*Rubbing eyes* Getting on your nerves, Emp? Never said you wouldn't use the rules? Look back at 5/13/11... 2:23am. If you don't want people using your own words against you... speak correctly.
I'm actually a Zombie player, but I have enuff confidence in my abilities to be able to overcome the initial disadvantage. As for zombies being lesser opponents, of course they are! Why do you think you can have 3 to 1 odds on the heroes? You think zombies and heroes are on equal footing?! You know what? After that... there isn't anything more you can add to top it. Well... maybe the heroes sniffing out the zombies, that is up there too. sheesh.
Ok, vikinglad, let me give this to you again about the "Taken Over" building and the whole spotting thing, since it has been mucked up beyond belief.
A player has the ability to use a building as cover. They can get next to the wall and slide along it without any zeds inside knowing that they are there. The drawback being that they don't know if there are zeds inside or not, because they haven't looked in a window/ door to establish LOS. The only way a zed will know that a hero is on the other side of the wall is thru zombie hunger (smell), otherwise, they will need for LOS to be established. As the rules state, you can only look in a building if you are touching one of its walls, not from a few spaces away.
If you are going to argue that they should be able to hear the zeds if on the other side of the wall, go stand outside of a gym or dentist office and see how much you hear from just outside.
You know Vikinglad, you actually gave me a pretty good idea. It probably shouldn't go on here, but since you gave me the thought, I'll give it to you first and see how it sticks. What if you play the game like a campaign? What do I mean? You start out with all of the heroes being available. Then what you have to do is line the missions up in an order of completion and ending with one where they have to escape the area. Any heroes that die or are turned, cannot be used in later missions. I'd be interested to see the number of heroes that actually escape the string of missions. It brings a whole new level of strat to the heroes.
Oh, I did play-test the rules with the scenario "Run for it". We played it twice. The first time to walk thru the rules, for both them and me... talking it and doing it are 2 different things. I found a couple things that I need to work on... like zeds that are alerted with the groan from a zombie who got LOS. Where do they walk to? The zombie... the direction in general... ya, I had them walk towards the zombie, but not thru walls. Definitely have to work with that.
Funny thing... after the first playing and wrapping their heads around the "do's and don't's" of the rules. They made the whole zeds in a building thing moot by taking a hero with a high move and running up, looking in, and then taking off. You are right about the cards doing a lot, tho. In the second game, I played the card that gives d6 zeds a free space movement, and one of them stepped out from behind the diner and spotted 2 heroes and gave out a groan, alerting 3 others. 2 of them moved towards the zombie and then they got LOS. They groaned, and that alerted another zed. Never counted on a cascade effect... kinda nice in a way. Gives the whole "zombies crawling out of the woodwork" feel. heh heh Another time I played a shamble, and this zombie staggered all over and almost at the end of the move, shambled out into LOS... 2 spaces away from my buddy playing Becky.
In summary, the rules worked to a degree. I used a laptop to keep track of my zeds until they popped up, so that went a little quicker than it may have. (it probably also helped that I put a direction randomizer in the Excel sheet for each zeds instead of rolling dice for each one.) Surprising how many stood still. I was happy with the bulk of the rules, but a couple of them do need tweaking/ looking into. The "Silent" search rule only came into play twice, and both times the roll was made, so I don't know how it would have worked otherwise. With Memorial Day coming up, I'm hoping to be ready to give it another shot.