Although I thought I understand the rules of Zombicide Season 1 board game after reading the booklet, we still ran into problems. Even after a few games there are things I don't get or don't like.
Problems and questions for the first game
- How many times can you search a zone? After the first few turns in the starting area in Mission #0 the characters looked like they found a secret stash from a bad action movie.
- Answer: As many time as you wish. I don't like this rule.
- Are there windows in the houses? Are the players aware of the zombies around them? Can they shoot them through windows?
- Answer: The game doesn't include the use of windows.
- Opening the door: If you open a door for the first time, you need to generate zombies in the building. Is this true for stepping out of the starter buildings?
- Answer: It's answered in the FAQ: You don't generate them.
- Character - Phil, the Sheriff:
- How come Phil doesn't have Sniper (being able to choose targets) with his ranged weapons as a sheriff?
- Mission #0:
- Opening the door: You can only open a door with an axe or a crowbar. Don't they have a key to their own lock? Does the door really need to be broken?
- One player takes the objective and that's it? The game ends, players win? It's not totally clear.
Further problems after some games
- Character - Phil, the Sheriff:
- Starting with a pistol doesn't feel balanced compared to the others abilities, especially as one pistol is already among the starting equipment.
- How does a campaign work? After completing Mission #0 do we start Mission #1 with the accumulated experience and weapons or do we start again from zero?
- If the objective on the map is not listed as a requirements for victory do you still need to take it?
- Can the players change their order during the game? The rules themselves aren't very clear on this, and it can change the game a lot.
- Somehow we got the impression that runners can move up to 2 zones during the zombie movement phase, and they only attack once in the zombie attack phase. It's not the case, they attack with the other zombies, move with the other zombies, than get a bonus attack and bonus movement phase.
- Even though I thought the rules are easy to learn, they are not very clear and it's easy to forget them:
- The scope gets under the rifle, doesn't take up another space.
- The Molotov coctail however needs to be exchanged for the bottle and gasoline before use.
- Dual-wielding allows you to use two of the same weapon in one action.
- Fatties spawn with two walkers.
- The sewer rules often confuse the players.
- The sewer symbol on cards often get missed by the player who draws them.
- The extra activation rule (zombies get a bonus action from random events) annoyed one of the players, he felt that the unpredictable nature of that breaks the game. I think it's okay though, as I don't mind the randomness.
- The cars are a very easy way to run over dozens of zombies and get into red (4th level).
- It's hard to move the experience tracker on the character sheet without disturbing the equipment and skill markers, so it would be better to count it some other way.
- 5 items are very few, it would be probably better to allow smaller items to take up less space. For example a bag of rice, a can of food, etc could take up 1/3.
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Did you encounter similar problems with Zombicide Season 1? How do you think the game could be improved? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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