5 Klicks from the Zone
It was hard to believe that things could get worse after “the fall” but all I see around me are threats and danger. There is the small area around our home base that is still a safe zone, but resources are low and we are constantly forced to look further afield for ways to protect ourselves. As we push outwards though it feels like everyone else has their sights set on the same thing and we live in fear of our fellow humans, and indeed the many we find that are now somewhat less than human, finding their way to our ‘zone’. So here we are, five klicks out, fighting for our lives, and we can’t afford to retreat...
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I am honoured that Ivan Sorensen of Nordic Weasel Games has given me permission to create new content for his Five Klicks from the Zone game. This starts with a Second Edition (2e) of the main rules. Then as the main rules have always been called Chapter 1, moves on to Chapter 2, and with a plan to round out a trilogy with a Chapter 3.
For those who don’t know Five Klicks
Five Klicks has a lot of DNA from his other solo campaign settings Five Leagues from the Borderland (fantasy setting) and Five Parsecs from Home (space setting), but as you might expect from a game that has a post apocalyptic earth setting, that DNA has been mutated enough to make it very much its own game.
Five Klicks doesn’t have a fixed background, what caused the Fall is up to the player and there is a lot of scope to use your own figures and imagination to determine the theme, but centres around a Squad of fighters trying to protect a small pocket of civilization from the ravages of a world gone bad.
For those who do
What you will see here and in my posts will solely be from 2e, the tabletop encounter rules for moving, combat, and morale are unchanged, but you’ll soon note changes to the campaign details. I hope you like them and it inspires you in your own campaign.
Feedback
Whether you already know the game or not, I welcome your comments here or on the Nordic Weasel Games Discord.
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That out of the way, my own campaign is set in a fairly modern parallel universe where The Fall is caused by a catastrophic use of combined nuclear and biological weaponry in a war that encompasses the earth. The end effect is a world where only small pockets of humanity survive and there is no guiding influence trying to bring things back together, but the people of Home are trying to carve out an area of safety around them by sending teams from The Squad on missions into the Outlands. The Squad has been outfitted from a an old army surplus store and recommissioned weapons, so hardly state of the art gear, but it gets the job done:
These were built from the SAS sprues in the starter set of 0200 Hours from Grey for Now Games. I gave them all the same camouflage jacket (my own version of Lizard Pattern) but then a mix of trousers and gear painting to highlight their slightly rag-tag nature. Bases are labelled in line with my character naming convention so I can keep track of who is carry what.
Here’s the setup then. We know the terrain of the few squares directly surrounding Home, which I rolled as a Quarry (Stone makes a good foundation for dwellings and the cliff face also provides some security from being surrounded).
|
Wasteland |
Wasteland |
Wasteland |
|
Lake |
Home (Quarry) |
Wasteland |
|
Wooded |
Hillside |
Wooded |
Each campaign turn up to 8 members of the Squad may be sent out to either carry out a mission in a known square or head past those to explore an unknown square.
I’ll do the action reports here and the commentary about the rules, figures, terrain, etc. in blog posts.
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1 - Easy start
First set of campaign rolls was pretty straightforward. The Squad went north to explore, found more wasteland and nothing to worry them, so came back.
2 - Occupied land
Another exploration, headed North-West this time and not long after passing into slightly more wooded area than found so far, ran straight into a group of Scrags. Things heated up pretty quickly but the Squad acquitted themselves well. One casualty but found a Plasma Rifle!
By turn 3 we could turn all our attention back to the original threat and start taking them down. It was all over in turn 4 when Fancy with his SAW had taken out a second guy in the ruin (which earned him the MVP for the battle) and Earl managed to get past the flank of the last guy taking cover behind the hedge line. With seven dead and three run off, we could clear the rest of the area before making tracks back to Home taking an injured and not so Happy with us.
3 - Our first Monstrosity
This is new for the 2e rules, the Settlement Events table gave a Monstrosity battle, and I then rolled the giant Snarler beast.
Word came to Home of some sort of beast prowling nearby, so we were sent out to deal with it. Before we even got there though, Fancy was mauled by some sort of plant and wouldn’t be able to take part in the battle, so it was seven of us looking for this beast.
First turn, Earl bravely entered the woods but finds no monstrosities or anything else.
Second turn, it’s Daken who goes poking around and this time he flushes it out!
The cautious moves of the rest pay off though and both Daken and Cooper can get off a shot. Daken fails to cause any damage, Cooper gets a good hit but instead of killing it, it takes two Wounds and can keep going. The rest of the Squad rush to help, but it’s too late for Daken, the Snarler is on him and gives him a good mauling!
Turn 3, and Copper gets of another shot and kills it. The damage is done though, Daken is badly harmed by the encounter and permanently loses a point off his initiative score. Two rounds and three of the Squad have been hurt, it’s a tough life in the Squad. On the plus side, Copper got the MVP award and enough experience to level up (it seems he’s got better at shooting). It also turned out the Snarler had somehow taken down a guy in Plate armor, which we managed to recover.
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