Z is for Zombicide: Black Plague

By CMON

I played the original Zombicide campaign with some friends when Dustin was working graveyard shift and I was alone in the evenings. I wanted to introduce Dustin to the franchise, so when I learned of the medieval fantasy version I had to get it.

Players: 1-6

Time: 60-180 minutes

Ages: 14+

Theme: Medieval Zombies
Mechanics: Co-Op Dungeon Crawler, Modular Board, Variable Powers

This is our last A-Z review of 2020 and it's New Year's Eve AND we've spent all day switching one of our 2nd story rooms with one of our basement rooms, so this is going to be quick, because schlepping furniture up and down two flights for hours has made me sooooo tired. It's a wonder I'm still awake now.

In Zombicide: Black Plague, a gang of necromancers have released a zombie horde on your town. You must scavenge for weapons, gear, and supplies with which to fight off the insane amount of undead that will ultimately converge on you. If you're lucky, you'll find magical weapons that help get the job done quicker. Meanwhile, you must also hunt down necromancers before they escape. When necromancers are in play, zombies are more plentiful.

• The components are excellent and the inserts make me so happy. There are several different zombie sculpts. The player boards are pretty nice.
• The rules are easy to learn, even though the rule book is a bit long and a little disjointed.
• As you kill zombies, your character levels up. As your characters level up, zombies increase in number. The catch is, if one character keeps killing everything and leveling up, but the other characters don't, then they're easy targets for the more plentiful and more powerful zombies that come out to play
• The game can actually be kind of easy, assuming that everyone levels up similarly and finds good equipment. For people that want more of a challenge, there are different zombie packs you can pick up that have more challenging enemies.
•  If you don't like the character art, you can pick up some guest artist character packs!
• The base game comes with 11 missions and there are several expansions with 5-10 missions each. Lots of play time.
  

 

Okay, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Let's see... 7.5/10 - It's good and we're usually willing to play. But we don't like it quite as much as Dead of Winter.

Y is for Yggdrasil Chronicles

By Ludonaute

Dustin and I played Yggdrasil at a gaming convention maybe 7 years back and couldn't get it out of our heads. We've since been unable to find a copy for under $300!! So when this one released, we were excited to give it a try.

 

Please ignore Rescue Riders in the background...

Players: 1-5
Time: 90 minutes
Ages: 14+
Theme: Norse Mythology
Mechanics: Co-Op, Dice Rolling, 3D Movement, Map Deformation

So how does this compare to the original? This version plays fairly similarly, but with an added 3D board and campaign mode.

3D board? How does that affect setup time and ease? Not too bad, actually. After the initial construction, the setup is pretty quick and simple.

How is the 3D board incorporated into the game? It's used in several ways. Each level of the board (there are three total) has 3 worlds on it. The middle level rotates so that the orientation of the three worlds on each level shift in relation to each other. This makes it a little more difficult to get where you want to go, as you can be easily thwarted with an unexpected rotation. The 3D board is also tall, so if you're vertically challenged, you may be sitting on your knees or standing up occasionally to see what's going on up there.

 

What is campaign mode like? Good question... We didn't actually try the campaign mode yet. And we only played the base game in easy mode. And let me just say that even in easy mode, it was quite punishing.

What do you mean? Well, we both spent the entire game almost dead. There aren't a whole lot of opportunities to heal. And this was in easy mode! Yikes... It's definitely not very forgiving. But in its defense, neither was the original-- This game wants you to be clever and strategic.

So how would you rate it? It's hard to say, because the holidays have cut into our playing time and we haven't had a chance to really give it a few good gos. So we're going to give it a 7/10 as a placeholder, but specifically for the easy mode of the base game. We definitely want to play more and see how it holds up in the campaign mode.

X is for X-odus: Rise of Corruption

By Bored Game Ink

Way back on "O is for Oregon Trail," I mentioned that I was chasing the high of how I felt as a 2nd grader playing Oregon Trail on DOS. Another computer game I really miss and am still chasing the high for is Master of Orion. Did anyone play that? Now, I recently discovered that there is a Master of Orion board game and I may or may not be getting it for Christmas (though if it goes the way of my Oregon Trail board game experience, I think I will be disappointed), BUT when I backed this, I was unaware of its existence. So, I backed this because my husband likes science fiction and I wanted to play some sort of cooperative space exploration game.

Players: 1-4

Time: 90-150 minutes

Ages: 14+

Theme: Galaxy Exploration
Mechanics: Co-Op, Rogue Like, Dice Rolling, Modular Board

In X-odus: Rise of Corruption,  you need to explore, complete varying difficult tasks (based on level of difficulty), fight battles, and upgrade your ship, while avoiding the much scarier and more powerful evil Avatar ships, that mostly can only be taken on while in "fleet" formation. When playing with 2 players, each player controls 2 ships. There are six ships to choose from in three categories (combat, rogue, special) and each ship has a unique strength. In our first couple of games, I played the Warship (good at battle) and the Drone Specialist (good at support/repairing). Dustin played the Battlecruiser (good at combat and protecting ships within the fleet) and the Pirate Ship (sort of a Jack of all Trades with an extra action). As you gain experience and level up your ship, you're given choices on how to build up your ship.

Our first few games did not go so well. We separated to explore more of the map, but I was defeated when faced alone with powerful enemies. Some ships are stealthier than others and can avoid detection more easily (My Warship was not one of them). On our subsequent tries, we tried "fleeting" up more often. In fact, in our first won game, we had spent most of the game as one fleet of all 4 ships. When you join a fleet, your actions become more limited and you have to agree with your fleet-mates which actions to take. Additionally, when in a fleet, the map is much slower to build, as you can't send probes in multiple directions while fleeted. Dustin and I were usually mostly in agreement, so it wasn't too much of an issue, but I imagine some people would not like to play this way, stripped of the ability to make their own decisions.

We ended up quitting our first couple games, first from time constraints (each play definitely leaned towards the 150 minutes as opposed to the 90 minutes) and the second time because both of my ships were dead and things were dire. On our third game, we BARELY won. We won on the last possible turn before the corruption meter ended the game. But I'll take it.

Overall, we liked this game. We plan to check out some of the other ships, some of the different builds for the ships we already tried, and attempt to play with more strategic fleeting. Cons include: some unclear rules (that are not addressed in the FAQ on the website-- so we made judgement calls), the length can be a bit long for more casual gamers, and the LOADED DICE (Seriously. Misses are on two sides of the dice, so 33% chance of rolling a miss. I think we rolled misses at least 60% of the time. It was insane. And totally not just our superhuman unluckiness...)

This was one of our rolls.
O's are misses.

 So we give it a 7.5/10.

W is for Wingspan

By Stonemaier Games

I played this one at a gaming convention 15 or so months ago and really enjoyed it. I tried 14 games that weekend and this was the one I knew was coming home with me. Only it was completely sold out from the vendors room, so I had to wait a few months before picking it up so I could introduce it to my husband. 

  

Players: 1-5
Time: 40-70 minutes
Ages: 10+
Theme: Birds
Mechanics: Card Drafting, Set Collection, Resource Management

This one is going to be short and sweet, because I love this game and don't have any complaints. In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts, attracting birds to various habitats, feeding them, getting them to lay eggs, etc. over the course of four rounds. At the end of the game, the enthusiast with the most points wins. There are so many ways to get points: Personal goals, public end-round goals, laying eggs, having predator birds eat smaller birds, caching food, etc.

Why do I love this game?

1. It's simple-- I had the rules totally down after just one round-- yet complex. There's a lot going on and a lot you can do. We've explained this game to non-gamers and they were able to figure it out (mostly) pretty quickly.

2. The boards and components are designed well, which aid in learning the rules quickly. Everything you need is pretty much on the board. The "bird-feeder" dice tower is adorable. The eggs are colorful. The artwork is gorgeous. You can tell that a lot of love went into this game.

3. Personal and public goals change every game, so the replayability is solid.

As I mentioned above, I don't have any complaints. Well, maybe one: It can be discouraging to not get any of the cards you need to score or any of the food you need to play the cards you need to score. That's a bummer and can screw you up for a couple of turns.

Overall, I give this one a 9/10. It's very well done and I'm always open to play. My husband rates it 8-8.5/10 because of "balance issues" when playing with predator birds, but I'm cutting him out of this review, because this game is awesome.