Zombicide – Full Review

Title: Zombicide

Company: Guillotine Games

Price: Retail $89.99

Site: http://guillotinegames.com

Four players searching a city for supplies in order to attempt to make it during a zombie outbreak. Two end up wounded but thanks to the help of a selfless friend demanding the attention of the horde by making as much noise as possible, they make it out alive. The forth one managed to get the last of the supplies to someone else before ending up trapped in a building, trying as hard as he could to get out only to die in the streets.

I’ve been looking forward to Zombicide being sent out ever since their KickStarter ended back in May and yesterday it was delivered. So what was my group’s first impression on Zombicide? Let’s take a look.

Box Contents

There are 9 double sided tiles that will make up the maps for the 10 included missions. The tiles themselves are surprisingly thick and sturdy. I was expecting normal board game cardboard and they are almost twice as thick, making me feel like the game really puts your money into the product. There are 6 playable survivors that are cast in colored plastic, also made a bit nicer than I would have guessed. The game comes with 65 zombies made of the same material just cast in grey. I’m pretty sure it was two different molds for the runners and five different molds for the walkers. Awesome variety in a game like this. I’m starting to get use to the mini cards, but there are 42 zombie cards used for spawning zombies each turn and 62 equipment cards need for the mission or just to get rid of the zombies in your way of completing it. Each character comes with a survivor identity card to explain what bonuses you will get while playing that character and there is a blank back side or a downloadable blank card to make your own. Past that there are 70 some punch out tokens and 6 dice to use during combat. All of this stuff fits into the nice spacious box that is also made very nicely as far as game boxes are concerned.

Setup

There are 10 missions to choose from along with a tutorial if you feel you need to run a simpler version of the game first. The missions contain the following objectives:

• Collect supplies
• Escape the area
• Mass zombie killing
• Neutralize zombie spawn area
• Raid a grocery store
• Find and enter a bunker
• And more to come.

The first time you set up the game board it feels like it takes a while and is a bit complicated, but it’s fairly easy to do and I’m sure it will become easier the more it’s done. You just copy the tile setup they show you, place the closed doors where they are marked, and set down the zombie spawn zones where there are labeled. There are special tokens that get set down depending on which mission you are doing, like cars and objective tokens to be collected. From the sounds of it, there will be extra missions and characters on their site that might be for download between now and when they release any extra products which were talked about during their KickStarter.

Player’s Turn

The game is made for 4-6 survivors to be played and it explains during setup how to let anywhere from 1-6 players join in together. Each of the survivors starts out with 1 trait from a list of more than 30 traits and receives options for more as you level by grabbing objectives or killing zombies. So each player’s turn will vary slightly depending on the skills that survivor is given. Each survivor is given 3 actions from a list of 10.

Move – You are able to move one zone per action spent. There are abilities that let you move further and also make it possible to leave zombie squares without spending extra actions.

Search – There are cars and rooms to search when looking for either a weapon or supplies to finish a mission. It takes one action to search. You do get to reorganize your inventory as a free action after searching.

Open a door – To open a door you have to spend an action along with having a weapon that can be used. Some cause noise, like and axe, and will attract zombies while others are silent, crowbar, and will let you enter or exit silently.

Reorganize equipment or trade with others – You are allowed to carry 5 items total, 1 in each hand and 3 in reserve. You can’t just dig in your bag during a zombie outbreak and not expect it to use some of your time, also one action.

Shooting and Hand to Hand – The type of attack you can do depend on your weapon. You can swing a sword, bat, axe or shoot a rifle, shotgun, pistol, or if the right weapons are in your inventory you can even duel wield Hand to Hand weapons or guns. 1 action is required to attack unless they are duel wield-able in which case you get to use both.

Getting In/Out of a Car – Pretty self-explanatory. While in a car, it is one action to drive it 2 zones and will run over most things in the zone along with your friends. Zombies can be attacked from the car but they will also be able to attack people in the car if they are in the same zone.

Interacting with Objective – Whether it is taking the objective or activating a switch it will be one action. The special rules will tell you the experience you get for them. So far they have been the equivalent of killing 5 lower zombies.

Making Noise – Zombies move towards a survivor if they see one or to the loudest square. So at times spending your turn just yelling or hitting something is a good strategy to help out your team.

Do Nothing – There is no rule that says you have to do 3 actions on your turn, so feel free to just burn then and sit safely in your room.

You get to pick who will be the first player to go and then continue around clockwise. Then after everyone has gone, Zombie’s Turn. When the zombie turn is done, the first player token is passed clockwise and the new first player starts the next round.