters would be
Posted November 10th, 2013 at 10:54 PM by Pete Grey Pete Grey is offline
Old
kolakoski's Avatar

Which version?



Well met!

Units: Each player may draft 500 (or more, to taste) points of Human or Elven heroes and squads.

If you're playing my modified version (which starts half way down the page), you use the above.
Posted November 10th, 2013 at 11:08 PM by kolakoski kolakoski is offline
 
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