Brainnnsssss

This week at Enfield Gamers Shaun let on that he'd had a copy of Zombiecide sat in the boot of his car since last November. So quick as Rob could rip off the cellophane we had Charlie devour the rulebook and run the zombies whilst six of us picked a random character.

I got Wanda whose starting ability is to move two zones per action courtesy of her roller-skates. Unsurprisingly each character has a different set of abilities gaining further abilities as you rack up the experience points by picking up objectives and braining zombies (sorry.....ish ;) )

Vaguely scarily we quite sensibly played through the two-tile tutorial (wtf?) which was somewhat unnecessary as the mechanics are simple and self explanatory.

We weren't entirely sure how many times you could search a room, crucial as you start with zero equipment but were sure there's a FAQ out there somewhere.

 Moving straight onto Mission #1 we upgraded to nine tiles and deployed into the centre building. The mission was to hit the objectives in the corners, find water, rice and canned meat (chilli night?) and then escape the board.

 

Zombies spawn randomly from a card deck which also kicks out a few random events. The game really is a co-operative effort, split the party at your peril! What really interested me was the player sequence.

 

Once you work out who goes first they get a "first activation" chit which then moves round at the end of the turn. As such player activation is staggered and you really have to think through to plan and co-ordinate actions. Working things out on the fly gets interesting quick!

 

 

Latter stages and as the kills piled up so the horde grew. Early doors we didn't feel threatened but there was an entertaining build up of tension. Walkers and Runners are easy kills but Fatties are less so whilst Abominations are definite beasts!

 

Fewer weapons have the ability to take down the Fatties and even less the Abominations. Come up against these guys without the right kit and you'll suddenly be scrambling around to find something real quick whilst avoiding the horde.

Luckily we found a Molotov Cocktail just after the Big A appeared and lucked out a bit with his positioning to fry him up real good followed by a final run for the exit.

 

No casualties, no wounds at all but then there were six of us and it's Mission #1. Definitely keen to try a few more. On thing for sure, it's definitely required to engage your gray matter! :)