Good review. however: you dont have to like zombies to like this game. I have only been playing this when my brother has brought it during festivities such as birthdays, christmas etc, playing with a friend, my mother, brother and his girlfriend. One thing i know is that my mother dont care about zombie stuff at all, and she thinks this game is awesome and very fun. :)
In my house rulz when there is a survivor with the zombie i throw a 20 side dice... 18-19-20 you hit your friend. for the police survivor it is only with 20 you hit your friend(he know how to shoot) and is on the picture he have a gun it is 19-20. ...same with cars except its 17 to 20... and for the the searching bug when you close doors and you have infinite search, when we spawn zombie when open doors, i throw a 4 sides dice for each room and put token and that how many time you can search(depend of the size of the map of course. after 5 complet round we throw again a 4 side dice) We put doors inside some room so it help a little bit(like for bedrooms). and when a player die you can go search his loot.(if we are 4 player out of 6 the two first who die can respawn with the last survivor(for the first zombicide) i love this game because yes the rulz make no sense some time but make your own home rulz base on logic and do not make it easier... it is not fun when it is easy. sometimes you have to die and in that case i like at least one respawn depend of the scenario because if you die first in 30 minute it is boring to watch for 2 hours(thats why i like the version that you turn into a zombie but i only have the first edition)
This game is EXTREMELY customizable too. You can also take out some of the zombie spawn cards to tweak the difficulty of the game if you are finding it to be too difficult. Also, I play with house rules for shooting into a zone with survivors. Rolled hits go to zombies as per the rules. Any misses are rerolled and those hits are applied to the players in that zone.
This is by far GAME OF THE YEAR !!! The climatic moments that this game puts you in are nothing like anything else on the tabletop. With the way the game plays with Spawn phase and then player phase starting up you will have many "Holy F, we are all dead how are we going to survive moments." This game is VERY MUCH strategic co-op, if you try and be a hero you will get everyone else killed, if you try and go off and do your own thing you will get the group killed. So exciting and fun. nomoreroom
I do not play a huge amount of games but I loved this. Great criticism about the range rule regarding shooting other survivors before zombies. We just ignored that.
That was a pretty lukewarm and qualified recommendation. I think it's pretty safe to let this one sail by. Amazing miniatures does not a good game make.
I play with slightly modified rules. when i shoot into an adjacent area I roll, if i roll 2 or less then it hits your ally if not then just hits zombies
Thanks for another great video review Tom. I also don't like the rules of priority targeting. We play that when a player shoots over an area with one or more survivors, just the "1" results hurts them (being the shooting guy who decides how the wound cards are dealt.
I always think "Wow, don't they care about breaking stuff??" but let's be honest, they(the dice tower) don't care to even sleeve their cards, they don't seem to care about breaking/tearing their stuff...
I got this game at gen con, and we played it a few times. The range rule is unbelievably stupid, when they demoed it at gen con they tried to explain it by bringing up Shaun of the dead, when they're in the bar and one guy gets shot by accident, but they didn't bring the other hundred zombie movies where the heroes shoot side by side. The rule is ignorant, and there to make the game harder, we tok it out and had much more fun.
Actually, its a very good game, but as Tom said, there are some caveats. The rules are NOT complete. Get the F.A.Q. It has some of the answers. If you like Zombies, its loads of fun. Its a desperate, fight for your life, build the anxiety kind of game that is paced very well and makes for memorable gameplay!
Ill wait for Zpocalypse. The art is not to my liking it seems to goofy. When this was in kickstarter I felt they made the miniatures then the game later. By this review it sounds like that's all they did. I could be wrong however; I have no first hand at this.
The levelling rules for zombies are stupid. They ruined the game for me. As well as shooting, which Tom mentioned. It simply forces you to kill zombies by turn instead of splitting the roles between players as they like
Ah love this game! Our little gaming group of 6 is perfect for this. We recently got toxic city mall and are working on Prison Outbreak. Anyone who even sorta likes boardgames or zombies should try this.
We've played roughly 20-30 games since we bought it 2 months ago, but we only play on Sundays when everyone can get together. It's great unless you overdo it in one night lol, never go for more than 3 games. And if you arent creative enough to come with with your on missions then you might get bored some. Our biggest drawback is if we don't have atleast 4 of us playing we don't really care to play. But thats just us!
Very Strange Review. Seems like he wants to not like the game but he really enjoyed it. I don't agree with his negative points in the game as my experience was very different. Most of the rules questions make perfect sense if you actually look at the specific wording of the rules. Sometimes you want the rule to work in such a way and that does play with you when trying to understand the rule in question tho. Great Point with not liking the game if you don't like Zombies..duhhhh.
I was thinking about modifying the rules for my games, the 3 changes I would make: Characters in the same room can use 1 action to heal other players, and it takes 3 wounds to be killed. Ranged attacks with a player in that square take an extra roll and only hit that player if they roll a 1. And no matter how many zombies are in the same square, it only costs 1 extra action to run away, not 1 for each zombie. Has anyone experimented with similar rules? Does that make it too easy? Or alleviate some of the frustration with the stock rules?
Definitely makes it too easy. Some characters from later seasons of Zombicide have the medic skill which heals the way you've described but giving it to everyone is just too easy.
I've since found a good balance. I posted this almost a year ago. I kept the last 2 rules. Definitely dropped that first one. I only hit players in the same space on a critical miss. All ones rolled.
house rules...when you shoot in an area that has a friend you roll a dice to see who you hit... expansion will have a dead player come back as a zombie to go after the other survivors i love this game so does everybody i know...
Hi Tom. Just started looking into getting this game, but I see there are newer versions. Which titled Zombicide board game would you recommend starting out with? Thanks in Advance!!!
This game has become a regular part of our weekly game night and it is awesome fun. I have to agree with the review regarding how guns work though. The rule stating you always hit you friend first makes no sense and can be highly frustrating in some scenarios.
The house rules I play with skips the shooting into an area with a friendly will hit them first rule. But we play with catastrophic failure rule. Any weapon, on a roll of 1, will hit someone in the room. So if someone is alone in a room using a machete trying to hit a zombie, if he rolls a 1, he will damage himself. I.E. mishandled the machete due to the moment and cut himself. If there two or more in the room, roll a die to determine which player get hit. Then dual wielding a SMG doesn't feel that powerful anymore. Rolling 6 dice all at once has a chance of killing 3 friendlies in the room straight away. Since there's only 6 wound cards, we play with players only able to get one wound card. The second hit will kill the player. It amps up the game and makes us move much more carefully.
I love this game and playing it is very enjoyable but for a minimum of 210$ base. I should be able to buy some not all of the offered items in the kickstarter. So I could support the makers of game with my money not someone selling parts for as much or more then base game. If you can get this game on the cheap then go for it if not wait.
What about the following for shooting: 1 is hit your ally, 6 is you pick the target, other results are following the weapon rules. Would it be more "realistic" ?
I hate the obligatory "hit the survivor when they share a location with a zombie" rule. That was literally the only thing that made me not buy it. Then came Black Plague. Loved it.
I did, and that does not answer my question. I was asking specifically about City of Horror for two reasons. 1. Tom seems to be a fan of City of Horror (and Mall of Horror) 2. They have, as i mentioned, very different mechanics. Most of the games Tom mentioned in the review were cooperative (or semi-cooperative). I therefore wondered if Tom did not consider to compare this game to City of Horror.
Eh? It's not all expansions and boosters at all, Toxic City Mall, Zombie Boxes 1-5, companion dogs, all will be available retail. The things that are exclusive are survivors, which you can obtain the boards for online FREE. The only thing you don't have is a little plastic sculpt representing them, no big deal. But hey, the game is amazing so you're the one losing out not me =) (Proud owner of retail zombicide s1)
The game is pretty fun for people that like immediate satisfaction, since you can pretty much kill 12 or more zombies in one turn The problem I personally found is that you can break it very easily, by just staying in the blue level (low zombie alert) and looting the same room over and over again until everybody obtains an overpowered weapon, after that not even the Abomination is an actual challenge They could have implemented a turn tracker for the difficulty level and prevent this issue
Seems like this game has the same issues as Last Night On Earth (another great zombie game) in regards to the rules. LNOE has a pretty big rules-book, but there's still MANY times where you end up scratching your head thinking "what am I supposed to do here?". That especially happens when certain things happen at the same time, without the rule book taking into account these sometimes contradicting situations.
Almost wanted to buy this but its sooo expensive. I'll probably be picking up zpocalypse instead. What are some people's opinions on both. Anyone like one better than the other? The zombie pieces for zombicide look much better.
That's not true. Zombies always move towards Noise and each player counts as 1 noise counter. So zombies will always move towards someone even if they can't see them. A group of people camping in a room would get surrounded eventually. NTM the Aaaaah! Card and the Friendly Fire Targeting System which makes a lot more sense now that I read your comment.
Yes, which is what made me wonder. And still. I obviously wanted more than a binary answer. How does it compare when it comes to components, tension, player interaction etc. I was hoping for a intelligent discussion. Whats your problem?
I'm waiting on this game to come in. I'm pretty sure I'll implement some type of chance system for hitting team members. Yea, this one rule sounds like a really poor choice. You shouldn't try and "fix", or up the difficulty of your game by adding lame rules... Cough, cough, wizards not being able to use a sword, wear armor, cough, cough.
Totally agree with the crits review. Phil, being a cop can always choose what zombie he hits, while the others, have to role an even (or odd i dont remember which) to choose what zombie they hit. This allows somewhat of a chance to hit the zombies, and not your own friends.
If it worries you, take a simple variant on it. If you're shooting into a zone that has a survivor other than yourself in it, misses count as hits towards that survivor. You want to try shooting the zombie anyway? Go ahead, just don't miss ;)
Nice review. How does it stack up against City of Horror? I realize they have very different game play (one is coop, one is competitive), but if you had to choose one game with a zombie theme, which would you choose?
"This and Zpocalypse would be my two top zombie games... right now". He did not qualify his statement with mechanics or anything else. Two top zombie games. Very straightforward statement.
True, it should just be a chance of hitting a survivor. That would allow sniper and low profile to retain efficacy, and it would allow melee weapons to retain their edge over ranged weapons.
Thanks dude, I picked up dead of winter, might get zombicide too, spent a fortune on games, I'm brand new, bought imperial assault, rum & bones an blood rage this week, all in the mail, should have them in next 3 days
Same story. I have always been a fan of games in generel both virtual and board games/card games; I have only recently gotten into games - I guess something like that is also dictated by how many friends one have with the same interests. Sounds really nice with all those games arrive soon.
Man that’s a tough one I have both depends on what you like for me DOW is......walking dead and zcide is night of the living dead just depends on what you prefer
It's not a shotgun, it's a snipers' rifle. I think the single most common error in movies is, however, going the other direction: when people fire shotguns and the wound it clearly not a pellet spray, but what you'd expect from a bullet.
This is one of our new FAVORITES!!! We love cooperative games and we love zombies so...Perfect! They have fixed the rule book issues that Tom spoke of. There are tons of additional scenarios online and we have had a blast creating our own! This is a must have!!!
This is a fun game - but some mechanics are flawed. It gets a bit annoying to be 2 hours into a game, enjoying a slugfest - and suddenly get killed because a group of runners 3 zones away from you gets an extra activation (3 spaces is the extreme range of a rifle in this game) from a spawn card, or walkers getting 4-5 activations due to lack of miniatures (mainly a problem on large boards).
I live for immediate gratification! And, pumping zombies full of lead. A turn tracker is a poor way to implement added difficulty. Board game design 101. I thought you were limited to the number of times you could search a room?
I need help deciding something....I have never actually played zombicide but I need help in deciding which combo to get! ZOMBICIDE and TOXIC CITY MALL or ZOMBICIDE PRISON OUTBREAK and TOXIC CITY MALL? which 2 go together the best?
This game is a blast. 100% agreement that the production values of this game are amazing.. the feel of the game is fantastic. After one game I was hooked. As for the items that people complain about (shooting priority, primarily) .. we'll have to agree to disagree. The game has a number of various skills that get you around that "priority" which helps ranged characters actually feel more special than "you get more dice". It's been my findings that the standard rules for targeting priority are fine but fortunately for those who disagree, the rules are very easy to modify via house-rules.
Not entirely sure about the original. Black Plague, however, and the Wulfsburg expansion... COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY. Holy crap, I gotta get me them things....
About the shooting rule. We just changed it to: You CAN'T shoot in a zone where there's another survivor, because, you know, you wouldn't want to shoot him! (unless you've got the visor, of course) It plays (almost) exactly the same, but makes more sense thematically.
You can change it to roll chance: 1-3 shoot friend 4-6 shoot zombie or 1-2 shoot friend 2-4 shoot friend and then ricochet hits zombie 5-6 kill zombie. Because sometimes accident can happen.
Felix Kempel or check out the compendium hard cover book =D so much theme in the awesome scenario's. Of course they're on the website as well, but it's a cool thing to have, especially if your a ZC fanatic!
