We had quite a good MHvZ event today, a good turnout and some good games. I also got some use out of my newly completed Rhino-Fire. In this Nerf Game Report I’ll describe the blasters that saw use, the gamemodes we played, and in particular how the new Blind Bomber setup worked out.
Gamemodes:
Regular:
- (Regular) Survival – Standard HvZ gametype, humans try to survive for a given amount of time (or until the last human falls). Zombies are given access to upgrades at various times, we used Infectors at 5 minutes, Tanks at 10 minutes and Husk at 15 minutes. Last human to fall wins.
- Secret VIP – There are 3 special players in this game: the VIP, the General and the Traitor. The VIP is a human who the other humans are trying to protect and is restricted to a given area (we used the usual tambark area), while the Traitor is a zombie masquerading as a human. When stunned, zombies must move outside of the VIP’s area before counting down their stun. The only person who knows the VIP’s identity is the General, while all original zombies know the Traitor’s identity. Everyone knows the identity of the General, making them the only guaranteed trustworthy human. The Traitor acts as a human, but can at any point do a single Traitor zombie tag, revealing that they are the Traitor, and thus turning into a regular zombie. Additionally, if a human hits another human, the hit human is stunned as if they were a zombie, however they can still fire their blaster. If the humans protect the VIP for a given period of time (e.g. 15 minutes), the humans win. If the zombies successfully tag the VIP, the zombies win. Zombie upgrades are unlocked on a timer like Survival, with Infectors available from the start, 5 minutes for Tanks and 10 minutes for Husk. If a human is hit by a grenade, they are instantly turned into a zombie. This is the only way to actively eliminate the Traitor.
- Defence Survival – The three zombie upgrades of Infector, Tank and Husk are spread throughout three separated squares, about 3m wide. Zombies can pick up the upgrades if they touch the desired upgrade inside the squares. If a zombie is stunned within a square, they must move outside of the square before counting down their stun. Zombies are only allowed one upgrade at a time.
New/Altered:
- Hostage Survival – Three humans are selected as “Hostages”. These Hostages have their hands bound, and abide by some special rules. Each hostage is given a grenade, but cannot use or pass it. The humans can choose to “free” a Hostage, removing their binds and allowing them to be a fully functioning human player, and granting use of the grenade they are holding. If a hostage is tagged while still bound, the grenade they are holding is removed from the game. One of the Hostages is a Traitor, who operates on the same rules as the Secret VIP Traitor, and can use their Traitor tag while still bound (this of course unbinds them and turns them into a regular zombie). As such, the same human vs human combat system is implemented, a human hit by a dart is stunned as if they were a zombie, but can still fire. The zombie upgrades are made available the same as in regular Survival.
- Blind Bomber – one human is designated as the Blind Bomber, and is the only human who can carry the bomb. The humans start in the bottom corner of the play area. They must first take the bomb to the first point, at which the bomb is “armed” for 5 minutes. Once fully armed, the bomb must be taken to the second point, at which the bomb is “planted” for 5 minutes. Once that 5 minutes has elapsed, the humans win. If the bomb is moved during either timed phase, the timer is paused and only resumes when the bomb is returned. The objective of the zombies is to take the bomb to the edge of the play area. All zombies can carry the bomb, but cannot throw it. If the Blind Bomber is tagged by a zombie, they must drop the bomb, wait for a count of 5, then can try to pick up the bomb again. If a zombie is hit while carrying the bomb, they must drop it. Zombies respawn at any tree (that is not being used as a point) with a count of 15.
Zombie rules:
Zombies tag humans with their hands onto any body part, blaster, tactical gear, etc, turning the human into a zombie. If a human hits a zombie with a dart, the zombie is stunned for a count of 25. A human can also stun a zombie with melee, but only with a direct hit to the back.
There are 3 standard zombie upgrades/mutations/perks:
- Infector – zombies get to use foam swords, pool noodles, etc. Tags with said foam melee weapons on humans count as regular tags. Said melee weapons can also be used to block darts.
- Tank – zombies get to use shields, which block darts. The shields cannot be used to tag humans, presumably as a precaution against shieldbashing which could cause significant injury.
- Husk – a zombie gets to use a ranged attack, in this case a Vortex Mega Howler. A ranged Husk attack counts as a regular zombie tag. Husk ammo can be picked up by any zombie, but can only be used by the Husk naturally. The Husk may move from the place they were stunned to retrieve their ammo, but do not count down their stun timer until they return to their original stun place.
Zombie upgrades cannot be stacked, so a zombie can only have one upgrade at any time.
If in play, grenades can stun a zombie with a hit to any equipment, including swords and shields, and can be reused at will. If human vs human rules are in effect, a grenade hit to a human will turn that human into a zombie immediately.
Blasters:
Since there were a lot of different blasters there, I’ve generalised them and only listed down the ones that I saw as significant or noteworthy, or remember for that matter. Being that I can’t be everywhere at once, it’s entirely possible I completely missed some blasters.
Recurring/Regulars:
Elite Retaliator (various internal setups, pump grips) – there were a wide variety of Retals present, including multiple actually without pump grips. Regardless of the setup though, a Retal is always a solid blaster. Stock ones perform noticeably better than most other stock Elite blasters, while spring upgraded ones (usually with pump grips) perform very well at mid-range with decent ROF.
Elite Stryfe (various motors, LiPos) – solid all-round flywheelers. Highly effective at close to mid-range, and relatively easy to build and control. A great blaster all round.
Elite Rapidstrike (various motors, LiPos) – high ROF flywheelers exceptional at close range and volume of fire. A lot harder to build and control than a Stryfe, and requires a fair bit of practice to master, but is a lot of fun and can be devastatingly effective in the right hands.
Buzz Bee Sentinel (various springs) – decent springers notable for their high power out-of-box. A lot less comfortable to use than Slingfires, but make up for it with raw power, being able to easily keep up with Retaliators and the like. ROF is of course the main weakness of the Sentinel, but it is still fairly effective at mid range.
New/Infrequent:
In the second round, the Traitor chose to reveal their identity immediately, opening fire on the humans. While this served as quite an effective distraction, the zombies were unable to take advantage, and could not tag any humans before the Traitor was hit with a grenade. The knowledge that the Traitor was no longer in play helped to solidify the human defences further, and for the most part the zombies were unable to make much progress. Generally speaking, the humans were well enough organised to fend off most zombie attacks, while the zombies were generally not particularly well organised, and so were unable to inflict significant casualties on the human group. Instead, their best chance would be for lone stealth attacks during moments of distraction. As it turns out, this was in fact how the zombies won. One zombie was able to get through the human defensive fire and tag two or three humans before getting stunned. As it happened, one of those humans was the VIP, giving the zombies another surprisingly early win.
The first round demonstrated the power that the Traitor has with the grenade, though was more just a demonstration of why the Traitor is dangerous – and why the Traitor should always make a decent attempt to disrupt the humans. The second round was a demonstration of the necessity for the humans to maintain coverage of all angles at all times, even if the Tanks are preparing a big charge. Quite often the big charge is not what tags the VIP, rather it’s a lone zombie who takes advantage of the distraction and chaos that the charge provides. Though big Tank charges are still a huge threat, the humans need to make sure that all angles are covered at all times if they want a chance of surviving the whole 15 minutes. This is exactly why I usually stay away from the main human group in Secret VIP – I focus on covering our flanks while letting the bulk of the humans fend off big charges. With the Traitor revealing themselves early and not being able to achieve any tags, I think we had a solid chance in the second round if we had stopped that lone zombie from tagging the VIP.
A lack of human coordination was again a key theme in the early game. There weren’t many human players actively defending the Infector and Husk squares, making it much easier for the zombies to break through and acquire those upgrades. Even when those were lost, there was not a great deal of coordination in defending the Tank square, and only maybe a quarter of the humans were on active defensive duty. This made it much easier for the zombies to eventually break through to the Tank square. Another contributing factor was the size of the squares. In previous Defence Survival rounds, the squares would be 3-4m wide, leaving plenty of room to stun any zombies trying to dive for the upgrades. Throughout the year, those squares have slowly become smaller, and were only around 2m wide in this event. This made it ridiculously easy for a zombie to simply reach in and grab the upgrade. With larger squares, it is much more viable to actively defend the squares, and with some really good teamwork it is possible to stall the zombie upgrades to longer than regular Survival times. With these small squares, it is almost impossible to actually properly defend without wasting a lot of darts. Given that the gamemode is called Defence Survival, defending should be at very least possible for longer than a few minutes.
The first round was a complete mess, with the humans losing before the Blind Bomber even reached the first point. In a total lack of human coordination, the Blind Bomber and their tiny escort moved towards the first point, while the rest of the humans hung back and were completely useless. This tiny escort was easily overwhelmed by the full force of the zombies, and they were able to run the bomb off the play area very easily.
The second round played out much better. The now-coordinated human group moved quickly as a group to the first point, and were easily able to begin “arming” the bomb. The zombies were able to use the nearby trees as a staging point for attacks, and were able to get multiple tags, however the human defensive line held firm and they were able to complete the bomb “arming” phase and move the bomb to the second point. The second point is a tree with leafage forming a sparse dome around the trunk. This allows zombies to get up closer quite easily, though also allows the humans to form an extremely dense defence if they group up inside. The majority of the humans however chose to form up just outside the tree, leaving only a few humans within the leafage of the tree. The zombies were able to slowly wear down and pick off humans from the group, culminating in a final confrontation of the few remaining humans within the tree and the rest of the zombie horde. The zombies were able to break through and steal the bomb, running it off the play area to win.
Blind Bomber, like Secret VIP, is designed to be a shorter gamemode. Since both timed sections are only 5 minutes each, and the humans want to spend as little time in between, the longest that a Blind Bomber game can realistically last for is still less than 15 minutes. Provided it is set up well, I think it is a reasonable alternative to Secret VIP, as it provides a similar hectic, close quarters feel, but also has a lot more mobility and space to it. Having an objective that is clearly obvious, instead of hidden, also helps to focus and coordinate players, which I think is very helpful when most of the other gametypes are purely survival, rather than objective based. I wouldn’t mind trying it again with access to the full play area.
While Hostage Survival is a comical and silly gamemode, I don’t think it really adds anything to the game, unlike Defence Survival. If you do a good job in Defence Survival, you can delay the zombies from getting their upgrades, which is by all means advantageous for the humans. In Hostage Survival, there’s very little reason to protect the Hostages and keep them as Hostages. Although one of them is supposedly the Traitor, releasing the Hostages grants access to grenades, which are an incredibly valuable tool for fending off Tanks, especially later in the game. There isn’t much reason to keep the Hostages bound but alive, besides the threat of a Traitor (which may or may not actually exist). If you free one, you might as well free them all so you can get all the grenades. Bound Hostages are also far too much of a liability to actively defend, and the gain from keeping them alive as bound Hostages is very small, given that a bound Traitor can still tag humans. I think that keeping the Hostages bound and alive should provide a much, much greater reward for the humans. For instance having zombie upgrades tied to particular Hostages would drastically increase the value of the Hostages, and give the humans a significant choice to make.
You can also find the same Nerf Game Report on my own blog: Outback Nerf