OPR - One Page Zona - First Public Games

Monthly games day rocked around on the weekend.

After months, if not years of talking about doing 'something zona' on games day it finally happened. Took all the terrain and set up a 10'x4' board, 55% to make something visually fun/finally make having all that terrain worthwhile and 45% a board to play on.

There was still plenty of terrain left in the box, especially buildings, but most of the scatter/trees (especially) were out. Had more crates and sandbags (oh and lots of scatter lichen/bushes) available but yeah most all of the trees were used.

While the stupid part of me thinks "perhaps I need more trees then" I can at least remind myself "this was a stupid big board and more trees are not required to make a sane table."

New factory didn't even get a showing (disappointed) but the apartments, office, and new villas formed a nice little segment. And the pond got on the table too.

Boat was there but we didn't end up playing around that section of the table. It's fun to look at though.

We played two games, generally 'introductory' but my game buddy was of course familiar with games mechanics in general and adapting to new changes isn't that taxing, especially for something based on OPR.

First game was centred around the apartments, bounded by the roads and the solid wall behind the villas (dividing off the pond) - so approximately 2x2'.

Second game was in the warehouse compound bounded by the fence line - approximately 3x3'.

First game we started off with 100cr, and went with 2x Veteran operators each with assault rifle upgrades. I started off rolling up some bloodsuckers which were a fairly brutal start, and an anomaly.

The Scientists (which looked fantastic) rolled up some dogs, and ended up taking the MO and a HS (can't remember who was in the MO). My Contractors only raided the HS for minimal credits, and we both got a medkit in loot.

With a few extra credits in the bag the scientists added another Veteran with assault rifle, and everyone got medkits. I added light armour for both my Contractors.

In game 2 we had two lots of snorks, rats, another anomaly and ended up having a bit of a gun battle between ourselves toward the end.

No one ended successfully searching an anomaly. Threat level 2, adding 2 to the difficultly of searching, was too much even for our Veterans.

In all I think the Zona aspect added onto OPR fundamentals worked ok, without being too clunky. Obviously there was 'totally never played before', and 'trying out new parameters' thrown in there, but we still got both games and an OPR mechanics intro done in less than the time to play a single round of Necromunda... 

While I don't think I can manage an uber-board again in the near future (so much lugging stuff around), it's definitely something I want to roll out again.

A few minor adjustments were made to the rule set (current added to the live share file) but overall it seemed to work as intended.  We covered most of the specific 'zona' elements; searching HS/MO and salvage, throwing, medkits, anomaly search, hostile generation, list and upgrade management.

By my calculations and notes I think our final crew disposition was:

Contractors

veteran assault rifle, light armour

veteran assault rifle, light armour

stash         70cr + grenade

Scientists

veteran assault rifle, medkit

veteran assault rifle, medkit

veteran assault rifle, medkit

stash 35cr

The hostiles were or could be a handful with so few bodies on the board, not to mention inter-player hostilities, but I think that obstacle is probably thematic at the start of the game. Then operators kit up and add more bodies, and the missions become easier as they become more capable.

Anyway it wasn't excessively brutal overall, and i.e. more hotspots would be better on a larger board (3x3' especially). We also didn't really look at alternate missions, just playing a basic battle ('recon' mission).

Seemed to work, happy with the result, fun had.

While I'm here, the top three of these (snorks, dogs, bloodsuckers) are the STLs that were used for my models...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4160499

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4160492

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4160504

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2701578

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2698706

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - Minor Terrain

Was thinking about Zona table for the weekend. Drew out a concept map even.

Thought I'd whip up a 'lake' or 'pond' piece. this is the same lino that i used for the scatter 'rock' area terrain previously. Did some washes over the top and a layer of 2-part epoxy to finish. hoping it all solidifies and isn't problematic. 

I'd used the rock elements to create a 'lake' previously but nicer to have something more representative.

The two pieces are designed to snug up on one edge (you can see a tiny gap there) and once on a mat that should be all but unnoticable.

Will look much nicer with tree, rock and shrub scatter around it.

[later: couldn't help myself and threw together a little diorama.]

Also decided I needed to make up some more segments of mdf road. Been on the to do list for a while and finally got around to it.

I don't really want to use the rubber roads I have for Epic on the Zona boards as the road's centre line make the wrong scale more noticeable.

This stuff is also good for making expanses of asphalt in factories etc.

Until next time...