Zombicide - fully painted...

Well...
When I was crazy with this game a few months back I was so into it I thought I can finish painting them all in 3 weeks.  As it turns out, and as things in real life caught up, I had just finished them all last week, ie, almost a year... haha.
It's not the best of my work, but they are done.

Still very happy with the storage.
[Full blog entry: http://51-cent.blogspot.hk/2013/07/foam-storage.html]

And am still very happy with the transparent basing.
[full blog entry: http://51-cent.blogspot.hk/2013/08/litko-base.html]

The glass shards are actually hard plastic glued on to it.

I used to use blue dices for them, but then on they look too similar to the survivors so I just spray painted the clear bases blue.

The extra zombies that I just can't resist, they are very good indeed.  I still got a few more being painted but those don't count as the original plastic set aye? haha
[full blog entry: http://51-cent.blogspot.hk/2013/07/HassFree.html]

The team of proxy survivors, not as good as I wish them to be but good enough as gaming pieces.
[full blog entry: http://51-cent.blogspot.hk/2013/08/Zombicide-Proxy.html]

The mass of them look very imposing.

I need to make those contrast happening with these light blue runners...
[full blog entry: http://51-cent.blogspot.hk/2013/08/litko-base2.html]

S09 Might Makes Right - Zombicide game play report

This mission had always been hard for me.  I tried a couple of times and failed.  What made this scenario difficult, to name but a few:

• It's a small 2x2 tiles map, there's not much space for maneuvering
• if someone dies, the mission is a fail
• there are four objectives, three of them give you one more survivor, one of them is a blank and doesn't give you a survivor
• newly added survivor doesn't carry anything in hand, and starts at zero experience point
• you start with 3 survivors and it's a small map, kill count climbs up really fast 

So after a couple of try with one survivors and failing very fast, I tried again with three.  I picked Wanda for her speed and Josh to slip around to get the objectives.  I also picked my newly painted Claudia so the melee support as I thought the zombies would get close really fast.

A group shot before anyone got hurt

We rushed to the police car to search for weapons.  We got the 'arrgh' card and zombies popped up, it wasn't easy and the weapons drawn were not that good either.

Our luck improved as we rescued Dakota in the first house.  Much thanks to Josh's slippery skill.  The survivor rescued is random, I throw two dices and just count in the tray to see who got picked.  As it turns out she was very helpful.

In the bathroom stood Dakota,  she slipped into her evening wear and signaled her readiness

Moving to the second house took a lot longer than I thought, the path was packed with zombies and they advance from both sides too.  I got lucky that I didn't get the Abomination card and only one or two runner pops up

Getting crowded

Seems like there is a discussion between the dead

Yes in this world, there are kid zombies too

The second objective is again not the blank and Ivy turns up.  She proves to be a good supporting ranged attack with her sniper skill.  Too bad I can't give her the rifle and she missed a lot of shots during the game.

I was lucky again with the second last objective marker, Kim turns up or else she would have to escape from the north east house, which is the spot furthest away from the exit point.  At zero experience and no weapon that would be very difficult.

Greeting Claudia in the small room is Kim

But for Josh getting in there and getting out is just a walk in the park for him.  After he got the objective market in the North West house (Ivy) he just slipped pass the crowd in the main street, got into the house and arrived in the room with the marker.  His escape was equally easy.

Josh just slipped past the crowd and walked right to the objective

Near the end Dakota did a lot of killing by pulling in the crowded with her Taunt skill and 6 dices killing with her pair of sub-machine guns. 

And so we won, for the first time since I got the game I passed this mission.  

MVP of this mission:  Dakota

That was a recent second attempt at the same mission.  I had an earlier attempt but failed because I got the mission objective wrong.  but if you are interested, here's a serious of short clips of how the game went.  Enjoy.

Zombicide, strategising - C8 Belly of the Beast

After playing for a few months now, and now that I got a lot more survivors to choose from, I think it is important to have a strategy even before the start of the game.  With more survivors to choose from I can pick exactly who would be best to execute the strategy.

C8 Belly of the best is something different.  instead of just killing any zombies  and stay alive, this scenario requires trapping the Abomination.

[Photo pending]

Good thing is I don't have to avoid hurting it, as the scenario requires removal of the cocktail, bottle and gas from the pile. (so no fun for you Dave)

Objectives:
Find the bunker key. pick up the objectives  until I  find the green objective, ie 1 in five chance
Lure the Abomination into the bunker.
Lock down the bunker with the Abomination inside 'using' the green Objective.
Flee! Reach the Exit

Not much to ask really, haha.

my pick of survivors for this mission

This is the 'utility' unit, Adriana to lure or manage the zombies, Josh to dive and slip among the zombies for the objectives, then Wanda to zoom around the map to pop open doors.

Loud was favored over Taunt because the area of effect actually cover the entire may, the problem is of course the zombie movement is resolved AFTER her turn.  So with Taunt I can actually 'pull' a crowd of zombies into range while Loud takes effect after everyone are done.

The hit team.  Rick was chosen for 'cover fire' while the utility unit can do their thing, Claudia will handle melee  while Eva handle long range attack.  Last time I used Eva under a false understanding of the skill, so this time I won't make the same mistake.

This is the map.  Right at the start the Abomination will pop up on any of the spawn spots, so I can't anticipate and plan for that  now.  The key (green objective) is one of the red objectives, so I can't really plan for that either.

what I can plan, is which door to pop open so I can secure the escape route first, ie the south east house.  I will pop the right door open first, because that is the furthest from all the four other spawn spots, thus allowing more time clear out the South East house (SE house).

We can imagine that the exit spot is a stairway and they can reach the roof for a helicopter rescue.

While we are clearing the SE house,  Wanda will be popping open the other doors.  We will split the team a bit to provide cover fire... depending on the luck with the spawning.  Then of course, I can  get lucky and the first red objective is the key.

After diving into the East and North East building, and in case we still can't find the key, we will start popping the other ones... the team icon is where the main team will be to watch the utility unit's back.

Looking at the map now, I think if worse come to worse and the key is at the South West corner, it will be a deep dive for Josh and he needs to pop himself out through the lower door.

There's no point to lure the Abomination into the house unless I got the key first.

in any case, the plan to lure will be like this. Adriana needs to leave after the Abomination into the house, leave, then someone outside would need to lock the door.

The team could get to the exit zone within one turn, but someone needs to stay with Adriana.  She needs at 6~7 moves before she could get out.  Too bad her life saver skill is not on someone else's dashboard.

So we will see how those go down.  one thing about Zombicide is that there is a lot of luck involved: dice roll on killing zombies, drawing card for equipment and spawning card dealing.  Now with this scenario it is even more random with random spawn and map key... We shall see how it goes :)

Zombicide game play session - C02 Under Siege

The scenario require us to clean off all zombies, survive through all the spawn cards and kill off all the zombies that pops up.  By going through the deck it means no need to shuffle when the last card is drawn.  I cut the deck into smaller piles and it comes down to 7 piles,

That means 7 rounds

These are the plans I made for this game.

First we consider where we should station at, what are the areas that we can hit, and how does the zombies get close to us.  the red arrow means the full force, the pink arrows means half the force.

The yellow blast icon means the rooms that we can hit if we split our team into two

Then we also consider the Line of sight because of the skills like Taunt and the Rifle,  having good line of sight can keep them at bay or easier to manage the crowd.

In case they break our defense we will have to go melee, the following shows what are the forces that we would face.  All in all we think it's best to station in the starting point, and the room upper right to the starting point.

Game board ready and game start!
We take a group shot before anyone got hurt.  I think it would be amazing if i can swap their weapons to show what they are carrying, but nah... got better stuff to do.

Introducing Kim's proxy - Colette by wyrd miniatures. 

(For more, see http://51-cent.blogspot.in/2013/07/ZMD-proxy02.html)

Slightly off my plan but for the fun of it, i set the team into a flat line instead of two groups.

Survival tip: watch each other's back

As it turns out, since i got a lot of guns from S02, they are killing very fast and no zombie even got close for melee attacks.  Eva (proxy) is cleaning up the map very fast even with just a rifle and of course,  plenty of ammo.  So even when it was getting very crowded as we progress they got cleanned off within the round.

This is a frightening moment when so many runner came around... but the fear is gone when they got finished off very quickly

Amazingly ranged weapons kept them at bay, 5 rounds of spawning at orange level and still the house is not so crowded.If i were to change or increase the difficulty i'd probably add a few doors or objectives so the survivors got forced to spread out a bit...
two more stacks to go!

The Abomination  finally appeared second last stack, but it isn't exciting or frightening at all as i still have two cocktails on hand.

That's how powerful she is, from one turn of shooting that's how many kills ahe scores.  The +1 die roll and plenty of ammo also ensure a hit , but that push the game to red level, my first time in a long while now, when the game is at red level it get very messy.
(note: i got the skill wrong, it was +1 to die roll result, not +1 die :p)

The last spawn... Four fatty spawn: it calls for 12 zombies to appear on the board at the same time. Didn't run out of zombies as we kill them off so fast, they didn't hang arond the baord long enough.  With two cocktails in hand, amy grab one off Phil and thrown it at the fatties gathered near the doorway.  And yes, all one in one huge fire.

The bright side of zombies, that zombie in bunny suit there is one of my favorite,  she is actually almost good enough to be painted as a survivor,  but her face lack the expression as a survivor. Now she remains as a sexy zombie 

And... we are done. To be honest because we are so well equipped it was a bit boring,  there was no close call, no one got hurt.

Other links of interest:
The scenerio before this one
http://51-cent.blogspot.in/2013/07/ReportS02.html

Small town scenerio
http://51-cent.blogspot.in/2013/07/S10Report.html

Zombicide game play session - S02 YZone

Zombicide is actually a tactic heavy game, with a lot of turn and items management required to keep everyone alive.  This time I am playing two scenario one after another, so it calls for a lot of planning and tactical thinking to make sure that the survivors got enough gear to survive the second stage, keeping the kill count low and everyone alive.

This was how the first round turns out.

About S02
"The living are losing ground. The pockets of resistance fall one after another, and our CB radio,
once bustling with messages, is now silent. We must leave. The zombies are growing in numbers, and our supplies are getting scarce." 
Objective
• Reach the Exit Zone shown on the map with all Survivors.

simply put: leave town. the simple objective actually wasted a lot of the map.  If I don't have to use the same set of survivors in stage 2, I won't really need to search for so many weapons, simply

Snack and soft drinks ready :)

About choices of survivors

Picked Kim for her lucky skill and webbing, so down to stage 2 of the game she can do both ranged and melee

Zombie management, good for getting zombies closer for killing, or to take the crowd away from other survivors.  +1 die roll could be helpful too.  

Action girl, must have.  good for getting around and at Orange zone she can score a lot of hits

Ranged attack specialist, depends more on luck though

basically a surprise attack element, also very important for popping doors alone as he can slip through dangers, vital for S02 with all those doors.  hope he can still contribute in stage 2

Cover fire for melee attackers, loving the steady hand skill

Notice I had not picked any of the 'start with xxx' or free search survivors: this is a long game and those skills are more suited for short quick game or where you don't get a lot of chance of room searching.

Before the proxy are ready these are the tie over: I placed the picture of the original survivors on the card. The e draw back is that the design of the miniature got hints of their skills so without that, i think i forgot about applying skill like "lucky" times.

Tactics
First phase is to clear the house right next to entry point (House 1) and to get as much equipment as possible.

Phase two is to burst into the house next to House 1 (House 2).  House 2, I think, would be harder to defend than House 1.  If I go into House 1, so long as I don't open the doors on the long side of the building the zombies will be stopped and need to detour over the east door.  This give me more time for searching.

The dot represents rare guards.  So the survivors would first gather at this location first, and let some of them go into house 2 and guard their back while they clear house 2

First we bust out of House 1

then we kill our way through House 2

Once House 2 was cleared everyone would either stay at the south doorway inside or outside of House 2 and make a dead run for the exit. I figured that by this time they would have all made it to blue level and can do four actions in a turn.

then we make a dead run for the exit~

So let's take a group shot before anyone got hurt.

We pop open the side door of house 1, the spawn isn't too bad.  but between the six of us there is only one pistol... one axe and one crowbar, so it got swapped around A LOT.

Finally after a lot of passing around weapons we clearned the house, and by round 6 we are a lot better equipped.  I ran by the rule of only allow one search per room per round so it took a longer while to be well equipped.

Moving out of house 1
The most dramatic moment is how we took care of the abomination.  At her last move Eva picked up a Molotov cocktail from the ground.  Ned saw that, he grabs sit off her and in smooth action thrown it at the abomination and fatty right outside the door.  The bottle hit the skull of the monster and flame erupted, the abomination and the rest of the zombies.

Getting into house 2 was easy, it is right across the street.  Once the door was popped open a few of us rushed in to clear the room.

"Hello ladies "  Josh tear down the door and greeted the lady zombies inside, against the background noise of his roaring chain saw...

With a rifle in hand, eva is a long range killing machine. She stood guard at the entrance of House 2 keep approaching zombies at bay.

In Zombicide, being cocky could get u killed... With her last move in the round Amy step out and shot at the Runner: she missed and ended her turn with the runner in the zone right in front of her. As Runner can make two moves per turn, he ran up the Amy and struck her.  As bad luck goes the extra activation card was drawn, the runner struck again and three more runners joined in the feasting furry...
It all happened while the rest of the survivor team staring at the door way of house 2

Killing the band of runners was easy for the team.  After that Ned was first to arrived, followed by
the rest of the team.  Eva and Phil got the highest kill count, with Eva at 17 and Phil at 16, followed by Ned at 13

Next stage: C2 Under siege
http://51-cent.blogspot.in/2013/07/ReportC02.html