Nate Rethorn
United States
Toledo
Ohio
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This is the first of the mini-expansions released for Last Night on Earth. It's the same price as the other mini-expansions: $10 for ten cards and a scenario. They're a bit pricey. However, there's still a lot of value in this expansion; and I'm happy to support a publisher that has done an excellent job over the years of consistently putting out new material for such a fun game.
The new cards in this expansion range from good to great. The heroes get a few new options to kill zombies, cancel fights, or go hunting for event cards in the deck. The "Cigar" is a fire item--always helpful when trying to blow up some dynamite or set gasoline on fire. For the zombies, their best cards are "No...It can't be!" and "Legions of the Dead." The former allows you to discard four zombies and instead place a zombie hero in a random building, and the latter gives you a die roll's worth of extra zombies to place on the board. Both cards can be quite powerful in the right conditions.
The titular scenario is slightly more disappointing, however. Depending on the L-boards you place and the heroes you draw, it can practically be an auto-win for the heroes if the players know what they're doing. Drawing four weapon cards and a first aid kit, then smuggling them back to a stockpile building, is a bit too easy with characters like the Sheriff and Rachelle. And since several buildings allow you to draw weapons out of the discard pile, amassing your needed stockpile isn't terribly difficult. The zombies really have to gather en masse inside or next to the stockpile building and basically try to stall the heroes out (or kill three of them, but that's hard when everyone has a weapon). With some clever play, the heroes can lure the zombies out and rush into the building for a win.
Nonetheless, I think Stock Up works really well as an introductory scenario for new players. "Die Zombies, Die!" was always a bit too simplistic for my tastes--run around, kill fifteen zombies, win. With Stock Up the heroes have an objective, specific cards they need to find and a place they need to go to afterwards. They'll be cooperating much more quickly than they would be in the other scenario, and they might learn how deadly the zombie player can be if they don't pay too much attention to their tactics.
Stock Up isn't the best expansion Flying Frog has produced (or even the best mini-expansion), but it's still well worth your money. More cards are always a good thing, especially when they add a few twists to each side's strategy. And if the scenario is a bit unbalanced...well, it's still a challenge for the zombie player.
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James
United States
Midlothian
Virginia
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I've really enjoyed your reviews of the LNOE web scenarios, Nate. Thanks for these. Your thoughtful comments about them have done a lot to help me understand what kind of game experience I'd be getting by purchasing them.
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