thomas riccardi

It is the 1950’s and Eisenhower is president, rock and roll music is sweeping the country and zombies have come back from the dead to eat the living. This is the subject of the newest game from mayday games called Eaten By Zombies! But is this card game one that you should pick up or should you avoid it like a pack of flesh hungry zombies?

You start the game by selecting one of four characters June, Bob, Barney or Mary and each of the core cards are themed to your character. As you are hiding your safe house you have managed to scrounge together some items that will help you. There are big sticks (which give you +1 to fight), hide (giving you +1 to flee) and sandwiches (that give you +1 to flee but you can draw a card). You get 12 cards in your deck and you will shuffle this deck and draw six cards at random.

At the start of your turn you will shuffle the deck that contains the zombie cards and place a card face up. Then you can decide whether you want to fight the zombie or flee as you have to match or exceed the value of the fight or flee values on the card. If you fight the zombie it is removed from play but if you flee you can outrun the zombies but you will lose half the flee value of cards from your hand. If you fail to fight or flee you must discard the amount of cards in your hand equal to the hordes flee value. But either fighting or fleeing you can scavenge cards to put them into your hand and how you do this is by how many cards you played to defeat zombies. For example: if you discarded five cards you can purchase two cards that cost 3 and 2 or one card for 5.

The only way to win the game is to be the last one left alive and in a 2 player game that is fine.
But in a 3 to 4 player game that might be a bit harder and if you die in a 3 to 4 player game you come back as a zombie and have a chance to add zombies to the deck. The game is really fast paced and fun to play and has some great card art to get your players in the mood. This is a great game as it is simple to play with two players as it is with four. And to make matters better there are scenarios included in the back of the instruction manual where you have certain loot cards on the table. What I love most about this game is the box as it looks like an ammo box and it fits all the cards snugly in the case so it’s easy to store and retrieve the cards for play.

This is one of the most fun games to play as you can stab your friends in the back and the price is $25.95 which for a card game is not that bad. For more information on this game including on where to buy go to http://maydaygames.com/ and get ready to get eaten by zombies!

In 2003 I was living back with my parents in Las Vegas, NV when a comic book show came to town. Nestled among the various booths there was a small set up for a comic I had never heard of. The comic was called The Walking Dead and instead of the book being just about zombies it dealt with how characters reacted to the world around them. Now Z-Man games has made a board game based off the hit comic but is this one game you should pick up or avoid it like a pack of walkers?

The game starts out with you selecting one of the iconic characters from the comic. You can choose to be Rick, Glenn, Shane, Dale, Tyreese or Andrea. Once you choose who you want to play you draw a follower from the deck and four location cards (3 public and one private). Then determine your dice pool by adding up the die of your character and your followers.

You also start with one food, gas and ammo each and this is important as you will need all of these to survive the game. You can scavenge for supplies by landing on a resource space however, you must draw an encounter card for each resource on that space (for example if there are gas and ammo at a space you would draw two cards). Ammo is used for taking out more zombies but it can also create noise which can draw more zombies to your location. Gas allows you to travel farther than you would on a regular turn (which is to move up to 3 spaces) or can be used to bypass zombies. And food reduces the effect of fatigue on your followers (if any of your followers gets 3 fatigue counters they lose that survivor and if you lose all of your survivors you lose the game).

How do you win the game? You do this by scouting locations as you are searching for a safe haven for you and your party to rest. But this is easier said than done as you might have to forage for supplies needed for that location or gain enough followers to take out zombies that are gathered at that location. Combat is resolved by rolling the amount of die in your dice pool and tallying up the results. If you gain equal to or more zombie heads then you successfully defeat the zombies. But if you fail then you must place one fatigue marker for each zombie you failed to defeat.

What I love about this game is that you can play this any way you want. If you want to be cooperative and assist your fellow players you can do so. If you want to play an every man for themselves type of game you can do that as well. There are even rules for playing this game solo and that’s VERY rare in board games nowadays. I actually played the game solo and I can tell you that is as much fun to play this game solo than it is with a group.

The only complaint that I have with this game is there are no trays included to store the various components. I would have loved to see something like that included with the game but you can use rubber bands to wrap up the cards and small ziploc bags for the pieces. The game itself looks gorgeous and for fans of the walking dead it comes complete with new art done by Charlie Adlard! The game costs around the normal price of a board game of this size and at $39.99 you get a full color game board, 13 dice, over 300 markers and around 140 cards! That is a lot of stuff to be packed in this little box! Games are relatively quick lasting between 30 to 60 minutes and I can tell you if you are a fan of the comic this is a no brainer. Pick up this game and start playing in the world of the walking dead. For this game and other great games made by Z-Man games head over to http://www.zmangames.com to discover more great games by this company.

One of the most easiest , fast paced and fun to play games to come along in the past few years has to be the Munchkin series. It is a pretty straightforward game that allows you to get together with your friends and have a great time. Now Steve Jackson games has come up with a new core set of Munchkin. Get ready to kill monsters take their stuff and hear the lamentations of their women in Munchkin Conan.

The game plays like the original set of Munchkin as you draw four cards from the door and treasure decks and put them into your hand. Everyone in the game starts off as a level one character but you can play one of each race, class or birthright cards. These cards will give you bonuses in combat as well as some other abilities to give you an edge in the game. This set brings the flavor of Conan to munchkin so you might see a Cimmerian Warrior or a Stygian Priest prowling the lands.

For those that have not played Munchkin here is a short tutorial on how the game is played. The objective is to go from level 1 to level 10 and you do this by kicking in doors. When you kick in a door you turn the card face up and if it is a monster you must fight it. If it is a curse it comes into play immediately. Curses range from the funny “You are weak and civilized” to the frightening “Forced in the arena.” If no monster was drawn you can choose to either look for trouble (playing a monster from your hand) or to loot the room (draw a door card and place it in your hand).

How do you fight a monster? Your combat strength has to be greater than the combat strength of the monster. If you exceed this you defeat the monster and take its treasure. If you fail you have to run away (which can be done on a 5 or better on D6). If you fail that roll then you have to obey whatever it says on the bad stuff portion of the card. Now if you can’t defeat the monster by yourself you can always ask for help but then again those same players can also backstab you by making the monsters harder to fight. You can also die in the game and if you do so you lose all your items but you keep your level and the other players can loot your corpse. That may sound harsh but such is life in the world Munchkin Conan.

The art of the game is done by the wonderful John Kovalic who has done art for previous versions of Munchkin. Some of the art is just hilarious as we have seen cards of Conan being drunk or you annoying conan (which never ends well). Also the backs of the cards have the same backs that the original Munchkin set had so it blends in with the core sets. And always adding more cards to your game makes it more fun to play. The price for this new core set is $24.95 which is a great value as you will be getting 168 cards, the rules on how to play the game and a six sided die. The box also has components to keep your cards neat and tidy (along with any other expansions you pick up.)

If you are a fan of Conan you should definitely pick up this game as it is fun to play andhas loads of characters and monsters from the Conan universe. For more information on this game and the whole Munchkin universe visit http://www.sjgames.com and get ready to kick some monster butt!