29.2.2016

We’ve been waiting for the latest Zombicide game to be released ever since we played the original. Zombicide (later dubbed Zombicide Season 1) quickly became one of our favourite strategy games, with the amazing re-playability, brilliant miniatures, and unpredictable game play. Zombicide Black Plague is a reinvention of the original game.Zombicide Black Plague takes the original game and puts it into a Medieval setting, and while much of the game play is the same, there are some new elements that have been added. To get an idea of the basic game play, survivors take their turns in sequence, and can perform a number of actions and special actions, dependant on their level. These can include moving,searching for equipment, breaking down doors, or combat. Once all survivors have taken their turn, it’s time for the zombies to make their move. Zombies already on the board advance towards your survivors, and additional zombies are spawned, with the number and severity of the zombies also being dependent on the player’s level.Firstly, the tiles are amazing, very detailed, and superbly designed. The main difference here is that each individual square on the street locations is a ‘zone’, whereas road zones in Zombicide Season 1 could span a few squares, this makes us think that movement through the Black Plague quests would be slower, and more dangerous.The miniatures have the same high quality as the original game, but there is one major change, the survivor’s dashboard. Rather than the cardboard survivor trackers from Season 1, Zombicide Black Plague provides us with fancy plastic dashboards, which neatly hold our equipment and track our progress, and this is very welcome edition to the game. (In fact, we wish they would issue survivor ID cards for the original game to fit into the new dashboard too.) Although, I do prefer the coloured survivors from Season 1 over the coloured bases, but I guess that this is just personal preference.Before jumping straight into a co-operative game, I decided to do the tutorial quest solo, and test out the game as a single player. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, as often the best bit of a co-operative strategy game is working with your fellow team mates. Given the choice, I would still rather play with other people, but it’s a good way of getting to know the game mechanics, and is certainly a challenge.My initial thoughts were that Zombicide Black Plague is more difficult that the original game, and the tutorial quest doesn’t even have the Abomination or Necromancers! My first game was over in just a few rounds, with luck not on my side, I drew spawn cards containing double spawns and fatties very early on. With only starter equipment to hand, my only character who could defeat the fatties had numerous unsuccessful rolls, and was quickly killed, with two more survivors lost in quick succession. With only three survivors left on the third round, a door about to be opened to a fatty, two fatties behind us, and no way of defeating them, I decided to chalk it down to experience and start again. My second attempt went much better, and despite being overwhelmed at the last minute, due to three double spawn cards being drawn into one room, I lost only one survivor while taking out the hoards with my last Dragon Bile & torch.The main things I learnt during my solo outings for this game;1. Six survivors is A LOT to keep track of on your own, and while it’s nice to be able to play everyone in the order of your choice, it can be quite confusing trying to remember who has yet to take their turn.2. The luck of the cards can make or break your game, more heavily so than in Season 1. I’m not sure at this point if I like the double spawn cards. While I understand how they can make a game more interesting, drawing several in quick succession can quickly turn a game vastly in the zombies favour. While it’s nice to be presented with a challenge, having double spawn cards in conjunction with fatties on the first level does now make for an enjoyable game.3. I still can’t get the hang of using noise tokens, I think it’s fair to say that Zombicide games in my house will be pretty much ignoring this rule. I don’t think it would overly affect the results, as it’s rare we split up the survivors, and we’d rather play consistently without them than sometimes with, and sometimes without.4. The ranged combat rule is much better in Zombicide Black Plague, where instead of being forced to hit your fellow survivors first, you only hit them with missed dice rolls.5. Armour & shields! Great additions to the game, having the opportunity to survive a zombie attack is a very welcomed addition, especially as this version seems more difficult than the original, little things like this help keep the balance.Following my solo outing we gave the first quest a try with two of us teaming up. The first quest is labelled as easy, however unfortunately, I would disagree! It really does seem that these games can be tipped heavily against you purely by the luck (or bad luck) of double spawn cards. Necromancers I can cope with, they add an interesting dynamic to the game, but double spawns just seem to really hit us hard.In addition, we never quite seemed to find any really decent items, although I do like dual wielding hammers, nothing seemed to quite match up to Season 1’s dual wielding Sawed Off Shotguns, Shotguns, or Sub MG’s. Dual wielding Hand Crossbows looks pretty effective, but there isn’t much else I would strive to find.Struggling with even the easiest level quests, I did some research online to see if anyone else was having the same issues as me. The first thing I discover, is that I’m an idiot. When spawning fatties, we automatically added two walkers with them, whereas the rules for Zombicide Black Plague don’t actually state this! Spawning a fatty is just that, spawning a fatty. We sure do know how to make life more difficult for ourselves! Right now I’m still not loving the double spawn cards, but considering that in three games I’ve managed to draw four in a row, three in a row, and five in a row, that’s not really surprising!Next up we moved on to quest number 2, and this time with three players. I must say that it is more enjoyable with three of us, and we’re a little more comfortable with the rules now, although it turns out that we’re still not quite doing the double spawn rule correctly, and therefore still making our games more difficult than they need to be. We completed this one with only one loss, and one Necromancer escape, and it’s nice to feel like we’re getting to grips with the game play better. We still think that overall, Zombicide Black Plague is more difficult than Season 1, and we still don’t like the double spawn cards, but we feel like now we can carry on and enjoy just playing the games from now on.So, after discovering that we were spawning fatties wrong, and now finally getting to grips with double spawns, we moved up to quest number 4, and the first medium difficulty game, which we were very nervous about. After a false start, (we opened the first door and spawned an Abomination, so we just re-started) we had a really enjoyable game! Now we’ve got to grips with the changes in game play, and even though we don’t play noise tokens, and still use the home brew rule for turn taking, we actually managed to get some good tactic going, and completed the quest with all survivors in tact.All in all we really liked Zomicide Black Plague, although I prefer Season 1, everyone else we played with preferred Black Plague. In the words of my fiancé, it’s because Black Plague has swords and sh*t, and I guess I can’t argue with that.I do think that some improvements could be made to the spawning process, for one, I don’t think Abominations should spawn in the blue level, and strangely, our spawns had much less of an impact when we hit the red zone than when we were in blue or yellow. I think that maybe this was down to the double spawn cards, which again we drew quite a lot of early on. I think the double spawns are the one thing I don’t like about this version, but it does add an element of unpredictability to the game that is very fitting for a zombie apocalypse.I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Zomicide Season 1, or other co-operative games. For those who aren’t used to games of this scale, I think that it might be better to start with Season 1, unless you have someone used to tabletop gaming who can help guide you through it. The rule book again is thick and daunting, but keep it handy through your first few games and you’ll soon be fending off the zombie hordes like a pro!

23.6.2014

This is a big box full of miniatures. It's a very expensive game and therefore a big risk for anyone interested in buying it, so should you?Maybe.I actually really like Zombicide and I have to thank it a great deal for igniting a resurgence in my interest for board games. The artwork and theme here is absolutely fantastic, from the board to the cards and of course the models. What you're paying big money here for is quality (although there's quantity too!). I know some people are not the biggest fans of it's gameplay, but nobody can fault the production quality here.As a game, it has it's flaws. Whilst the core mechanics are fairly fast and fun, one rule in particular is worth picking on.There is a friendly fire rule that means if you are ever shooting into an area containing an ally you AUTOMATICALLY hit them. I have not spoken to a single person who hasn't just been immediately irritated by this idea so I have permanently house-ruled it as so: roll to attack zombies inside the area as you would normally BUT if you roll a 1, the ally takes a wound. This probably upsets the balance of the game as intended by the designer, but for me it's much fairer and has still lead to some awkwardly hilarious deaths.There are a bunch of scenarios included in the game and plenty more you can download from the internet. What's more, this game is designed in a way that makes it very easy to customise, add rules or create your own scenarios. I myself have added a bunch of little tweaks that add flavour to the game and don't seem to break it in any way. The game also scales pretty well for different numbers of players. The most I've played this game with is 8 and that was a little on the ridiculous side, but otherwise 2-6 players works really well. In fact, you could also play this solo easy enough, all you change is how many characters each player controls.I do find a lot of games can get to a point where they are a bit cumbersome. In the later stages of the game you can quickly have an overwhelming number of enemies on the board that all need to be moved each turn. Suddenly you'll run out of pieces to add and have to 're-activate' others.. often it gets annoying and you end up bending the rules to save the effort. This is a shame because, in big scenarios especially it means the end of the game is a bit of an anti-climax and a chore. This doesn't happen every time, but it's something to be wary of.There are also a bunch of expansions available, most noticeably Toxic City Mall and Prison Outbreak. I own both of these and they take up a lot of space. I wouldn't say either were essential and Prison Outbreak can be played as a standalone just like this.. depending on which theme you prefer. I would say that the variety of weapons from this box alone can quickly feel a bit predictable and the wealth of different cards is actually my favourite aspect of the expansions. Owning all 3 has actually meant I've played them less though, as the set-up time now always seems daunting - as is the length of the game (which can last between 1-3 hours). If you bought this box and wanted to get one more.. I would suggest Toxic City Mall as it's cheaper and still adds a bunch of cool stuff.Whilst there are things you can nitpick about the game, it's still a lot of fun. The theme is great and the components alone will probably hold your interest. If this looks like a theme or game you'd enjoy and you can spend the money then it's definitely worth getting. I don't play it as often as I would like, but I'm glad I own it. Maybe on strictly board-gaming terms there are better games you could get for less money, but they might not put as big a smile on your face as this will.

18.6.2013

First of all, I stalked Quillotine's website for half a year before it was even finished. I was really looking forward to it and when I finally got the order placed I felt happy and tingly. Couldn't wait to play it. There were some ups and downs however.I was pleased with the contents of the box, the figures are typically plastic but the detail on them is good and I'm looking forward to painting them. Even the box itself is interesting - it has the stories of the survivors printed on the sides. However, I've noticed another typical thing to happen when you transport the game a lot, the edges have started to wear out. You can fix the issue with some matte lacquer.The scenarios offer a nice variety of objectives.

29.12.2012

Splashed out & bought this initially more than a little concerned at the cost, three games later we have already had 11+ hours of fun with it & convinced me it's well worth the money! That covers an age range of 12-49, boys, girls & a couple of Dads so no mean feat keeping us all entertained/interested - funny how an apocalypse can bring the family together.The game is nicely packaged with figures and board etc. all good quality, there is a load more downloadable content here [...] more missions plus game map editor and new scenarios etc - all free so good added value there. There are loads of options to extend the game play including varying levels of difficulty, vehicles, weapons, power ups etc.

4.8.2018

I enjoy many of these types of game, both fantasy and sci-fi (Descent, D&D Adventure System, Arcadia Quest, Ninja All Stars, Imperial Assault, Doom, etc etc) and I really like them all, but having now played all the Massive Darkness Quests in the book and the six from the Lave/Crystals expansion, I consider myself in an experienced position to say that I believe this to be possibly THE best game of this genre currently on the market. (1) its thematically conducive for solo play (i.e. yourself against the game AI) though I DO advise if you play by your lonesome.. run with two or three heroes as the increased options this will allow in game will increase dramatically. (2) the game when set up is beautiful...

2.2.2015

To me this is one of the (if not the) best games on the market, it has been around for a few years now and has seen multiple expansions, additional base games (season 2 Prison Outbreak, and Season 3 Rue Morgue in a few months), boxes of zombies, etc. to add more options (and zombies) to the game. it also encourages people to create their own scenarios to increase the scope of game play almost endlessly. This box contains more than enough for the casual gamer, though fanatics like myself will be heading out to buy more and more additions and expansions, as well as, create our own scenarios and campaigns for our own gaming groups.This set is well known and centers around a group of survivors at the onset of the zombie apocalypse,

14.6.2015

'When there is no room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.' And every possible medium as well, from books, TV, movie and games, which probably explains why there are so many zombie board games around. As a huge zombie fan this doesn't bother me so much but it does mean board gamers have a lot to choose from. There's Zombies!!!, Last Night On Earth, Zpocalypse, Dead of Winter, and many many more. So why should Zombicide get a look in?Simply, because it's a hell of a lot of fun to play. Sure, the miniatures are very well made, and the components are also superbly crafted, but the gameplay's what counts. It can even be played solo which is a bonus if you're hankering for some zombie killing action on short notice.

29.7.2020

Like the other zombicide games this is very easy to pick up and learn and very easy to set up and play. Suffice to say that it's not a peaceful game, with much slaughtering and mayhem. The figures are nicely designed with fairly clean moulds and only a little flashing to remove. They are sufficiently detailed that painting the figures after washing and undercoating would definitely enhance them. As with the other zombicide games there are more missions and tasks available on the company website. Great for wasting a few hours over holidays, wet weekends and evenings when there's just reality and game shows on the tv.While this is a bit on the expensive side considering it's plastic and card,

26.1.2016

Its a great game and exceptional value for money.10 missions to start, loads of miniatures, replay value all over. Zombicide has pretty much expanded out into its own hobby now, like a games workshop game. With loads of characters and different Zombie types. This is a great start, to be fair you can also start with the Prison or Rue Morgue versions, personal taste but this is where it starts.So what do you need to know? its a co-operative game, and I play mostly with my girlfriend who loves it also. You do need to work together too as lots of the missions are very tough, but each one does remind me of a video game level & you have to work out how to crack it quite often.The figures and artwork are great,

16.3.2015

Bought this game a couple of months ago and I've played it most weeks - it's addictive! Being someone who loves anything to do with zombies I searched for a strategy board game that realistically replicates what I'd imagine to be a zombie apocalypse. Zombiecide does that and more.Firstly I would suggest that this isn't a light-hearted 'play in the background' game, it requires the group of players to discuss tactics and work as a team to get through the missions; some of which can takes hours to complete! The game comes with numerous missions to have a go at and more are available online so you've got plenty to get stuck into.

9.4.2021

This was our first experience of the Zombicide series. We were missing a sci-fi tabletop game in our lockdown collection and this seemed to fit the bill.We found it easy to pick up and learn.Nice mechanics, great quality minis, tokens and boards.Great storage too, everything fits into the box nicely.The starter scenario eases you into the gameplay gently and it doesn't feel too busy so you can get a good feel for the game straight away.The rule book is clear and navigating it was easy, there are a few specific rules we had to keep dipping in for.You never play the same scenario the same way twice as a lot depends on the luck of the draw on the Xeno cards.It's easy to change difficulty too,

29.7.2020

Lots of beasties, a few new characters, a very cool boss beast and new floor cards with expansion cards. Very nice addition and expansion for the core Invader game.The whole package is nicely designed, the figures included are clean, well designed and nicely moulded. Lots of detail to pick out should you decide to paint them. Remember to wash in warm soapy water, dry thoroughly and undercoat before painting. As soon as I had a chance to go through the core Invader box, I knew this was a series I would be collecting and I was not disappointed with the purchase of this expansion. This builds on the Invader-verse very nicely.

27.2.2018

I was a little late to the party with Zombicide, as I only bought the base game a couple of weeks ago..Admittedly the price tag of series 1 (£65 + then all the expansions on top) is quite daunting. I have watched more than a few videos on youtube and liked the look of how it plays, so I gambled and bought itI was NOT disappointed!! The game is very simple to play, and the rules are not lost in a huge rulebook amongst other random guff and background story. (A nice change for a veteran wargamer)The reversible game tiles are really high quality, and the miniatures themselves are also.The game does bring an undertone of humour to the apocalypse; that is not over-the-top,

10.5.2014

I play this a lot with my board game loving friends and we always have a blast. The models are great, the game is fairly well balanced and there's a lot of scenarios to play through. One of the best things is that the zombies play themselves so you don't need to make one of your group responsible for ruining everyone's night :D!You can buy the Toxic City Mall expansion when you get bored (which won't be for ages!) and there's also plenty of mini packs like 'Zombie Dogs' or 'Companion Dogs' that can be bought and added to the base game. I'd recommend this over the first Zombicide game because it features a special type of Beserk zombies that can only be killed using melee weapons.

14.7.2015

Took a punt on this as I'd heard a couple of friends mention it and was looking for something different than our usual miniature games. My son and I are SO glad I did! Zombicide is a GREAT game - simple to learn, but scales nicely and the minis are fabulous. We went from cowering in rooms with a pan and a crowbar to wading into huge hordes of zombies with chainsaw and mini-SMGs in about 90 minutes! It's addictive, and looking to expand further already...The product itself is of great quality, well produced and you feel you're getting value for money. Packaging is cleverly thought out and reusable, so if you paint the models (which isn't necessary, but they do deserve it!)

Zombicide: Lost Zombivors Expansion - Reviews

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