 |
| The village of Walminton-on-Sea, complete with phone box on the village green. The Home Guard are on patrol. |
We had a lot of fun with this one, The German players had to strike a balance between skulking in the cemetery and raising more zombies or striking out with those they already had in order to keep them under control. The Home Guard had to try to shoot enough zombies before they got into a position to charge and start dragging them down in close combat.
 |
| Nazi troops use the zombies as cover as they advance over the bridge into the village. The Home Guard have formed a firing line in the distance. |
The game began with Private Walker, returning from one of his entrepreneurial ventures, raising the alarm by telephone before being gunned down by the SS troops accompanying Leichnamsturmbannfuhrer Skorzeny. As the zombies shambled towards the village the Home Guard initially had things all their own way, gunning down the undead before they could get close. However once Skorzeny left the graveyard (following a much-too-near miss from a lucky rifle shot) and began to direct them personally, things got a little more dangerous.
 |
| The zombies swarm over Captain Mainwaring's section, the good captain having already hopped it over the hedge. |
Before long, Skorzeny was raising the dead bodies of the Home Guard themselves and setting them on their erstwhile allies. The zombie-Godfrey was particularly amusing, as were some of the comments when Private Pike lost his nerve and fled.
 |
| "Mister Mainwairing! Mister Mainwairing! Uncle Arthur's had his face ripped off!" - Pike flees across the village green. |
In the end, we ran out of time to complete the game and had to call it a draw. The Germans definitely had the upper hand, but Corporal Jones's section (with a Lewis gun) was still largely intact as was the Vickers gun in the window of the General Store. It could still have gone in favour of the Home Guard, but at a terrible cost (Mainwairing, Wilson, Godfrey and Mr. Hodges had all perished).
 |
| The SS open fire on Mr. Hodges and his section. Most of the Home Guard decided discretion was the better part of valour at this point. |
In the end, a very enjoyable game that worked surprisingly well (given that I only came up with the idea last week and we'd had no playtesting). Everyone seemed to have fun, and there's talk of a rematch, or even taking this to Hammerhead or similar in future. Big thanks to Mike for providing the Home Guard, he has his own battle report and more photos up on his blog, and also to everyone who took part for making it so much fun.
