Jack Wells
United Kingdom
Bristol/Cardiff
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I've finally got the new supplement and played two games last night (was waiting for the AToE supplement to come out to save on postage). So here's my thoughts on the latest web-only supplement, layed out in a similar way to my LNoE and GH reviews
What does it add to the components?
Not a whole lot as you know, but it's only a supplement;
5 new cards for both the Hero and Zombie Decks
1 new scenario card
Single page rules sheet
[Flying Frog Productions promo shot uploaded by Paxe]
Cards – Like the previous cards for LNoE, these have great artwork and are nice and shiny, but sticky which makes it hard to shuffle. The cards are also slightly bigger than the other cards so if you look carefully you can see which ones are RotD cards. They have a little P logo in the bottom corner, same as the Stock Up cards, I'm guessing this is for Promo, so there's no way of differentiating between your promo cards unless you actually know where each card is from. Better than nothing though and only a incredibly minor point, especially since the rules sheet lists the name of all the cards you get.
Rules – Not as good quality as the proper rulebook, it's just a sheet of plain paper with the rules printed on. However it is still a good quality print, looks like a colour laser jet so it's not going to fade.
The box – Well no custom box to speak of since the supplement is small enough to simply fit into a padded envelope. However, the cards did come in a 25 capacity (I think) Ultra-Pro 2 part case thingy which is cool, I like free stuff 
•Rulebook not as good as the proper ones with the games but still good
•Cards slightly too big
•Free little card case 
What does it add to the gameplay?
You might think that it's not gonna change stuff around a whole lot, seeing as it's only 10 extra cards and 1 scenario, but this isn't true at all.
Cards
Seeing as there are only 10 cards in this supplement I'll add what each one does to the review
Hero Cards
Hedge Trimmer - a double handed weapon (takes up two weapon slots in the carrying limit) that allows the hero to roll and extra fight dice for every zombie currently in their space. Can be very deadly
"How do you like it?" - Allows a strange hero to immediately kill a zombie they're about to fight or discard the top 10 zombie cards from the Zombie Deck. Pretty useful one, funny too, love the picture.
Backpack - Item that allows a hero to carry 3 extra items, one of which can be a weapon, but since the backpack takes up a slot it only really increases it by 2. Very useful card.
2x "Ruuuuuuun!" - Allows a hero to roll an extra movement die and pick whichever one they like. Useful, good for getting rid of those annoying 1s or 2s.
Zombie Cards
The Smell of Brains - Fight card the allows a zombie to roll an extra fight dice, if they wound a hero, all zombies within 2 spaces can be moved to the same square. Love this card, very useful for zombies.
Divide and Conquer - A Remains in Play card that allows zombies in a fight to roll an extra fight dice if there are no other heroes in the same board section. Can come in handy, but it all depends on how well the heroes are sticking together.
Risen From the Grave - Sacrafice 2 zombies (remove 2 zombies from the board) to take a card from the discard pile into your hand. Great for getting back those good rare cards like Growing Hunger.
2x Feels No Pain - Allows a zombie to reroll any number of it's fight dice or prevent a zombie from being instantly killed (this isn't any kill, this is just ones that 'instantly' kill such as the Meat Cleaver. Pretty useful card to have.
According to the rules sheet, the cards are designed to be balanced against each other, so you could just add in the Hedge Trimmer and it's counterpart, The Smell of Brains, if you wanted, but I don't see any reason why you wouldn't add them all in anyway.
Scenario
Revenge of the Dead
In this scenario, the zombie player must kill 5 heroes within 13 turns. You might think this is really hard (I know we did when we first heard it, given that zombies almost never win anymore now we're all seasoned at the game) but the zombies get a few advantages. They auto-spawn, if you're not familiar with Growing Hunger, then this means you don't need to do the "Roll to Spawn New Zombies" part of the zombie turn, you just automatically get to spawn at the end. Any hero the zombies kill is turned into a zombie hero and the hero player then draws a new hero as if the Heroes Replenish rule from GH was in effect and the zombies have a hand size of 6 instead of 4. However, the only victory condition for the zombies is to kill 5 heroes, if they discard the last card off the Hero Deck, play still continues. The heroes however, do start with an extra card in addition to any other cards they start with, they win by either killing 4 zombie heroes or surviving until morning.
This is absolutely brutal, it changes how the game plays completely. Never before have I seen a hero swinging a hedge trimmer at 12 zombies, 4 of them being zombie heroes. This is probably the only scenario where the zombies have the advantage, I played the zombies for both my the plays and I was loving it, really added a boost to my enthusiasm for the game which was starting to wane again. The game feels completely different with this scenario, no longer is it a viable strategy for the heroes to just hold up in a building, all on one space, drawing cards. Because the zombies are much stronger and they are almost constantly at full strength and the addition of a dead hero immediately becoming a zombie hero, it could start a devastating chain reaction. This time the heroes have to be constantly moving from building to building, getting perhaps 1, maybe 2 searches in before they have to leave. It feels more like a zombie film now where the heroes are on the run, it well, feels like Left 4 Dead (Jason, I want Smokers and Hunters ), the heroes aren't heroes now, they're survivors who are just trying to survive a little longer. I was grinning with glee and laughing maniacally as I trapped helpless Kenny in a corner with a wall of zombies and did the same later to other heroes I absolutely love this scenario, even my friend playing the heroes loved it, even though he got slaughtered in the first game (I had great luck on my cards and him not so much) and a resounding (but still quite close to surviving) defeat.
•Great new cards
•The new scenario is fantastic, even better when you add some special rules from Growing Hunger
Learning and mastering the game
There isn't a whole lot extra to learn here, however, like with Growing Hunger, if you're teaching someone who is a gamer, then there's no reason not to have the cards in here. However, I would suggest you don't play the scenario unless all sides have mastered the game, or perhaps you have a team of experienced heroes verses a team of inexperienced zombies this would be good.
Conclusion
I'm a completionist (though not a complete completionist, I haven't bought the extended soundtrack....yet) so I just had to get this. I was a little disappointed with the Stock Up supplement (I'll probably get around to a review of this eventually) seeing as the scenario wasn't that amazing, but it did have some good cards, but I'm definitely not disappointed with this one. While Stock Up had a couple of not so good cards, I think all of these are useful, in addition, the scenario is amazing. While I would say that Stock Up is only for avid fans seeing as with international shipping I could have bought a new card game for the same price (if I hunted around), I would say this is almost a must buy if you enjoy LNoE. For me it was roughly half the price of Growing Hunger, and it by no means adds half of what GH does, but I think the scenario is just amazing and I'm definitely glad I bought it.
I might also add in these rules to other scenarios, usually we just balance out the GH rules, the zombies still lose by the same amount but it does make it more fun. This scenario has inspired me to try and add the rules in so it's not balanced.
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Cameron McKenzie
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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You forgot to mention that all zombies roll an extra fight die. Even well-armed Heroes will have a hard time taking down a large number of zombies... and with all the zombie events going on they are going to do some very sneaky stuff.
I just have to say that this scenario is the best one yet. Very simply victory conditions, extra cards, auto-spawn, and relatively low number of turns get players into the action quickly, and I feel the difficulty is just right. In a lot of scenarios, the zombies were more of an inconvenience rather than a danger. You were more worried they would slow you down from reaching your goal than you were of actually being killed by them... but not in this one! It's really a struggle to survive, fast paced and exciting, capturing everything good about the zombie genre :-)
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Posted Sun Dec 7, 2008 4:09 pm
