If The Zombies Don't Get You The Dragons Will

Last night's gaming session had a group of four, which is twice as big as last week. A 100% increase in attendance is pretty good I'd say. Before firing up our Warlord game, we decided to try out a print-and-play game I happened upon last week called Zombie Plague. The game has been around for over 10 years, and recently a member over on Board Game Geek posted up a very nicely done 10th Anniversary Edition. Since I like horror games (and who doesn't love zombies?) I thought I'd print things up and give it a go.

Since the game is electronically distributed for free, we needed some dice and pieces. I just happened to have a copy of Zombies!!! which suited us perfectly. There are three ways to win the game:

1. All of the search locations on the board must be searched by at least one player.
2. The house's windows and doors are all barricaded and the house is zombie free.
3. Someone finds the keys to the car, and all the (surviving) players get in the car.

Very early on in the game the survivors learned that the car was out of gas. One of them headed out to the garage to look for something useful while the others set about barricading the doors and windows of the house. As he made a quick escape to the side door of house he unfortunately drew the attention of several zombies, who slowly turned to follow.

Sheer weight of numbers started to pile up on several of the barricades and the three survivors had to make a fight of it in a very crowded living room. Jason's frying pan was heavy and difficult to aim, making it a poor choice of weapon for dispatching the undead. Seb's hatchet was sharp, but the short handle proved it difficult to land a killing blow. And William's teddy bear was simply helping him stay sane amidst the chaos.

Deciding that they simply couldn't secure the house, and seeing that they were drawing an ever-growing crowd the survivors decided to split up. After some tense outdoor moments and a few bites that proved harmless they were finally able to search everywhere of interest and make their escape alive, but just barely!

I think Zombie Plague is well designed, fun and tense. The more survivor players you have playing, the more zombies they'll attract. There are tons of mini-expansions available, as well as four maps (all nicely designed by BGG-member kwanchai) to play on. I intend to find a suitable box for it and add it to my collection. I'm sure it will get played again.

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So where do the dragons come in you say? Well, the scheduled event was actually to play a few games of Warlord: Saga of the Storm. Jason had put together a Dragon Lord deck using Altus Darkheart, and wanted to test it out, so the rest of us formed up our armies and made ready for battle. Let's just say it was brief, bloody and extremely painful. By the end of the first turn there were three level 8 dragons on the field, in addition to the Dragon Lord. We basically scooped up our cards and conceded...none of our armies had characters that could contend with 23 and 25 defence characters. Especially not when they had 4 or 5 hit points each.