User:BOSCH/gut rot

Devised late 2017 at Fort Perryn with 244, repeated occasionally at the forts until 2021.

Named gut rot because the idea came up during a particularly bad bout of food poisoning, and because the zombies stew angrily in the middle of the fort.

Thank you, Kevan, for the fucked up fort movement rules ❤

Plans usually looked something like this:

"Fort Creedy has been up and stable for far too long, so we're going crash the armoury to party at will in the gatehouse and eat the fort from the inside out until the whole place collapses in on itself. There's 20+ in the gatehouse, another 20 in the armoury and another half dozen throughout the interior. CDF, lots of Knights Templar, old school trenchies inside, etc. While there's a chance it may fall before the strike, given survivors inside outnumber zombies outside, if we get in position as soon as possible we should be good.

We will be doing a death cult strike as soon as viable to clear the armoury out, then ruin and hold it as zombies. The gatehouse has special movement rules that allow anyone - even zombies! - to free-run from it to the gatehouse for 1AP, regardless of the cade status in the gatehouse. Therefore, if we clear and ruin the armoury, then hold it as zombies, we can use it to launch attacks as and when we want on the gatehouse/interior buildings. In addition, the armoury is also a dark building, meaning as long as we can keep the lights off, it's difficult and/or potentially a huge survivor AP drain to remove us. It's also the primary survivor resource for getting guns and ammo - although the gatehouse can provide them with clips.

Snagging the ruin on the armoury is important - if we can't keep the doors open, we can't fade back to the dark safety of it. If we don't get the ruin at the end of the strike, though, not all is lost. In such a situation, we simply keep the lights off and camp it until a. the remaining survivors run away b. the remaining survivors die. It will be ours eventually.

Once we control it we can also encourage the ferals outside to finish their turn inside the armoury by getting one of our breathers to tell zombies outside the gatehouse about what we're doing. Only a small proportion will actually listen, but it all helps.

To prepare:

• Restock - keep hold of your shotguns, they'll be extremely useful alpha damage for the breather half of the strike. Loaded pistols useful too, obviously, as are spare clips in case we get combat revived
• Grab a FAK and a syringe - optional, but useful, you never know what's going to happen
• Get yourself over to Fort Creedy, window dive, and organise a friendly zombie to infect you, and a friendly breather to revive you - preferably outside the gatehouse
• Dirtnap outside until strike time - it's optimal and the safest way to stage, plus standing up with an infection at 30HP is perfect for the strike itself.

The strike itself is simple:

• Stand up
• Pile into the armoury
• Shoot primarily shotguns until we turn
• Rise as zombies and maul the survivors until we get it cleared
• Ransack
• GK for darkness
• Ruin
• Sleep exclusively in the armoury so we can take advantage of all the wonderful mechanics that it has, such as being able to free-run (neigh - FLY!) into gatehouse on demand, regardless of the cade situation.

Once we've got it:

• Keep the lights out! Extremely important. Not only does it fuck survivor hit-rates on us, but wastes a lot of valuable survivor AP, and stops them repairing as easily. Keeping the armoury ruined is also key. Keep control for first hours/first day is crucial.
• Exploit being able to free-run as zombies into the gatehouse whenever we want - also, I love the mental image of zombies free-running. We can also methodically take down the interior buildings
• Wait for the semi-inevitable CDF-led counter-strike in the armoury. Keep an eye on the public section of the CDF forum, the last time out Spider announced his strike time there. Their strike will be very easy to counter - simply keep destroying their generators / ?rise and re-enter the armoury until they've spaffed all their AP - but it may hinge on us being active when they are active. I've defeated an advertised survivor armoury retake attempt alone though, simply using ?rise and mashing their gennies quickly enough, they won't be able to succeed if even just a couple of us are online.
• Enjoy the fridge that restocks itself."

Some later commentary: "So the Gut Rot strategy - stack friends, parachute or break everyone into the armoury, clear it out and hold it dark and ruined to snack inside the gatehouse at will - is well established at this point. I've even had it used against me by the Scourge at Creedy! The problem is, that wondrous ability - to soar like an undead parkour wizard and fly straight into the fridge that is the fort gatehouse - is almost too powerful. I haven't seen a fort stay up more than two or three times when it's done well, although it's usually done late in a siege when the defenders are already diminished."