Black Plague: The Dream Team – part 5

My Zombicide: Black Plague Dream Team currently consists of Xuxa, Morgan, Cadence and James (to give them their official in-games names).

Speed can be a bonus when you need to grab an objective or get a door open in a hurry (usually trying to out-run an undead mob at the same time). In the Black Plague box, Nelly is your go-to gal with her free move action at the beginning of a game. This comes in handy but sometimes it's not fast enough.

My choice for character number 5 in my Dream Team is Theo, from the Wulfsburg expansion box. He doesn't have a free Move action. What he does have is Sprint. 

"So what does that do?" I hear you ask.

Sprint allows you to use one of your actions to move the survivor up to THREE zones! So, once Theo has levelled up initially he could move up to 6 zones if he used all his actions to move. 

Let me say that again… Theo could move 6 zones in a single turn!!

He doesn't have any other movement orientated skills like Slippery, but at orange level he gets to boost his melee or ranged ability and at red level he could take Marksman (though by that point you probably won't need it).

His body slot will take a standard sword so you could equip his hand slots with a second sword and/or ranged weapon. Not unlike James, he will never be one of your bigger hitters unless he gets into trouble, but will support the rest of the team well enough I think. He has a specific skill that will come in very handy – he's bloody fast when you need it!

So, only one character slot left to go. Who will be our final Dream Teamer?

Black Plague: The Dream Team – part 4

With my choices now made for the main Melee, Ranged and Magic slots within my Dream Team, it's time to look at the supporting characters and see what gems can be uncovered.

One of the primary goals early on in a game is to gather gear for everyone and the main way to do that is to Search. James (Sean Connery's character William of Baskerville from the 1986 film Name of the Rose) gets to take an extra card every Search action. Whilst other characters may get a free Search action, getting two gear cards instead of one means that the team will be geared up a lot quicker.

To boost this ability further, his third gear slot allows him to take a Torch. This allows him to take an additional card when he searches… wait ANOTHER card?! Yep, once he has a Torch, James can take 3 gear cards for every Search action. Wow – it's like Supermarket Sweep in a dungeon! In addition, he could also take a Transposition spell that would (in effect) give him a second search (albeit he couldn't take 3 cards for that!) – if he picked his Spellcaster skill later on, this extra 'search' would be free.

Now, the obvious flip side to all that is once your team has decent gear he becomes redundant, does he not?

Well I don't think he will be relied upon as much, once the team's gear is looking healthy. However, because he can take the Torch in his third 'body' slot, it means he still gets to carry a couple of weapons. The skills available to James means that he can go down the Magic route or Ranged and have some impact (giving him a Longbow and the +1 max Range ability would allow him to shoot zombies up to 4 zones away!).

This ultimately means he plays an essential role early on and will not be too shabby as the game progresses – he can always search for better gear!

Black Plague: The Dream Team – part 3

Now the (obvious) initial members of my Dream Team have been chosen, we're on to number three. Xena and Merlin have filled the main melee and magic combat roles respectively, time to look at ranged combat options.

This slot in the team was quite contentious as (by my reckoning) there were three good candidates. The original Black Plague box comes with Silas. He gets a bonus to his ranged dice rolls from the off and can pick up a free ranged attack later on. He's a solid choice without being outstanding.

Bull brought Genevieve to our game day and she had a great time. Starting the game with +1 ranged damage meant that she was a Fatty killer early on. She got an extra ranged dice after levelling up a couple of times and was very effective, especially once she got hold of the Orcish Crossbow.

It was only when I went trawling through the collection of Kickstarter character cards that I discovered Cadence (from the Marc Simonetti box set) and she quickly became my ranged choice for the Dream Team.

So what makes her so special?

One thing stood out here, making her a unique member of the team – Marksman. She has the ability to ignore the usual targeting priority and choose her target in a given zone… from the start of the game!

That means that when it comes to taking out Necromancers – from distance – she's the man.

Throw into the mix here that she can add a Longbow (sniper rifle) to her third body slot and add some extra arrow in her backpack and an extra range dice once at orange level and you have the assets of a true sniper – if you manage to get a second Longbow even better. Multiple ranged shots (no reloads required thanks Genevieve) up to 3 zones away and the ability to pick out a Necromancer in crowd means that losing a game thanks to 6 spawn points being on the table is much less likely. Not having to commit key characters to march in the opposite direction to the exit in order to achieve this is simply awesome.

So, wow, we're half way to completing my Zombicide: Black Plague Dream Team. Where do we go from here?