by dedwrekka
I just ran a few scenarios of Zombicide with 6 friends (everyone playing a single survivor) the other day, and while we all seemed to enjoy it, there were some issues (but really only with a single scenario).We played through the tutorial to get a feel for the game, and playing through City Blocks worked out any mis-readings or misunderstandings of the rules.
I set up the board for Scenario 03 "The 24hrs Race of Zombie City" thinking that with the objective it would have made for more of a challenge. It didn't, and it was down to a combination of how the scenario was set up and how cars work.
Just for quick reference, the objective is to get one survivor into the red danger level. There are four spawn zones, two on each side, the ones on each side are separated by a single zone, and there are three cars on the map.
The problem with Scenario 03 is that it's just too easy to take out the zombies on the board.
Starting off the game the survivors ransacked the middle building and nearby police cars for weapons, supplies, and experience. We collected Ma's Shotgun from the Pimp Mobile and took it over. By that point we had several walkers on either side of the map and the trouble with the scenario showed up. At this point two of the cars had two survivors each, a driver and a passenger while the others ransacked the buildings for what we knew was going to be the inevitable molotov cocktail.
In the cars, this is how the game went down for several turns.
The first survivor ran over zombies on their side of the board, and their passenger unloaded shotguns and SMGs into them. Once they got enough experience to get their +1 action things got formulaic.
Survivor:
A1: Move car out of zombie spawn zone, and into nearest spawn, hitting every zombie in both zones and in-between.
A2: Fire at any remaining zombies/Fatties in previous spawnzone
A3: Move out of driver seat
A4: melee at any remaining zombies in the currently occupied spawn zone.
This went on for about 6 rounds with the survivors in the car repeating the same motions until an abomination showed up, at which point we had two molotovs (thanks to Dave) and were able to easily take care of it. The tactic didn't have to change much throughout that entire time, and it just became a bit boring.
In the end, seeing how disinterested everyone was getting, I declared "Last Round" and pulled a zombie card which I applied to every manhole in the board, not just the normal ones and not from a sewer zombie card, at red threat level giving us six walkers on every manhole, which finally turned it into a challenge, but also quickly pushed all the survivors into the red threat level.
So, downsides of the scenario. Cars make it a bit too easy, spawn zones are too close together, and the map is laid out a bit too straight forward. Going from the tactics of City Blocks to the grind of 24HRS was a bit of a let down.
Upsides of the game: the game in general was a very solid experience, and everyone who played had an awesome time with it. There's a lot of tactical cooperation that's needed on many of the scenarios and I'm looking forward to the announced expansions to the game and the next time I get to open the box and pull everything out. I'm probably going to work out a full 12+ Scenario campaign for the game just to see if I can. I think the "everyone vs the game" mechanics of it would be excellent for a full RPG-esq campaign.