Random Updates: Mutants And Zombies And Chainsaws... Wait... Who Took My Chainsaw?!?

I had some spare time this Friday morning so I went to the game shelf and grabbed one that's been way down on the bottom collecting dust for a while now.  It's an oldie but... well, yeah... an oldie... It's Chainsaw Warrior released in 1987 by Games Workshop!

My brother had picked this up for me literally decades ago and I vaguely remember playing it a few times.  The concept is interesting enough; there is an evil force that is going to do something horrible in New York and it's up to you to save everyone but you only have 60 minutes to do it!  And you might be able to do it with a chainsaw!  Maybe... Sure, it's literally the name of the game but that doesn't mean that we are just going to hand you a chainsaw mister.  There's a process here, paperwork to fill out, we need to check the storeroom to see if we even have it in at the moment.

The mechanics of the game are simple enough.  In the turn, you advance the clock by 30 seconds then draw a card.  Depending on what you draw, you might have to fight a zombie, a cultist, avoid a trap, or maybe even find nothing at all.  The fighting all done with 2d6 (no shock there since it's a GW product) and that all seems straightforward enough.  In fact, the game play as a whole doesn't seem too bad but there are some specific parts that left me thinking "WTF guys?!?"

Before you start the mission, you need to create your character and to do that, you need to roll some dice.  The first stat you roll is your endurance which can be anywhere from 4 to 24.  Now this has nothing to do with how much damage you can take, this only tracks radiation poisoning and zombie venom.  If you are wounded by a zombie, you gain a point of zombie venom plus it might increase just from encountering a zombie.  This could be trouble but it seems manageable, especially compared to radiation.  As soon as you draw a mutant, you take d6 points of radiation just from looking at him.  There are fewer mutants than zombies but given the widely variable range on your endurance, this seems a little aggressive.  The rest of the stats are variable as well, being either one or two d6 plus a set value.  My first thought was at least this was a little more balanced but I think that this was just from the relief of seeing a set value being incorporated into the roll.  You are supposed to be some kind of retired super soldier after all.

Once you have your attributes, then it's time to kit out but wait!  There's still another die roll!  Another d6 but with a +2 this time, and that's how many points of equipment you can get... at random.  Yeah, apparently the stockroom you are being kitting out from has been pretty badly ransacked so maybe you can get that chainsaw that the we mentioned before... but probably not.  In fact, to be kitted out with the gear that they show on the character (chainsaw, flare gun, u/v emitter, medi kit, wire cutters, knife, acid, blaster, steel gloves, anti-rad capsules, and implosion waistcoat) is actually impossible.  All of this gear would cost you 12 points of gear but you only have d6 plus 2... drawn at random.

At the end of the day, I'd played it twice and then set it back onto the shelf.  The first run, I made it half a dozen or so turns into the game when a lunatic grabbed the only weapon that I had that could win the game.  Nothing to do at that point but go get a beer!  The second run went a lot better until I ran into the Meat Machine, a bizarre cyborg creature that rips off parts of you flesh to add to itself.  I was holding my own for a couple of turns, but as soon as it started hitting me it was over.  Not because I was dead, but because even if I managed to kill the Machine, I was so badly mauled that I wouldn't be able to shoot the big bad and actually hit.

An interesting concept with some mechanics that weren't too bad.  I could probably mod it so that it would be more playable but... not today.  Back to the shelf with you for now.  Until next time...