Last Night On Earth: Survival Of The Fittest
The Survival of the Fittest expansion is packed with 3 all new card decks for Last Night on Earth, as well as new game mechanics, and several intense new Scenarios. The Heroic survivors of Woodinvale can now find powerful Unique Items to help them in their struggle as well as the use of Survival Tactics to keep them alive through the night. Not to be outdone, the relentless horde of Zombies now has access to a host of gruesome Grave Weapons that they can wield against the Heroes. These three new decks (Unique Items, Survival Tactics, and Grave Weapons) can be seamlessly integrated into all existing Scenarios using the same modular 'Dots' system first introduced in the Growing Hunger expansion.
Survival of the Fittest also includes new cards for the main Hero and Zombie decks as well as additional full color counters to expand the LNOE toolbox. As the cold night grows ever darker in Woodinvale, only the strongest will survive.
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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