Black Plague: The Dream Team – part 2

With the first member of my Dream Team chosen, it's time to look at the second slot on the roster. It will be no surprise to anyone who read my post about our recent Black Plague day that my second dream team survivor is Morgan (Merlin, from the 1981 film Excalibur).

There are several spellcasters available to the Black Plague player, but what I liked about Morgan is the number of dice he accumulated as he levelled up. His sole task during our games was to get hold of a couple of fireball spells and clear zones. At one point during our games he was rolling six dice per attack. Occasionally he would use a longer range spell to snipe a particular walker/runner/wolf from distance, but he became a bit of a Grim Reaper for the low level zombies.

In fact he got so good at this role he began to level at an exponential rate and we had to pull him off the front lines to prevent other lower level characters being unable to cope with the increased spawn rate.

He starts with an extra dice for combat actions - not just spell actions - which means regardless of what gear he starts the game with he will cope well until he gets hold of his fireball spells.

Again, I have not looked too deeply at the range of his abilities, options or combinations, but with a single role to play - the fireball wielding mage - he is a very solid choice and has already proved it over the course of an afternoon's gaming. Plus, let's be honest, the model is very easy to paint, so there's another bonus.

Two down!

Black Plague: The Dream Team – part 1

After the hilarity that was last Saturday's game(s) of Zombicide: Black Plague at Awdry Towers I got thinking (as the others already have) about which characters available from the Kickstarter would make up the ultimate team of survivors. Obviously every scenario is situational, and you would probably want to tweak your lineup depending upon what the mission was, but if you had to pick your dream team which six survivors would it include?

By pure luck I had picked out Xuxa (Xena, Warrior Princess) as one of my characters at the weekend, without knowing any of her skills. It turns out I picked a shoe-in for the dream team for sure if for no other reason than she can take out an Abomination from the start (assuming she had hold of a melee weapon). Super Strength as a starting skill is just outrageous, completely sick, and effectively takes the fear out of the early game.

Broken rule? I think so.

But that is not her only contribution. As she levels up she gets bonus dice in melee and by the time she is in orange she's not scared of anything face to face.

Still not enough for you? She can have a Longbow (medieval sniper rifle) in the third free slot, throw in some extra arrows in the back pack and she can take down enemies from 3 squares away with a re-roll.

So without over analysing her options, abilities and combinations, Xuxa is already one of the most powerful characters you can take in the game. Plus the model is pretty awesome too.

So that's the first character in my Zombicide: Black Plague dream team – who's next?

Zombies, Wolves and Abominations… Oh My!

Saturday finally arrived and myself and Bull drove down to Awdry Towers to join Michael for a game of Zombicide Black Plague. Now, whilst both Mr Awdry and Bull had carefully chosen and painted their respective survivors, I had not. In fact I had not brought anything with me aside from a box of Zombie Archers, which would prove to be quite a game changer.

I chose two random (unpainted) characters from the back catalogue of Kickstarter goodies – Xena (after seeing Stefan's painted miniature) and Merlin – and they turned out to be absolute heroes on the day. So much so that they have been singled out from my own collection and sit on the painting table alongside the space marine scouts.

The day started with a scenario from the Kickstarter stretch goal PDF. A fun game with an altar of fire that doused the room in which it was standing in dragon fire at the end of every turn. In all honesty we were lucky. As well as we played, things definitely went in our favour and the game was completed with little to stress about. By the numbers.

The poorly equipped search for better gear while the big hitters guard the hallways

For game 2 we added the wolves and chose a scenario from the expansion box set. Their 3 actions per turn (and the fact they often turned up in packs of 3 or 4) added a whole new dimension to the game. The scenario itself was great and we had to methodically work our way through it. Our team of survivors was humming like a machine (aside from Klom who seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, most of the time – considering he was by far the biggest model on the table he saw very little combat all afternoon and was often the first model to Exit – genius plan for surviving!).

Master blaster Merlin lays waste to wave upon wave of zombies
– he was levelling so quickly we had to pull him away!

We had the game in the palm of our hands, but there was a flaw in our vision. We had forgotten (or blissfully unaware) about the rule regarding Necromancers. We were within striking distance of the exit when a Necromancer appeared. There were now six spawn points on the board – if he made it to another spawn point we would instantly lose the game. Unfortunately things got a lot worse as two more Necromancer cards turned up – speeding him on his way.

So close yet so far away – the Exit in game 2

We got the the exit and 3 of our survivors left the board with the other three not quite able to reach it. It came down to the last set of zombie spawn cards – if a Necromancer card appeared he would exit the board and we would instantly lose, if a card didn't appear we could all leave next turn and win. There were 6 cards to draw, each drawn slowly to ramp up the drama.

Zombie card…

Zombie card…

Zombie card…

Zombie card…

Necromancer card…

…Arghh!!


We had lost the game despite playing it very well. Fantastic game.


After a brief food break we cracked on with a third game that introduced the zombie archers. Taking 'bites' from distance really does change the landscape and adds another serious threat to think about.

Technically we lost this one too – Klom got a bit excited and charged into melee only for a 'walker extra turn' card to appear, the zombies munching him into small bits. We took a mulligan and carried on ("didn't really happen!, didn't really happen!"). Take 2 ended in a slick finish and the survivors walked away unscathed.

Awesome day of gaming – thank you to Bull and Michael (and the saintly Mrs Awdry). Good times!