Game(s) Played:
And welcome back to another edition of our monthly meet-ups to teach, learn & play boardgames for the niche group of us who are strangely only free on Saturday mornings. Our featured game for the month is … …
Session – Tiny Epic Zombies
Game: Tiny Epic Zombies
Designer: Scott Almes
Players: 1 – 5 Players
Playing Time: 30 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Modular Board, Area Influence, Pick-up and Deliver
Player(s):
It is incredibly rare that this blog ever gets to feature brand new content as I rarely participate in kickstarters and retail releases of new games take some time to reach my corner of planet Earth. Today we were fortunate enough to play not one, but TWO games of the fresh-off-the-boat game of brutal survival… Tiny Epic Zombies!!!
I have never played any of Scott Almes' Tiny Epic series so it was very exciting to see how the designer has managed to package an epic experience into a tiny package time and time again. In Tiny Epic Zombies, we played the "Cooperative vs Zombie Player" mode. The Human Players all start in the central courtyard of a mall that is being invaded by zombies.
I played as the Mechanic that can repair the barricade, whilst Henry played as the self-healing Hippie and Jimmy unfortunately I can't remember
As the Human Players, we play cooperatively to accomplish the three scenarios (chosen out of 9 possible scenarios) before a deck of Search cards is depleted or the Human Players run out of Survivor Tokens (extra life if you will). All the scenarios we played today involve the Human Players moving around the mall either revealing clues or picking up items in a certain order. For our first game, we needed to (a) Fix the Helicopter (b) Assemble an Arsenal & (c) Investigate the Source, a particularly nasty combination of scenarios.
Tiny Epic Zombies is open information except that you don't know where the zombies are going to come from next, pretty thematic in my opinion
So I played as the Mechanic, his role was more suitable to completing scenario (b) Assemble an Arsenal but I spent too many turns just moving around, taking out zombies in a somewhat random manner, like the idiot in a zombie flick going around making lots of noise, attracting the zombie horde to himself.
The name is "Epic", "Epic Garage"…
When you have managed to clear a Store (represented by the 8 cards surrounding the central courtyard) of zombies, you get to pick up any items dropped in the Store and use any of the special abilities of the individual rooms within the Store.
Like this really fancy superbike that gives you up to 3 free movement
And as you pick up weapons you get to equip your IteMeeple with cool Weapon Items! (although honestly half the time we forgot to do this and the effect is purely aesthetic)
So as I was saying, we spent too much time in the initial rounds just going around and shooting zombies without really accomplishing anything. This is a big mistake as ammo is an incredibly difficult resource to come by and equally important as your health, once your ammo drops to the level of damage you've taken, you're dead. I finally got things figured out though, I had my katana and my dog sidekick which allowed me to pick things up and use room abilities without having to clear the Store of zombies, and I was going to go on a samurai slashing rampage throughout the mall…
So… you should never end your turn in the first room of the Store if at all possible. If a zombie spawns there, the zombie will deal damage to you but in my case, it turned my doggie into a zombie dog!!! Oh the agony!!!
We realized too late that the game ends in the Zombie Player's favour when he has no more Search cards to deal out (more on this later). There was no way we could finish all three scenarios, especially the "Investigate the Source" scenario which had the various Sources spread out too far across the mall.
So because I died, I started as a new character with full health and ammo so I could accomplish the "Assemble an Arsenal" scenario by donating a majority of my ammo
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Sean (Team Zombie)
LOSERS – Justin, Henry & Jimmy (Team Hoomans)
Session – Tiny Epic Zombies
Player(s):
We setup the game for another round and this time I volunteered to be the Zombie Player and Sean chose some "easier" scenarios for the Human Team to accomplish (a) Investigate the Source (b) Save the Stranded & (c) Discover a Cure.
This setup included the other motor vehicle – the Police Car!
So as the Zombie Player, my job is to basically guess which Store the Human Players are going to end up in and give them a Search card that corresponds to that room. The Search card serves three purposes when at the end of their turn, a Player mandatorily reveals the Search card dealt to them. (1) The Search card is either a weapon / item / event and will drop in the room the Player is in for Players to obtain in future turns (2) Zombies will spawn in the room indicated on the Search card & (3) If the room is coincidentally the same as the room the Player is in, the Zombie Player gets a bonus move (usually damaging the Human Players) which gets more powerful the more times the Zombie Player guesses correctly.
I actually did really well in my Search card distribution, managing to max out my Mallcop Zombie's abilities. However I honestly didn't feel that achieving this as the Zombie Player is of any particular importance. It was more crucial for me to ensure that important rooms are constantly filled with zombies or filling up a room adjacent to the central courtyard so I could hurl zombies at the courtyard's barricade. I also never felt that I was giving up any advantage by handing out powerful items for the Human Players so there was never really any downside or balancing considerations when handing out Search cards.
The Human Team did great as well, the "Save the Stranded" scenario requires the Human Players to choose between two unknown tokens (one is a stranded girl, the other a zombie) and save the stranded girl four times and they got it right four times in a row (6.25% probability)! Things got dicey when they were about to complete the "Investigate the Source" scenario because I had filled all the rooms in the relevant Stores with zombies and the Human Players' health and ammo were running low.
It was right at the final round with no Search cards left that I pulled off the win, as my zombies overran the Human Players but had I placed my zombies elsewhere, the Human Players would have won by using the secret tunnel to accomplish the "Discover a Cure" scenario.
My zombie posse! After killing a Human Player, their character joins the Zombie Player's entourage
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Justin (Team Zombie)
LOSERS – Sean, Henry & Jimmy (Team Hoomans)
I had fun playing Tiny Epic Zombies. There was tense anticipation, instances of sheer luck and the theme shines through and through. The weapon item meeples were a bit pointless except as bling but the vehicles and the dog meeple were a very nice and functional touch. The overall game length felt a touch too short for the Human Players in my opinion, making a bad turn by any one of the Human Players quite punishing to the team. Perhaps the weapons should have been a touch more powerful so that the Humans would have a slightly easier time and there would be more strategic depth for the Zombie Player in handing out Search cards.
Thanks for coming out everyone! Although the hoomans didn't survive the zombie apocalypse. Big thank you to Sean for bringing his copy of Tiny Epic Zombies
Until next time, keep calm and play better.
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