More zombicide - Or how we all got eaten

Session two of Zombicide with my very special and significant other. 

So far, we have had a lot of fun. but each session has had the same pattern.

We set up, play for 4 or 5 turns, stuff up and get murdered. 

We then reset the mission and try again, and do a hell of a lot better. 

This time, after 2 and a bit hours, we got murdered quite close to the finish line

So.... this is how it all ended for us tonight. 

The game has a rule, that if you cannot place a certain type of zombie because you have run out of models, then all the zombies of that type on the board activate.

The six runners moved forward, and ate all 4 of our heroes gathered there. 

And when i said close to the finish line, I actually meant on the other side of the map, but with all of the supplies we needed. We still had a long dangerous trek to the exit in the top left of the map. (You may notice one of our survivors on the other side of the map)

But we were badasses, experienced survivors are amazing compared to when you start the game. 

Wanda the waitress could move 8 squares a turn through any number of zombies. 
Amy the goth chick was murdering anything that moved with her shotgun
Ned was a machine with his chainsaw. 
Doug the business man sniped dead 7 zombies in one round, 
and the other lot weren't bad either. 

But still, even with all the baddassatude, it wasn't enough. And zombie ate our brains :(

Still, the story that played out was fun and i enjoyed the game a lot. Great times, very good for 2 players. Curious to see how it works with more

Oh, here you can see Wanda. She opened up a door to a house full of zombies and skated away. Ultimately, my "cleverness" with using Wanda to move the zombies around meant more spawned. Which ultimately ended in us all being eaten :(

And in bonus news, i have been given approval to buy expansions from the household budget instead of my own pocket money. HUZZAH!

Ol'Rowdy - Fun with flags and gore

I'm pretty darned stoked with how this bad boy has turned out.

I tried some new techniques and some new paints. Damn he looks boss!

First of all, as a character jack I wanted to paint him a little different from my other Cyganr Jacks that are 90% blue. I decided to do him in the same scheme as Thorn and my Warcasters. that is, mostly gold with blue as the 2nd colour. 

Makes them stand out, while still being very Cygnar. 

I also wanted to try out some of the new citadel technical paints. If you haven't seen these yet, go check them out. GW has a bunch of you tube videos about what the paints do and how to use then, they are a little "play school" (Or Sesame street/Blue peter) but they are still quite good short demos of the capability. 

The "blood for the blood god" paint is pretty cool, nice and gloopy and really blood red. I went to town on Rowdy to make him look a bit like a feral monster that has just caved in a warbeasts skull. 

I painted up, in the direction the blood from a blow would be coming. I also flicked blood onto rowdys face and arms. I love how it has dried over the blue sections of the armour. Most pleasing. 

I also used some of the "typhus corrosion" to get a dirty effect on his hands and lower body. 

The other little innovation was to make a banner for Rowdys off-hand. Having his hand just hanging out like that looked a bit dull to me, so viola! Banner!

I'm getting more confident with freehand and would really like to try a proper "art" banner at some point in the near future. For what model, I have no idea, but i'd like to do something nice. 

Coming up on the painting desk, Aiyanna and Holt, as well as Gorman, tempest blazers and Kraye (i need these guys base painted in a week for a tourney! PANIC!!!!)

Zombiecide - Initial thoughts

Setup ready to go

So.... I impulse purchased Zombiecide this week even though I had not read a single review of it. 

This is weird for me, but I liked the look of the game and the overall BGG ranking for it was quite high. 

It ticks a lot of boxes that will ensure it gets plenty of play with my partner and my gaming friends. 

First of all, the theme is readily accessible. It's a zombie themed game with all the cliches that entails. 

Now i'm a big "old school" horror fan and I really like Romero's Zombie flicks (mostly Dawn and Day of the Dead). As a genre, i think its pretty bloody over exposed at the moment with bundles of movies, games, TV series, and what not. 

Ok, everyone, go into this room. 

Even though it's been done to death and frankly, there ain't many more stories to tell about the shambling dead, it makes for a good boardgame theme. 

I'd seen other zombie boardgames, and played a few, but honestly I thought "Zombies!" and "Mall of Horror" were pretty ordinary. 

What set this game apart for me was that is pure co-operative. This is good as many of my gaming friends prefer the co=-op gameplay experience over the "i kick you in the nuts and take poland" experience that competitive games have. 

The miniatures are also top notch, and i am tempted to give this game the full treatment at some point in the FAR FAR future. 

We kill everyone, except the "fatty who proceeds
to nom on Wendy the waitress. 

The components in general are pretty good quality. Nice sturdy card, the art is pretty good. The cards are the FFG mini size, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest (I play Arkham after all). 

GAMEPLAY

It's very simple, which is another selling point, as who the frack wants to play a complicated zombie slaying game?

Nope, people want to gun down wave after wave of critters while panicking about being overrun at any time. 

The game does this well and the pressure is unrelenting. 

First of all, each character has three possible actions they can do each turn. These include movement, attacking, searching, opening doors (if you have a crowbar or fireaxe) or trading. 

You can do all of these more than once each turn (except searching).

Combat is based off the weapons you are holding, and your party starts with one pistol, 1 crowbar, 1 axe, and 3 frying pans.......  Yeah, fighting the zombie hordes with a frying pan is not going to go well, so searching for better gear is a high priority. 

Building one clear, we are about 1/5th of the way home.

Each zombie your character kills grants them 1 experience point, and as characters level they get more options and unique funky skills. 

HOWEVER

And this is pretty freaking brilliant in my opinion, the zombie spawn rate increase based on the experience level of the highest player character. 

So if Wanda the Waitress is the only character killing zombies then things will get out of hand for the less experienced characters real quick. 

It encourages you to share out damage, to swap weapons around, and to not min-max one character into the perfect zombie killing machine. 

 BALLS! Zombie rush, many deaths, so sad. 

Zombies are dumb, thankfully. The move towards survivors they can see, or failing that, towards the most noise. 

Each survivor makes one noise by default, but slamming doors, shooting guns, and/or just stomping around yelling, will generate noise. 

While we failed to take advantage of this factor is our test game, it opens up some possibilities for zombie herding. I think this will be a real key to actually winning the game long term. 

SO MANY GOOD DAM ZOMBIES

We quickly learned that you just can't stay and fight the zombie hordes, once one character went up a level the spawn rate "exploded" and we were getting 2-4 zombies at each of the 4 spawn points around. 

What really killed us though was a badly timed "zombie rush" which made all the walkers activate twice in one round. We had done well to keep them at arms length, for a while, but the double rush meant 5 zombies in one square murdered 2 of our people (including wanda with her chainsaw).

The game is horribly brutal, merciless, and apparently quite difficult. I can already see it having some good replay value. 

Last man standing, NOM NOM NOM 

My partner enjoyed the game a lot, and is keen to play again. I'm also interested to see how my other gaming groups deal with it as well.

Stormguard COMPLETE!

Wow, I actually finished a unit!

This is epic, the first new models off the painting table in nearly 12 months. 

Painting for me, has always been a "feel" thing. Either I want to do it, and then i do it a lot, or i just hate the damn thing. 

The Stormguard are done in my "Storm Knight" scheme which is really really simple. 

The dark blue is heavily glazed and only lightly shaded and highlighted. The real character on the models comes from the lightning marks, which are lightning blue and white wiggly lines. 

I'm looking forward to getting these guys on the table as they are one of the few "reach" options Cygnar has, and with lightning arc on the polearms, they can murder light infantry with great rapidity. 

PS. Trying out a new lightbox!

COMING SOON!

So......................

I have the following to paint, in no particular order. 

• Ol'Rowdy
• Thunderhead
• Charger, Hunter, Minuteman (all 2nd copies for my force)
• A Centurion/Avenger/Hammersmith magnetised combi kit
• Aiyanna and Holt
• Ragman
• Eiryss (elite)
• Gorman
• Lord Runewood
• Sword knights (2nd unit of 6)
• Stormblade Commander
• Kara Sloan
• Stryker 2
• Kraye
• Stormlances
• Gunmage cavalry 
• Taryn 
• Katherine Laddermore

Holy crap..... that'll keep me busy for a long long time.