Swede Racer

According to the rules, games with 1, 4, or 5 players will use fewer than six survivors (it would be 4, 4, and 5, respectively). But there’s nothing in the rules to make the game easier in these cases. You’ll be fighting the same number of zombies as if you were playing with 6 survivors.

Therefor, it makes sense to always use 6 survivors, unless the scenario specifically states otherwise, or if you’re wanting an extra challenge. For 4 or 5 player games, you can either give the extra survivors to the more experienced players, or have them rotate with the first player token so that everyone gets a turn.

Try to spread out your kills so that all of the survivors level at about the same time. If one survivor gets some good gear (or one player is having a lucky streak on his dice rolls), he can start to gain experience a lot faster than the other survivors. But since zombies spawn according to the color of the highest-level survivor, things can get pretty hairy if the rest of your group is under-powered. If one survivor starts to get ahead of the others, you may want to have them hold off on their attacks and switch to support actions, like searching and opening doors.

This is a simple rule, but I forgot it the first time I played, and I’ve heard that other people have too.

When you open the first door of a building, you must draw a zombie card for each room and place the appropriate zombies. If you forget to do this, the game becomes pretty easy!

You might think that the first scenario (excepting the tutorial) would be the easiest one, and they would progress in difficulty. That was my assumption, but it’s absolutely not the case. Scenario #1 is probably the hardest one in the game. I’ve played it a few times and we lost every time (though we still had a blast).

For a moderately challenging game that won’t make you pull your hair out, try scenario 5, 8, or 10. They’re hard enough to keep you on your toes, but not so hard that you have no chance of winning.

(Also, avoid scenarios 2 and 7. They’re ridiculously easy.)

When you open the first door of a building, you must draw a zombie card for each room, but the rules don’t specify in what order to populate the rooms. If you start with the room just inside the door, you could get a nasty surprise if one of the later rooms gets an extra activation card. (For instance, say you draw a card that puts a couple of runners in the first room, which is adjacent to the survivor who opened the door. In the next room, you get a runner activation card and those new runners swarm out and attack.)

To avoid this, start with the room farthest from the door and work your way back. That way, even if an activation card is drawn, there won’t be any new zombies in the closest room.

Remember that if a challenge is undefended, the attacker gets a bonus power. This is a simple rule, and it’s easy to miss, but it is absolutely vital. Without it, many of the other rules don’t make much sense. (For instance, without this rule, in many cases, there is no point in defending or attacking unless you know you can win.)