Zombicide forever

What a day, what a blast, what fun. We laughed and knocked more fun out of a day gaming than I can remember for some time. Zombicide seems to be the game that keeps on giving. Today we played Zombicide Toxic City Mall. This was our first saunter into the expansion and we were hoping that rule changes would not detract from the game experience. We need not have worried and thats for sure!

Zombicide is a co-operative game. The first I have tried. This means that the players work together against the board. In this case we had six Survivors and as there were three of us we played two each.

In the first game - Death Row - I played Chef Ramsay (Jesse) and The Cop (Phil). Chef Ramsay was a recent birthday present and is the only Zombivor set of two that I have. Yes - now your Survivor can turn into a zombie - yikes! I had forgotten that I had Chef Ramsay so when I found him on the morning of our gaming it sparked a mad panic to get some paint on him. A good start to the day.

Joining in the fun were Wanda, Amy, Elsa and Ned. The first game was a four tile game with lots of zombie spawn points. The idea was to pick up the objectives in the rooms and take down the Toxic Abomination. Sounded easy enough, so off we went.

28mm Victorian Warfare had brought along a really cool selection of his own zombies. I just love them and they added really good fun element to the day.

Soon we were joined on the gaming table by Granny and Ronald Mc Donald.

Followed by the Surfer Dude and the guy in a Chicken costume

Every time the chicken guy died I imagined handfuls of feathers flying everywhere, especially when we took the chainsaw to him. Much merriment.

As is usual, things played to character and it wasn't long before chef Ramsay was up to his armpits in frying pans and food. Bloody useless for zombie killing but he could have easily rustled us up a little light lunch.

Soon we were being swamped.

We had been too tentative at the start and with all the larking around we were suddenly in a spot of bother. The decision was taken to put Chef Ramsay in hot water by sending him ahead to open some doors.

Then he was down.

But in Zombicide Toxic city Mall you can rise again as a crazed Zombivor!

It was all great craic. Things got a little out of control and Phil was the the last man standing - I think a better description would sitting and cowering in the toilet, the room he happened to find himself holed up in. More laughter.

In the end Wanda saved the day by using her Slippery ability to glide by some of the zombie crowds before lighting up the Toxic Abomination with a Molotov Cocktail. A win! But only just.

Game 2 was a crazy affair that involved three cars and an insane amount of bloodshed.

The board was much larger, with nine tiles. This gave us a bit more room and we approached with confidence. We split up (a first for me, felt edgy) and opened three doors at the very beginning. This activated 3 buildings worth of zombies as well as the four spawn points in the middle of the board.

We had three Pimpmobiles and just drove them around the square running over zombies. Bedlam and mayhem. Elsa had the big gun for taking down the Fatties and Abominations but her aim was just awful! Much laughter as fail, followed fail, followed fail.

It wasn't long before good old Phil was racking up the kills.

He had to leave the vehicle and go hide in a corner so that we could activate the final rooms before taking us over the final 'red' tipping point. However with the volume of zombies arriving we soon had several Survivors in the same position. Then we were in the red. New territory and really putting us under pressure as the number of zombies coming each turn ticked along.

By this time we had some new super weapons to use. The red level ones. Handfuls of dice to through. Fun, fun, fun!! And then Wanda found the final tank of fuel that we needed and was able to scoot off the board to victory.

It was a truly amazing, breath taking days gaming filled with excitement and dramatic moments to remember. Astoundingly good fun with a couple of great friends.

I salute the makers of Zombicide. We killed hundreds of zombies along our journey of fun. We shot them up, hacked them to bits and ran them over in cars. Whats not to enjoy?

Thanks guys for a truly fab day. May there be many more like it in the future. Phew.

Over confidence the killer

I have recently been playing Zombicide and enjoying the experience. I have worked my way through a few of the Missions. I started with the 00 Tutorial which came good and got me used to the play sequence.

I moved on to play 07 Grindhouse. This is listed as 'easy' and helps to learn the whole noise principle. I played to a number of times and lost the first couple. However in time I learned to move the zombie horde around using 'line of sight' against the 'noise'.

I then tried 02 Y-zone. This is classed as 'medium'. I applied the lessons learned so far and successfully completed the mission a few times. It is a great learning mission as it has some big rooms which reveal loads of zombies especially if opened when the threat level has risen beyond 'blue'. Important to open big building early but frightening if you don't have the weaponry to handle them. I suffered lots of wounds but survived.

I decided to tackle 05 Big W next. The buildings are not quite as big but it is classed as 'hard'. Again success. Challenging but good to play.

I felt ready to step up and play something that included cars. A new twist. I went for 03 The 24hrs race of zombicity. It is classed as 'medium'. There was a lot to get used to. It is easier to get weapons because you can loot the vehicles. However this does not let you gain the 'loads of ammo' that I had become used to. Then you can drive the cars to mow down zombies. A really cool idea. Make sure that the survivors are not in way. It was close but I got a couple of games done with success.

And so to 04 Drive-by shooting. My downfall. The board is smaller and I figured I could handle it but no! It whipped my ass. I think I didn't make enough use of the cars but this was tough due to there being only one road. I am planning a revisit. A new plan is required.

However on the up side the painting is moving along.

I have been working on the Survivors building up the layers. They look good on the battlefield and it is easier to get into character.

The zombies are coming along as well. I do love a good blood splatter!

Obviously along way to go here, but its a start.

Survivor Phil is a cool guy. As a cop he starts with a pistol and this means that early in the game he is important.

I usually play him second or third. He backs up someone armed with the fire axe who opens doors. It is his job to clear the first room. He is a handy shooter and later in the game he has the skill 'Born Leader' which gives another action to anyone in the group who needs it. A great help.

Survivor Doug is also cool.

You want Doug to be searching as fast as possible because he has the 'matching set' attribute. This means that if he gets a pistol or similar with the 'matching set' symbol he automatically gains the second of the same weapon. He has good variety and can be used for ranged or combat. At high levels he can be truly awesome! For example - Ambidextrous allows him to wield two chainsaws at the time that is a whole lot of dice to roll and a lot of Zombies to take down!!

Be happy and enjoy the Zombicide!