A Headless Body Production
Venue: An Undisclosed Living room
Event: Solitaire with a new game
Players: Phil Gardocki running the survivors, Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy
Game System: Zombicide
The Forces:
Survivors: Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy. Each with a unique skill.
Zombies: Walkers, Fatties and Runners.
"XX" marks a zombie killed in that location on that turn.
I was looking for a new game to spice up the Wednesday night line up, and Zombicide seemed to fit the bill. It is aesthetically interesting, and will improve with a bit of paint, easy to explain to a group of people, and can be played in under 3 hours. Guillotine Games's Zombicide seemed to fit the bill.
Each player runs from 1-4 "survivors" in one of 10 scenarios. Each Scenario will have a specific objective to win.
The game is co-operative and are playing against the game, not each other.
The Board
The board represents downtown Suburbia. Created out of 8 geomorphic panels. As a solitaire game, I run 4 characters of the 6 available.
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| This scenario is a bit complected. The arrows represent the overall tract our heroes must traverse to win this game. XX's represent doors that must be jimmied/destroyed/unlocked to succeed. Zombies will be spawning in every red zone, and sometimes from the sewers. |
Since I have the PDF of the rules, here is the scenario description:
We killed a zombie that had been the mayor of this town. It was carrying a fax from the chief of police explaining how to reach a safe hideout, an old, underground facility that had been turned into a bunker, close to the police station. Apparently it contains an armory, food supplies, and even a shower. This bunker would be the perfect shelter for us. Its entrance, however, is controlled from a distance, and the district is swarming with zombies. This is a dangerous mission but well worth it.
What doesn’t kill you today just might tomorrow.
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| The crew is performing a number of tasks. Moving, door jimmying, searching for weapons. |
Only Phil starts with an established weapon, a pistol. The others have distributed among themselves, another pistol, an ax, and a crowbar. Everything else must be searched for, and that takes action points. Each character gets 3 action points a turn.
Zombies then attack, move then spawn, in that order.
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| The Zombies only lightly spawning. On one turn, only 1 showed up, and Phil, with his newly looted shot gun, and Doug with two pistols, were able to keep the zombie herd to a manageable size. |
This was about to change, very fast.
As a characters kill count goes up, they "level up", acquiring more skills. But it comes at a price. The zombie spawn in higher numbers, and with more dangerous types. Fatty's, Runners and Abominations!
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| The second objective is achieved, and the bunker door's locked is picked. But with no less than 8 zombies are on the street in front of her, Wanda (green, upper left) dare not leave the building. |
Doug is clearing the street in front of the bunker door. Phil is shooting into the zound of zombies climbing over the pimp mobile. Amy is pondering her life choices. She has zombies north, west and south, but the keys to the police car are in the ignition.
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| With sirens blazing, she drives south, missing 3 of 4 zombies in her path. |
Now, surrounded by zombies, she pulls a desperate doughnut, smoking tires and heads back towards the bunker.
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| Surrounded by zombies, Amy's Drivers Ed training kicks in. Instinctively missing every pedestrian on the road. |
Noise management is important in the game. Zombies that cannot see humans, will guide in on the loudest noise. And a rampaging police car generates a lot of noise.
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| All the zombies in front of Wanda's building head for the noise. Except for Fatty and friends, their priority is they can see their next meal. |
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| With Doug in the building, the game is technically won. I am playing further to see how many of the crew I can save. |
Amy has leveled up, and gets a free action. The first is putting the cop car into first gear...
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| With driving instinct borne out of absolute terror, Amy does another doughnut, splattering two zombies against the brown stone. |
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| Amy shuts her eyes and accelerates to 30 miles per hour in 150 feet, she shudders at the sounds of three horrific bumps. First action, part 1. |
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| Half opening on eye, and seeing the slack jawed Phil still standing, with three zombies behind him, she pulls what is now a well practiced maneuver, another doughnut, the noise of the siren covering up the disgusting squishings in her path. First Action part 2. |
Note, a car runs over everything in the zone on a 4+. To pull this off, Amy had to miss Phil twice.
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| With that handful of kills, Amy hit the 3rd level in the game. Taking the Zombie spawn level to "Ut Oh" |
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| Amy departs the car, fires once at walker crawling out of a man hole, then races for the bunker. |
Before the zound of zombies arrive at that cross road on
the left, Wanda, who is on roller skates, was able leave her hiding
spot, race down the now cleared streets, and jump through the closing
bunker door. Just ahead of the next spawn event.
