Ian Thompson
United States
Michigan
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I've been playing LNOE alot lately and when I saw the new supplement was available, I couldn't pass up the chance to snatch it up and give it a whirl. When I saw there still wasn't much info available on it, I decided it was as good a chance as any to give back to the Geek and write up a modest review.
First up, the Scenario:
This scenario has 13 rounds and introduces the Zombie Pillage Dot mechanic that can be added to any scenario in the mold of Growing Hunger. It also uses Hero Starting Cards (1) and Heroes Replenish.
At the start of the game, 45 hero cards are randomly selected from the main hero deck and placed by the Zombie player. It is called the TOWN DECK and represents the relative stability and health of Woodinvale. These cards, when discarded, still go the regular hero discard pile and heroes draw from the regular deck as normal when searching. Zombies win by exhausting this Town Deck and heroes win by surviving the 13 turns of the scenario.
Any Zombie cards that would discard hero cards instead can be used to attempt a pillage roll- discards a Town deck card on the roll of 4+ for each card that would be discarded. To balance this,any card the Heroes may have that put cards back into the deck may instead be used to attempt to shuffle that many of cards into the Town Deck by rolling a 4+ if they so choose for each card.
The Zombie Pillage mechanic costs one Dot. It allows any zombie in a building with no hero in its space a roll to PILLAGE-on a D6 roll of four + the top hero card is discarded(or Town card only in this particular scenario) If there is more than one zombie in the space,or a zombie hero, instead of rolling, the Pillge attempt is automatically successful and a single card is discarded. Zombies cannot pillage in a Taken Over building or in a space with a spawning pit BUT when a building IS taken over the Zombie master gets a free Pillage roll for EVERY space in the building, even spawning pits.
New Cards:
The New cards add quite a bit to both the Hero and Zombie arsenal. Some are a bit situational, but there isn't a dud among them.
Heroes get...
Lets Rock! - a heroic remains in play that is played on a hero that allows an extra fight dice and lets the hero player roll a d6 to prevent a wound on a 5 or 6. It is discarded when the Hero searches. We didn't get to this one in our game, but it sounds pretty impressive
Axe- a regular axe this time, not a fire axe. If a Hero wins a fight and fends off a zombie, they can roll to wound it on a 4, 5, or 6. We had this on Sally, and with her lucky ability, she was basicly killing zombies every single fight.
Courage- this card was actually missing when it first shipped, but a quick e-mail got it to me in 2 mailing days. Flying Frog is pretty awesome on this front. It is another remains in play event played on a hero that lets the Hero roll an extra fight dice until the end of the turn every time the hero enters a space with one or more zombies. It really seems to complement the style of this scenario and rewards the Heroes for being aggressive. Obviously it works wonders with Johnny and his blitz ability...
Endurance- this awesome play immediately, remains in play event card gives any hero a free wound marker. If it is discarded by any means by the zombies, the wound goes away too. We played it on Father Joseph who squandered it almost immediately and died because he rolled so bad but I would imagine Sam or a student work wonders with it. Johnny has been wanting 3 wounds for a while now.
Finally... Push Broom-this double handed item lets its mighty wielder win on ties AND gives the option to give up a move action to put 2 cards back in the deck from the discard. Jenny got it as her free starting card, made it to the barn, slapped on a heroic resolve and simply gave up every turn sweeping cards from the rapidly depleteing town deck back into the deck. This was probably the most optimal use of this card possible and it actually won us the game by one single card on the last turn!... or it would have if we hadn't forgotten that with zombie pillage in effect we had to roll to check if the cards got back it. Whoops. We gave the win to the deserving Zombie master. The town was annihilated, but at least the barn was clean. Regardless, the effectiveness of the all powerful push broom can not be denied.
Zombie Cards...
These things scare me. As a Hero anyway. They are nasty. Luckily for the living, not a one of them showed up in the game. It still wasn't enough to save us but still.
Hysteria- played at the start of a hero turn to cancel every hero event played on this hero on a roll of 3+. Remains in play.
Closing in- sacrifice 3 zombies to choose a board section and move every zombie on it d6 spaces instead of their regular moves. Mega shamble.
Falling Darkness- played at the start of a zombie turn to cancel any remains in play Hero card on a roll of 4+. A better despair.
Trapped- play at the end of a zombie turn to choose a hero and roll a dice. Immediately, that many zombies from the zombie pool pop up in any spaces adjacent to the unfortunate hero. Limit one zombie per space. This card made the heros freak out when they read it. I have to admit, even with my hero bias, that this card is awesome.
Angry Dead-sacrifice 2 zombies to put this remains in play card into effect. While it is in play, reveal and discard the top 3 Hero cards. If the last card is discarded, the town goes to hell and the heroes join it. Yep. In this scenario, this kind of discard effect is absolutely killer.
My thoughts..
There are many ways a saavy zombie master can win against the tenacious heroes in any given scenario, but for the most part, you pretty much try to overwhelm the heroes by force. You throw card after card and zombie after zombie at them and hope for some lucky draws and rolls. There is plenty of strategy involved of course, and different scenarioes can provide unique win conditions, but for the most part, zombies employed the direct approach. Zombie Pillage rectifies this by accentuating what was once in the past one of the least effective routes to victory; burn through their deck. Usually the hero deck is so bloated with expansions and promo cards that this strategy is almost impossible-well not anymore...
This scenario was absolutely brutal. Zombies were discarding about 5 Town cards a turn. Instead of hunting heroes, they just bunched up inside buildings and pillaged their little hearts out. They took over the super market(that's 10 cards possibly discarded and they rolled so well they got 8!) They used No, it can't be! to summon zombie Becky then dredged it up with some evil card to use it again to zombify Sam, not who we wanted to show up, to say the least. Remember zombie heroes and zombies with reinforcements in their space auto-pillage. Our Zombie player made the very most of this . The Heroes had to mix up their strategy and go on the offensive into buildings swarming with zombies. Heroes have to be absolutely tenacious in this scenario. They can't allow any misteps if they expect to win. It is positively devasating to see the town deck deplete and to see all those useful cards in the discard pile. Needless to say, most of the buildings were pretty much fully stocked for all intents and purposes. Weapons that killed en masse like hedge trimmers and shotguns were also at a premium because the zombies were bunched up , mostly two in a space, usually our zombie player is wary about doing this, but in this scenario it really upped the odds in her favor.
Overall, this scenario is my favorite yet. It has a very different pace and feel than other games and takes advantage of the decking strategy, a strategy that was once pretty useless. This scenario was totally worth the cost and I highly reccommend it.
edited for spelling mostly
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Bryann Turner
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Great review and I too can't wait to try this out. I posted the cards and I haven't been able to play it yet, but I'm glad to see that this scenario is tense!
Nicely done! 
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Thanks for a great review.
Unlike 'Stock Up' this supplement has clearly added something to the game. I'm going to order it right away!
Cheers
Lub
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Ian Thompson
United States
Michigan
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I actually use 'Stock Up' to teach new people this game. It works ok as a training game as it teaches you the basics of searching and the value of weapons and doesn't force zombies to run away like in Die , Zombies, Die!
But Yeah, this supplement pretty much blows it out of the water.
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Dan
Canada
Alberta
Yeah... I see what you did there.
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Nice review. My copy came today. I'll have to see how my friends like it at the lake.
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♫ Eric Herman ♫
United States
West Richland
Washington
I like elephants. I like how they swing through trees.
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How did I not notice this before?? It sounds very cool and definitely quite different. I'm glad you reviewed this, though, and described it so well, because the first thing I looked at when I noticed this listing was the scenario card, and I was thinking, this doesn't make any sense at all... how can the Zombies possibly win this scenario by running out the cards?? But I didn't notice the little red wording for "Zombie Pillage" in the scenario special rules section. Big difference, that.
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Posted Wed Jun 17, 2009 10:44 pm
