Zombicide Army of the Dead
In one of the casinos in Las Vegas, 200 million dollars are hidden. To get it, we have to assemble a team of exceptional heroes, reconcile with our daughter and fight our way through a horde of zombies. Most of us probably won’t survive that. However, to find out who won the grand prize you’ll have to play Army of the Dead or watch the film on Netlifx.
Treat yourself to a little Zombie and Chill
Is your daughter still playing it?
Army of the Dead is the next instalment of Zombicide. It turns out that CMON’s coupons haven’t run out yet and they don’t mind releasing the same game only with a different theme. In short, we’re still fighting a horde of undead, acquiring loot, multiplying hundreds of plastic figurines, all to complete a series of missions. Still our heroes will start with 3 actions and we still level up by killing zombies. This is the typical familiar and much-loved formula of the games in the series. Although this time we are thrown into the SnyderVerse. We get slow motion, a sudden acceleration of the action and an epic transfer of the film world to the board.
Why it’s worth watching ie playing this new Zombicide:
12 mercenaries, but a different split
Character classes return in full class. We have tough guys, agile shadows and the pilots, mechanics and cashiers needed to complete missions. In addition, each character has a special skill and the ability to choose from two sets of equipment. This is quite a nice addition. Because it changes the gameplay of some characters.
Unfortunately you again have to play 6 survivors at once. Although it is not that inconvenient. Because some of the mercenaries don’t have to survive the whole adventure. As in most films we can guess who is about to bite the dust. Usually it’s the smiling wife, who is shown in a charming scene under sheets. In Army of the Dead, a person can die who is irrelevant to the mission. What’s great is that the developers of the game followed the formula of the film. Because there, everyone was falling left and right. We could even do a Guzman goodbye. Touching, but epic.
More personal missions
The available missions are interesting and very varied. A real effort has been made to make sure we don’t have a feeling of Deja Vu. Sometimes we have to steer our tofu food truck, sometimes we have to escort someone, and the most interesting is doing Oceans Eleven. Because we have to go through traps and try to get to the safe, in a dice-chilling mini-game. It turns out it’s not as easy as it sounds. We also have to complete some missions within a certain time limit. Which will definitely increase our adrenaline levels.
Additionally, in order to succeed we have to complete 2 personal character objectives. They will be different each time because we draw them from a pool of 6 heroes participating in the scenario. This is a very nice variety. Although sometimes these additional objectives can make things quite difficult for us. Especially when you have to kill Zeus, who is at the other end of the map.
Zombie diet
As soon as we enter the city, we can see that some of the zombies have faded away a bit. Because we won’t be meeting any more fatties on our way. They decided to merge runners with fatties and that’s how the Alphas were created. Stronger individuals that have two actions and require 2 damage to leave the tiles. Unfortunately, this reduced the variety of basic opponents. Therefore, as compensation, we got 3 different abominations. Zeus, the Queen and a cute zombie tiger. Zeus the main bad boy is even available in three variants. Each a little more annoying. He also got his spawning point, which introduces special actions for zombies that appear there. Usually it’s extra activation and you have to be very careful about it.
One of the more interesting new features is the addition of sleeper tokens. These are zombies in a state of hibernation. If we make a noise or start searching the area then the undead wake up from their sleep. We flip the token and look at how many new shamblers we need to add to the board. Although, just like in the movie, we can squeeze through them unhindered. The only thing we can’t do is throw a one on the dice when sneaking through. We even have the option to eliminate these tokens by spending our 2 actions. This is generally worth doing. Because when other zombies enter the zone with the sleepers then they wake up.
Concentration of forces
We will use knives, rifles, grenades, chainsaws and even rocket launchers to eliminate zombies. Most characters also have their own special weapons that provide additional abilities. As for the ranged weapons, we have to be careful not to run out of ammunition. Because with most of the ranged weapons we have to roll extra dice when attacking. When the ugly crossed-out bullet symbol pops up, all we have to do is change weapons or quickly find a magazine.
Although we can always use explosives, which are good for any ocasion. Not just for the 4th of July. They are especially useful for eliminating bosses. To get rid of the better stubborn ones, we can also use a concentrated attack, which increases our damage. However, we can then only attack one target at a time. This is a good alternative for the bigger fish.
What bothers me about this new Snydercide
Oh CMON and their inserts. This time we didn’t get a picture of how to position the figures in the inserts. Although it’s fortunate that we can do it fairly unevenly or benefit from looking at the bottom of the figures and arranging them according to the numbers. As usual, we have to keep some of the tokens under the insert to close the box. Unfortunately my hero boards got that not-so-pleasant-looking damage on their fronts. I wonder if it was just my copy or if they got hit by a grenade.
For solo play it would be useful to have activation tokens as we activated our characters. Such a small nuisance, but it would definitely be better with this.
Summary
I was curious if Army of the Dead was a typical coupon-cutting and if we would get the same Zombicide only with a different skin. Fortunately, the developers decided to collect all the best mechanics from the previous instalments and throw them into this SnyderVerse.
We get interesting scenarios varied with changing personal objectives. Survivors can equip themselves with different sets of equipment and there’s nothing stopping us from running around with a katana and a T.N.T.. On top of this we still have concentrated fire, stressful time pressure and a mini-game to open the safe. It’s a bit of a shame that the variety of enemies has been limited, but I do like those bosses and the fact that Zeus has his own spawning zone with special rules. Best of all are the sleeper tokens, which are a great representation of the movie scenes.
Final verdict: Same good Zombicide, but with the best mechanics
Pros
- Great transfer of the film to the board
- The best Zombicide mechanics
- Varied missions with personal objectives
- Sleepers and Zeus
- Tons of guns
- 12 different characters
- Taco explosions and chases
Cons
- Low variety of basic zombies
- No activation tokens for heroes
[Game provided by Portal Games Polska]
