hauwegdenmist

Hey Folks,

this is the second attempt to write this review. The first one went into the unknown spaces beyond my HDD… in other words: I accidentely deleted it and had no backup. So let’s take a look at “Survival of the Fittest”!

What’s in the box?

1 12-sided full color rule booklet
20 Unique Items Cards
20 Survival Tacticx Cards
20 Grave Weapon Cards
8 Hero Cards
8 Zombie Cards
4 Scenarios
a hole bunch of markers

What can you tell us about the new features?

While reading the rulebook I recognized that most of the new features are hidden in special scenario rules which takes 5 complete pages. The so called “new rules” are just the card explantations where the text was so much they didn’t fit on the cards. First let’s take a look on the extended card rules:

I already reviewed double-handed in my timber peak review and sacrifice in my hero pack one review so I won’t repeat myself.

Sewer rules: there is a card which allows the hero to lay out the sewer tiles. 2 entrances go on the board while the interior tile layed out adjacent to the main board. This is a great way to move from one corner to another and the best: it’s not hero only!

Stockpile cards: these cards are added to a random building and give an additional pick up option. everytime a hero is using it, you have to roll a d6 and discard it on a 1 or 2.

Combining items: Reading this rule was so hilarious that I will not spoil what card allows you to combining items. Actually a very handy rule for inventory management, it allows you to take to items or weapons and combining them into one item/weapon. So if you have a gun and a shotgun you can combine them to one item and the best: you can shoot both as single attack during the ranged attack phase.

Okay… that’s all for the card rules. Let’s move to the “Special Scenario Rules”. I will not explain all of the rules, just pick out the most mentionable. But first for those who are not familiar with those because they don’t have the Growing Hunger Expansion (like me 😉 ) here a short overview:

Special scenario rules are a collection of advanced rules which are used to customize the scenarios (actually all new scenarios which were released after Growing Hunger contains special rules). They are using a point system to help keeping balance between hero and zombie rules when you add more rules to existing scenarios or creating your own scenarios. The value of the points depends how powerful the rules are. so for example: the heroes choose to add the survival deck (3 points) and the zombie player takes the grave weapons (3 points) which results into a 3 to 3. so there is no real advantage given to either side. If the hero players take the barricade (2 points) instead the result would be 2 to 3 so the zombie player would have an advantage.

Survival Deck:
The survival deck splits into the unique items deck and the survival tactics deck. As the name mentions it the unique items deck contains a lot of items and weapons, mostly more powerful than their equivalent in the hero deck. some items have an additional effect if the original owner possess the item. For example: Sallys Pendant can be discarded to cancel a wound or any zombie card. If Sally wears the Pendant she gets an additional fight dice. The survival tactics deck has a lot of event like cards which help your group in a whole, giving bonusses, etc.
If the hero made a 5+ movement roll while in a building he/she can choose to move or roll a d6 to get a unique item on a 1-3 or survival tactic on a 4-6. There is an alternate rule where you can choose between item or tactic on a roll of 3-4.

Grave Weapons:
Grave Weapons are the Zombie equivalent to the Heroes Survival Deck. Whenever you spawn Zombies in the Spawning phase (don’t count for spawning zombies through a zombie card) instead of spawning 2 Zombies you can give an already existing zombie a Grave Weapon putting a marker under the zombie. It’s a great way to make your ordinary zombies stronger, faster or just nasty (the Blood spray Zombie for example automatically infects a hero in the same space when killed)

Barricades
This rule allows the heroes to build their own safehouse. When a hero rolls a 4+ movement roll he/she can decide to build a barricade on a wall adjacent to their space. If there already is a barricade the hero can put a reinforcement token on it, making it stronger. Now if a zombie tries to break through a barricade he has to roll a 4+. if failed the movement stop and the zombie is peeking through the window. If the barricade was reinforced and the roll was a success the zombie still peeks through the window because you only remove one reinforcement marker (each barricade can have up to 3 markers on it). Barricades never get destroyed and a fully barricaded building (means all walls are barricaded) can’t be taken over or get a spawning pit inside.

Townfolk Allies
Townfolks, boys and girls, are no longer useless markers on the board. They can fight or build/reinforce barricades! But the legs are cut off because they can’t move on their own and the hero has to carrying them around. During the heroes turn each townfolk ally can fight a zombie in the same space or an adjacent space and inflict a wound on a roll of 5+. On the other side a zombie can kill a townsfolk ally on a roll of 5+ if there is no hero in the same space. What makes this rule really handy is that while carrying around they can still inflict wounds to zombies. so for example: Jenny the farmers daughter has doc brody in her backpack and ends her turn in the same space as a zombie. She fended off the zombie but didn’t kill it. Doc Brody rolls a 5 and kills the zombie. That makes Jenny happy!

Tell us about the new scenarios!

Supply Run:
The heroes start at a fully barricaded manor. They have to find supply crates in the town and bring them back to the manor. They win if they deliver 12 supply markers to the manor and there are more heroes than zombies in it. The zombies win by killing 3 heroes or the sun track marker reaches zero.

Hunker Down:
The heroes have to fully barricade 2 buildings and hunker down in both for 4 rounds. To hunker down there has to be at least on hero and no zombie inside the buildings. Zombies win, if they can prevent it (or of course killing 4 heroes)

Rescue Mission
The goal of the heroes is to get at least 3 townfolks in their safehouse. The zombie wins by killing 2 Townfolks or just overrun the safehouse (HARHAR)

Search for the truth
One of the more complex scenarios (or the only one?). The heroes have to find 2 unique items with the keyword “records” on it. those records tells them what to do and where to go. The heroes wins when they reach their goal. The zombies win by killing 3 heroes or the sun track marker reaches zero.

Your final conclusion?

So… my final conclusion on this expansion is… No! Wait! I have to do a…

SUPER SHORT “ZOMBIES WITH GRAVE WEAPONS” ONE-SHOT REVIEW!

What’s in the box?
14 Zombie Miniatures with grave weapons
2 new grave weapons cards with markers

The Zombies with grave weapons box contains 14 zombies (7 green and 7 brown zombies). The grave weapon card introduce a new grave weapon zombie called crawling torso which moves 2 spaces (!!!) and heroes in the same space have to roll a 4+ to move out of the space. This expansion costs 24.95$ at the FFP Store.

END OF INTERRUPTION

Somehow I needed to put the zombies with grave weapons expansion in this review just to explain my anger with the pricing models of flying frog.

First of all “Survival of the Fittest” is great. You have a lot of new rules which raises the complexity of LNOE on a great level and I would buy it any time if I somehow lost mine.

But: Can you remember how I wrote that you put a marker under the grave weapon zombies? I hate it. It’s such a pain in the a** to move the zombies around without loosing the markers and try to put 3 zombies in one building space which already is barricaded by the barricade tokens (which already take half of the space). That was the reason to buy the grave weapon expansion to get rid of the markers and I got it 10$ cheaper thant the normal price (and I wouldn’t pay more). But think about it: you pay 25 bucks for “survival of the fittest” and 25 bucks for the miniatures. So you have 14 Zombies, 78 Cards and 4 scenarios but you already reached the price for Timber Peak which offers you much more content for the price. Now you could buy the hero pack to get near the content of Timber Peak but already paid 1 and a half of the price of Timber Peak. Where the f*** is the logic? For future releases I really hope they skip the small package rip-offs and concentrate on big expansions which are worth the money.

So… now I can give my final conclusion: “Survival of the fittest” is a good expansion and totally worth the money. After thinking so much about it and comparing it with the other expansion I would give it a 7.5 or 8 but there are no steps between the ratings and I don’t know if it’s even possible to change the rating you already gave. You can get the hero pack if you are into heroes (like me) but don’t buy the grave weapon zombie pack if you can live with the markers.

Yours sincerely,

Hauwegdenmist

Hey Folks,

here it is. The latest expansion for Last Night on Earth and the first which can be used as stand-alone game. Does it fulfill my needs for more stuff to kill and more rules to torture my friends? Let’s find it out and take a close look….

What’s in the box?
1 rulebook
1 town center/radio station
6 l-shaped boards
6 hero miniatures with hero sheet cards
14 zombies miniatures
45 hero deck cards
45 zombie deck cards
10 melee hero upgrade cards
10 ranged hero upgrade cards
10 special hero upgrade cards
10 zombie upgrade cards
3 reference cards
4 scenarios
16 dice
alot of tokens/markers

Who are the new heroes?

Sheriff Anderson, Woodinvale Survivor:
Sheriff Anderson is a survivor which allows him to start the game with the “police shotgun” and the zombie card “haunted memories”. His natural leader ability allows him to spend 2 XP points to take any card from the discard pile instead of his searching round.

Jake Cartwright, Woodinvale Survivor:
Jake, the long term survivor starts the game with the zombie card outsider, which negates the pick up effects from buildings, but allows him to spend 2 XP instead of 3 to get a hero upgrade. As in the main game he still has his resourceful ability to draw 2 hero cards and keep one.

Sally, Woodinvale Survivor:
the last survivor of woodinvale who can spend 2 XP to play a heroic event on herself from the discard pile. Still a student she has her youth ability. She still has her lucky defense ability which allows her to force a zombie to re-roll one dice but she lost her lightweight perk which means she can use guns…. finally!

Ed Baker, the Lumberjack:
Ed, the lumberjack can handle 3 wounds before the final blow and his Jack of all Trades ability lets him start with one upgrade.

Alice, the Diner Waitress:
Alice is always on the go which allows her to use her movement twice when the roll is a 1 or 2. as a student she can’t handle that much wounds but has the youth ability too.

Nikki, the Bush Pilot:
Nikki starts the game with the signal flare because she is a Pilot . Her Rescue Gear allows her to discard one item to heal a wound from herself or another hero in the same space OR to cancel a zombie card on a 3+.

What are the new rules?

Experience System
One of the biggest game changers is the experience system, which allows you to level up your heroes or the zombie horde. Both sides get 1 XP for every wound they cause. Heroes can choose from three update categories (melee, ranged and special) and have to spend 3 XP +1 for each upgrade they already have (for example: Sally has already 2 upgrades and want to “buy” another one which costs her 5 XP) while zombies only have to spend 3 XP for a new upgrade without additional costs for already existing upgrades (the reason for that is that most of the zombie upgrades are one-shots. Those cards must be discarded after use). The heroes also have the chance to boost there upgrades by spending additional Xps which makes there upgrades more powerful.

Fire
With the addition of the fire rule gameplay gets heated up. Everytime your heroes blows somethings up (and sometimes caused by those clumsy zombies) a fire breaks out. But instead of just putting a fire token on the space, fire has an own fire phase in the zombie turn where it can spread out, getting bigger and can cause the destructions of whole groups of heroes/zombies and even whole buildings.

Always Hero Replenish/Alway Zombie Heroes
First introduced as additional rules in the expansions you CAN use they are now an inherent part of the rule system. Always Hero replenish allows you to choose a new hero after the old one died and the always zombie heroes transformes every hero who died into a zombie hero (which makes the “I feel kinda strange” card somehow … useless?)

Infection
Infection is handled differently than in the original game. Infection cards are no longer “remains in Play” which means you can’t get rid of it by playing a “remove a remains in play card” (yep… no more forum discussions about magically healing from a zombie infection). That makes it much harder to get rid of an infection and I will not spoil how you can destroy the infection 😉 . Instead the infected hero gets an infection marker which causes an additional wound on a roll of 1 or 2 everytime the hero gets hit by a zombie. If the hero gets 2 infection markers he/she instantely transforms into a hero zombie.

Double-Handed (only new if you don’t have another expansion already)
Introduced in the Growing Hunger expansion some weapons and items are double-handed. That means that they count as 2 weapons/items which causes a shortcut in your inventory limit.

What can the new cards do?

Well, the hero and zombie cards are mostly tweaked versions of the original game. All of them have of course different artwork which fits the expansion.
The hero cards contains a lot of new weapons (most of them are more powerful than there equivalent of the original game. Some are just a replacement. For example the pick axe is the same as the meat cleaver) but there are only two townfolks in the deck (who are really powerful when playing them in the right time). A real new addition are the double-handed items like the fuel can which gives you 3 gasoline (the card count as one and 2 additional fuel markers).
The most mentionable aspect of the zombie cards is the fact that nearly all of the fight cards have an additional effect (“undead hate the living” is the only card which didn’t change at all) like forcing the hero to take an additional wound or discard an item/weapon.

And what about the Upgrade Cards?

Each pile of upgrade cards contains 4 cards which are twice in the deck and 2 unique upgrades. Each upgrade category benefits the player with specific advantages, for example increasing the range of guns or force the opponent to re-roll. Most of the upgrades are really helpful but are not too powerful to force the balance on one side.

Anything about the new game board?

Like the boards in the original game, the center piece is double sided with the town center on one side and a radio station on the other. There are a lot of new buildings on the L-shaped pieces but also some already known buildings like the police station or the high school. On some of the outer pieces are trees which avoid heroes to move diagonally.

Tell us about the new scenarios!

Learn to Survive:
The heroes have to get 6 upgrades while the zombie player has to get 4 upgrades or kill 3 heroes

Mountain of the Dead:
The heroes have to protect the 4 generators ’til morning while zombies have to destroy 3 generators or kill 3 heroes

Radio for help:
In this scenario the heroes have to find the tools and repair parts and get them to the radio station and have to defend the generator. The zombie player wins by killing 3 heroes, destroying the generator or the sun sets.

Blow up the Town:
put 1 explosive in one building on every L-shaped board and reach the center of the town where the detonator stands. The zombie player wins by killing 2 heroes or the sun sets.

What’s your opinion about…

… the heroes?
I like the new heroes. They have some interesting abilities or in case of the lumberjack a huge wound resistance. BUT: I don’t like the fact that Flying Frog is dictating me who survived the Woodinvale Incident (and none of them is one of my favorite heroes). Instead of recycling 3 heroes from the previous games, they should made a full cast of new heroes and put in some additional small cards for each previous hero which you can simply lay on your hero sheet.

… the rules?
I really love the Experience system. It gives the game an RPG like flavour which creates a better bond between the player and the hero and gives the zombie horde an higher danger level than normal. Fire is an unpredictable danger for both sides and can get really ugly. The tweaked Infection rules clarifies some of those logic errors I had with the previous rule from the main game.

… the cards?
The changes of the cards and the new ones really intensify gameplay, moving the game to a faster climax and raises the difficulty (which is in my opion positive)

… the scenarios?
Learn to survive is a good scenario to get the feel for leveling up your heroes and you should play it first before trying the other scenarios. The other scenarios are really great. None of them gives the heroes the chance to hunker down. Instead they force them to move over the complete board and think about their next move.

Your final conclusion?

As an expansion it is a must have! It really spices up your games and don’t really change the balance that much. Both, the zombie player and the hero players have to use more tactics than before to reach their goal. But would I recommend it as stand-alone to new players who don’t have LNOE? No. The main reason is that the difficulty is higher than in LNOE which can be frustrating in some point. And for me personally I always had the feeling to play LNOE lite but I can’t point my finger on the “why”.

So… I hope this review gives you a better overview and helps you in your decision to buy it or leave it.

Yours sincerely,

Hauwegdenmist

first of all: this is the first review I EVER wrote and english is not my native language so have mercy with my grammar 🙂

This is the first Hero Pack for Last Night on Earth and definitely not the last one. So let’s take a look deep inside the box…

What’s in the box?

1 full color rule booklet (a double sided piece of paper)
4 new hero miniatures (with hero cards)
1 scenario “hunt for survivors”
5 hero deck cards
5 zombie deck cards

Who are the Heroes?

Jade, the High school outcast
– As every student she can’t bear that many wounds as the adults but have the youth ability to heal herself.
– Her second Ability is called “Rebellous” which is really powerful when you are a lucky dice roller because every time you loose a fight, as long as you throw doubles you prevent all wounds (not only one). AND as a nice side effect you roll one additional fight dice as long as you are in the same space as another strange hero.

Mr. G-o-d-d-a-r-d, the chemistry teacher (sorry for the name spelling but it seems that you can’t write the name without getting it censored)
– The only one who IS a fire item! That means: his fire ability gives him an additional item which can’t be discarded because he don’t just pick a fire item. so, technically you can say he can carry 5 items (4 hero card items + the fire)
– The “quick thinking” ability allows you to discard 2 items and draw a hero card from the draw pile or choose an event (no play immediately cards or townfolks) from the discard pile. In my opinion only helpful when you are carrying useless stuff which is not worth to trade.

Stacy, the investigative reporter
– Her “daring” ability let’s her ignore the “Taken Over” effect.
– With the Reckless ability she can draw a hero card immediately when her move ends on a spawning pit.

Victor, the escaped prisoner
– Victor is the only hero with a negative ability called “Convict”. This gives him right at the start the “I don’t trust ’em” Zombie card.
– The “lock pick” ability is only useful for owners of the growing hunger expansion because he can ignore locked doors.
– His “rage” ability gives Victor one additional fighting dice for EACH hand weapon he carries.

Are there any new rules?
That depends on which expansion you have. One rule should be definitely new and that is “Sacrifice”. there are two zombie cards in this expansion where you have to pay something to play it.If you only have LNOE without the expansions there are special rules for the scenario in play:

Hero replenish: When a hero died or joined the dark side you can draw a new hero.
Hero Cards (1): the heroes get an additional starting hero card, for example you start in the middle of the board instead of drawing one card you can draw 2.
Zombie auto spawn: let the zombie player skip step 3. so he always can spawn zombies as long he has zombies in the pool.

What can the new cards do?

Hero Cards

Hunting Rifle (2): Has a range of 5 and hits on a 3+. If you skip the move/search phase you can shoot twice!
Hero’s Sacrifice: When a hero dies you can a) move the sun-marker one space up/down or b) roll a D6 for EVERY “remains in play” zombie card and discard them on 4+
“I know where it is!”: play it on a random buiding and every hero who is searching in this building can discard the card and choose one item from the hero deck
Monkey Wrench: add one fight dice when the zombie player is playing a fight card. but what’s makes it really powerful is when the hero wins a fight he/she can choose a “remains in play” card and on a roll of 4+ discard it.

Zombie Cards

Zombie Surge (2): Immediately spawn 1d6 zombies who may move and attack. your sacrifice: choose a hero and let him/her draw a hero card.
Hungry dead: Everytime a hero lost a fight draw one zombie card. your sacrifice: remove 3 zombies.
Nowhere to run: discard 10 cards from the hero deck
Twisted Angle: play on a hero when his movement roll is a one. now he/she has a movement -1 (remains in play)

What is the new scenario all about?

It’s called “Hunt for Survivors”. It’s a mix of “save the townsfolk” and “escape with the truck”. the heroes goal is to find townfolks and escape with them in the truck.The big difference is that you don’t search for the hero cards. one player already have the key marker and the townfolk markers are in random buildings. the townfolk markers works independent from the cards and do nothing. when the player with the keys and/or the townfolks got killed, they just drop them instead of discard them so another player can pick the stuff up.

So, what’s your opinion about…

…the heroes?

Jade:
in the right hands she can be a real pain in the a..! (from the view of the zombie player of course) When I got the chance to play her I’ve got her killed in the first rounds because of my dice luck while a friend had so many doubles I had huge problems to get rid of her.

Mr. G-o-d-d-a-r-d:
Give him gasoline, move him into a bunch of zombies and sacrifice him for the greater good! I don’t like him. “Why?” you ask? The first time he got in play, right in the first round, he had his “last night on earth” with Sally, the Highschool sweetheart… in the directors office… what a perv!

Stacey:
oh boy… the most worthless hero in the game. How many horror movies did you saw where the reporter is the first one to get killed or is the reason that a bunch of other people get killed? nothing more to say.

Victor:
What a monster! Give him 2 weapons and you have your tank. Team him up with Johnny and you can rename “Last night on earth” into “Zombie Killer Massacre”.

… the new cards?

The hero cards are totally overpowered while the zombie cards are not that powerful at all. The reason could be that the sacrifice rule only effects the zombie cards. But I really like the additional “discard 10 hero cards” card.

… the new scenario?

I really like it. I’m always complaining that there are so many scenarios where the heroes just hunker down in one building and searching the whole hero deck until they find what they want. This scenario is one of the rare ones where the heroes are forced to move across the board. So both thumbs up for this scenario.

… the whole product?

The quality of the content is the same high level as everything of flying frog. The minis are nice and the cards are the same material as in the mainbox. But like the most small expansions from flying frog I would say that 24.95$ are too much.

and the final question: Who would enjoy this expansion?

If you want a bigger hero-pool to choose from you can buy it. If your group of heroes has problems to survive the additional cards will help them alot. Everybody else: well, you have to decide for yourself if it’s a good addition to your gaming group or not.

I hope my review is helping you a little bit and it doesn’t leave you more confused than before.

Yours sincerely,

hauwegdenmist