Heroes Underpowered?

[Bokya]

Hey all. I've been playing LNOE, but I'm starting to have difficulty keeping people interested. They seem to think that the Zombies are 'OP'. Is there any hints how to play the Heroes properly?

I've got the Base set and Growing Hunger.

[Ogthar]

I've always found the game to be really balanced, but had some issues with friends who don't think it is. I feel like they think the zombies are overpowered because they are used to video games where the zombies never win. They want it to be hard, but for the heroes to pull it out in the end. They just remembered their losses and forgot winning because it's what they expected. I solved that problem by just putting a scoreboard up on the fridge for a while with a tally of hero and zombie wins. Once they saw that it was relatively even they dropped thier balance complaints.

If you don't think this is your issue I would reccomend as a general strategy for the heroes
1) Stick close to eachother but a space apart.
2) SHARE. Not just if a lightweight has a shotgun, but give weapons and items to whoever will use them the best. Keep ranged weapons in the back and hand to hand fighters in front of them.
4) Don't be afraid to move. A good Z player will try to surround you. The heroes have a really great advantage in movement. If you time your moves right the Z player will have to spend the next several turns catching up to you.
5) Don't forget to use your abilities. People in my group forget to reroll for Sally all the time. We've had Johnny forget he wins on ties and accidentally killed him when he should have fended the Z off.
6) Use the building pickups. If you have the gas station on the board, try to lay a lot of gas markers. If you have the gun store don't be shy using guns, you can get them back.
5) Think before you use a card. Why use a just a scratch at the beginning of a game on your first wound. It could be way more valuable later to prevent a killing wound, you may seem to be in trouble now, but you might be fine and really need that card later for another hero.

If you're still having problems, just give the heroes a dot or two from the growing hunger rules for a while until your strategy improves.

[LabRat]

Does your game group want to try to engage the zombies in combat right away? Like in zombie movies, humans should play defensively and from the few LNOE games I've played, playing defense until the Heroes have gathered enough resources leads to success. There's balance but the Heroes and the Zombies play a lot differently.

[Phantaskippy]

Get hero pack one.

That set tips the power toward the heroes a decent bit. Really good items and some top notch heroes.

All the other comments are good too, but adding Jade, Stacy, Victor, Mr. Goddard and the Hunting Rifle really improve the hero team.

If they still are having trouble, try leading them into the matches by using the growing hunger point system for add-ons, it almost always favors the heroes. A starting card pool, or starting cards +1 will really help them get going.

[mqstout]

Sound advice in here already.
* Remember that heroes need to search a lot before fighting in melee.
* Ranged weapons dominate the game.
* Utilize The Hunger to herd the zombies around to make it easier to Shotgun or Dynamite them. (Or lure them away from objectives or weaker characters.)
* (Depending on the scenario) sometimes you have to sacrifice a hero for the common good.

[samuraitrev]

I agree with all the above. Remember as a Hero to keep going for the victory conditions. If you need scenario search items use Jake's ability. Or buildings like the Supermarket to get more than 1 card per search. Spam the Signal Flare from the Hanger for KILLS. Avoid getting trapped.

[Bokya]

I remember the last game I had was escape in the truck. They got both items at the first 2 turns of the game, and still lost. They raged so hard at imbalance, but forgot that well... Heroes have an extremely hard time fending off Zombies if they don't have any weapons. Plainly put: they got greedy. That plus a lucky Topdeck 'This could be our last night on earth' sealed the deal.

Thanks for the advice guys.

[LabRat]

Why didn't they make a run for the truck on turn 3? All of the Spawning pits are 4 squares away from the center of the Town Square (at least the L-boards that came with the base set)... it would have taken the Zombies 4 turns to get to the Truck - reaching the truck on turn 3 would mean the truck is filled on turn 4 and ready to go. Even if Zombies did make it to the truck, the Heroes just need to survive the fights (which they can do by pairing the zombies accordingly) to escape, right?

[Bokya]

They did exactly that. But a Trip on one of them, left that hero in the dust. One of the others started across the map. They encountered problems because three of them started in the school, and they pretty much only had one exit to take because the gym was beside a spawning pit. They ran straight for the Truck but were blocked steadily by zombies.

Zombie wins due to:
This could be our last night on earth
Trip
Relentless Advance
Bad Hero Move Rolls on Turn 3.

What made them extremely bitter was that I started the game with only 3 Zombies and still managed to beat them.

[LabRat]

Looks like you had a lucky streak there along with good positioning - a combination of drawing the right cards and some bad dice rolls on their part.