Zombicide!

Followers of this blog may recall that I always treat myself to a boardgame at the turn of the New Year, and 2014 is no different. Normally I take a bit of time and think about what I want and what is available, but this time it was a no-brainer (pun intended)! The obvious candidate was Zombicide! 

There are three reasons for this being top of the list for buying. The first is that it's pretty hot at the moment and there are a bunch of folk playing it quite regularly at the club. The second is that it is co-operative, which means it can be played solo.The third, and the master stroke, is that it supplies me pretty much everything I would need to get started with ATZ - some survivors, some terrain boards and a big pile of zombies! And if the game is as good as it's purported to be, then that's a big bonus! So, let's look at what it's like!

Components

The components are pretty much what you'd expect from a modern boardgame of this type. The counters are all made from nice thick cardstock. The boards are very nicely detailed and the images are clear and crisp. The miniatures are absolutely lovely for plastic and should paint up nicely. The cards are of a high quality; equal to anything from Fantasy Flight. My only complaint so far is that the boards started to warp almost immediately upon laying them out for the tutorial. I'm sure this is something that can be overcome, but it's still not ideal.

The box opens! The packaging is excellent, as everything will pretty much pack away as it was taken out. The inner boxes contain the miniatures. 

The smaller one contains the six survivors and the Abomination.

This is but one tray of zombies. The game comes with two of these. There are 40 walkers, 16 runners and 8 fatties.

One of the character cards, with a starting item laid on it. Yes, frying pans can brain a zombie!

Gameplay

Now we've seen the bits in the box, what is it like to play? To test it out I set out the tutorial mission and played it through. From a first read of the rules, it seems pretty simple to get to grips with. The zombies activation phase is straightforward with only a tiny bit of complexity around splitting groups up over multiple paths to the survivors. The survivors themselves actually have a wide range of things they can do in a particular turn, but nothing terribly complicated, such as attacking, searching, moving, driving, etc. Where the real nuances come in are in character activation order. As more and more zombies crawl out of the woodwork this becomes more and more important. And they will come crawling out the woodwork! There are spawn cards that see them coming out of the sewers and search cards which uncover walkers, rather than gear! And the more you kill, the more appear as the danger level (seen at the top of the character card) advances. All in all, Zombicide is a rather good fun! It's not super deep in complexity, but there is plenty of strategy and decision making to be done, which usually makes for a good game.

The tutorial board is nice and small. Not too many zeds, either!

Who's that grunting behind that door? Braaaains!

When you open the first door to a building area you spawn zombies in all the rooms...

...and then have to deal with them as they spill out on you...

...and take a bite!

I enjoyed the play through, but the tutorial was quite simple and easy, really. So I simply had to try out a slightly larger scenario. I picked one with a small board, but it was noted as being hard in rulebook. I duly got all my characters consumed by an angry horde of zombies!

Errrrr...Phil.....they're behind you!

Conclusion

This was a good purchase. I have a ton of zombies, the boards are useful (as long as the warping can be sorted) and the game is good fun! It was pretty good playing solo, but I think that this one will really excel in a multiplayer game. Colour me happy! :)