A Zombicide Start To The Weekend

So it turned out there was an Exit guardian!

I haven't played ZOmbicide Black Plague in some time. We reckon it's probably been at least six months which, considering it's our go-to game, is strange. I haven't played Green Horde since it arrived at Christmas, I only opened the box to get a look at the models up close.

That all changed this weekend.

Friday at work, being the last Friday of the month, was Free Project Friday and Team Social Afternoon. We ended up playing Zombicide Black Plague in the meeting room – an 8-player mash-up with many first timers and all the big monsters. It was fun, took a while and realised I'd forgotten a lot of the details in my absence from the game. There was lots of cheating in the end to ensure we won, but it won over a couple more admirers so no doubt more gaming in the future.

An opening win with Green Horde, by the skin of our teeth

To be honest that was the warm up, because the morning after myself and Bull travelled to the now very shiny Awdry Towers to get our first taste of Zombicide Green Horde. I'd heard lots of tales about how the new version plays but you never know for sure till you try it yourself.

We managed to get through the first game with a win, but it was touch and go at the end. The game felt claustrophobic and the swaggering confidence often seen when playing Black Plague was gone. The hedge and water mechanics were good additions – don't end the game in the water end of a map, it's a nightmare. The trebuchet was awesome, though it didn't see any action in our opening game.

Game 2 was a challenge indeed. So much so we had to press the restart button after a few turns in as we had made some fatal mistakes in our early strategies. Take 2 was going swimmingly. We had got to the trebuchet and were pretty much owning the board. However, as we confidently headed towards a second victory, fate stepped in to slap us in the face. We ran out of runner models, meaning all runners on the board get a second go – combined with a 'runners get an extra go' card flip we were wiped out in a single turn within reach of the finish line.

Our problem was two-fold. We were using just the contents of the Green Horde starter box, so no fancy weapons and limited zombie models. It meant we didn't have the volume of dice when attacking to clear out the masses of zombie models coming at us. The majority of weapons were only hitting on a 4+ at best, so even a handful of dice was only going to get you so far.

Needless to say we all had fun and thoroughly enjoyed a re-introduction to Zombicide.
There will be more to come!

Miniature Painting & Monty Python

It seems I have found my hobby haven in Zombicide: Black Plague at the moment. Our regular Tuesday Night Gaming has kept enthusiasm levels high thanks to Bull's random character approach, and we're working our way through all the characters we have.

Needless to say, despite a new Kickstart campaign on the doorstep, I have been on Ebay tracking down some of the models I wished I'd bought first time around.

One of the bonuses to the renewed hobby enthusiasm is that I've returned to the painting table after an 18 month hiatus. Inspired by the rate that Bull was painting his BP characters, and playing characters I'd dismissed as a waste of time, I now have a painting list that grows daily. Thing is, I'm really enjoying the painting!

Nothing pushes your painting than a deadline set in stone. I found tournaments great for this back in the 40k days, but this time we had arranged a BP game day at Awdry Towers for the Easter Saturday and time was flying by. I sat up till past midnight to get models finished in time.

On the day we decided to make it a Monty Python outing, and used Michael's non-Zombicide models that he had lovingly painted up some time ago to an exquisite level.

We managed to get a couple of games in – although it was actually the same game twice, as we died horribly first time around… how very Monty Python-esque!

Despite the quest only requiring one character to get to red level then exit the board, we toiled for hours to reach our goal. As the characters headed through the orange level of experience points, things started to hot up. At one point we had FOUR abominations on the board at the same time!

In the end we cruised, carefully and steadily, through to our goal – no rash decisions or over the top heroics (though I had to be reined in on a couple of occasions).

Fantastic game – my thanks to Mr Awdry for being a fantastic host as always, and to Bull for providing the leadership we needed to survive (second time around!).

More painting soon!

Black Plague Escalation

A new month dawns, and I thought I'd wait till I was well passed April Fool's Day before posting this latest bit of news – I've actually painted a model, and finished it!

That's right folks, it's been a good 18 months since I finished painting Ox for Guildball, which was my last completed model. This time my attention has been focused on Zombicide Black Plague. After three consecutive weeks of Tuesday Gaming Night (albeit they were mostly on a Wednesday), enthusiasm for the fantasy board game has hit new heights.

What has injected the new enthusiasm is using EVERYTHING from the Kickstarter rewards. All the monsters, all the cards, the lot. We've been working our way through the scenarios using a team that is picked entirely at random. What this has meant is that the usual suspects don't always get a look in, and you're forced to use models and skills you've never looked at before. There are at least two models that I had dismissed when creating my dream team last year, but was dealt in games this last month – and they proved to be pretty awesome.

Anyway, back to the painting. I got a few hours on Saturday morning to myself and decided to use the time to crack out the paints again. After watching Bull steadily paint the models we've used over the weeks (or the high performing ones at least!) I was inspired to start painting some of my own.

I plucked four out of the collection – Falstaff, Mizar, Morrigan and Grim – and began laying down the colour. It didn't take long for Falstaff to become the favourite for an early complete, so I concentrated on him.

Happy to say he is now complete. Very enthusiastic about the painting right now, so need to keep the momentum up. Morrigan probably the next in line so stay tuned.

Now, just need to get Falstaff in a game now.

More Zombicide Black Plague Fun

In a desperate effort to keep Tuesday Night Gaming alive this week, it became Wednesday Night Gaming instead. Bull was keen to press on with our foray into Zombicide: Black Plague, with all the cards and extra (huge!!) models from the Kickstarter.

The quest he'd chosen was ominously titled The Ambush, and it said that only 2 characters had to survive. Given that almost all the quests say that everyone must survive, this was bad news indeed. However, looking at the board and the objectives we just couldn't see what was so difficult.

It soon became apparent that the narrow corridors and spawn points in close proximity to each other would cause bottlenecks and have the Necromancers sprinting off the board faster than Usain Bolt! Our fears became reality when the first Necromancer had appeared and hoofed it away before we could take her down (the dreaded queen again). However, I'm jumping the gun a little here.

As was the case last time, Bull and I both chose a single character and the rest were handed out randomly. Bull chose melee master Redcap Rodney, and I chose my Dream Team marks(wo)man Cadence. For randoms, I got magic caster Mizar and necromancer-type Ostokar – Bull got searcher James and Lucas. They were 4 characters that I was not familiar with but the beauty of doing things randomly like this is that you start to appreciate skills you knew little about previously.

So, one Necromancer had already run off the board, we had no weapons of significance, then Redcap got caught short and died. Things looked bad by turn 3, but then (whilst we were all still blue level experience) the standard Abomination appeared! Wow, just wow! We really were in a hole, so much so even Bull was ringing out the doom and gloom. Totally against character, however, I was still very confident that the quest was doable, we just had to think before we acted and make the most of the abilities we had.

Long story short, we battled our way through by the skin of our teeth for long periods of the game. We had moments that looked forlorn, but with a bit of careful planning we created some daylight and broke through the zombie waves. We came close to losing both James and Lucas, plus Ostokar took an early bite that he carried with him for most of the game.

The key to our eventual success was the Invisibility spell, Ostokar's Zombie Link ability (giving him an extra go whenever the zombies got an extra go, and James' searching which turned up a host of nice weapons mid-game. Cadence proved to be quite a shot, earning herself the Orcish crossbow by taking out 5 NPCs, on top of the host of other kills.

Fantastic quest that is not to be taken lightly, especially when you use the full deck with the extended collection of Necromancer special character cards. We also purposefully kept the Abomination on the board, to avoid any of the big monsters appearing. This proved vital to the win.

Next time we're going completely random for the characters. Should spice things up just a little more!

A Return To The Zombicide Dungeons

So I've managed to go over a month without posting on the blog. And what a month it's been- lots of work family issues, a missing tooth and a broken toe. There has been no hobby time at all really, but finally I got another Tuesday Game Night under the belt.

Bull suggested an all-out game of Black Plague, with every model, card, token he owned. Oh yes, the big monsters came out to play (or at least sit on the bench and watch). To spice things up even more, we got to choose one character apiece, the rest were random - no dream team available here to face our biggest test.

To be fair we didn't do too badly with character selection. It opened our eyes to individuals I certainly have dismissed in the past and, with a bit of good luck, we managed to sail through the scenario without so much as a scare. Bull has a more detailed retelling on his blog.

Alas, as I eluded to earlier, we did get the Blobination on the board, but given his relative slow speed we managed to evade him. This meant that none of the other Monster Abominations could be on the board at the same time, so we dodged that particular pitfall (some of those guys sound nasty!).

Our biggest problem was the Necromancers. Once we added the character necro cards into the pack, the Necromancers were getting loads of extra goes, positively sprinting around the board. We managed to contain the threat in the end, only one actually getting off the board.

Great fun, and great to get back into some gaming. More gaming tonight with Chris, so we'll see how that goes!

The Dream Team Are Coming…

Amongst the recent re-painting of Dark Templar marines and Eldar ready for our project "40k in 40 minutes in 4th edition", I managed to get a couple of other models based and undercoated.

I picked out the two survivors from my Zombicide: Black Plague dream team that Mr Awdry and Bull haven't painted between them and got them some paint.

The first is Cadence, my medieval sniper, with her wolf pelt outfit. Then there is Theo, my sprinter. He looks like a stereotypical fantasy adventurer with his cape, two-handed sword and bow. Looking forward to seeing them in a more colourful state, and hopefully they'll provide a good break from all that purple (space marines) or red (eldar) that's in my painting future.

However, I'm away on holiday this week with the family – the first real holiday in two years, the first since junior was born – so no painting or hobby time available (except thinking about it… what I'm best at!)

My Zombicide: Black Plague Dream Team

Over the last couple of weeks I've been highlighting my choices for a Black Plague Dream Team - the characters that I think make up an elite team for running your average ZBP scenario.

Here's the recap...

THE ATTACKERS:

Xuxa is my main melee choice for the simple reason that she can take down an Abomination from the opening turn. Once tooled up with a couple of decent melee weapons, she's the one you can rely on to take down the big bad guys with ease. She's also pretty nifty with a bow if there is an abundance of gear.

Morgan is my main magic choice. He quickly accumulates additional dice to his magic actions and is the magic equivalent of an assault cannon. He's not suited to take down the bigger foes but when it comes time to clear entire zones, and there's no dragon bile in sight, Morgan is your man. Be warned though he will level up very quickly once let loose.

Cadence is my main ranged choice. She is built to be a sniper thanks to starting with the Marksman skill. Her main role is to take down Necromancers as they roam through the zombie hordes. Give her a Longbow and she can do this from 3 zones away. Because the Longbow won't take up a hand slot she can arm herself with other gear to expand her contributions.

THE SUPPORTERS:

James was added as the main Searcher of the group. His abilities allow him to pick up multiple cards when performing a search action, which will in turn speed up the process of gearing up the survivors. He also has ranged and magic skill available later on so will support in combat as the game progresses.

Theo is my runner. He starts the game with the Sprint ability, allowing him to move faster than anyone else. His main role will be to run about the place, opening doors early on and grabbing objectives before the zombies numbers start to tell. He is also decent in a fight which will help him achieve his goal when out on his own, as well as when supporting the rest of the team.

Gowan is my tank, plain and simple. His ability to regenerate lost wounds means that he can be thrown into the thick of things and make sure other key members of the team don't die. He needs to be given a shield and armour as soon as possible to enhance his wound-taking ability. Once he's levelled to max he becomes immune to certain zombie types, making him untouchable... almost.

So there you go. That's my Dream Team. It's been fun doing the theory-crafting but the real test will coming on the gaming table. Some of these characters have already proved themselves, some yet to be tested.

I'd be interested to see if anyone has alternative characters in their Dream Team, and why.

Zombicide: Black Plague… More Goodies!

After a rather lengthy five month wait, the second part of the Kickstarter goodies for Zombicide: Black Plague arrived today.

Another rather large parcel was waiting for me when I got home from work, containing lots of plastic goodness. I won't distract you any more with chat – just take on board what will be arriving on your own doorstep soon (or what you missed out on)!

Those are some enormous miniatures for a board game – that rat ogre thing in particular, and the running troll ogre is ridiculously tall… fantastic!

Black Plague Zombies…!

It seems an age since we pledged for the Medieval version of Zombicide on Kickstarter. It's all due to arrive in the summer, but we did receive the starter box game just before Christmas. Needless to say I haven't done much more than open the lid and have a look at the models – another game gathering dust on the shelf.

Last night my friend Chris came round for our semi-regular game night. When mulling over which game to play my mind suddenly leaped back to the aforementioned Zombicide: Black Plague – perfect for both of us.

We were limited with time so we stuck to the intro mission whilst we acclimatised to the revised rules. It definitely feels like v2 of Zombicide, with lots of extra and tweaked rules that make things that little bit better. Even the intro game was more interesting.

Our first attempt had us constantly flipping Fatties during the zombie's go, not great when you don't have a strong enough weapon! I managed to find an enormous hammer that would do the business and it didn't take long to level up a couple of times. I ended the first intro game on 30 kills!!

Our second go at the intro game had Chris take the lead with the funky weapons, racing to his first level up before I had scored a single kill. This time the Fatties were in short supply (need to shuffle the deck better!) so we positively sailed through, though it helped that we knew what we were doing this time.

Loving this game and I have to say I think it's a definite improvement over the original. Everything about it just seems stepped up a level, from the command consoles to the new skills. We haven't even go to the whole Necromancer or Abomination bits yet.

Looking forward to a bigger game!

Zombicide Goes Medieval

Well, they promised it would be here before Christmas and they lived up to their word. Cool Mini Or Not delivered the box set of Zombicide:Black Plague yesterday – the first instalment from the summer Kickstarter.

It's Zombicide alright, but not as we know it!

I opened the box and had a quick rummage around. It all looks very similar to the original, I just get the impression they've improved things across the board. The dashboards look great and the associated colour-coded pegs and base covers look really useful. But enough about that… what about the models?!

They definitely seem to have improved things in the last few years – these models have tonnes of detail on them and are just begging to be painted. Whether it'll be enough to get me to paint them is another matter, but we will see.

They are very nice though.

No doubt there will be games played over the Christmas holidays…