Martians vs Zombies variant

[LabRat]

"What's going on?" Sally exclaimed, exasperated. "First, zombies, now little green men from Mars?! How are we going to ever survive this?!"

"Not too loud, Sally," Sheriff Anderson hushed her. He didn't know what to make of the situation, but what he did know is that panicking would only get them killed. "Jake, you've gotten us out of that Woodinvale mess before, so... Any chance we're making it out of here alive?"

Cartwright shrugged, undeterred. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," he said to the sheriff. "They don't seem to be getting along at all. Let's just lie low and let the creeps take each other out. They seem to be doing a pretty good job of it, anyhow."

Sheriff Anderson nodded in silent agreement. They barely survived the zombie outbreak, so getting directly involved in the conflict seemed to spell certain doom. It made a lot of sense to just stay at the sidelines for now...

What do you guys think about a Martian vs Zombies LNOE/IFOS variant? The scenario would go this way (taken from the Earth Overrun Scenario in the IFOS rulebook):

Special rules:

Zombies
The Zombies must get 3 Victory Points to win. To get a Victory Point, they must kill a Hero/Martian Champion, or kill a full 6 Martian Soldiers. Use the track on the back cover to keep count of Martian Soldiers killed until a Victory Point is gained, then reset the track to 0.

(Alternatively, the Zombies must kill 18 Martian Soldiers. Killing a Martian Champion counts as killing 6 Martian Soldiers).

Martians
Just like the Zombies, the Martians must get 3 Victory Points to win. To get a Victory Point, they must kill a Hero/Zombie Hero, or kill a full 6 Zombies. Use the track on the back cover to keep count of Zombies killed until a Victory Point is gained, then reset the track to 0.

(Alternatively, the Martians must kill 18 Zombies. Killing a Zombie Martian Champion counts as killing 6 Zombies).

Martians vs Zombies
There are some additional rules for Martians and Zombies battling one another as follows:

- Martians may move away from a space with Zombies. Zombie Hunger does apply to all Martians as well as Heroes. The Zard Beast’s Rage does apply to Zombies.

- Zombies ‘Dodge’ Ray Gun Hits on 5+ on a D6 (counts as an Agility Test, though really the Zombie is absorbing the damage).

- Zombies win a Fight on a Tie unless their opponent would win on a Tie.

- The Cornfield special rules apply to Zombies trying to find Martians just like Heroes. It does not apply to Martians attacking Zombies.

- Martian Soldiers killed by a Zombie in a Fight are replaced with a Zombie from the Pool or from anywhere else on the board (becoming a Zombie Martian). These new Zombies do NOT Fight in the same Phase they entered play. Martian Champions killed automatically become Zombie Martian Champions (they lose all special rules, but have the same number of Health Boxes and move D3 spaces – just like Zombie Heroes – they do retain their original number of Fight Dice though).

The only problem that I'm having is where to place the Landing Sites (if using the LNOE board) or the Spawning Pits (if using the IFOS board). One idea that I'm playing around with is to just place 4 Landing Site/Spawning Pit in the four corner squares of the Center Board, but I haven't really playtested it yet.

Another problem that I'm foreseeing is Zombie/Martian card references to a Hero - I'm not sure how that would play out in a game if we just substitute the word "Hero" for Zombie or Martian.

I'm a little excited at the prospect of a Zombie player against a Martian player, as both play similarly to each other. I'll playtest this as soon as I get the chance. What do you guys think?

[LabRat]

*shooos flies away*

Ahem... So I now have my Cloaked Martian Scouts, amazing little buggers that they are, I'm sure they're going to help the Martians in our Martians vs Zombies experiment. We're just working out our schedules and I'm looking at the Dot Rules for LNOE to make sure that the game is balanced for both. Despite the Scouts, I'm really thinking that the Zombies are going to wipe the floor with these aliens. The undead just has too much sheer power, especially since they have Autospawn by default.