This was a game that didn't go very well for me. But considering that my primary weapon at the start of the game was a frying pan and I still managed to kill numerous zombies and carry out various acts of extreme heroism, I'd say I did pretty well up until my final turn. Indeed, I think the intricate mechanics of the game were so clever and finely-tuned that they actually rendered the plastic zombie figures capable of rational thought to such a degree that they conspired together and planned to eliminate the player that they saw as the most dangerous threat to their survival. I'm not one to blow my own trumpet (which makes me wonder why I ever even bought a trumpet) but obviously, given my experience and natural aptitude for slaying zombies, this was always going to be me...
Zombicide is a co-operative game for up to 6 players. Each player takes control of an individual character, complete with a personal inventory and special abilities, and spends a set number of action and/ or movement turns each round navigating their way around a zombie-infested landscape. You pick up weapons and additional equipment and power-ups as you explore, and gain experience points with every zombie you kill. Exceeding certain XP thresholds can enhance your character in terms of what he or she is able to do, but it also makes the game harder by increasing the number and ferocity of the zombies that get added to the board at the end of each round.
The game is played via scenarios which can be constructed according to the rule book using some of the many different boards, tiles and tokens that come with the base set. Each scenario is set out in a different way and has specific objectives which must be met in order to win the game. The scenario we played involved two large buildings which we had to break into and fight our way through in order to destroy the two zombie sources, but there were several to choose from depending on number of players and time available to complete our mission (in our case, not much).
As a group, our first failure was a flaw in our strategy as much as anything else. Clearing out the first building was surprisingly easy since all four of us stormed it at once and didn't let ourselves worry too much about what was happening in the other building as it continued to fill with zombies. Walkers, runners, fattys (the three different types of zombie); they were all there but we didn't care as they couldn't get out and we had vague plans to throw a Molotov cocktail into the room. Surely this would kill them all with ease, but the absence of a pivotal component in this plan - the Molotov cocktail - thwarted us somewhat. Whilst we could have spent the rest of the game searching the same room repeatedly for petrol (and increasing our supply of water and flashlights as we did so), it seemed like a rather dull way of seeing out the game. Especially for David who was already dead.
Since I'd managed to find two shotguns and a fire axe on my journey thus far, I made my way over to the door of the second building and attempted to hack it open. My first attempt failed but I still had enough actions to try again and was successful the next time I tried. The opening of the door triggered a dramatic increase in the number of zombies inside the building, but all being well, I still had enough actions to move away from the door and dual-wield my shotguns again, ready to roll 16 dice (4 rolls of 4 dice) with my next turn before backing off if necessary and attacking the horde a second time if Lex and Richard weren't quite manly enough to finish off whatever I left behind. This was MY plan. However, all wasn't well...
The random drawing of a "Zombies get an extra turn" card while David was still re-populating the second building following my breaking down of the door meant that a room full of zombies spilt out of the building and onto the street a turn earlier than they should have done. I was standing there waiting for them, but couldn't move away (my spare movement couldn't be used as I was now sharing a space with about 15 zombies and wasn't "slippery") and didn't have enough action points left to do anything useful. Faced with little option other than to stand and fight, I bravely killed two of the zombies but the rest were undeterred by this and swarmed over me at the end of the round. Because I'd been injured earlier in the game (most likely saving Lex or Richard from certain death and being very heroic and modest about it in the process), I didn't survive. And despite being nearly drowned by several gallons of water and then having bright lights shone on them, the zombies somehow survived Lex's vicious onslaught and then killed him too, as he'd been wounded earlier in the game by a zombie who objected to his incessant searching and popped up out of a pile of rags to surprise him.

It's very easy to point fingers and play the "blame game"... so let's do that. Firstly I blame David for being dead in the first place and letting the team down. I'd also like to blame Richard for being hopeless with his pistols and rarely hitting anything despite getting to role two dice with every attack right from the start of the game. Mostly though, I'd like to blame Lex because it's always most fun blaming him and he always seems to take it personally. I'd also like to mention though, because I haven't mentioned it enough already, just how brilliant I was on my second (or third) turn of the game when I bravely dashed into a building to rescue a helpless David and Lex by smashing a zombie in the face with a frying pan. A frying pan. What are the odds of having three chances to roll a six with one dice, and managing it on your third attempt? That's right, about infinity billion to one! But I still managed it. How either of them could continue with the game after such a humiliating rescue is beyond me, but on the other side of the building, Richard was bravely backing himself into a corner whilst firing his nerf guns at a small horde of zombies. Unable to kill the fatty, I immediately dashed to his aid and thwacked it with a fire axe in another act of ill-advised but ultimately successful heroism the likes of which couldn't be replicated by any of my fellow players.
But despite our somewhat disastrous attempt to save the world on this occasion, there was a lot that I really enjoyed about Zombicide. I like co-operative games that have a strong theme anyway, but there's nothing quite like spending a lunchtime immersed in a world of post-apocalyptic terror with a group of like-minded colleagues. Ignoring the moments of hilarious misfortune and ineptitude, it was quite atmospheric and there was genuine tension at points as we discussed how best to deal with the next emerging crisis. The complexity of the rules got a little difficult to follow at some points, and we had to house-rule a couple of situations where it wasn't clear what the official ruling would be. This slowed us down a little at times, as did the moving and "topping-up" the zombies in play at the end of each round, but this never felt superfluous or unnecessary and as such our decent into oblivion was surprisingly well-paced.
Hopefully we'll get round to playing the Grindhouse scenario again sometime, and hopefully we'll be a bit more successful at it next time! But with so many more scenarios to try out I know this is a game that we're going to be playing again soon (if David lets us), and I'm already looking forward to it...
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