Boardgame Overview: Pandemic

Last weekend, I was in HMV with some vouchers to spend. Now HMV is not what you'd describe as game store (besides video games), the only games they really have are Simpsons Monopoly, Scene It, things of that ilk. Not much to tempt a more serious gamer, but for some reason they had several copies of Pandemic in stock, so I spent my vouchers on picking this up (also got The Batman Series 1 on DVD for my son, he really like that series and to be honest so do I).

Pandemic is a board game from Z Man Games and as it's name suggests it's about disease, or rather the prevention of it. The game is for 2 to 4 people, and each person takes on the role of a certain specialist within a disease control team. As you're all in the same team, the play is pure cooperative, which makes it a nice game to introduce non-gamers to as you can easily help them along.

As members of the disease control team, you need to travel the world balancing your play between curing diseases in individual cities, and finding cures for diseases. There's 4 diseases to cure and that's the win condition. The board is a world map you move your pieces around on:

Each turn you get four actions which can be things like moving to a different city, finding a cure, building a research station and so on. Each turn in the game, the diseases spread represented by little wooden cubes of various colours.

The fundamental mechanic in the game is card management. The player cards in the bottom left have the name of a city on it, and each city has a different colour. You use these cards for a couple of things: to move to other cities by discarding a card of that city, or the city you're in, and to discover cures. To discover a cure, you normally need 5 cards of that colour, then move to a research station and spend an action to discover a cure.

Each player takes on a different role, and each role has various abilities. For example: the Scientist only needs 4 cards of one colour to discover a cure; the Medic can remove all blocks of one colour in a city when he performs the Cure action (you normally only remove one block of a colour). By working together and playing to the strengths of each role is the key to winning.

The game is easy to play and understand, and being a coop game it's easy to teach. I've played it a couple of times with my non-gaming wife and she's picked it up quickly as the mechanics are simple (unlike when she played Last Night on Earth) and is enjoying it. The game plays quickly, last night's game was done in 40 minutes including setup time.

So I'd recommend Pandemic if you're after a quick, entertaining game to play. It'd be an ideal game at Christmas as although the age is recommended as 10+ I think younger players could easily grasp this.

Last Night on Earth ZAI rules

I posted a couple of weeks back about Last Night on Earth and how much I enjoyed the game. Things have been pretty busy at home this past week, so I haven't had much time to sit and paint for long periods of time, but I did snatch an hour or so last night to try out the Zombie AI rules available for LNoE on boardgamegeek.com. These rules basically mean that the zombie play automatically.

Well, I can report they are a blast and still do provide a challenge. I played just the basic card deck and the basic "Die Zombies, Die!" scenario, and managed to get a couple of games in. In this scenario, Heroes must kill 15 zombies, and Zombies must kill 2 Heroes. The game last 15 turns.

Game 1:
A punishing zombie victory. The heroes were converging on the gun store to get tooled up but just couldn't make it. Jenny the farmer's daughter found herself in unarmed in a building which had just been overrun and got eaten by 5 zombies. The remaining heroes converged on the diner (which has two exits to get out of) to get some gear together, only to find the lights going out in the building as a zombie had chewed through the cable. They made a run out to another building, but were slowed by heavy rain. Becky the nurse, who was already wounded from a surprise zombie attack in the hosptial was far too slow running from the advancing zombie horde, and a surprising turn of speed from a zombie meant she was caught and killed. Victory to the undead.

Game 2:
The heroes looked strong from the start on this one. Drawing two combat characters (Johnny the quarterback and the Sheriff who starts the game with a revolver), and two other decent characters (Jenny and Jake the drifter) was a good start. The gym wasn't on the board so Johnny started in the centre sqaure and promptly drew the pump shotgun which is the best gun in the game. The sheriff was holed up in the police station (which means the pump shotgun can be drawn from the discard pile if it runs out of ammo), so all the characters went there. Jake is excellent at finding decent items, so it quickly ended up with the heroes having 2 shotguns, 2 revolvers and a clutch of hand weapons. Eventually, the zombies were so decimated, the Heroes emerged from the police station to actively hunt them down resulting in a swift hero victory.

Boardgame Overview: Last Night on Earth

After much searching, I finally managed to get hold of a copy of Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game by Flying Frog Productions. Currently, the game seems to be out of print (though I hear rumours that this is how Flying Frog works, they'll do new runs every few months), so I tracked down a second hand copy on ebay which is in perfect condition, with many of the cards still unpunched.

Theme:
If you've ever seen a zombie film then you pretty much know the theme of this game. A small group of Heroes are trapped in a small town, battling a rising horde of the undead. The game borrows from every zombie movie you've ever seen so expect shambling brain hungry zombies, and heroes toting shotguns and chainsaws. For me, the theme is awesome. The in-game art really adds to the movie like feeling.

Components:
The components are good quality. The board and counters are on nice thick cards, and the card decks are decent card stock and in full colour, as is the rule book. The game also features 14 zombie miniatures (28mm scale) and 8 hero miniatures:

The minis are well detailed, but my only gripe with them is that they're a bit flimsy. My wife nearly snapped Becky the nurse of her base as her legs are so thin and flimsy. You could look for some alternate models for the miniatures (a box of GW zombies would do you nicely), but the bases on the LNoE minis are much smaller than normal GW bases. This is important as you need to fit multiple figures in the same game square. The game is also supplied with a soundtrack CD of original music, which I have to admit I haven't listened to yet.

Throughout the game, it uses photos to convey the zombie theme. The same actors are used on the character cards as on the hero and zombie cards to convey the theme. As an example, one of the characters is the town priest, Father Joseph. Here he is on the Faith card (gives rerolls in combat):
..and he is again, this time on the Fire Axe item card:

Game Overview:
The game is scenario based with each side (Heroes and Zombies, 2-6 players total) trying to complete a certain task. For Heroes this might be something like killing a certain number of zombies within the turn limit, or rescuing townsfolk. For Zombies, it's killing Heroes. The fundamental mechanic is probably hand management, as Heroes search building to draw cards from the Hero deck. These might be items or weapons, or event which are going aid them (like boarding up all the windows in a building). Zombies always get to draw cards each turn, and these might give them extra zombies, or extra bite in combat, or other events to mess up the Heroes efforts. Each side takes turns (not an integrated turn sequence).

So, zombies move slowly and try and eat Heroes. Heroes find stuff to fight off zombies. Heroes can make ranged attacks with weapons they have, and both sides can fight in close combat. Each hero has different skills and abilities which can help in different situations. For example, Becky the nurse can heal wounds on other heroes, whilst Johnny the quarterback is tough enough to win fights with zombies on a tied roll (zombies normally win on a tie).

Ranged attacks are a simple roll to hit, and then a check to see if the weapon is out of ammo. Close combat is slight more involved. Each side rolls fight dice, one for the zombie and two for the hero. If the hero rolls higher the zombie is fended off (not killed). If the hero rolls higher and rolls a double the zombie is killed. If the zombie rolls higher or it is a draw, the hero takes a wound. That's the basic mechanic. Once you've rolled each side can elect to use items, or play cards to give themselves an advantage. They might have a weapon which gives them a re-roll for example, or a card which lets them modify dice rolls. Each side can then play cards as they see fit to alter the outcome of fight. This basic mechanic is quite simple, but the card mechanic on top really adds some depth.

Conclusion:
I love this game. I love the theme, and the mechanisc mean the game is deep, yet quick to play. The game play is exciting and has a cinematic feel. For example, in a game I played with the missus, she holed up in the police station with all her heroes, as I closed in on her with my 14 zombie horde. Really cool stuff, if you can find a copy, buy it!

Expansions:
There's a boxed expansion entitled "The Growing Hunger" which I don't own, plus a couple of extra card packs. Developer support for the game seems good, with a 30 page FAQ on boardgamegeek which is unofficial, but many of the question have been answered by the game developers and play testers. There's also some fan created solo rules as well which I will get as well.

As a reward for getting to the end of this review, here's a picture of the very nice Jenny the Farmers daughter, courtesy of boardgamegeek:

One final note, don't try and get your non-gaming wife to play this. She will hate it, mine did. She says there's too many rules and exceptions (a trivial amount compared to 40k in reality), and she has non interest in zombies.

Pictures in this post are not mine, they're taken from the Flying Frog website and boardgame geek, so cheers for lending them to me ;)

Caesar and Cleopatra card game

I received this game as a Christmas present, and I've had the chance to play a few times with it, so I thought I would share some thoughts.

Ceasar and Cleopatra is part of the two player Kosmos series from Rio Grande games, and as it is mostly myself and my wife playing it suits us well. The background to the game is that Egypt is attempting to win independence from Rome and each player plays one of the two factions. The aim of the game is to win the support of Roman senators. This is done by playing numbered influence cards against difference groups of senators. When a vote is called (this is done each turn) the player with the highest (usually) influence for that group wins the support of one of the senators. At the end of the game, each senator won gives a point, as does winning the majority of senators in a group, and there's a bonus for acheiving a certain goal given to each player (winning a certain number of senators in a group).

So the game boils down to:

-Hand management: You can only hold 5 cards at a time which can be a combination of influence and action cards. Action cards allow special actions such as removing a influence card from your opponent.

-Bluffing: Influence cards be played either 2 face up or 1 face down. There is a special type of card called the Philospher which means that the player with the lowest influence total wins the vote. The fear of this card can be a useful bluff tactic when you play a card face down.

So that is the game mechanics in a nutshell. The components are OK, the box is compact and portable and takes only a couple of minute to setup and tear down. The artwork on the cards is quite nice, though some of the Roman senator names are a bit dubious in some cases.

The game plays quite fast (about 45 minutes) and is quite good fun, though there is a strong element of luck to the game. Overall, I quite like it and if you're looking for something for two players and you like the theme, then it's worth a punt

Carcassone

I should have blogged on this one a while ago. I've been playing some Carcassone recently with my wife. The other half is not a gamer, but she was persuaded to play this game with me. I first heard about it on The D6 Generation and it normally gets a mention in the "When Wives Attack" section, so its a popular wife game. There is a D6G review of it in one of the earlier episodes.

The game itself is really simple to play. You simple place tiles to make up terrain features (cities, roads etc). You can then place followers (meeples, little wooden people) on each features and score points when the feature is complete. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Its really easy to pick up and play, takes vritually no setup and you can finish a game in about 45 minutes. My wife will play the game with me, and most of the time she beats me. So if you're looking for something easy for non-gamers or to play with your kids at Christmas then Carcassone is worth checking out. I got mine from Amazon for about £13, so it won't break the bank.