MOBICON 2004 - After Action Report
Gaming convention in Mobile Alabama

Eric Betts represented the Jackson Gamers at this annual gaming convention in Southern Alabama on May 21-23, 2004.

Photo by Eric Betts

I ran two games at this Mobicon (21-23 May 2004) hosted at the Airport Plaza Hotel in Mobile Alabama. The first was a Wild West miniatures game based on the seriously modified Desperado rules (available from the Jackson Gamers website) and the second was "Weekend Warriors" a module for d20 Modern by 12 to Midnight Games. Bad Day in Muskeegee

A Bad Day in Muskeegee

The image at the top shows the quiet town of Muskeegee. This was the set-up pre-carnage. The good referee (myself)failed to take any later pictures - where was Ed Sansing when I needed him! The scenario was pretty simple - 1 July 1870. The town of Muskeegee is getting ready for the 4th of July celebration and has invited some of the laid-off Chinese railway workers to town to make fireworks for the celebration. Sadly, this has included Mad Bomber Fu and the evil Dr. Chu (with respective gangs). The wholesome Chan family (who runs the town laundry) knows what they are up to and is going to try and stop the fiends (to protect the Chinese good name)!!! Add to the mix a couple bands of renegade Indians, some Mexican banditos, the Women's Protection Committee, and you have a "Bad Day in Muskeegee."

So - What happened? Well, I picked the wrong day to run this game, that's what. Friday, when most of the gamers were just drifting into the Con. I did two small runs (mainly to demo miniatures skirmish gaming and the rules) and the players had a good time…just not the mass carnage I had hoped for!

Weekend Warriors

The set-up: Player Group #1 consisted of a group of army reserve soldiers who have been mobilized to augment a reserve infantry battalion in New Mexico (basically guarding a research base). They were flown into Albuquerque and been picked up by the (also newly arrived) duty driver in the battalion's large van. After driving for hours through the high desert, the van runs out of gas about a mile from the front gate. As the characters get out of the van to try and decide what to do, the base explodes!

Player Group #2 Two officers from the Office of Homeland Security (or some other suitable "black" paramilitary organization) are enroute to investigate and possibly detain a suspected Wahbist scientist working at the lab who may or may not have ties to Al Quida. As their Blackhawk helicopter is on final approach to the base, the explosion knocks the chopper from the sky. The pilots are killed instantly and the operatives emerge to find some "deer-in-the-headlights" looking weekend warriors (Group #1).

What's Happened so far: The explosion released a nerve agent that has killed everyone on the base. Worse, it has also activated an experiment that has turned all of the dead (Everyone on the WHOLE base) into zombies. Even Worse: The explosion has torn a dimensional rift and allowed a few nasties in from the Plane of Death. (Nice job so far!)

How did it go?

The player running the operatives did a good job getting the reserve players moving and keeping them in line, while not telling them a bit about what was going on. When I first read the scenario, I'd thought that the reserve players would be tempted to bug-out at first chance and Eric (the player running the officer) did a good job at "taking charge." It was only towards the very end of the game that Angel (the player running the grenadier "Thumper" and the female MP - a pre-generated rifleman) was getting suspicious as to their ulterior motives…by then, it was too late.

The group walked to the front gate, but in an order that only left the officer armed and in a position to shoot the MP zombies (see picture below)

Photo by Eric Betts

Shoot-out at the Front Gate

Fortunately, zombies are very bad shots, and the characters picked up several more pistols (at the beginning of the game, only the officer and operative had pistols - the other six characters had knives or tire irons). I had made a change to the rules to include Sanity (Wisdom x 5 - a percentile role) from D20 Call of Cthulhu. Every time the characters discovered some new horror, they either made the roll or lost sanity points (or lost fewer sanity points) and had to make a willpower role or subject themselves to a DM "freak-out" option. This was tested and failed at the gate. The grenadier, "Thumper" was destined to become the Hudson from Aliens for Weekend Warriors. After shouting "These guys are DEAD!" Thumper ran screaming into the desert. "Sarge" another of the reserve characters, chased him down while the disinterested officers searched the guard shack.

The characters found the fire extinguisher (never used), the bolt cutters, the map to the base and quickly decided to make a beeline across the parking lots to the armory and from there to the lab. Again, the operatives where running the show, and no one even voted to try and report in to battalion headquarters (all those lovely maps going to waste!).

Halfway through the parking lot, the characters decided to start hot-wiring cars. They got two running about the time that the MP character and the Captain (I honestly could not see a Lieutenant being sent on this mission and promoted him) spotted the flying Death Shrieker over the base. The Captain failed sanity and will saves and immediately fainted (the beginning of a downward spiral for him!!!). The female MP passed both and informed the rest of the gang that a demon was flying over the base (the beginning of a development into La Femme Nikita for this character).

By the time the group woke the Captain, the Sarge had calmly, gently talked Thumper into returning to the group…yeah, right! In all likelihood Thumper was probably missing at least one cheek (but I didn't take any HP for it!!!). Just imagine Private Pyle running with the Sergeant (F. Lee Armey's character) from Full Metal Jacket and you get the picture.

The now reunited group hopped into two hot-wired SUVs and made for the Armory. They raced to the doors and kept the engines running, with the four unarmed characters staying in the car. Two characters dropped the two zombies in Charlie Company's arms room while the Operative found the futility of trying to chew through a military grade lock trying to get into the Bravo Company Arms Room. Outside, one of the characters in the SUVs (not sure if it was Thumper or not) noticed the 50 zombies pouring out of the building that I had earlier described as the "DFAC." When a player finally asked what a DFAC was (a mess hall) their reply was "Oh, sh#t!!!"

Photo by Eric Betts

This is only the beginning of the undead horde! The characters in the vehicles quickly got away from the zombies, leaving the two in the Arms room to barricade the door and the other two to run for it. As a distraction, one of the SUVs drove through the crowd of zombies, running one over and picking up a new passenger!!!

Photo by Eric Betts

Mr. Zombie says "Hi" to Thumper! When I asked who was the passenger about to be clawed to death by a zombie, I got the classic…"Thumper." (I don't think I could make this stuff up!) Although the crazed grenadier screamed the whole time, he eventually succeeded in stabbing the zombie to death (re-death?) with his bayonet. By the way, for the entire game, none of the other characters would give Thumper a firearm, even when they had enough - they didn't trust him!!!.

Photo by Eric Betts

. Angel looks down the street with a "we're dead" expression. Meanwhile, in the arms room, the Captain discovered the sad fact that while the army has some very cool guns in arms room, it does not have any ammunition!!!! The two in the arms room gave-up once they checked the map again and saw how far out the Ammo Depot was. They broke out a second story window and waved down one of the SUVs and made for the lab (as a single group).

The Death Shrieker flew down and took control of the zombie horde from the mess hall, and one of the barracks and pursued the characters to the lab building. The characters used the two vehicles to blockade the door and entered. While they did make quick work of the zombie MP guards, the Captain took a few hits and for a while looked like he would "turn" (ah, yeah. If a character was killed in this game, it didn't end - he would return as a zombie).

The players were really doing a good job. They left the Captain and Thumper (still no gun) upstairs to continue barricading the lab building from the zombies outside (ala Night of the Living Dead) while everyone else went down the hole to the basement.

The final fight against the big bad went pretty well for the characters (well, except for Sarge…). The dominated zombies got a few licks in, but most of the characters here were relatively fresh and made quick work of them.

The Reanimater was another story. As an aside, the "big bad" of the story was a demon called the Reanimater who was in the lab basement with a bunch of zombies and the dimensional rift. If there had been fewer characters, or more of the characters had been wounded, I think the fight would have gone much differently. As it was, it took the reanimater too long to kill the characters, so he resorted to throwing them through the dimensional rift. He really only succeeded with Sarge, who flew through the portal to the Plane of Death, screaming the whole way.

As another side note, throughout the final fight, the Operative, who was probably the toughest of the characters, was seizing the Wahbist scientist's computer hard drive and journals (i.e. NOT FIGHTING). Only one of the player characters noticed this, the MP gal who was pretty pissed. Anyway, by the time the reanimater was finished, we were out of time as players.

Final conclusions

A great game, with kudos to the Homeland security player (Eric) and the MP player (Angel). And of course to Thumper for the comic relief!

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