Driving the truck!

[Leonard]

Just thought I'd share my own gaming groups idea about driving the truck, since it seems to come up quite a bit.

To begin, we usually place the truck at the road out of town. It makes it easier to get from A to Z on the board, and is also located next to the gas station for convenience! We play it so that the truck can be filled with gas at the end of a hero turn, instead of giving up a turn to fill it as per the 'Escape in the Truck' scenario. It can also be filled with multiple gas 'cards'. The truck adds to your movement die. So for every gas can in the truck, you get an additional movement die for that turn (on top of the standard 1 movement die you would normally get). For example, a truck filled with 2 gas cans, will have 3 total movement die.

Heroes have to start their turn in the same space as the truck and possess the keys to be able to drive. The truck can move 2 heroes, as part of both of those heroes movement phase. A slight variation involves allowing the truck to be hot-wired on the D6 roll of 2+ if the hero does not have the keys. In this case the hero must start in the same space and announce they are going to attempt to hot-wire the truck and give up their movement roll to do so. But it all comes down to a question of balance really!

Any zombie (or Hero) on a space you pass through in the truck is hit and killed on the D6 roll of 3+. But each time you make a successful hit, the truck is damaged beyond repair and heroes must immediately exit on the D6 roll of 5+ (just to balance it out a little!). Sometimes we alter the odds for keyword student heroes, causing them to damage the truck on the D6 roll of 4+ instead, assuming they are younger and so more inexperienced.

It's a fun way to clear the board of zeds! Does anyone else have an alternative approach? Or do you find that involving the truck in this way is too overpowering and unnecessary?