TheZombieGame.com Forums

Myself and 3 other friends got together to have a board game night, Phill (who you may have seen on my Custom Character the Civil Servant) and two of his work mates. We are all guildies from previous MMO's but new to the board game gaming nights I'm starting to put on.

I've recently posted that I have just got the game supplements Revenge of the Dead, Zombie Pillage and Advanced Abilities. I've done this before buying Growing Hunger since these are cheaper to purchace, and using these I can "buff" the zombies somewhat, since so far we're finding the Heroes win 90% of the time, and to date with 20+ games played only 8 or so Heroes have fallen, and only 3 have risen back as Hero Zombies. I personally think that that's a little easy on the Heroes since what Zombie movie have you watched where all the Humans live? Lol

I have read however that Growning Hunger does help tip the scale into the Zombies favour so I can't wait for that. But until then I have these. (I'm pondering giving the Zombie players one of the advanced abilities from the start and not using any other's for now)

So. We all sat down, had a nice take-a-way as I explained the rules and dynamics to 2 of our players who had never seen the game before, we then randomly selected a scenario, I was hopeing for one of my new ones and Zombie Pillage was selected, I started setting up and reading out the scenario and could see the boys getting more and more confused, since in that scenario there is a townsfolk deck for the health of the town. Ok I said and discarded that scenario and let them pick another... Revenge of the Dead was selected.. Joy!

Since I was playing Zed's with Phill, and the 2 new members were playing the (imo more powerful side) Heroes (With Sophia's help inbetween setteling our son) We played with all the new cards that my supplements gave (Hedgetrimmer, Axe, Anxious to Feed, etc) and played without either side having Advanced abilities.

I read the Scenario card, bascially Zed's roll an extra fight dice, Zed's need to kill 5 Heroes or else Heroes win (in short)

So off we went, and the Heroes seemed lucky picking up the Meat Cleaver, Axe, Back Pack and Brush very early on. they met up and Played the "let's rock" card on Billy who had the backpack, with the 2-handed Brush and Meat Cleaver and they sent him off to hunt us down (I did point out the scenario objectives meant "aviod us" lol)

Phill and I kept coming at them, since we get auto spawn, but nothing we could do was hurting them, we just didn't have the cards. Now half way thru the game, and half way thru our Zed Deck we finally got a break by picking up "I feel kinda Strange" we mannaged to get our first kill and a Zed Hero (Scenario states Heroes that fall become Hero Zed automatically).

3 turns from the end we picked up our first "new" cards from the pack's I'd got, Since these cards are more powerful than the ones in the Vanilla game and the Heroes seemed to be picking theirs up from the start this put us at a serious disadvantage I felt. We then got 2x "Anxious to Feed" allowing newly spawned Zeds to move 1 space right away each card, "The Hungry one" allowing one zombie to move D3 each turn and "Divide and Conquer" Allowing Zeds an extra fight die if the Hero is on their own on a space.... All cards that'd easily turned the tides if we'd had them sooner.

The game ended with 3 Heroes dead, One hero with 1 wound and "I feel kinda strange" and another with 2 wounds. We nearly did it.. then I realised Phill and I had not been drawing 3 Zed cards each, The scenario states Zed's draw 6 cards or 3 each, Doh! I'd been so busy explaining the rules to our new players that I'd forgot that point, I'm pretty certian that we'd of won if we had been drawing them, if nothing else our "new" cards would of came out alot sooner.

All in all we had a great game, we all enjoyed and dispite my mistake it was close, if we had 3-4 more moves I'm sure we'd of won. At the end thou I had a lot to do with explaining the rules and helping Soph settle our boy (he is teething poor chap) so I'll excuse myself for the mistake, and after all the more I play with these guys the less I'll have to explain.

They all decided then that our next game would be Hero Quest, Not saying I don't like it, but after LNoE it's very slow and simple (Again most not played before so playing basic game) I'm going to have to try and talk them into abandoming HeroQuest and setting their minds to LNoE I think.

Well done old chap,

Too bad about the cards. When you specified the rules at the top of the post, I was thinking if there wasn't something about some cards... and yes. But you sound like youre a good sport about it, which the pesky human heroes surely should appreciate. There is something... strange... about the general learning curve in LNoE.

Generally speaking, the heroes win the first like, 20 games. Then all of a sudden the Zeds begin to win, a lot! (All depending on the scenarios though). And then after 50 games, it evens out, and every game becomes exciting and difficult for both sides!

...HeroQuest is fun, but compared to LNoE, nah...

Cheerio,
ST

Thank you for replying SovTech, It's something that has been really bothering me, since everyone seems to be saying that Zombies seem to be victorious the most, yet in my house, apart from the first 3-4 games, they never seem to get close, and it's almost as if the Heroes are standing there taunting them.

I've re-read through the rule book several times to make sure we're playing it right and not stacking things in the Heroes favour, the only thing I picked up on is that once a Hero player runs out of Heroes, that last killed Hero becomes a Hero Zombie, and that Unless Heroes Replenish is in effect Hero players don't draw new heroes until their last one is dead, in effect spawning a Hero Zombie. I can see that this misplaying of the rules would also gain the Zombies an advantage, mainly the spawning a new Hero right away, since we usually only have 1 or 2 Hero Players and Zed's are doing so badly we tend not to run out.

I've a few questions that I could not find in the rules but have been raised by my gaming group.

1. I was asked if Heroes are allowed to search whilst a Zombie is in the same building as them.
1a. I replied afaik and have read they can even search whilst on the same space as a zombie as long as they are in a building.

2. Does Growning Hunger tip the balance more in the zombies favour, due to Grave Dead Zombies?
2a. I replied not sure, althou from what I've read I'd imagine it would

3. What we could do with the original game, "Revenge of the Dead", "Zombie Pillage" and Advanced Abilities supplements to even it out until we've played more (Since atm I always seem to play Heroes, and am the only one who seems to know the game well)
3a. I've surgested Removing game supplement cards form the Hero deck, keeping them in the Zombie Deck and allowing Zombies to draw a random Advanced Ability at the start, and then another every 2nd Hero Killed.

Any thoughts or view guys? cause my missus Sophia was so annoyed at our game last night she said she didn't want to play anymore. This is mainly cause she has really bad luck with all die rolling games (for some reason she does) andwe played Revenge of the Dead and she only mannaged to kill 3 Heroes, and over the last 5 moves I held back some cards and "forgot" to use some of the Heroes abilities. Oh and Commited Suicide with a Revolver and Gasoline as Sally (I connection to another post, we classed this as Suicide which would not spawn a Zombie Hero since they didn't get infected, but the rules of Revenge of the Dead stats always Zombie Heroes so Sally rose up to feed)

I'd like to say that Revenge of the Dead is probably not the best scenario to play with inexperienced players, especially in a group where the heroes end up winning a lot.

I've played that scenario once. It was against my girlfriend, and it was her second game, I think. She was the heroes and I the zombies, and she won BIG time. I managed to wound ONE hero.

So all in all, I think that particular scenario is a bit imbalanced even though I'd like to give it another whirl just to get another crack at it.

But for "easing people" into the game, stick with the basic game scenarios. They're simple enough.

I agree with EvilNed... If none of the new players ever played LNoE, I tend to use simpler scenarios.
For example, I've shown the game to my family, they had never played any RPG game whatsoever, but they had played games like War or Clue!, so I used the DZD scenario (I only own the core game, no expasions yet). Of course I helped them out through the game and they emerged victorious at the end (which is great because people like to win). If the players have some experience in RPGs, card games or board games I usually use the Escape in the Truck scenario, which is harder for the heroes, but not impossible...

CheerS!

To answer your questions:
1. Yes and yes.
2. No, not because of the grave dead, more because of the zed cards that go to the zombie deck. The thing is that you choose your grave dead randomly, which can result in really bad grave dead for some scenarios (however the scenarios that involve grave dead are hilariously good).
3. You can do something and you can stop doing something:

I think we have about 200 games under our belt (with all expansions so far), and it seems to me that there are some dot abilities which combined with specific scenarios give the heroes/zeds unfair advantages:

Scenarios where the heroes need to find anything or must survive untill sunup can be ruined by letting them start with extra hero cards. Really! Even if you play that they redraw any scenario search item, more items/cards almost always gives them the upper hand at the start of the game, which again buys them time to search and find the items they need.

On the other hand, the Zombie Pillage one dot rule is really, really Annoying for heroes in scenarios where they must survive untill sunup. If you fight the zeds they'll have a chance to kill you. If you dont they will pillage and win when the deck runs out. And its a 1 point advantage for the zeds.

Advanced Abilities. Oh my. This has been discussed before, but the mechanic behind are problematic, as it has a build in snowball effect to either side (but we have only seen the heroes abilities kick in mostly). He who kills four zeds, gets abilities that will probably help him kill more(!). 43 zeds died in 1 game to Johnny with his special. We have tried playing some times with this expansion, but we have always found that it will punish 1 side and help the other too much. My personal opinion is that this was more of a test or preview, before the new experience system which comes with Timber Peak, and that it isnt especially balanced. My advice is that you dont play with them untill you have tried everything else.

Remember if you do not play with heroes replenish/always zombie heroes then when you kill a hero, they do not get to draw a new one. So if u only have 1 or 2 hero opponents, well... try to kill 1 hero from each and see them win the scenario with only 2 heroes left. Good Luck Clint! Btw. we always play with Heroes Replenish and Always Zombie Heroes.

Some things to sum up:
Dot rules are optional, and some scenarios can be screwed up by some dot rules (Defend the Manor and Barricades Im looking at you!). Try to play the scenarios some times before adding any dot rules to them, and discuss the effect of adding some dot rules to specific scenarios.

Draw the heroes randomly! You get kinda tired of seeing Becky and Father doing the old "Ill cancel that!" "OMG Youre hurt!" trick. And as a frequent Hero player, you get tired of using your actions on healing the old fart ("But Becky, its for the best for all of us..." "Yeah, well a girl have to realise herself sometimes. See you pn the other side Padre!"). It more fun to win with different characters even for the heroes, and they have to figure out new tactics.

Strategy. Hmm... Ill refer you to this post (thumbed by the frog himself):
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/579890/ifos-vs-lnoe

and:
http://www.thezombiegame.com/forums/Thre...ng-zombies

Any more questions? And I think you double posted...

Cheerio and good luck and chewy times!
ST

Great reply, cheers. I've got some things to read and look at now, I'll I'll have a read and play a few more solo encounters and see how that works out.

thanks again