I got to play one of the new scenarios (Hunker Down) with one of the new characters and the new decks this evening.
I'm hesitant to describe the scenario I played, or any of the other new scenarios I looked at, with that contest going on. But I'd be happy to describe the way in which grave weapons, survival tactics, unique weapons, and barricades work, if people are interested.
gavindowning Wrote:I got to play one of the new scenarios (Hunker Down) with one of the new characters and the new decks this evening.
I'm hesitant to describe the scenario I played, or any of the other new scenarios I looked at, with that contest going on. But I'd be happy to describe the way in which grave weapons, survival tactics, unique weapons, and barricades work, if people are interested.
Bring it on! I want to know.
I'm still waiting for "Growing Hunger" to arrive. But, if "Survival of the Fittest" is good, that could be a Christmas present sorted.
gavindowning Wrote:I got to play one of the new scenarios (Hunker Down) with one of the new characters and the new decks this evening.
I'm hesitant to describe the scenario I played, or any of the other new scenarios I looked at, with that contest going on.
Well, nobody seems to be entering, so you might as well... It should have been understood that information about the scenarios would be imminent, and people have had 9 days now to send in something. Not that I'm trying to end the contest... I'm happy to give out the prizes, but I don't think there was enough interest, apparently. At this point, though, I'm eager to learn more... But I guess, for now, if you could just describe the scenario you played and leave out info on the others, that would be good, and then I'll remove "Hunker Down" from the possible choices to submit details for in the contest.
And definitely, more info about barricades, sewers, etc., would be great.
Grudunza Wrote:gavindowning Wrote:I got to play one of the new scenarios (Hunker Down) with one of the new characters and the new decks this evening.
I'm hesitant to describe the scenario I played, or any of the other new scenarios I looked at, with that contest going on.
Well, nobody seems to be entering, so you might as well... It should have been understood that information about the scenarios would be imminent, and people have had 9 days now to send in something. Not that I'm trying to end the contest... I'm happy to give out the prizes, but I don't think there was enough interest, apparently. At this point, though, I'm eager to learn more... But I guess, for now, if you could just describe the scenario you played and leave out info on the others, that would be good, and then I'll remove "Hunker Down" from the possible choices to submit details for in the contest.
And definitely, more info about barricades, sewers, etc., would be great.
what contest? sorry..new here.
/eagerly awaiting...any info
One quick note: I'm doing this entirely from memory -- it's not like I took written notes. But it should give an idea as to the flavor.
Grave Weapons: When the zombie player spawns, they may choose to spawn fewer zombies and instead draw a Grave Weapons card. Basically, each Grave Weapons card is worth spawning two zombies. So if you roll to spawn 6 zombies, you can spawn 6 zombies, or spawn 4 zombies and draw 1 Grave Weapons card, or spawn 2 zombies and draw 2 Grave Weapons card, or spawn no zombies and drawn 3 Grave Weapons cards. This is particularly brutal in an auto-spawn game when the field is already crawling with zombies. (Thankfully for the heroes, there can only be 6 Grave Weapons zombies on the field at a time.)
The zombie player then chooses a zombie to give the card to. (It's not held in hand, or at least it never was in our game last night.) It cannot be given to a zombie in a square with a hero, and it can't be given to a zombie on a spawning pit. I do not recall if cards that can cancel a zombie card can cancel a Grave Weapon card or not.
The memorable cards we had played on us included barbed wire (if the hero rolls a 1 on any of their dice in combat with the zombie, they take a wound), the crawling torso (which moves 2, and which attempts to cling to any heroes trying to move away -- heroes must roll a 4+ to be able to leave a space with a crawling torso), and a zombie with an explosive (every turn, roll a die; on a 6, the zombie explodes, killing everyone in their square, and potentially doing a wound to all adjacent heroes and zombies; they also explode when they die). There were also more typical weapons like a machete, a pitchfork, etc, which give standard melee weapon bonuses like extra fight dice, and definitely added fun flavor (though I can't remember the specific combat bonuses for those). I also saw fun cards like "bloated body" which has a chance to ignore wounds (except from explosions, if I recall correctly), or "blood spray" which can infect heroes with the spray when the zombie is killed -- turning them into a zombie hero when they're next wounded... and they also have the Blood Spray card, too, meaning it can pass on like a disease. There are apparently two of each Grave Weapon cards in the deck.
Survival Tactics and Unique Items: When heroes roll a 5-6 for their move (or was it 4-6? I think it's 5-6, though), if they chose to search instead of moving, they may instead draw from one of the new hero decks. If the building you are in is a 1, 2, or 3 building (such as the High School), you can draw from the Unique Items deck; if the building is a 4, 5, or 6 building (such as the Gym), you can draw from the Survival Tactics deck. (If you're in a 3-4 building or something similar, you can take your pick.)
Unique Items include things such as Lizzie's shotgun, or the heirloom revolver which has been in the Sherriff's family for generations (hits on a 3+), or Johnny's jacket (extra wound), or Sam's dogtags (take a wound to kill a zombie you've just beaten in a fight). Many of the items are more useful if you give them to the person they belong to -- give anyone Jade's skateboard, and they gain +1 to their move. Give Jade her skateboard, however, and she gains +2 to her move. It also includes a number of books (including one which I immediately recognized from that old inn by the lake near the sleepy hamlet of Shadowbrook), which are important for one of the scenarios (I didn't play this scenario, but man, it looked interesting). Because, in the scenario, I didn't ever enter a 1-2-3 building, I didn't get as good a feel for these cards, but they definitely added quite a bit.
Survival Tactics include things such as "Survival of the Fittest," a "remains in play" card which makes it so that every time you kill a zombie, you can heal a wound. The one card I ended up playing is a card called "Holy Item" or something along those lines. When an item must be discarded, you may play this card on it. The item is not discarded, and in the future, any other times it must be discarded, roll a die. On a 4+, it can be kept. I believe the sewers were one of these cards, and from what I gathered, they work by placing two sewer lid tokens on the board. There's also a "sewer" tile that's set off to the side that's it's own square. Either zombies or heroes may move into the sewer square from the sewer lid squares, or back out to either sewer lid square.
Barricading: If a hero rolls a 4+ on their move, they may instead choose to barricade any wall they are touching. A "barricade" marker is placed along that whole wall. They may also choose to reinforce the barricade, which places a "reinforce" token on the barricade. Up to 3 "reinforced" tokens may be placed on a barricade. In addition, at the end of your move, you may also choose to take a wound to barricade or reinforce a wall. (This works well with student heroes, since they can give up their move to heal, then take another wound to barricade or reinforce.)
Heroes may move through barricades without a problem, unless they are reinforced. If they are reinforced, one movement must be given up for every "reinforced" token on the barricade, and the "reinforced" token must be removed.
Zombies can only move through a barricade on a roll of 5+. If they are successful, they move through -- unless it is reinforced, in which case they remove one "reinforced" token. Zombie hunger still affects zombies trying to move through barricades, and they are trying to move through two walls (diagonal movement or what have you), they roll as though they were going through the more-reinforced wall.
Hunker Down: The game we played last night was a great deal of fun, even though we utterly stomped the zombie player -- due to a large part to our starting locations. The scenario (I don't recall the exact number of turns) involved finding two buildings and reinforcing all walls. We then needed to have at least one hero in each building and no zombies in that building for 4 turns. Our starting characters were Mr. Goddard the chemistry teacher (who starts in the high school), Billy (who starts in the high school), Raechelle (who randomly rolled a building -- the high school), and Jade (my character, who also randomly rolled a building -- the gym. The outcast was separated from the other three; go figure). We were in an excellent place to start barricading immediately.
(One note -- we didn't need to barricade the walls on the outside edge of the board, but we DID need to barricade the wall between the two buildings on either side to fulfill the requirements of the scenario. This means that the high school needed two walls barricaded, and the gym needed three.)
While Jade and Billy started barricading the gym and the high school respectively, Goddard and Raechelle started searching for anything they could use. As the zombies came in close, Jade spotted one carrying a stick of dynamite. She tried to get away, but the zombie exploded! Thankfully, she wasn't too close, and managed to avoid any of the blast. Two nearby zombies about to break into the gym weren't so lucky, so Jade found she had extra time. She rushed to the outer wall of the Gym -- frighteningly close to one of the zombie pits -- and started barricading the wall. As other zombies -- including one rapid crawling torso -- approached, Raechelle leaned out of the front corner window of blasted at any approaching with her pistol that had been recently blessed. (Game note: On her first attack roll, she rolled a 1. Thankfully, I already had the blessed item card, and kept her from losing her gun. The only other time she would have lost the gun later, that card again saved it.)
The zombies cut the power to the high school, but Billy was in a good place to reinforce the building without needing to move too much. Raechelle with her flashlight and Mr. Goddard with his neverending supply of fire didn't worry about a little lack of light. Goddard joined Jade in the gym to help reinforce the shared wall between the gym and the high school. The zombies started swarming out of the hospital and the antique shop (we were very glad that our zombie player never rolled a 5-6 on a random location for such a card, because if he had taken either the high school or the gym, we would have had serious problems).
One zombie wrapped in barbed wire finally broke through the defenses, attacking Jade. Jade, however, took out the zombie with her bare hands, neatly avoiding any damage. With all walls barricaded, the heroes were ready to hunker down. Things were looking good for all our heroes. Several zombies were taken out by dynamite, and none could seem to get through the reinforced walls.
Unfortunately, three zombies began attacking the reinforced wall of the gym, and Jade, who was there to keep the wall secure, was caught in an onslaught. Already tired from running around and keeping the walls secure (but apparently not secure enough), she quickly fell. Mr. Goddard watched in horror while his former student rose as a flesh-eating monster... along with her killer!
Billy raced to the door of the gym with a pump shotgun Raechelle had found for him (they've got some brutal security at that high school!), and shot for the two zombies. Goddard ducked, and Jade's killer was taken out, but the blast missed the undead Jade, who was clearly about to make a beeline for the unarmed Goddard.
Thankfully, Jenny (my new character, who started in the center of town with a hero card) saw the trouble the heroes were in! She already had armed herself with garden shears, and she rushed in to take out Jade, decapitating her former classmate with one single strike. With the re-death of Jade, the heroes knew they had built a strong enough fortification, and they won.
Fantastic rundown and session report!
Thanks for this!!!
Yes, thanks a lot for sharing that!
The new rules sound awesome. They'll definitely add to the strategic element of the game!
It's scenarios and rules like that that make me wonder what the heck I ever saw in the game ZOMBIES!!!.