Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Zombicide Campaign - Chapter 3

We managed to make it away from that previous gauntlet & found ourselves at a gated development. With 3 large building blocks. We are even finding some vehicles, though we will need Gas to get them going.

The objectives of this scenario were to collect all the objectives ( a total of 7) & then get back off the board where the survivors entered



Wanda skated over & opened the first building, we quickly found the old inhabitants.


As well an A-Bomb-ination had spawned & was making its way towards us. Luckily the party had found a bottle & a can of gasoline, so quickly prepared a molotov. We then back-tracked to clear a path so Ned could lob the zone clearing device onto it.


The group cleared the first block without a scratch & had ratcheted up quite a number of xp points. However our delay in dealing with the swarms caught up to us when we tried to move into the centre block. Ned & Amy got cut off as the Skinner Runners ran in. This caused Amy & Ned to suffer 7 wounds. (Remember for the campaign the players have 5 wounds)


Then they got stuck in & separated from the others. The Skinner Walkers then got a free move which was the death of both survivors. Two Zombivores are created.


As well the remaining 4 survivors had also taken wounds from this skinner action.


Things were looking bleak, no headway could be made, even though they mowed the zombies down. Then the death knell struck


Thus ended the campaign during the third chapter, as all Survivors were swallowed by the hordes of Zombies.


So at this point we will likely shelve the campaign for a bit, which will allow me to get more of the miniatures painted.

Some points taken.

1) A couple of the players dislike the free actions given to zombies of a type when the pool of them runs dry & their card is drawn. Personally I like this rule. It will not likely happen with the original Zombies as I have a second complete set due to the Kickstarter.

2) We had 2 players sitting over red, a couple even got to double red & were garnering all sorts of skills. For the first while until some of the move again cards came out, the players seemed untouchable. So it was good to see that even those you think may be invincible can fall.

3) As this was intended to be a long campaign, I allowed each player 5 wounds vs 2. Is this too much? Should I make it that those who get past each tier of red gain another wound for next time?

4) I started the campaign with the Berserkers, Toxic, Crows & Zombie Dogs. Should I set these to trigger entry into the campaign by the attaining of red tiers of survivors?

5) The scenarios were taking a long time to play. Our typical club night is roughly 2 hours before people start looking at the clock. Perhaps as Chen suggested, taking a photo of situations, but those could be very cumbersome to try to reset them to where they left off. If it was at my house, then it wouldn't be an issue. Something to dwell on.

I've also thought about using the objectives more to assist in finding particular items like scenario 1 needing the rice, water & other item, perhaps using different coloured objectives on the underside that drop one of the required items.

So lots of good ideas have been formulated from this run of the campaign. Thanks to those who partook & any feedback of likes/dislikes are welcome

Cheers
 

4 comments:

  1. Hey Terry, for point one, I wouldn't have them get a free move when they run out. If they run out, they simply have too many on the board at that point and they're in trouble and giving the zombies another action I think just makes it worse. If they run out it can give them a breather knowing there's no more of a certain type coming. There was so many on the board that I think when I started watching the game, it was essentially over even though you guys went for at least another 3-4 turns. When there's that many on the board the players can't feasibly kill enough of them and move around. It's bad you can't go back into a cleared building and barricade the entranceway.

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    1. Thanks for the input Scott. I hear your thoughts, but on the other side of the coin, the survivors opted to spend a turn or 2 just searching for stuff, most did have full inventory. The scenario was to grab the objectives & get out. This is where the survivors need to remember the goal. There are cards that provide walkers extra actions, etc. As to barricading, those do come as a skill down the road, or an ability provided in scenarios. At this point Zombies will pile up until one of those extra action cards pops. Another thing that may have been their downfall was a sense of invincibility on the part of survivors, feeling every zone was a cakewalk to clear, & in most cases that would be correct, its only when those extra action cards popped that wounds were received. Thanks for the input & I am sure there will be more discussion!

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  2. Oh my goodness! This it a much more intense level than we have reached yet, but looks awesome. Seeing the cars on the board has definitely given me the incentive to try something similar.

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    1. Thanks Michael, they seem to take up a bit more space than their cardboard variants, but yes they look good on the board. As I require the players to use a gas to get them running, we didn't see any driving around the board. The 1 gas card found, was quickly turned into a molotov to deal with that A-Bomb.

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