May 23rd, 2013
To celebrate the halfway point in our 68 game Zombie World Series, we’re throwing down a mini-series this Memorial Day weekend. We’re calling it the Mid Season Shuffle! We’ve asked our crew of Zombie Masters to join in the fun by running a game or two. We will track the results of these games and the team (Survivors or Zombies) with the most victories gains a 3 point bonus to their Zombie World Series score.
As the current score is Survivors 18 and Zombies 16, the Zombies need this win badly!
Also, all games can use The Backseat Zombie rules:
If The Car appears, the Zombie Master buries a random card from The Dead Pile underneath it. This mystery card is only revealed when a Survivor enters the car. At that point the card is revealed and the following applies:
If it is an ITEM card, the Survivor may automatically take it or they may leave it there for anther Survivor (who must enter The Car to get it)
If it is a ZOMBIE card, it gets an immediate attack on the Survivor. The zombie stays at the Car until the zombie is destroyed. Until then, there is no resting bonus in the Car…
If it’s a PLOT DEVICE or SHUFFLING HORROR card, it is played immediately. There is also a slight chance that The Cellar is revealed; in such a case it is immediately put into play!
Stay tuned for the results!
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May 21st, 2013
The first half of the Pittsburgh 68 Zombie World Series has concluded…
The results of the first 34 games are in!
The Survivors take the lead by two points!
Get ready for the third quarter, folks!
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May 21st, 2013
A brisk and brutal end to the the second quarter of the Zombie World Series run by ZM Caryn (her first game in the series). This new Zombie Master didn’t give the Survivors a moment’s rest. The Breaking Point came out during The Opening Scene of the movie and took two Survivors down for the count. Instead of attempting a GUTS test on their first turn for these out-of-play Survivors, both players strategically revealed another Survivor from their hand. This seemed like a good idea at the time…
The rest of the Reel 1 was loaded with zombies and a never-ending Three Card Zombie built ZM Caryn’s first three throngs in seconds (literally). This chewed through the Reel Pile, but left behind The Dealt Hand with two zombies, which the players had trouble eliminating. This gave ZM Caryn another full run of attacks on the players. The Dead Pile soon had its first three victims!
The Car and The Cellar came out early in Reel 2, but neither lasted very long. No sooner was a Survivor revealed than it was devoured by the Zombie throngs. These.zombies.meant.business.
Q2 Game 34
Where: Parsippany, NJ
# of Players: 3 + ZM Caryn
# of Reels: 2
Last One Standing: The Mechanic
Survivors: 0
The odd thing was that the Game 34 wrapped up in about 34 minutes!
A fast moving and frenzied end to the first half of the series…
Zombies everywhere!
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May 3rd, 2013
Looking for a game convention in your backyard or one on another continent?
Then check out what our friends over at GCC have been up to.
Only categorizing every con on the planet they can find!
Plus they have a Pittsburgh 68 spoint in their banner ad!
How cool is that?!?
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May 3rd, 2013
You’ve seen it in every zombie flick: a zombie latches on to a hapless Survivor who can do nothing but try to shake the undead thing off. This was cleverly done in a finale episode of the Walking Dead; Andrea backs up against a stand of trees to hide from the Governor, suddenly a zombie reaches through and pins her there. Meanwhile, more zombies close in for din-din!
The zombie clutch is a classic move and one that builds dread for its victim. It’s the same in Pittsburgh 68 with the Clutch card (which has the appropriate tag line “Get it off of me!”). And just like in a zombie flick, bystanders can help you escape – if they desire. In game terms, this “help” comes in the way of spoints (Survivor Points) that other players can give you to help you with your FLAIL roll.
But just like in a zombie movie, maybe the other Survivors don’t want to get that close to the zombie… Or maybe your character deserves it… Or maybe, you are just not worth the spoint!
In the game, the Survivor is trapped until they succeed a FLAIL test (roll two dice and get their Speed score or less). Spoints are spent to increase your Speed, so using them can put the odds of escape in your favor. But there’s that rub again – is it worth the spoint?
These are some of the tough decisions you will face in a real Zombie Apocalypse, friends!
Luckily in the game, the Survivor is in no real danger. They are not being attacked, just clutched. It’s the other zombies they need to worry about – but that’s everyone’s problem in Pittsburgh 68. Some options for the player who falls victim to this are:
–If the player has multiple Survivors in play, they can still act with their other Survivors. This lets the player attack with their non-clutched Survivors, while still flailing with their clutched Survivor.
–If a player does not have multiple Survivors, being clutched gives them a good reason to REVEAL another Survivor in their hand (instead of wasting a turn to potentially fail their flail).
The good news (and this is important to remember): the Clutch card disappears at the end of every reel. It does not last the entire game! Like Power Play cards (good cards the Survivors take), the Clutch card is shuffled back into the Dead Pile (discard pile). It may show up again. It may not.
–Determining a Random Victim: When the Clutch card appears, it is the Zombie Master’s job to determine who is clutched. The best way to do this is to assign each in-play Survivor a number, and then roll a die to see who the lucky victim is. Do not roll two dice for a larger group, as a single die gives everybody an even chance.
–As noted in the Pittsburgh 68 rulebook, if there are more than 6 Survivors in play, separate them first into two smaller groups (one is odds, the other is evens). Then roll a die to determine from which group (odds or evens) that the victim will be selected. Finish by rolling a die to see who in that group is clutched.
The best news is that there’s only one Clutch card in the deck. Because of the random nature of the game, Clutch may never show up at all – so, appreciate when it does…
The Zombie Master sure will!
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