Zombies!!!

Quite some time ago, I bought this game, Zombies!!! – yep, that’s three exclamation marks. To say it with Terry Pratchett, “Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!”

Considering we’re talking about zombies, that makes sense, too. Particularly if the game has the slogan, “This one’s a no-brainer!”

If you wonder what this post is about and why it isn’t a review – I wrote a little ruleset that allows you to play the game with all its expansions, all at once, and with some improvements. I present to you…

Totally Zombies!!! v1.3

Zombie!!! Dogs

Anyway, back to the game. It is, as I guess you can tell, about zombies. Many zombies, in particular. And I’m not talking about dozens, but hundreds. And it doesn’t just have regular zombies, but also government enhanced zombies (with minis that glow in the dark), zombie dogs, and zombie clowns.

So we established that the game is awesome now.

Dark Humour

The game isn’t for everyone, however. It is mostly based on luck, as such quite the opposite of Starcraft (where not even combat is rolled with dice) and still quite far away from Twilight Imperium, on a strategy-to-luck scale, and closer to Munchkin and the likes. It’s really important to draw good event cards, and to roll well for combat – although drawing good event cards allows you to slack when rolling. It also has quite simple rules, of the “can be explained in under five minutes” kind, where unexplained stuff at the start can easily fit in later. Finally, the art (particularly on the event cards) is pretty graphic, involving intestines and the likes.

Hundreds of Zombies

Even for people who like it (like me, obviously, I can’t resist hundreds of zombies), it has some frustrating things. Like too slow movement at times, death setting people back too much in the long run yet not being punishing enough in the short run. Or the expansion bits not being tempting enough, and, when multiple expansions are used, rather unbalanced (some too tough, some too easy). And the end game rewards the player who had the least action until then, too.

So I went and looked far and wide, and found plenty of tweaks and house rules that make the thing better. What I didn’t find though was one rule set that allowed to play all expansions together, using those tweaks and then some more to glue the whole thing into one game. So I went and wrote one.

This extended rules set is what I call Totally Zombies!!!, and its version 1.3 is available for download right here. Or on Board Game Geek, too.

Please comment if you like the rules, or if you’d change something else as well

If however you’re interested in Twilight Imperium, this little 2:19 movie that shows an entire game of it might be of interest for you (music probably not everybody’s favourite, I love this track though). I did play all three races, and consequently made many mistakes, bear with me

The whole thing took about 250 photographs (and three camera battery reloads) to make, they’re shown at a rate of roughly one picture every half second.

Game Report

So what happens, actually? (Keep in mind that if you haven’t heard of the Twilight Imperium rules before, this might not clear up that much…)

There’s three parties; the Embers of Muaat (a lava dwelling species that starts out quite strong with a War Sun in play already) in red, the Winnu (kinda tech-diplomats, they like to scheme) with purple, and the Emirates of Hacan (focused mostly on trade) with yellow ships.

Note that due to the setup, the Winnu were kinda cut off from the center, while Hacan and Muaat were split by quite some empty space, and obstacles prevented access to Mecatol Rex (the planet in the middle) from two sides, left and right in the video, and kinda split the entire map apart. There’s also just one wormhole, which ends up being the only way to the Wormhole Nexus with its planet Mallice.

In the beginning, all three attempted to grab as many planets as possible, fighting hostile locals and greeting friendly ones -- nothing unexpected until around 0:30 the Muaat went for Mecatol Rex in turn 3 (they had tried successfully to boost their War Sun to a movement of 2 for that, in fact). The tension between the Muaat on Mecatol Rex and the Hacan base next to it (the locals had given them a free base there) kept rising afterwards.

Everybody kept building up until, shortly after 1:00, the Hacan made their move for Mecatol Rex -- their private objective required them to control it. The Muaat proved to be fierce defenders though and only one Ground Force and a single Carrier survived (and they were lucky to get Mecatol Rex, too), so the Winnu, who also needed Mecatol Rex for their private objective, decided to make a dash through the empty space and get some foothold amidst the two other parties.

Another arms race ensued, until at 1:25 the Muaat went for Mecatol Rex again -- they didn’t actually need it, but wanted to keep everybody focused on the central planet. Their private objective was to have 6 planets with tech specializations -- the Muaat had 3 in their own territory, the Winnu had 2 border planets with that and the Hacan had one, all of them with little or no defense. The distraction proved successful (I actually forgot about those border planets later on, with the Hacan in particular)…

1:35 brought a big twist for the trade-centered Hacan, one that the movie doesn’t properly show: Class Struggle came into play, despite them doing everything in their might against it; a law that spreads the wealth from trade evenly, basically destroying one of their biggest advantages.

Around 1:40 another Winnu fleet makes its way slowly towards the center. The Winnu were, at that point, focusing on tech: They wanted Advanced Fighters, to make those little cheap ships into real pests; some action cards helped them (they used Alien Technology, Corporate Sponsorship and Focused Research, all in one round) and they got there -- but not without sacrificing many valuable resources and precious time.

The Hacan had already passed for that round, when the Muaat made their dash for the private objective, between 1:45 and 1:50: The Winnu‘s border world fell first, and thanks to the Warfare II High Alert token the Hacan world was easy prey as well. Despite the Winnu voiding the Muaat‘s control over Hope’s End with its Artifact through Local Unrest (and thus denying them one victory point), the Muaat still were leading on the victory point track.

The next round then brought the decision -- the Muaat went for the Bureaucracy strategy, hoping for a quick stolen win through Imperium Rex (at a chance of 40%, not bad odds -- but admittedly, I knew it was coming, not sure if that influenced my Muaat‘s will to go and see if it was there).

The Hacan allied with the Winnu, seeing Muaat too powerful, and made another go for Mecatol Rex -- successfully at that, a huge step closer to fulfilling their private objective. The Winnu tried to force the Muaat back, too (but left them one planet); they couldn’t wait and build up any longer because otherwise, the Muaat would have run into their backyard with their fast War Sun.

At 2:05, it’s all over, when the Muaat uncover the Imperium Rex public objective and win the game, at 6 victory points.