Last Night on Earth, The Zombie Game - Tips & Strategies

Handling Optional Rules in Last Night on Earth:Season One

As you play through the various scenarios – trying to survive The Season how does one handle all the optional expansion rules from the LNOE Universe?

Remember this:
A Team Zombie win nets one zombie experience
A Team Hero win nets one hero experience
And Flying Frog has the Dot Expansion System

While things like Grave Weapons and Survival Decks and Free Searches are still part of the individual scenarios that list them, Teams can spend their accumulated Scenario win experience to make them a permanent part of the Season One Campaign by spending the dot value.

Team Zombie has won three scenarios? Looks like Grave Weapons can be bought in as a permanent part of the campaign and used in any scenario. 😉

If you are using Timber Peak or have the Web Exclusive Unique Advanced Character Ability Cards from Flying Frog, we campaign run Character Abilities a little differently since having beefed up heroes and zombies based on wound experience works well for a single over-the-top scenario but not for a longer, darker campaign.

We replace the Experience rule set with Survival

Zombie Ability Cards are usually one offs – so Team Zombie is rewarded one zombie ability card draw at the end of a scenario zombie win to be used in a future scenario.

Hero Abilities are based on survival. Any hero who survives for two scenarios gets to draw a Timber Peak ability off the deck of their choice OR can unlock their unique advanced hero ability. This of course isn’t so much a boon, as making them a marked hero for Team Zombie in the future. 😉

Our gaming group has a lot of fun with the Season One Campaign system. We’ve made up a character chart from images off the Flying Frog Wiki so Team Zombie can cross out the deceased cast members, circle any ominous potential zombie hero guest stars, and we have a Team Zombie/Hero score card to keep track of experience and what advanced/expansion rules have been permanently unlocked.

Once the sun sets – another Last Night on Earth begins!

A lot of people have wondered about adding military to LNoE. I come with glad tidings of great fun!

Rules for Military Personnel
The military has come in to stop the zombie outbreak, and they’re quite to foe!
Note: These have been tested.

(1) Each Military Person costs the Heroes 4 Dots (Dots were introduced with the Growing Hunger expansion, so I won’t go into how the system works here)
(2) Military Personnel count as Heroes in every way Including counting as Heroes Killed for zombie win conditions
(3)Military Personnel cannot Search, Build Barricades, Reveal Number Counters/Free Search Markers/Salvage Tokens, Carry Items, or lead Townsfolk Allies
(4)Military Personnel start in Random Buildings (roll separately for each)
(5) Military Personnel can activate at any point during the Hero turn
(6) Military Personnel can Move and make a Ranged Attack (just like heroes).
(7) If a Military Person has run out of ammo, they must spend their next Ranged Attack action to reload
(8) When fighting, Military Personnel roll 2 dice, win on ties, and kill zombies beaten in the fight if they get doubles.

If you want all of your Military to have the same stats, use these ones:

Soldier
2 Health, 3 Movement
Military Rifle: Range 5. Target a Zombie within Range and roll a D6. the Zombie is Hit on the Roll of 3+. On a roll of 6, one other Zombie in the same or adjacent space is also Hit. On a roll of 1, the Rifle is out of ammo.

If you want your Military Personnel to be more varied, use these

Squad Leader
2 Health, 3 Movement
Military Rifle: Range 5. Target a Zombie within Range and roll a D6. the Zombie is Hit on the Roll of 3+. On a roll of 6, one other Zombie in the same or adjacent space is also Hit. On a roll of 1, the Rifle is out of ammo.
Officer Training: Any Military Personnel within 1 space (including the Squad Leader) adds +1 to all To Hit rolls when making Ranged Attacks.
You may only have 1 Squad Leader per game.

Heavy
2 Health, 3 Movement
M16: Range 4. Target a Zombie within Range and roll a D6. The Zombie is hit on the roll of 4+. If a Hit is scored, the Police Shotgun may be fired again until it misses. Once all shots have been fired, roll a single D6. On the roll of 1, the Shotgun is out of ammo.

Assault
2 Health, 4 Movement
Military Shotgun: Range 3. You may fire at a space within Range. Roll a D6 for each Zombie in that space. Zombies are Hit on the Roll of 3+. Any Hero in that space is unaffected. Each time the Shotgun is fired, roll a D6. On the roll of 1 or 2, the Shotgun is out of ammo.

Support
2 Health, 3 Movement
Military Revolver: Range 4. You may target one Zombie within Range. Roll a D6. The Zombie is Hit on the roll of 4+. On the roll of 1, the Revolver is out of ammo.
First Aid: May give up a Move action or a Ranged Attack action to heal 1 Wound from a Military Person in the same space.

Sniper
2 Health, 3 Movement
Sniper Rifle: Range 7. You may target one Zombie within Range. Roll a D6. The Zombie is Hit on the roll of 3+. On the roll of 1 or 2, the Hunting Rifle is out of ammo.
Headshot: May give up a Move action to ignore 1 Wall or Forest space when checking LOS.

In the Growing Hunger expansion you get 7 new zombie figures. You also get introduced to the Dot system (which I won’t go into here. If you have expansions you’ll know what it is).
One of the things that the zombie player can spend Dots on is called Zombie Horde (21). It costs 4 Dots, but allows the zombie player to have a Zombie Pool of 21 instead of the usual 14.

If you also have Timber Peak (which comes with 14 more zombies) or even just extra zombie figures that you want to add to your game, here are some rules I’ve come up with (And tested!) to allow even more zombies.

Quite simply, for every 7 extra zombies you get, you must spend 4 Dots + 1 Dot for every Zombie Horde upgrade you’ve already got. You must ‘buy’ Zombie Hordes in order.
So Zombie Horde (21) costs 4 Dots.
Zombie Horde (28) costs 5 Dots–4 for being a Zombie Horde, + 1 for Zombie Horde (21). This will total 9 Dots (4 for ZH (21) and then 5 for ZH (28) ).
Zombie Horde (35) will cost you 6 Dots (plus the 9 from ZH (21) and (28) for a total of 15 Dots)
Zombie Horde (42) would cost a total of 22 Dots, and so on and so on…

Some words of warning:
(1) Without Zombies Auto-spawn, you will never get to use all of your zombies, so make sure you have that one as well.
(2) With this many zombies, you will need more Heroes. Look at my Extra Heroes rule for how many Dots they cost.
(3) Even with Zombies Auto-spawn, you will never get all of your zombies at + 1d6 per turn (the heroes will keep killing them). Look at my Extra Zombie Spawn rule for that.

Sometimes you may have more players than the game allows. Or maybe you’re facing a massive Zombie Horde and need some more Heroes to deal with it.
Using the Dot system introduced in Growing Hunger, I have come up with (And tested!) rules for Extra Heroes.

To get 1 Extra Hero, it will cost you 5 Dots.
To get a second Extra Hero, it will cost you 6 more Dots (for a total of 11 Dots for 2 Extra Heroes).
If you want a third Extra Hero, that will cost you another 7 Dots (for a total of 18).

And so on and so on.

During a game of LNOE, humans will do two things frequently:
– gather an arsenal of weapons
– die

To reduce the second item on the list, do the first one more efficiently. Every hero has a specialization for equipment which combines with their abilities. When you are surrounded by zombies, it is easy to think “Well now I’m armed, when I get something better I’ll give this weapon to so-and-so.” However, all the heroes need to work in concert, and share a common goal. Make the TEAM more effective, and you are more likely to live. Remember “guns don’t kill, people kill.” So yes shotguns in LNOE are awesome, but Johnny with a shotgun is NOT awesome. Overall, a human with a weapon is less likely to survive than a human unarmed but being protected by a human who should be using that weapon. So hand that pitchfork to Jenny, and take her fire extinguisher– you’ll find something nice later on.

Specialties:

— COMBAT ROLES —
Jenny: Melee weapons with special effects (pitchfork)
Johnny: Melee weapons with more damage/likelihood to kill (chainsaw)
Anderson: Firearms (becomes a walking gun factory)
Billy: Explosives (Dynamite, Gasoline– can get in and out)

— SUPPORT ROLES —
Becky: Resist temptation to give her healing items. Maximize team’s healing potential when possible, her ability is a bonus. (leftover weapons)
Priest: Leftover weapons, NOT front-line soldier (combine him with Becky for a Zombie Card-cancelling factory) (leftover weapons)
Cartwright: His job is to GET the weapons, and immediately give them to the most qualified player (leftover weapons)
Sally: One exception here, should keep best weapons she gets, combines well with her Luck ability (cleaver, pistol)

There is an entire fan site to this game, and actually a pretty **** good one. Some of the scenarios listed are a ton of fun… Check it out
http://thezombiegame.com/

The Johnny ability to win on tie, so he’s a good zombie killer. Give the Chainsaw card to him to give him an extra fight dice and kill all zombies.

The important fight in the game is all about each team (Zombie or Human) forcing the other into a disadvantage. The humans have the upper hand inherently, but are forced to constantly jeopardize themselves to achieve objectives or build up equipment.

Humans: Your strongest area on the board is the Farm. Jenny of course has an advantage there, plus the corn field makes the zombies far less likely to attack the humans. If you can lure zombies there, you can count on winning the encounter. Your weakest area on the board is the Junk Yard. The maze-work of walls will restrict the humans, while the zombies can easily block the exits and come in through the walls. Avoid this tile at all costs, don’t bother even going there.
It will be tempting as a human to stay in the center of the board, but this is ill-advised. Moving along the edges of the board will maximize your mobility advantages, as the zombies cannot quickly travel across the board without using that central tile. Use the center tile only to shortcut directly across the board.

Zombies: The center of the board is your friend. Camp your zombies in the middle of the board and their mobility disadvantage will decrease. You will be more exposed, but any human who gets close enough to the horde will pay the price when a few can shamble right over from the center of the map.
Otherwise route, the humans (who are best off traveling on the inner edge of the outer tiles) towards the corners or the center of the board. All terrain is, in theory, “on your side” as walls essentially do not exist. So wherever there are walls, have zombies block the doors and let the rest move in through the doors.

As the players, know that the person controlling the zombies is going to try to set things up so that the weak links are eliminated quickly. Precious few Heroes actually start out with weapons in their starting gear, which means that some of the players are going to be quite vulnerable to a zombie attack. In keeping with the traditional horror movie theme, keep to the buddy system; try to have heroes paired together as much as possible so that threats can be reduced, at least until weapons can be found. Some zombie cards can exploit the buddy system, but not too many.

Zombies should be thought of as a tool; as the Zombie player, you’re going to get more. One of the best things the zombies can do is herd Heroes into compromising situations, where a well-played Zombie card can really put the Heroes in a fix (like barring the building the Heroes are trying to get to). Getting a Hero player alone and surrounded by zombies is almost always a losing situation for the Hero, and with the right card, that Hero can be converted into a stronger Zombie Hero to really give the remaining Heroes headaches.