Bang! Bang! Bang! boom! – review of the board game “Zombicide. Alive or Undead”

zombies are coming

The ground trembled, one dead hand emerged from the graveyard earth. After a while, a drunken muzzle with broken teeth appeared. Bang!
“Another down,” Jeb said, then sprinkled the ground with holy water.
– Zombies are coming! Kassey screamed and hid behind Jeb’s apron.
In fact, a horde of zombies was coming from the north. Dozens of walkers, and a fat prisoner towered above them, with a distended belly and a crutch. Hanna and Pablito pulled out their guns. A fierce cannonade spread throughout the area. Unfortunately, although the monster took every bullet on its chest, it didn’t even waver …

Zombicide is a simple game, because in terms of plot and mechanics, it’s all about smashing zombies, and in ridiculous amounts. There are six characters in each game, and in order to win, you must complete several objectives indicated by the scenario. Sometimes you have to get into a room to pick up a chest. Other times, we escort the survivors to the exit. In a few cases, it is not enough to leave a town full of zombies, because you have to catch a speeding train. However, you lose when any survivor dies (both our hero and the characters he escorts), fail to complete the objective or spawn zones appear in too many places on the board (at the end of each turn they produce hordes of undead). There is no great philosophy here, and the situation with the available shares is similar.

There are only a few possibilities: fighting, moving, searching the room (thanks to which we get better equipment), achieving goals, destroying or moving spawning zones with holy water or exchanging equipment with another character. As the game progresses, the adrenaline level increases, thanks to which the characters unlock new abilities. However, this also causes more zombies to spawn at the end of each round.

As for the undead, there are four types. Walkers are nothing special, Runners do two actions to kill Fatty, you need to deal two damage with one attack, and Abomination will only fall after receiving a power three hit. It is worth mentioning that the most powerful weapons deal only two points of damage, with the exception of dynamite, which destroys everything.

On the other hand, the heroes differ in their starting skills, as well as in the features that they can unlock in the future. In addition, they belong to one of four classes. Brawlers and Gunslingers are excellent in combat, while Townspeople are best at searching rooms. The last type, the Believer, can hold the horde in place for one turn with the help of exorcisms. The fight is quite simple. We choose which weapon to attack, and based on its stats roll the appropriate number of dice and pay attention to the accuracy value (from starting 5+ weapons to the best 3+ precision weapons).

Although the game is not complicated, the devil is in the details, there is a reason the manual is over fifty pages long! I read it twice because unfortunately some details are easily missed. For example, I forgot that the train makes noise. Which matters, because zombies, if they can’t see survivors, they’re hearing.

Adventurers vs Townspeople

– Jahhaha! roared Carl, the black adventurer. Like a projectile, it shot out of a nearby building, jumped straight at the monster, and smashed it in the muzzle with all its strength with a frying pan, a solid, well-worn, cast-iron frying pan! How many delicious scrambled eggs were fried on it! No wonder, then, that the head of any fat person turned into a pulp resembling a rotten egg, because the brain spilled like a delicious yolk.
Pablito, Hanna and Jeb looked at their pitiful smoking guns…

At first , Zombicide didn’t convince me. It seems to me that it was the fault of the initial scenarios, because then I got into this board game for hours. First, I was captivated by the cooperative aspect. As many as six heroes are many possibilities. One character operates a gatling while the other searches houses for dynamite. Someone else can stay on the balcony to cover the rest of the team from a safe distance. It seemed to me that solo play could not work well, after all, handling so many champions by yourself should be very tiring. Meanwhile, the lone party gave me a lot of fun as well. Operating such a large team is extremely addictive and satisfying, in addition, you do not have to get along with other players on the exchange of equipment.

The second aspect that captivated me was the fight against the hordes of the undead. Zombies literally flood the map, overwhelming players with their number. At the end of a scenario, more than forty zombies can spawn on the board in one turn! Smashing the dead is very exciting.

The last key element is the climate. I get into this game every time! I like the characters I play. There are also elements related to the Wild West. A train entering the board and running over zombies or a deadly gatling!

I generally don’t like games that test dice combat. In Arkham Horror I was annoyed by this solution, I was convinced that it would be similar in the case of Zombicide. Meanwhile, rolling dice works great here, because we are able to attack up to four or five times in one turn. In addition, you can feel the power of the weapon, even an old revolver can fire up to six bullets! It’s too bad there aren’t many interesting items here. In fact, they differ mainly in stats. Using two machetes or sawed-off sawed-offs is fun, but I lack tools of destruction worth searching the city for. In fact, the most important thing is to find a weapon that deals two points of damage. It’s a pity that only the knife has an interesting additional effect, and no other item adds any trait to the hero who uses it (e.g. the sniper rifle from the second edition of Zombicide has the “sniper” trait).

Stupid death

Henry swung his pickaxe and smashed the head of the nearest zombie. But the walkers kept coming, and he was losing his strength. Jimmy, Turner and Thomas, his friends, fired their guns. Henry groaned as bullets pierced his body. Jimmy looked at Turner, Turner looked at Thomas, and Thomas looked at Jimmy.
“I missed,” Jimmy tried to explain.
“He was old anyway . . . and his wife was so young,” Turner said casually.
– He did not go to church, he did not give to the tray and spit on the cross – added the believing Thomas.
“Plus, he was stingy and didn’t want to share gold with his family,” added Jimmy.
“Too bad the zombies got him,” Thomas sighed.

Mechanically, I don’t like a few elements in the Zombicide series. First: friendly fire. This is probably the stupidest type of death that can occur in the game. One of the characters was surrounded by zombies and another hero wanted to help her. He shoots twice, misses twice and it’s game over, because every miss means a hit on a teammate! Survivors only have two or three hit points. Theoretically, this increases the value of character traits such as “sniper” and “point shot” (they ignore friendly fire and the player chooses what to aim at, otherwise he gets hit first by Fatty, then Walker, and finally Runner).

I’m a bit disappointed with the end game conditions. It’s a pity that one of the heroes can’t be sacrificed. Death always means game over. And dynamite with a range of 0-1 is completely absurd. You get a tool with which you can commit suicide and crash the whole game – really great idea. On the other hand, this end-game condition makes the difficulty level quite high. You have to be on your guard all the time, because a moment of inattention is enough for zombies to get someone! Runners are especially dangerous, as they move faster than other undead.

Also, not all characters seem equally useful to me. Carl, my favorite, beats everyone because he does extra melee damage. The situation is similar with Thomas, who hits harder if an exorcism has been performed on a given field. These two characters with decent weapons are capable of killing the Abomination! Pablito and Hanna, on the other hand, need to gain a third level to be able to kill the most powerful beast as well. And with these four strongmen to choose from, does it make sense to go for Kassey? Like Carl, he is of the Brawler class, so he can charge (normally move two squares and free attack), except that Kassey moves one zone further. Ultimately, out of the fourteen playable heroes, I personally prefer only eight.

The last drawback is Abomination. It appears too often in my opinion. Very likely it will be multiplied at the end of the first round! It’s frustrating when you manage to blow it up with dynamite and then it reappears on the board! That’s why I value Thomas and Carl so much. Thanks to them, the most powerful of the undead is not so annoying. Also, I thought he was going to play the role of a boss, but he’s just the fourth type of zombie.

Ten missions for the brave

May swung the machete but didn’t hit any zombies. She lost her momentum and was unable to jump away. She actually bumped right into the Abomination’s enlarged chest. A group led by Carl ran out of a side street. They were cut off by this horde. May failed. There were too many undead. There was only one solution left to clear the way for Carl and the others… The fuse lit…
– NO! Do not do this!!! May heard the screams of her companions. Tears of emotion flowed down her cheek, but before they touched the ground, the flame reached its destination. BOOM!
And although May opened the way for Carl’s group with her heroic gesture, all the survivors fell to their knees and burst into tears.

In Zombicide. Alive or Undead , ten scenarios are included, including one training mission. In my opinion, the tutorial can be hard because of the very small map, and in addition the heroes have to go through zones where zombies appear. It doesn’t take much to fail this mission. The first mission for a change… is even more difficult. We have to catch a train that will appear in a few rounds and will soon leave. Before leaving, however, you still need to find the hunters’ weapons (four are located on the map, and two must be obtained by completing minor objectives, e.g. kill three zombies in one turn with a rifle).

The next challenges are much better thought out and more rewarding. The last two tasks, on the other hand, are quite a feat. Especially the last scenario is amazing, because zombies are coming literally from every direction. I really liked the challenges in which the locomotive takes part, which in addition can move around the board. I kinda wish there were more missions with the creative use of the train (in some missions it’s just part of the board). The situation is similar with a gatling or a wagon. These three elements provide a lot of possibilities that have not been fully exploited. It’s a pity that there are only ten scenarios in the game. It seems like a lot, but I want more, much more. I would love to go back to the missions played before, but I would give a lot for new challenges. Maybe someday I’ll be tempted and create my own script.

The biggest drawback of the speeding locomotive mission is the rather unfeasible and absurd goal of not having any zombies on the board. In my opinion, this is complete nonsense, especially in terms of the story. I guess that’s why we catch the train to escape the zombie horde, right?! Maybe it meant there couldn’t be any zombies on the train and it was just a matter of translation?

Scenario six is ​​also strange, with a supposed average level, which is the easiest in practice. I am amazed at how it was constructed. It is possible to complete all objectives without activating the special zombie spawn zone. If you added a time limit to this mission, it wouldn’t do without emotions and adrenaline rushes, and it’s so simple in its assumptions.

The locomotive is standing at the station. Heavy, huge…

Thomas poured coal into the furnace. The train was accelerating. Zombies fell under the locomotive and turned into bloody mush. Jimmy turned the crank and the Gatling gun spewed out two hundred rounds a minute. Jeb and Pablito fired the last rounds and prepared to jump on the last car. Unfortunately, the two runners burst through the deadly volley and knocked Pablito to the ground. Carl jumped off the train and hit both opponents with two pans. He then handed his battered gun to Jeb, who tossed him dynamite. Carl lit the fuse, took the Mexican under his arm. He dropped a lethal charge and jumped at the same time. The dynamite fell into a group of other runners, and Carl grabbed Jeb’s hand as he scrambled onto the train. BOOM!

For the price of about four hundred zlotys, we get a solidly released game that looks great on the table, and at the same time takes up quite a lot of space. The figures of the characters are detailed and cute, they are quite easy to tell apart, I especially appreciate the different zombie designs. Fatties and Runners have two different versions, and Walkers have five. Such a small thing, but it makes me happy. I also like that all these figurines are stored in a nice box. It is a pity that there is no more stable place for cards.

Although the board made of several tiles is gigantic, at the end of the game zombies appear in groups of up to a dozen individuals. Unfortunately, the figures do not fit even in the largest zones. It’s tiring and tedious. I also have to complain about the translation – on the character cards there is a “marksman” feature, which is not explained in the manual. Probably in this case it’s about the ability called “sniper”. Additionally, the noise token is slightly stratified.

And those wretched pans. A gunslinger starts with an old revolver, and a brawler like the beefy Carl takes off on a zombie with a frying pan! In the end, these are just minor flaws. Definitely the price is adequate to the content. After all, there are almost a hundred sturdy, diverse, detailed figures in the box!

Is it worth taking on the Abomination?

And it spins, spins wheel after wheel, and speeds up, and rumbles, and knocks, and thuds … and leaves the remnants of zombies far behind. Here is our locomotive.
“To Henry and May!” Jimmy shouted.
“To Henry and May!” the others shouted back.
Safe in the speeding train, they sipped strong liquor from Thomas’ flask. Despite their losses, they seemed to have won. Suddenly, Hanna jumped to her feet.
“And where is Kasey?!

After an epic adventure with Zombicide. Living or Undead , I can confidently say that it’s worth having at least one game from this series on your shelf. Smashing zombies is a simple, yet addictive and rewarding activity. Plus those ridiculously gigantic hordes rushing through the streets. Shooting, running, throwing dynamite, smashing fat people with a frying pan is just great fun. Even if some little things annoy me, I still don’t regret a minute spent on the game. I still can’t get enough of this game. Too bad there aren’t more items here. I wish there were more variety of weapons, many more scenarios, even more characters… I enjoyed the game so much that I want more!

The Living and the Undead is a solid, epic, exciting, brilliant, addictive, yet simple to use and fast board game! The price may scare you away, but it’s worth giving Zombiecide a chance. The living and the undead add such great mechanics to the game as the train, gatling gun and balconies. It is precisely because of these climatic elements that it is worth choosing this version. And soon there will also be an add-on that will allow our heroes to jump on the backs of horses. I’m intrigued by it! And now I’m rushing for a Winchester to shoot my 100th Fatty!

PS: At times I had the impression that I was playing in The Walking Dead series . I can’t imagine ending a script after one character dies. Okay, we lost the game, but we want to know what happened to the others. After all, the sacrifice of Jeb (surrounded by a gang of ten Runners after firing all the bullets in the last action) and Carl (surprised by a second band of Runners, there were too many of them, even for such a tough guy) from the epic tenth scenario could not have been in vain! You had to play the game to the end to find out if the other heroes had escaped from this cursed city…