Hey guys! I didn't make this point very well about the doors. Here's my issue in better words: Except for two missions you start the board completely open. Additionally there are very few corridors so for the most part all rooms connect to each other. This is a big difference from previous Zombicide entries where rooms were part of a building and most buildings were separated, making about half the game out in the corridors and half in small room sections with doors blocking off many of them. This helped make Zombicide "feel" much more claustrophobic. Now in Invader, with most of the area made of rooms that all connect and are open you get the feeling of simply playing on a checkerboard style game board. That claustrophobic feel is completely gone. Hope that helps clear up what I meant!
The King of Average good point there! I didn’t mean to hijack thread about doors. Lolol. Keep up the good work brother. There is a game on the horizon for me ( KS on 9-9-2019) and I owe it to you! Thx I think!
Hah trust me you didn't do it, I had quite a few comment about that so I re-watched what I said and "in the heat of the moment" I only touched on how it's open without properly specifying my issue with that fact which is something I always strive to do (hence the hour long review) :D BTW I get the Prelude tomorrow so will be taking a nose dive into those playthroughs to get them done in time for 9-9 :D Will be sure to share my thoughts on it with much more detail soon.
The King of Average I actually really like how doors are handled in this. It’s a tactical decision rather than a hindrance of time. Super smart design.
This is the first board game I have ever played and I absolutely loved it. I own some other zombicides as well and some other dungeon crawler games now because of it.
This was my first, and probably last, CMON kickstarter. I'm enjoying the game and painting the miniatures, but the cost-cutting cop-outs are numerous and obvious. I figured it was a good call going with a big name like CMON for my first kickstarter, but there are so many other competing products that look like they're trying harder. Also, I'm not sure if you were only referring to doors in scenarios or in general, but you can close any door as a free action, once per activation. So they're a relevant strategy in any scenario
Yeah I meant ones that are closed off and need to be opened. I didn't explain this point as well as the others my apologies. In previous Zombicide games it felt much more claustrophobic. There were many more corridors and most rooms were in single buildings, not all connected. The "feel" of this game is that of playing on a checkerboard, where movement is generally unrestricted.
Ah, as for your CMON KS comment, it's a tough nut to crack. They almost always (but not quite always) work on a quantity vs quality aspect when it comes to additions to the game. Some of their KS games are fantastic (Blood Rage and HATE are huge standouts to me) and with those they focused on quality upgrades which is nice. But yeah in general you'll see more "business" decisions with CMON KS's than others. For instance their last BloodRage KS decision really irked me when they were "gracious" enough to upgrade the new clan board to cardboard instead of cardstock paper. Seems nice right? Then when there was complaints about how it wouldn't match all of the other clans they "swooped to the rescue" to offer a paid add-on for the other clans. As long as you didn't think too hard about the fact that the graphics were completed and logistics run through for plausibility with the add-on in far too short of a time, it seemed nice. In actuality of course they purposefully forced everyone to have a portion of the upgrade so it wouldn't match and then quickly offered a paid for solution to the problem they introduced.
Generally we limit the number of abominations to six cards only, this was mentioned in a previous version of Zombicide, so you’re not drawing abomination after abomination. You can close doors even though the scenario doesn’t mention it. There is a door pool limited to 5 which means you can only close 5 doors before reopening one.
Yeah I suppose you can make them appear, but with everything automatically open it often feels like you're just playing on a big checkerboard because it's so free roaming compared to the others.
@@TheKingofAverage For the Abominations, with Black Plague I created an Abomination deck, similar to the Necromancer Cabal deck. That way it doesn't thin the deck out with to many Abominations, but you can still get the variety.
The King of Average it’s what I based my abomination process on, your deck contains 6 necromancer cards max made up of whichever necromancer cards you want so you could have 6 necromancers with 1 card each or 1 necromancer with 6 cards, 3 necromancers with 2 cards etc so you could weight the Dec so one type of necromancer has more chance of appearing, either way when you draw the necromancer card all necromancers move.
@@TheKingofAverage Standard Cabal rules are to replace the normal necromancers with the other necromancers available, keeping the total number of necromancer cards in the deck at six. I do a variant of that for Necromancers and Abominations. I have a separate deck(s) next to the board. If you're in the blue level, spawn as normal. If you're in the yellow, roll a die. If it comes up as a 1 you draw from the Cabal or Abomination deck. 2-6 spawn as normal. If you're in the Orange you draw from the Cabal deck on a 1 or 2. In the Red draw from the Cabal deck on a 1-3. It's a bit more complicated than standard Cabal rules, but it lets me keep the deck around the same while still giving the variety in spawning.
There are totally doors but everyone starts in open position. You can close them to stall zombies. I think it makes way more sense and now you would use doors to slow them down just like in real life.
Ah I hadn't thought of that tactic, however that still leaves movement wide open until you decide yourself to change that, and typically somewhere you don't need to go anymore. I do indeed like the single action = open/close door but wish I had to spend an action to open them more often. With them all open it felt a lot like playing on a simple checkerboard.
@@TheKingofAverage Check page 22. The door opening/closing for players is a free action. You can have up to five neutral doors in play and destroyed doors stay on the map until spored down. Xenos must spend an action to destroy them. We used them successfully as a stall tactic to control xenomoths as even though they can move up to three zones, they still only have one action.
@@TonyLS9A Yeah I guess what I'm trying to say is I'd have preferred some closed from the start so it doesn't feel so "open". As it stand when you start moving on the board it feels like a thematic checkerboard as everything is so open. I recall playing many games of past Zombicides where zombies were coming down a hall and I'd open a door just to spawn more into that building so I had to backtrack. Stuff like that made the game feel very claustrophobic at times but between every room being open from the get-go (except for 2 missions) and the fact that almost all of the maps are made up of nothing but rooms instead of corridors takes away that feeling. At least it did for me.
@@TheKingofAverage Disclaimer: This is our first Zombicide. However, we have noted the board to be deceptively open, i.e. the LOS rules state you can (usually) only see into an adjoining room, and active mold has a vertical component that also blocks LOS. As such, your ability to engage is often at relatively short distance and we try to use corridors as death funnels. Strategic and timely door placement is really just to break LOS and suck up a xeno action.
@@TheKingofAverage Crap i thought each turn a person got a free open or close door action. I need to read rules again! lol. I do agree with you on your other points and i hope 2.0 actually has some game play design improvement happening around it instead of a lazy reskin with a tablet throw into the mix.... CMON though... dunno...
Oh that's actually an idea I like a lot! I love drafting for one thing, but also feel it adds a good bit of variety. I might very well try that next time :)
A lot of time warped tiles are caused at the factory. It largely depends on how wet the tiles were when packaged. This happens when things get printed and then quickly packaged to get on the board. Also the main issue with humidity happens during transportation. It’s a bummer either way.
Yeah, though I also find it related somewhat to cardboard quality. For instance Monolith uses an almost wood quality cardboard that's very hard and that it also seems to be sealed/solid on the edges (versus the layers you see of pressed cardboard). Worst I've seen was Shadows of Brimstone. I could bend that quite easily all on my own :(
Hey, I hope you will see this comment, already seen the video a couple weeks back, but recently seen something that might interrest you to resolve one of the issue you mentionned : I just recently learned at random (and then rereading the rulebook to make sure it was true) that every door starts the game opened unless otherwise stated in the mission setup. This means that every survivor is free to close doors at his leisure and to prevent pursuit from aliens as long as door tokens remain in reserve. I also thought it weird that so few missions actually uses doors, but rolled with it. Now i know that all the doors are always there, just opened by default. Great comphrehensive video btw really loved it.
Thanks Francois! I only figured this out afterward as well but my issue with it still stands. With all of the doors open at first and no building the game just feels like a giant checkerboard instead of that feeling I get with most of the other Zombicides where you often find things like zombies in a building that then swarm out into the hallway or street. Glad I wasn't the only one that thought this though! haha :D
Amazing and detailed review, it kinda makes me less sad from not backing this KS (Sci-Fi isnt my cup of tea, maybe except WH40k). Also, it always cheers me up when I see my friends commenting under your videos. :D And I even havent told them about your channel, they discovered it on their own because of its high quality content.
I'll forgive you for not talking about my channel :P Kidding of course, that's super cool, really glad to hear you enjoy my videos! I'm actually kind of similar, I like sci-fi, but typically the more grimdark version over shiny glowing weapons and such.
Great review! I just picked up a copy this weekend, along with 2 exclusive Civilian Packs and I agree - the game is a lot of fun, but oddly balanced. That being said, I think that finding balance on our own is part of the enjoyment and I look forward to delving deeper into this experience!
Glad you liked it William! Pros and cons of course. Obviously stuff like Fun Factor far outweighs many of my negatives, but still plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully 2.0 will see a big shift to fixing these but I won't hold my breath either as many of these issues have been present since the very first one.
I could be wrong but I think you have the option to close any door as long as the mold isn't touching an adjacent room (or the room you're in). So basically you use the doors as shields (and can close a door to any room at any time.) The xenos can break them down in one shot and once they bust it you can no longer close the doors.
No you are right, good call! The rulebook didn't effectively communicate to me that there are actually doors everywhere, they just aren't placed on the board until closed. I think part of this came from my experience with previous Zombicide games where the only doors you could interact with were the ones placed on the board whereas this one is opposite. That still leaves the game feeling much like a giant checkerboard until players decide to close some doors. With it all open at the beginning it's very much just a many connected squared board.
Very good review! the companies are adding more and more stuff to the game, that is not tested and they wont have enough time to develop fully. And all that is because we as backers get greedy and apparently kickstarters with heaps of minis are more successful. Also one more reason to back KS in addition to those you mentioned is the original purpouse of KS: to help actually fund the projects that would otherwise wont see the light of the day. This of course is not the case of CMON projects.
I'd include that in the "Collector's Edition" but yeah I should totally expand it to really just include exclusivity, even if it's the whole darn game :D So far what I like most is the daily unlock system, where something is "revealed" once a day for the duration of the campaign. Keeps information and hype trickling in while remaining realistic about funding levels and such.
I'm in Phoenix where we don't have any humidity and my boards are warped as well. In fact they got worst while we played the first game. Also have a few bent bases but really only noticed when I was painting them. Great review... can't disagree with anything you said. Also the dice swap out is really annoying as well.
Yeah I'm in Idaho and it's only slightly more humid here. To be honest I've always felt that was a cop out. It's perfectly possible to make cardboard not bend. Just have to spend the money on the right material :P Glad I'm not the only one irked by the dice thing. It feels kind of crummy knowing I got better ones in my retail version versus my KS version here. Do you use the Citadel Holder for painting? Since it's a pressure hold if a base is bent it'll bend it even more, causing an even larger issue. In all honesty I hope that by 2020 I don't receive another bent base again :)
@@TheKingofAverage Considering this is the only game that I have that has this issue, it is correctable. As to painting, I actually use a 3d printed holder and some blue-tak to keep it on. Been working for me so far.
Best bet is to put some heavy stuff on it. I believe cursing the game company for using sub-standard material also helps :D Seriously though, not much that I know of except pressure and prayer.
Fiddly, not that thematic for some reason for me, because of other issues too a hard pass for me! Thank you for helping me to come to an informed decision!
Yes you can, but with everything open at the beginning it means your essentially on a giant checkerboard unlike previous games. It just feels so much more "open". I didn't explain this well my apologies.
Yes but only because of theme. In the end it's the same Zombicide, love it or hate it. I didn't like the necromancer or dragon mechanics of the fantasy ones, but hated how open and restrictive (weapon wise outside) Invader is. Pros and cons to each I suppose :)
I don’t think we should expect stretch goals to be blanched (not play tested) I look at them as extras and that’s why you can’t get them at retail. This is also why I don’t back most games I’m excited about and wait for them to go to retail (and get it 20% cheaper). Also, I like enjoying my core and looking forward to growing with my game over time as I pick up expansions
Yeah I think I'm leaning more toward that for sure over time. So often we get all these expansions but end up not even playing the whole core box worth of game too.
I agree on your complaints, I'll probably not do another CMON Kickstarter. I'm working a way to include old Zombicide zombies and abominations as an invasion earth campaign.
Any other games like Zombicide? i may get this but i just dont think Zombicide games look very nice lol , i mean the components. Also whats the best Zombicide to get, ill be playing solo with multi characters.
Typically whatever the latest version is has the most up to date rules and should be picked, unless a specific rule grabs you (hordes in Green Horde, Concentrated fire/outside areas here, etc.) As for games that are sorta similar, I've heard Deep Madness plays similar, but is much more difficult than Zombicide.
CMON is not for the love of the game, it's for the love of the money. It happens too often when they make it big, they become so arrogant, I don't even want to buy their products anymore.
It's a tight rope to walk I feel at times. I'm all for companies wanting money, and don't hold it against them when they do. What I do like though is when it's better for consumers like you and me. The race to make the most appealing product so you can make more money is much better for us than the rush to make a product that's just good enough to get people in and then have targeted cost cutting measures with the solution sold to you as an extra purchase. :D
"the rush to make a product that's just good enough to get people in and then have targeted cost cutting measures with the solution sold to you as an extra purchase" Very much this! I'm also all for companies making more money and IMPROVING their products and offerings in doing so. I'm left with a very bad taste in my mouth when they start turning down the "we are so hot right now, we can throw any kind of crap into the crowd and they'll sweep it up in seconds" route. Even more so when they are right. It's also our responsibility not to support such actions. Therefore, I thank you for this honest review. Some reviewers are still singing their praises while jokingly pointing a finger at them and saying "Naughty, naughty for doing this silly thing" with a huge grin on their faces. You lay it all out straight. I'll stop now before I write an essay. :) Keep up the great work!
Thanks Will, glad I'm not the only one that cares about the industry at large (that is, not just the game but the business practices behind it) :) You gotta give the other reviewers a break. It's hard to be too critical when you are sent the game, play it once, and then review it in a 15 minute quick video ;)
Agree with everything you said.....Additional things they screwed up in their rush to get this out.....missing xenos damage output on both xenos tables inside and back. We had to look all over to find it written in one place in the book....but it wasn't on the reference Xenos tables! LOL Nowhere in the book does it say that the bot and sentry gun share your LOS. It says you have control of them but doesn't explicitly say you have their LOS. Having to dump over the tray to get the character card out is pretty elementary, surely something a little more polished would have been better. Also, this isn't a screw up but a bad decision IMO....the used different names for the same skills in previous Z games. It wasn't even a case of necessity either, like Jump is now Zero G Run and Slippery is now Unstoppable. There was nothing wrong with the old terms. I get how they changed terms from Modern Z to Black Plague cause you don't "Full Auto" with a bow. Also, I wish there was a bigger difference between soldiers and civilians. The difference isn't much. To be frank, I'm probably going to sell my KS pledge and just play BP & GH, it just feels more polished.
Oh man yeah I saw Zero G Run and was like "what is that???" lol I actually had the point about how everything is easily accessible except for the Xeno info which is randomly on page 20 but with the video already being over an hour it got edited out. You bring up some VERY good points!
hehe yeah we've discussed this already ;) Will be interesting to see how 2.0 works as I do like the streamlined changes they did for this release already.
I actually didn't like earlier zombicide because thinking of risks opening doors and deciding when you do it was almost the whole game. I think they made the game interesting in different ways which i like very much.
Yeah the doors were super frustrating, I'm glad it's not just simply a single. I would have liked more of the preemptively closed though so the board didn't feel so open.
You are quite right that there is not a lot of stuff if you buy the retail version. That's why i don't buy CMON kickstarter games from retail. I went backing this as "all in" like i usually do if i back the game. There are quite lot of scenarios if you have the both expansions. But i don't know if this system needs a lot of scenarios anyhow, because the system is so light. I think the scenarios would become repetitive/too similar when you play lot of them. There was quite a lot extras and i bought all thematic hero groups so i don't feel that there is too little variety. Then again... if all the stuff would be available in retail and i didn't back the game, i don't know if i would spent so much money on this game just to get variety. I can't say why it's not issue when backing a kickstarter :D
Thanks to you, and your patreons, for the review. You mentionned a couple of issues I have with CMON here. First the fact that you need "everything" to really appreciate the game because the core really isnt enough (why I will never buy Rising Sunnin retail). However I was concerned with what you said about the "overkill" from SG characters... Clearly they were not as tested as the core characters. And second, the add-ons... Damn those dices look basic... In Trudvang they offered an add-on for the runes to have them in plastic instead of cardboard. There were some concerning reports from fans that tried the game at Gencon who mentionned that the cardboard runes tokens were already damaged. So unless you pay to have acceptable tokens you shove in a bag then your components degrade after just a few games... Same thing than those dices. Pay extra or we give you the stuff from the discount bin. And then I remember the stretch goals from Hate where the components were upgraded to plastic for free... Still, looks like a fun game, still makes me regret that I skipped it. Hope you enjoy killing xenos! And I hope we'll have one for Chronicle X soon! I really liked that you compared the two unboxings since they have a similar theme. Also, really love that you do your reviews like that. I like to see the things you talk about. So thanks!
Maxime Côté Gauvin Blood Rage retail is excellent on it’s own and other companies like FFG put out games that feel like they need expansions all the time. So it really might be a case by case issue. In terms of everything else I agree.
Thank you very much Maxime, I let them know you said thanks :) We were just discussing my "harshness" with the review when I read this comment :) I need to start putting a disclaimer on my reviews I think. I nitpick and note a lot of things, but not everything I say is equal. I value that fun factor far, far more than the fact that with all doors open it feels more like a giant checkboard. One is an area I feel could be improved while one is a fundamental piece of the game :) Anyway, as for the SG's I think Portland partially caught on to how I view it. First of all yeah FFG (and others) are TERRIBLE with this, selling the core game of Descent with plastic tokens for bad guy bosses so you have to buy them separately, not putting enough dice for even a single powerful attack in Rebellion so you have to buy extra dice, and forcing their scale of miniatures in the new Marvel miniature game so you'll need to pair it with their own terrain, etc. For CMON, first I feel their older KS's don't compare to well and should be omitted from this. Like Portland said, Blood Rage retail is AMAZING and I have no desire to get any extras in it, not even the expansions. This however comes from the same time frame where CMON was giving custom Zombicide dice in their core pledges so... :P For more recent KS's, you can tell how it'll be with this: Is the KS a premium version or not? I'm glad you mentioned Rising Sun and Hate actually as those are great examples. Both were the "premium" KS's. They had stretch goals that upgraded the components instead of selling them. They also have SG's that integrate well into the base game (Rising Sun has rules in place for how to add the SG's in a balanced fashion even). Compare that to Zombicide, Bloodborne, Death May Die, etc. where no stretch goals upgrade components, instead it's always just more "stuff". That's the retail method and you should probably set your expectations for the core box all by itself pretty low :) Just played Chronicle X again today, will continue to get some plays in throughout the week as I will be reviewing it soon. I always try to get plenty of play time in with a variety of methods (different amount of players, different styles of scenarios, using all the units, etc.) I hate when I see a review and notice that they simply didn't play it a lot so I try to avoid that as much as I can :)
@@Bandit-137 I unfortunately never played Blood Rage, so I cant compare. But I heard good things about the retail version and KoA praise it too. Never tried Descent neither although it was on my list (the only thing I "played" with descent is killing the minis that my DM use from the game in our D&D campaigns). The "case by case" I agree absolutely. Like we discussed KoA and I in is Zombicide : Invader video, CMON seems to go more on the cheaper for some of its games and more quality on others. I wonder if they feel they need to do less effort on Zombicide since its pretty much selling on its own (Zombicide 2nd edition is actually their next KS campaign) and they try harder on games that need more "convincing". Good to know about FFG, its a very pratice that is hurting the video game industry and I really dislike that in board games too...
@@TheKingofAverage Personnaly I llike the "rants" (You know what grind my gears? Regular! Plain! BORING! Yathzee-style dices!). You are passionate and it shows and thats why some subscribers like me like to watch your videos. Many things you mention are important like the quality of the cardboard for the tiles and the tokens. At the very least an annoyance and at worst its a game that is damaged further every time you play. So these are important to know. Like I said the other day, if I wanted a cheerleader I would watch sponsored reviews (not that I dont watch those, different opinions is important, but you see my point). A disclaimer might be nice (although you added one at the end of your videos recently with the patreons' names) but you were always up front about your style so those that know you should know what to expect. Maybe because you put too much passion in the (BORING!) dices vs the fun of tearing down xenos? And good thing you play a few sessions before doing a review! You have to be thorough in your hour long review (how is it now 60+ minutes?!? I need to watch sequences at different times for a complete video!). Also Arena : The Contest is coming soon, and it will pretty much the first game that I will own (except Black Rose Wars but I didnt receive my pledge yet) that you will own too. If you do an unboxing and review on it , it will ba a fun thing for me to compare with my own copy. Maybe my opinion will be different then :-P Thanks for your hard work!
I'm unsure quite how CMON decides to do it. All I know is that from the consumer side of things, they have some games that get a focus on component improvements, and others only get game expansions.. Knowing CMON they probably have some crazy number crunching and statistical data on it all. I expect their KS's in 2023 to be run fully by an AI haha :D I'm so looking forward to Arena! The game looks really, really good! As for the video length at times, passion and thoroughness sometimes gets the better of me. How am I supposed to have a 3 minute tantrum about the dice in a game if the whole video is just 10 minutes? :P That being said, I know it's not for everyone. Heck, my Audience Retention on this video is 14:29 (22.6%) currently. I've thought about splitting them up into part 1 and part 2 when they get this long, but feel that's a hassle for those that actually want to watch the whole thing and back-to-back releases of videos are typically something YT doesn't care for so people might be left only getting a notification for Part 1 or something which would really suck. At the end of the day I think you guys are just stuck being at the whim of whatever I happen to film :D
Great review, real criticism and well explained. Not often that we see such a great review on RUclips. Like the others mentioned, you should have maybe tried to weigh every negative with a well explained positive to make this perfect and... not to make the positive ending such a "surprise" :)
Glad you liked it! I feel I've improved a bit since this review (hopefully anyway) :D Zombicide in general is kind of an interesting game because it's far from perfect, yet still gets played a lot. Goes to show that some games are just good fun, even in spite of some issues :)
I haven't played Invader yet but as you say, the differences between core heroes and SG heroes are indeed a let down if the SG heroes are indeed so overpowered. Also fully agree on the dice...feels like more and more to a quick money grab to me
Yeah the dice REALLY irk me because it's something that used to just be included, like all my other games but now Zombicide is a lone outlier in that it's an extra purchase. SG heroes have always been an issue. Last time I played Green Horde we had the wonder woman character on our team and she starts with Super Strength, making her attack with the weapon she had kill the dragon in one hit every time he landed. Made the whole thing super meh it was so easy.
HAH! Welcome! You must be new :D I said both positive and negative. But I'm not the kind of reviewer that doesn't actually critique so you'll always find negatives in any of my reviews :) If I were to sum up the review, and Zombicide as a whole: It's got problems, aint perfect, but a ton of fun. That seems fair to me :)
Came here for a more in-depth review of the new components of the game after seeing the shorter video. Sometimes it's easier to see and hear an explanation rather than reading it on BGG. Very in-depth review but I realize that I don't/didn't have the same expectations from a Kickstarter than the OP has. Fit and finish isn't my highest priority on a Kickstarter, especially in a game. To me getting something from Kickstarter is like getting a brand new car, first year. They still need to work the bugs out and the second edition has those bugs worked out. For me it's new dimension of gameplay, new components and in the case of Zombicide, the characters not in the retail version. This is my third Zombicide and my first Kickstarter and the one think I can tell you is that whenever I play I have to dig out a bunch a D6, because when you are in deep you don't have enough no matter if they are the custom or the "yahtzee" D6. Dice aren't a priority of mine. I have so many that not having a new set of D6 is no issue to me. It was a good video but not the review I was looking for.
Problem is I got the brand new car (read, Zombicide) from some mom-and-pop dealership (read, retail) and it came with the bells and whistles. Now I bought the same brand new car from their specific dealership (read, straight from CMON) and it lacked the features of the previous car I bought and was more expensive. That's my issue with the dice, the used to offer them and now they took that away. Anyway, sorry the review wasn't for you! I think one of the most important aspects as a consumer is to find a reviewers that's 1) honest and 2) that aligns with your tastes. That way you can properly judge if something is for you or not. Now ideally my review offered more game specific likes and dislikes, I'm definitely not a "high level" reviewer to just list overall concepts of a game so perhaps that was helpful - but perhaps not. My tastes aren't for everyone of course. Either way, thanks for being here! :)
@@TheKingofAverage absolutely! One of the other points you made, the overcrowding, I find a plus. The overcrowding started with Green Horde with the "enter the horde". Invader to me is a cross between Aliens (movie) and the Zerg from Starcraft. That vibe to me means swarm. As a player the game gives you more methods to deal with the swarm (bots and turrets, as opposed to the trebuchet in green horde), but the aspect of a swarm turning the game to flight instead of fight makes it more dynamic to me.
@@Namaah Oh I really like a swarm of enemies! As I said I always found it enjoyable to have a swarm coming down a hallway that I'm running from (as part of my complain of having all doors open at the start). What I have an issue with is there's nothing in the rules on how to handle when there are more miniatures than can fit in one space. Even just saying "they spill out into an adjacent space" would be fine - I'd actually like that! But there is no such mention of anything in the rules so your stuff house ruling where to put the excess minis.
I have got some bended bases to.. the packaging for this game kinda a sucks. Some of the game boxes were damaged but I don't care because I always make a custom box to contain all the game with expansions and I like to change the bases with trasparent resin version. For teh bended game tiles is annoyng but I'll change that also with battle system terrain, this game deserve a power up imo
I get accused of being pedantic in my reviews. But you take it to the next level! ;) very detailed review. Very detailed. Enjoyed watching some of it, for sure!
The King of Average I get it. :) One thing I’m super critical of is the shape of the rule book. Lol. I hate those big 12x12 rules books. They take up too much space on the table! I also totally agree with you that the unboxing of a game really is the first introduction a player has with the game, and it’s important to present the game in a good fashion.
A few things here: 1. You complain about the Kickstarter- extra heroes breaking the game, but then complain about the Kickstarter-extra xenomorphs making it too hard. You can't have it both ways. They added the ability to include tougher xenos in order to balance out the tougher heroes. In fact, the rulebook specifically tells you how to add in the new cards in order to tune the difficulty, along with other ways to tune difficulty to suit your game. Unless someone just wants to play without any possibility of losing (what's the point in that, though?), then I don't see why they would opt for some of the tougher heroes without also adding in the tougher xenos or other difficulty mods. 2. You complain about the ability for a random card draw to end the game. That's a feature, not a bug. The randomness of the game is what makes strategy so important to game play. A player ending their turn with no available actions right next to a spawn point (like the example you provided) is just playing poorly and asking for trouble by depending on random draws going their way to win. 3. Complaining about the dice just seems like you're really stretching for things to ding the game on. For one thing, the Zombicide themed dice are really not all that user friendly. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen in person and in game play videos players misreading the die rolls because of the wacky icons for 1's and 6's. I'd rather have simple to read dice that don't hinder game play over gimmicks any day. Furthermore, at least they actually give you enough dice to play the game, unlike some other companies out there (*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough). Having said that, I do agree with you that some of the other production quality issues (such as warped board tiles) are frustrating from a company that has managed to hit it out of the park with some of their other releases (such as Rising Sun).
Thanks for the comment! I'll add some more info: 1) I feel this is an oversimplification made to make a point but I do always try to provide nuance and explanation. While you're the first to jump to this (and voice the thought) perhaps I did indeed not convey what I meant well. I have never once lost a game of invader while playing SG characters. Not once. In fact I've not even had an "oh crap" moment. Even when adding a total of 5 abombs so there are 2-3 on the board fairly often, we typically just wipe them out in the next round before the activate and if nothing else, before they get close. This sort of power creep makes it super silly to have abombs on the board and then easily handled while in yellow. The only way to really lose this is just bad luck of the draw in a single turn to wipe (which I talked about how you tend to go from full health on everyone to lost the game over a single enemy round already). I've played Invader plenty by this point and actually lost our first game yet just this week. We restricted ourselves to only the core people and included 3 abombs in the deck + all of the other new enemy types. Yes you can artificially make things harder, just like you can go through an entire campaign of Descent with the house rule that you can only move 1 space, or never hold any items, or some other random self imposed difficulty. The point is that at it's core, Zombicide swings wildly in difficulty for the base game from season to season, either being very hard or very easy. This time I felt it's on the very easy side, and playing with a full stretch goal team is just always easy mode all the time unless you try to play blindfolded or something. Again, just my experience of course, but it's my review too so I feel that's applicable :P 2. It was just an example, extra activations can give abombs 3+ turns with no interrupt from players. Additionally there are scenarios where objectives are directly next to a spawn point. Lastly I feel perfectly in my right to complain about a "feature" of a game if I don't like it in my review. Roll to move in Monopoly and Clue are features, but that doesn't mean I like it and certainly doesn't mean I shouldn't mention that mechanic in my review. 3. Yeah I'm weird but this stuff really bothers me when I see stuff taken away from the "expensive" edition. I do have a disclaimer right in front warning you that this is a heavily opinionated, rant likely review as are all of mine. Not everyone likes so much opinion in reviews but I can only provide my own thoughts and my thoughts here are that my retail edition from years ago came with stuff this newer, expensive version does not. Phone reviewers to this day mention headphone jack removal on phone reviews. If it's good enough for MKHD I feel it's okay for me to mention something similar here :) No harm no foul on any of this. We all have our own opinions and mine not always align with yours. As a say early on in the disclaimer, I just provide what I care about and my reasoning, and then it's up to you to decide if you care about that as well or not. I might not care about storage options and just casually mention that Okko Chronicle expansions are the type that artificially the box size to make it seem larger, but a viewer might be at their storage limit, in their apartment and what was just a footnote for me might be something that fulls tops them from backing the game. I can't make that judge for everyone so I just call 'em like I see 'em :)
Maybe one of the solutions is to remove 2-3 abomination card from the deck. Why not? As for the rule that as soon as one player dies it's game over, that's the only rule I really don't like and find it stupid. Why?! There are 5 more players. It will be more difficult for them because there is less of them and therefore less player action in the player phase and less dmg output but why it has to be the end of the game right away. I plan to buy this game though, but if I buy it, I will surely change some rules and add some stuff. For example I plan to make cards with armor that will go in body slot and can receive a certain amount of damage (light armor 1 point of dmg, medium armor 2 point of dmg, and heavy armor 3 point of dmg ( a -1 move action penalty with heavy armor)). Also, for example, there will be only 2 heavy armor cards in the item deck. I also don't like molds mechanics. Either I would put no mold at all or I would say that mold could be destroyed with a flame thrower but permanently.
LOL! :D I need to start putting warning at the start of my reviews because getting hit with that unprepared could cause whiplash :D Seriously though, really glad to hear the extra effort was appreciated!
I have almost everything for Zombicide: Black Plague and really enjoy that. Invaders looked kind of bland to me and i didn't like the theme or the aliens. Didn't enjoy the sculpts at all.
I like a good chunk of them, but mainly got it for the rules updates as I already have Rue Morgue as well, and don't have very many sci-fi games. That's the nice thing about Zombicide, there's at least one for everyone :D
Hah, thanks! :D I'm pretty against numbered rating scales (what makes an 8.5 game better than an 8? How is that defined?) But thought this might be something fun to do. I've already decided on the "rating" for Chronicle X haha
KoA... Some KSE characters are OP... That’s when you make the zombie deck OP too... instead of ignoring all the KSE just use stronger enemies when using stronger allies... problem solved 😇😇😇
Eh, sort of :D For instance in Green Horde we were super excited to finally fight a dragon. The problem was even the giant dragon was a joke because we had Wonder Woman on our team and she starts in blue with super strength and was hitting for 3 every time so he'd get knocked out the moment he landed each time. I've played with 4 abombs and all KSE aliens before and still have never lost when using all KSE characters. Adding the KSE enemies with core box heroes, or only 1-2 KSE heroes can work though and I've had that be okay. But in general, after a ton of play sessions with zombicide, I can say safely that the best balance hands down has always been the core box of aliens and heroes. TBH this is pretty common for many KS games these days. Core box is balanced, the myriad of SG's and KSE's simply haven't had the TLC of development time as the rest and it tends to show.
The King of Average Yeah that’s mostly a paragraph I can get behind. I own every single Zombicide Fantasy & Sci-fi piece but mostly played Black Plague so far. Only played Invader core so far. I feel any zombicide core box would almost be a rip off at retail for $100. I need the stretch goals to make it a great deal. That said, if you’re playing with Super Strength characters (in Black Plague) what I do is add in all the abom cards for like 6 abominations so that every few cards is a new abom. on board. This becomes problematic when you hit orange and red very fast and then run out of zombies and then get extra activations. Another major difference that may be taking place is the people in your game group. If I had everyone in my Game group be as good as I was, then I probably would almost never lose unless it was just super bad luck. That may be the case where everyone in your playgroup is experienced and quite good at games. I always play this with at least one or two people who are very inexperienced with games and aren’t always able to figure out the most optimal moves. I always give advice, and help when they ask for it, but ultimately I let them make their own moves and see what happens otherwise I’d be Alpha gaming them
As for the characters breaking the game, we usually play with less than the recommended character count as my group usually plays with 2-4 players each with 1-2 characters each.
Yeah that's one way of doing it. After 8 or so iterations of Zombicide though it'd be nice for them to warn new players saying SG heroes are all overpowered and will ruin game balance, to fix that try and figure out what amount of Abombs and fewer heroes you need to get a sense of challenge back in the game." :D
Apart from the legit criticism here, I find that you are so wrong when it comes to the section "why back on KS". KS should be used for projects that cannot become reality without their funding. THAT is the primary reason why one should back projects. Not the amount of SGs, exclusives etc. And that is the reason why CMONs latest projects suck (apart from their innovative Trudvang). People back old ideas without innovation nonetheless so CMON were pushing the boundaries with Invader of course. I have no idea why so many hardcore gamers still back Zombicide projects...
I can understand that reasoning, but it's definitely an ideal separated from reality. Kickstarter, at the end of the day still loves money enough to be perfectly fine with these campaigns so they can get their cut. Personally, I am mostly concerned about the consumer side of things. As long as it helps the consumer get a good deal in some fashion and KS themselves are okay with it then I don't mind. It's certainly better than every time we buy a smartphone made by Foxconn.
It doesn't :) First of all the board game industry is not a zero-sum game. Second you cannot assume that if Zombicide: Invader released retail instead of Kickstarter, that people would not have bought it. Retail is still the largest sales point, even for CMON. Additionally, it's not so simple or black and white. The more big names are on KS the more people learn about KS and see other games. Additionally these large KS's give us the false illusion to what it means to be "successful" on KS. Back in the pre-zombicide days making 100k for a board game was great! No one dreamed of a a 500k goal and if you did and you reached it that's a star example. Now, with these big KS's going on we see anything in the low millions as somewhat as a failure. The indie games on average, from what I've seen do better than they did years ago before the huge push for gigantic campaigns.
am I the only weirdo that puts the tokens back in the punch tab when they're done playing? It makes it way easier to find and set them up when they're on the flat sheet. #dontjudge
I've been known to do it before, however I find it can often times wear out the tokens faster, and bagging them in certain groups (not so much for Zombicide) can help with setup time. #didntjudge :)
lol u buyd 300 dollars i buyd 89 dollars u should have buyd from amazon man im this was really dumb from hope u react because u should buyd from amazon
Buying a Zombicide game at retail is like buying the most expensive steak at Denny’s. It’s still really good and hits the spot. But pay double or triple the price of the Denny’s steak and you’ll get a steak that’ll make your undies sticky lol. Steaks are 1 & Done. A board game is forever.
Hey guys! I didn't make this point very well about the doors. Here's my issue in better words: Except for two missions you start the board completely open. Additionally there are very few corridors so for the most part all rooms connect to each other. This is a big difference from previous Zombicide entries where rooms were part of a building and most buildings were separated, making about half the game out in the corridors and half in small room sections with doors blocking off many of them. This helped make Zombicide "feel" much more claustrophobic.
Now in Invader, with most of the area made of rooms that all connect and are open you get the feeling of simply playing on a checkerboard style game board. That claustrophobic feel is completely gone. Hope that helps clear up what I meant!
The King of Average good point there! I didn’t mean to hijack thread about doors. Lolol. Keep up the good work brother. There is a game on the horizon for me ( KS on 9-9-2019) and I owe it to you! Thx I think!
Hah trust me you didn't do it, I had quite a few comment about that so I re-watched what I said and "in the heat of the moment" I only touched on how it's open without properly specifying my issue with that fact which is something I always strive to do (hence the hour long review) :D
BTW I get the Prelude tomorrow so will be taking a nose dive into those playthroughs to get them done in time for 9-9 :D Will be sure to share my thoughts on it with much more detail soon.
The King of Average awesome news man. Very much looking forward to it!
The King of Average I actually really like how doors are handled in this. It’s a tactical decision rather than a hindrance of time. Super smart design.
Pro trick: watch series at flixzone. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies lately.
This is the first board game I have ever played and I absolutely loved it. I own some other zombicides as well and some other dungeon crawler games now because of it.
This was my first, and probably last, CMON kickstarter. I'm enjoying the game and painting the miniatures, but the cost-cutting cop-outs are numerous and obvious. I figured it was a good call going with a big name like CMON for my first kickstarter, but there are so many other competing products that look like they're trying harder.
Also, I'm not sure if you were only referring to doors in scenarios or in general, but you can close any door as a free action, once per activation. So they're a relevant strategy in any scenario
Yeah I meant ones that are closed off and need to be opened. I didn't explain this point as well as the others my apologies. In previous Zombicide games it felt much more claustrophobic. There were many more corridors and most rooms were in single buildings, not all connected. The "feel" of this game is that of playing on a checkerboard, where movement is generally unrestricted.
Ah, as for your CMON KS comment, it's a tough nut to crack. They almost always (but not quite always) work on a quantity vs quality aspect when it comes to additions to the game. Some of their KS games are fantastic (Blood Rage and HATE are huge standouts to me) and with those they focused on quality upgrades which is nice.
But yeah in general you'll see more "business" decisions with CMON KS's than others. For instance their last BloodRage KS decision really irked me when they were "gracious" enough to upgrade the new clan board to cardboard instead of cardstock paper. Seems nice right? Then when there was complaints about how it wouldn't match all of the other clans they "swooped to the rescue" to offer a paid add-on for the other clans. As long as you didn't think too hard about the fact that the graphics were completed and logistics run through for plausibility with the add-on in far too short of a time, it seemed nice.
In actuality of course they purposefully forced everyone to have a portion of the upgrade so it wouldn't match and then quickly offered a paid for solution to the problem they introduced.
Generally we limit the number of abominations to six cards only, this was mentioned in a previous version of Zombicide, so you’re not drawing abomination after abomination.
You can close doors even though the scenario doesn’t mention it. There is a door pool limited to 5 which means you can only close 5 doors before reopening one.
Yeah I suppose you can make them appear, but with everything automatically open it often feels like you're just playing on a big checkerboard because it's so free roaming compared to the others.
@@TheKingofAverage For the Abominations, with Black Plague I created an Abomination deck, similar to the Necromancer Cabal deck. That way it doesn't thin the deck out with to many Abominations, but you can still get the variety.
I'm not familiar with the Necromancer Cabal deck - how does that work?
The King of Average it’s what I based my abomination process on, your deck contains 6 necromancer cards max made up of whichever necromancer cards you want so you could have 6 necromancers with 1 card each or 1 necromancer with 6 cards, 3 necromancers with 2 cards etc so you could weight the Dec so one type of necromancer has more chance of appearing, either way when you draw the necromancer card all necromancers move.
@@TheKingofAverage Standard Cabal rules are to replace the normal necromancers with the other necromancers available, keeping the total number of necromancer cards in the deck at six. I do a variant of that for Necromancers and Abominations. I have a separate deck(s) next to the board. If you're in the blue level, spawn as normal. If you're in the yellow, roll a die. If it comes up as a 1 you draw from the Cabal or Abomination deck. 2-6 spawn as normal. If you're in the Orange you draw from the Cabal deck on a 1 or 2. In the Red draw from the Cabal deck on a 1-3. It's a bit more complicated than standard Cabal rules, but it lets me keep the deck around the same while still giving the variety in spawning.
There are totally doors but everyone starts in open position. You can close them to stall zombies. I think it makes way more sense and now you would use doors to slow them down just like in real life.
Ah I hadn't thought of that tactic, however that still leaves movement wide open until you decide yourself to change that, and typically somewhere you don't need to go anymore. I do indeed like the single action = open/close door but wish I had to spend an action to open them more often. With them all open it felt a lot like playing on a simple checkerboard.
@@TheKingofAverage Check page 22. The door opening/closing for players is a free action. You can have up to five neutral doors in play and destroyed doors stay on the map until spored down. Xenos must spend an action to destroy them. We used them successfully as a stall tactic to control xenomoths as even though they can move up to three zones, they still only have one action.
@@TonyLS9A Yeah I guess what I'm trying to say is I'd have preferred some closed from the start so it doesn't feel so "open". As it stand when you start moving on the board it feels like a thematic checkerboard as everything is so open. I recall playing many games of past Zombicides where zombies were coming down a hall and I'd open a door just to spawn more into that building so I had to backtrack. Stuff like that made the game feel very claustrophobic at times but between every room being open from the get-go (except for 2 missions) and the fact that almost all of the maps are made up of nothing but rooms instead of corridors takes away that feeling. At least it did for me.
@@TheKingofAverage Disclaimer: This is our first Zombicide. However, we have noted the board to be deceptively open, i.e. the LOS rules state you can (usually) only see into an adjoining room, and active mold has a vertical component that also blocks LOS. As such, your ability to engage is often at relatively short distance and we try to use corridors as death funnels. Strategic and timely door placement is really just to break LOS and suck up a xeno action.
@@TheKingofAverage Crap i thought each turn a person got a free open or close door action. I need to read rules again! lol. I do agree with you on your other points and i hope 2.0 actually has some game play design improvement happening around it instead of a lazy reskin with a tablet throw into the mix.... CMON though... dunno...
I tend to do a draft of the survivors, that way we're not hand picking the "best" survivors every game.
Oh that's actually an idea I like a lot! I love drafting for one thing, but also feel it adds a good bit of variety. I might very well try that next time :)
Great review. Appreciate the focus on the manufacture quality. Agree on all of your negatives. Many thanks.
A lot of time warped tiles are caused at the factory. It largely depends on how wet the tiles were when packaged. This happens when things get printed and then quickly packaged to get on the board. Also the main issue with humidity happens during transportation. It’s a bummer either way.
Yeah, though I also find it related somewhat to cardboard quality. For instance Monolith uses an almost wood quality cardboard that's very hard and that it also seems to be sealed/solid on the edges (versus the layers you see of pressed cardboard). Worst I've seen was Shadows of Brimstone. I could bend that quite easily all on my own :(
@@TheKingofAverage SOB has pretty low quality components all around.
Hey, I hope you will see this comment, already seen the video a couple weeks back, but recently seen something that might interrest you to resolve one of the issue you mentionned : I just recently learned at random (and then rereading the rulebook to make sure it was true) that every door starts the game opened unless otherwise stated in the mission setup. This means that every survivor is free to close doors at his leisure and to prevent pursuit from aliens as long as door tokens remain in reserve. I also thought it weird that so few missions actually uses doors, but rolled with it. Now i know that all the doors are always there, just opened by default.
Great comphrehensive video btw really loved it.
Thanks Francois! I only figured this out afterward as well but my issue with it still stands. With all of the doors open at first and no building the game just feels like a giant checkerboard instead of that feeling I get with most of the other Zombicides where you often find things like zombies in a building that then swarm out into the hallway or street.
Glad I wasn't the only one that thought this though! haha :D
Exactly. Handling doors is now a tactical decision left for the players to determine, rather than just a time hindrance. Very smart design choice.
Amazing and detailed review, it kinda makes me less sad from not backing this KS (Sci-Fi isnt my cup of tea, maybe except WH40k). Also, it always cheers me up when I see my friends commenting under your videos. :D And I even havent told them about your channel, they discovered it on their own because of its high quality content.
I'll forgive you for not talking about my channel :P Kidding of course, that's super cool, really glad to hear you enjoy my videos!
I'm actually kind of similar, I like sci-fi, but typically the more grimdark version over shiny glowing weapons and such.
Great review! I just picked up a copy this weekend, along with 2 exclusive Civilian Packs and I agree - the game is a lot of fun, but oddly balanced. That being said, I think that finding balance on our own is part of the enjoyment and I look forward to delving deeper into this experience!
I'm never *too* concerned with balance for a Zombicide. It's just good fun!
Thorough review. A lot to think about.
Glad you liked it William! Pros and cons of course. Obviously stuff like Fun Factor far outweighs many of my negatives, but still plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully 2.0 will see a big shift to fixing these but I won't hold my breath either as many of these issues have been present since the very first one.
Green Horde/Black Plague has an expansion reference in the rulebook for if you want to bump it up to 12 Players.
Yeah it's something some companies do more often than not. I'm not "dead set" against it, but always try to note it when I see it pop up.
@@TheKingofAverage Same here, I feel it should be a small pamphlet.
the rant about the dice was the best. wish we could have seen your face during that.
Haha thanks! :D Working on getting a better camera setup for future Reviews!
I could be wrong but I think you have the option to close any door as long as the mold isn't touching an adjacent room (or the room you're in). So basically you use the doors as shields (and can close a door to any room at any time.) The xenos can break them down in one shot and once they bust it you can no longer close the doors.
No you are right, good call! The rulebook didn't effectively communicate to me that there are actually doors everywhere, they just aren't placed on the board until closed. I think part of this came from my experience with previous Zombicide games where the only doors you could interact with were the ones placed on the board whereas this one is opposite.
That still leaves the game feeling much like a giant checkerboard until players decide to close some doors. With it all open at the beginning it's very much just a many connected squared board.
Very good review! the companies are adding more and more stuff to the game, that is not tested and they wont have enough time to develop fully. And all that is because we as backers get greedy and apparently kickstarters with heaps of minis are more successful. Also one more reason to back KS in addition to those you mentioned is the original purpouse of KS: to help actually fund the projects that would otherwise wont see the light of the day. This of course is not the case of CMON projects.
I'd include that in the "Collector's Edition" but yeah I should totally expand it to really just include exclusivity, even if it's the whole darn game :D
So far what I like most is the daily unlock system, where something is "revealed" once a day for the duration of the campaign. Keeps information and hype trickling in while remaining realistic about funding levels and such.
I'm in Phoenix where we don't have any humidity and my boards are warped as well. In fact they got worst while we played the first game. Also have a few bent bases but really only noticed when I was painting them. Great review... can't disagree with anything you said. Also the dice swap out is really annoying as well.
Yeah I'm in Idaho and it's only slightly more humid here. To be honest I've always felt that was a cop out. It's perfectly possible to make cardboard not bend. Just have to spend the money on the right material :P
Glad I'm not the only one irked by the dice thing. It feels kind of crummy knowing I got better ones in my retail version versus my KS version here.
Do you use the Citadel Holder for painting? Since it's a pressure hold if a base is bent it'll bend it even more, causing an even larger issue. In all honesty I hope that by 2020 I don't receive another bent base again :)
@@TheKingofAverage Considering this is the only game that I have that has this issue, it is correctable.
As to painting, I actually use a 3d printed holder and some blue-tak to keep it on. Been working for me so far.
Yeah exactly! As for the bent bases thing, yeah I have to use blue-tak as well if it's bent on my Citadel hobby holder :)
Really good video and I particularly appreciated the attention to how the stretch goals affect the core game. More is not always better
Aint that the truth :) New Enemies is great though as it gives good variety, just still need to be careful in how they are added into the game.
Thank you very much for your honest review.
You are very welcome Dom! Glad you liked the honesty :)
Your collection looks about as out of control as mine....I'll have minis to paint well into my retirement!
LOL yeah it's getting bad :D There's a whole other shelf you aren't seeing plus half of this one!
I got warp tiles too. Right now, I put them under heavy stuff, is there any better way to fix that?
Best bet is to put some heavy stuff on it. I believe cursing the game company for using sub-standard material also helps :D
Seriously though, not much that I know of except pressure and prayer.
A little bit of steam. Get a steamer for cloths and lightly steam the tiles then let them dry a bit and then place heavy objects on them.
WoWw, did you just said I don't need the SG for Heros? This made my Day, cause I am only getting the Base Game. Thx
Fiddly, not that thematic for some reason for me, because of other issues too a hard pass for me! Thank you for helping me to come to an informed decision!
Can’t you close a door for an action? You have 5 grey doors you can use at any time.
Yes you can, but with everything open at the beginning it means your essentially on a giant checkerboard unlike previous games. It just feels so much more "open". I didn't explain this well my apologies.
Did you like it better (or not) than Zombicide Fantasy or Modern?
Yes but only because of theme. In the end it's the same Zombicide, love it or hate it. I didn't like the necromancer or dragon mechanics of the fantasy ones, but hated how open and restrictive (weapon wise outside) Invader is. Pros and cons to each I suppose :)
I don’t think we should expect stretch goals to be blanched (not play tested) I look at them as extras and that’s why you can’t get them at retail. This is also why I don’t back most games I’m excited about and wait for them to go to retail (and get it 20% cheaper). Also, I like enjoying my core and looking forward to growing with my game over time as I pick up expansions
Yeah I think I'm leaning more toward that for sure over time. So often we get all these expansions but end up not even playing the whole core box worth of game too.
The stretch goals in c'mon games always are way better and op lol, I agree about the Dlc
For the most part yeah I agree, normally much cooler in design as well :P the most boring player minis are always in the core box lol.
I agree on your complaints, I'll probably not do another CMON Kickstarter. I'm working a way to include old Zombicide zombies and abominations as an invasion earth campaign.
Oh that sounds neat!
Any other games like Zombicide? i may get this but i just dont think Zombicide games look very nice lol , i mean the components.
Also whats the best Zombicide to get, ill be playing solo with multi characters.
Typically whatever the latest version is has the most up to date rules and should be picked, unless a specific rule grabs you (hordes in Green Horde, Concentrated fire/outside areas here, etc.)
As for games that are sorta similar, I've heard Deep Madness plays similar, but is much more difficult than Zombicide.
CMON is not for the love of the game, it's for the love of the money. It happens too often when they make it big, they become so arrogant, I don't even want to buy their products anymore.
It's a tight rope to walk I feel at times. I'm all for companies wanting money, and don't hold it against them when they do. What I do like though is when it's better for consumers like you and me. The race to make the most appealing product so you can make more money is much better for us than the rush to make a product that's just good enough to get people in and then have targeted cost cutting measures with the solution sold to you as an extra purchase. :D
"the rush to make a product that's just good enough to get people in and then have targeted cost cutting measures with the solution sold to you as an extra purchase" Very much this! I'm also all for companies making more money and IMPROVING their products and offerings in doing so. I'm left with a very bad taste in my mouth when they start turning down the "we are so hot right now, we can throw any kind of crap into the crowd and they'll sweep it up in seconds" route. Even more so when they are right. It's also our responsibility not to support such actions. Therefore, I thank you for this honest review. Some reviewers are still singing their praises while jokingly pointing a finger at them and saying "Naughty, naughty for doing this silly thing" with a huge grin on their faces. You lay it all out straight.
I'll stop now before I write an essay. :)
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Will, glad I'm not the only one that cares about the industry at large (that is, not just the game but the business practices behind it) :)
You gotta give the other reviewers a break. It's hard to be too critical when you are sent the game, play it once, and then review it in a 15 minute quick video ;)
Amen to that!
Agree with everything you said.....Additional things they screwed up in their rush to get this out.....missing xenos damage output on both xenos tables inside and back. We had to look all over to find it written in one place in the book....but it wasn't on the reference Xenos tables! LOL Nowhere in the book does it say that the bot and sentry gun share your LOS. It says you have control of them but doesn't explicitly say you have their LOS. Having to dump over the tray to get the character card out is pretty elementary, surely something a little more polished would have been better. Also, this isn't a screw up but a bad decision IMO....the used different names for the same skills in previous Z games. It wasn't even a case of necessity either, like Jump is now Zero G Run and Slippery is now Unstoppable. There was nothing wrong with the old terms. I get how they changed terms from Modern Z to Black Plague cause you don't "Full Auto" with a bow. Also, I wish there was a bigger difference between soldiers and civilians. The difference isn't much. To be frank, I'm probably going to sell my KS pledge and just play BP & GH, it just feels more polished.
Oh man yeah I saw Zero G Run and was like "what is that???" lol
I actually had the point about how everything is easily accessible except for the Xeno info which is randomly on page 20 but with the video already being over an hour it got edited out. You bring up some VERY good points!
Another good review from you, too bad I don’t have any Zombicide game in my collection yet. Hope to have one in the future.
hehe yeah we've discussed this already ;) Will be interesting to see how 2.0 works as I do like the streamlined changes they did for this release already.
I actually didn't like earlier zombicide because thinking of risks opening doors and deciding when you do it was almost the whole game. I think they made the game interesting in different ways which i like very much.
Yeah the doors were super frustrating, I'm glad it's not just simply a single. I would have liked more of the preemptively closed though so the board didn't feel so open.
You are quite right that there is not a lot of stuff if you buy the retail version. That's why i don't buy CMON kickstarter games from retail. I went backing this as "all in" like i usually do if i back the game.
There are quite lot of scenarios if you have the both expansions. But i don't know if this system needs a lot of scenarios anyhow, because the system is so light. I think the scenarios would become repetitive/too similar when you play lot of them.
There was quite a lot extras and i bought all thematic hero groups so i don't feel that there is too little variety.
Then again... if all the stuff would be available in retail and i didn't back the game, i don't know if i would spent so much money on this game just to get variety. I can't say why it's not issue when backing a kickstarter :D
hehe and that's how they getcha ;) Right there with ya though, bought a lot of the stuff.
Thanks to you, and your patreons, for the review.
You mentionned a couple of issues I have with CMON here. First the fact that you need "everything" to really appreciate the game because the core really isnt enough (why I will never buy Rising Sunnin retail). However I was concerned with what you said about the "overkill" from SG characters... Clearly they were not as tested as the core characters. And second, the add-ons... Damn those dices look basic... In Trudvang they offered an add-on for the runes to have them in plastic instead of cardboard. There were some concerning reports from fans that tried the game at Gencon who mentionned that the cardboard runes tokens were already damaged. So unless you pay to have acceptable tokens you shove in a bag then your components degrade after just a few games... Same thing than those dices. Pay extra or we give you the stuff from the discount bin. And then I remember the stretch goals from Hate where the components were upgraded to plastic for free...
Still, looks like a fun game, still makes me regret that I skipped it. Hope you enjoy killing xenos! And I hope we'll have one for Chronicle X soon! I really liked that you compared the two unboxings since they have a similar theme.
Also, really love that you do your reviews like that. I like to see the things you talk about. So thanks!
Maxime Côté Gauvin Blood Rage retail is excellent on it’s own and other companies like FFG put out games that feel like they need expansions all the time. So it really might be a case by case issue. In terms of everything else I agree.
Thank you very much Maxime, I let them know you said thanks :) We were just discussing my "harshness" with the review when I read this comment :) I need to start putting a disclaimer on my reviews I think. I nitpick and note a lot of things, but not everything I say is equal. I value that fun factor far, far more than the fact that with all doors open it feels more like a giant checkboard. One is an area I feel could be improved while one is a fundamental piece of the game :)
Anyway, as for the SG's I think Portland partially caught on to how I view it. First of all yeah FFG (and others) are TERRIBLE with this, selling the core game of Descent with plastic tokens for bad guy bosses so you have to buy them separately, not putting enough dice for even a single powerful attack in Rebellion so you have to buy extra dice, and forcing their scale of miniatures in the new Marvel miniature game so you'll need to pair it with their own terrain, etc.
For CMON, first I feel their older KS's don't compare to well and should be omitted from this. Like Portland said, Blood Rage retail is AMAZING and I have no desire to get any extras in it, not even the expansions. This however comes from the same time frame where CMON was giving custom Zombicide dice in their core pledges so... :P
For more recent KS's, you can tell how it'll be with this: Is the KS a premium version or not?
I'm glad you mentioned Rising Sun and Hate actually as those are great examples. Both were the "premium" KS's. They had stretch goals that upgraded the components instead of selling them. They also have SG's that integrate well into the base game (Rising Sun has rules in place for how to add the SG's in a balanced fashion even).
Compare that to Zombicide, Bloodborne, Death May Die, etc. where no stretch goals upgrade components, instead it's always just more "stuff". That's the retail method and you should probably set your expectations for the core box all by itself pretty low :)
Just played Chronicle X again today, will continue to get some plays in throughout the week as I will be reviewing it soon. I always try to get plenty of play time in with a variety of methods (different amount of players, different styles of scenarios, using all the units, etc.) I hate when I see a review and notice that they simply didn't play it a lot so I try to avoid that as much as I can :)
@@Bandit-137 I unfortunately never played Blood Rage, so I cant compare. But I heard good things about the retail version and KoA praise it too. Never tried Descent neither although it was on my list (the only thing I "played" with descent is killing the minis that my DM use from the game in our D&D campaigns).
The "case by case" I agree absolutely. Like we discussed KoA and I in is Zombicide : Invader video, CMON seems to go more on the cheaper for some of its games and more quality on others. I wonder if they feel they need to do less effort on Zombicide since its pretty much selling on its own (Zombicide 2nd edition is actually their next KS campaign) and they try harder on games that need more "convincing".
Good to know about FFG, its a very pratice that is hurting the video game industry and I really dislike that in board games too...
@@TheKingofAverage Personnaly I llike the "rants" (You know what grind my gears? Regular! Plain! BORING! Yathzee-style dices!). You are passionate and it shows and thats why some subscribers like me like to watch your videos. Many things you mention are important like the quality of the cardboard for the tiles and the tokens. At the very least an annoyance and at worst its a game that is damaged further every time you play. So these are important to know. Like I said the other day, if I wanted a cheerleader I would watch sponsored reviews (not that I dont watch those, different opinions is important, but you see my point).
A disclaimer might be nice (although you added one at the end of your videos recently with the patreons' names) but you were always up front about your style so those that know you should know what to expect. Maybe because you put too much passion in the (BORING!) dices vs the fun of tearing down xenos?
And good thing you play a few sessions before doing a review! You have to be thorough in your hour long review (how is it now 60+ minutes?!? I need to watch sequences at different times for a complete video!). Also Arena : The Contest is coming soon, and it will pretty much the first game that I will own (except Black Rose Wars but I didnt receive my pledge yet) that you will own too. If you do an unboxing and review on it , it will ba a fun thing for me to compare with my own copy. Maybe my opinion will be different then :-P
Thanks for your hard work!
I'm unsure quite how CMON decides to do it. All I know is that from the consumer side of things, they have some games that get a focus on component improvements, and others only get game expansions.. Knowing CMON they probably have some crazy number crunching and statistical data on it all. I expect their KS's in 2023 to be run fully by an AI haha :D
I'm so looking forward to Arena! The game looks really, really good! As for the video length at times, passion and thoroughness sometimes gets the better of me. How am I supposed to have a 3 minute tantrum about the dice in a game if the whole video is just 10 minutes? :P That being said, I know it's not for everyone. Heck, my Audience Retention on this video is 14:29 (22.6%) currently.
I've thought about splitting them up into part 1 and part 2 when they get this long, but feel that's a hassle for those that actually want to watch the whole thing and back-to-back releases of videos are typically something YT doesn't care for so people might be left only getting a notification for Part 1 or something which would really suck. At the end of the day I think you guys are just stuck being at the whim of whatever I happen to film :D
Great review, real criticism and well explained. Not often that we see such a great review on RUclips. Like the others mentioned, you should have maybe tried to weigh every negative with a well explained positive to make this perfect and... not to make the positive ending such a "surprise" :)
Glad you liked it! I feel I've improved a bit since this review (hopefully anyway) :D Zombicide in general is kind of an interesting game because it's far from perfect, yet still gets played a lot.
Goes to show that some games are just good fun, even in spite of some issues :)
I haven't played Invader yet but as you say, the differences between core heroes and SG heroes are indeed a let down if the SG heroes are indeed so overpowered.
Also fully agree on the dice...feels like more and more to a quick money grab to me
Yeah the dice REALLY irk me because it's something that used to just be included, like all my other games but now Zombicide is a lone outlier in that it's an extra purchase.
SG heroes have always been an issue. Last time I played Green Horde we had the wonder woman character on our team and she starts with Super Strength, making her attack with the weapon she had kill the dragon in one hit every time he landed. Made the whole thing super meh it was so easy.
Says nothing positive in the 64 minute video.
End of review: “Wow what a fun game, I like this game a lot.”
HAH! Welcome! You must be new :D I said both positive and negative. But I'm not the kind of reviewer that doesn't actually critique so you'll always find negatives in any of my reviews :)
If I were to sum up the review, and Zombicide as a whole: It's got problems, aint perfect, but a ton of fun. That seems fair to me :)
Came here for a more in-depth review of the new components of the game after seeing the shorter video. Sometimes it's easier to see and hear an explanation rather than reading it on BGG.
Very in-depth review but I realize that I don't/didn't have the same expectations from a Kickstarter than the OP has. Fit and finish isn't my highest priority on a Kickstarter, especially in a game. To me getting something from Kickstarter is like getting a brand new car, first year. They still need to work the bugs out and the second edition has those bugs worked out.
For me it's new dimension of gameplay, new components and in the case of Zombicide, the characters not in the retail version. This is my third Zombicide and my first Kickstarter and the one think I can tell you is that whenever I play I have to dig out a bunch a D6, because when you are in deep you don't have enough no matter if they are the custom or the "yahtzee" D6. Dice aren't a priority of mine. I have so many that not having a new set of D6 is no issue to me.
It was a good video but not the review I was looking for.
Problem is I got the brand new car (read, Zombicide) from some mom-and-pop dealership (read, retail) and it came with the bells and whistles. Now I bought the same brand new car from their specific dealership (read, straight from CMON) and it lacked the features of the previous car I bought and was more expensive. That's my issue with the dice, the used to offer them and now they took that away.
Anyway, sorry the review wasn't for you! I think one of the most important aspects as a consumer is to find a reviewers that's 1) honest and 2) that aligns with your tastes. That way you can properly judge if something is for you or not.
Now ideally my review offered more game specific likes and dislikes, I'm definitely not a "high level" reviewer to just list overall concepts of a game so perhaps that was helpful - but perhaps not. My tastes aren't for everyone of course. Either way, thanks for being here! :)
@@TheKingofAverage I appreciate the response
@@Namaah Sure thing Namaah! You said you backed the game? Hope you are enjoying it! :)
@@TheKingofAverage absolutely! One of the other points you made, the overcrowding, I find a plus. The overcrowding started with Green Horde with the "enter the horde".
Invader to me is a cross between Aliens (movie) and the Zerg from Starcraft. That vibe to me means swarm. As a player the game gives you more methods to deal with the swarm (bots and turrets, as opposed to the trebuchet in green horde), but the aspect of a swarm turning the game to flight instead of fight makes it more dynamic to me.
@@Namaah Oh I really like a swarm of enemies! As I said I always found it enjoyable to have a swarm coming down a hallway that I'm running from (as part of my complain of having all doors open at the start). What I have an issue with is there's nothing in the rules on how to handle when there are more miniatures than can fit in one space. Even just saying "they spill out into an adjacent space" would be fine - I'd actually like that! But there is no such mention of anything in the rules so your stuff house ruling where to put the excess minis.
Around 2.33 I was starting to loose my patience...the review was going nowhere, but I hung in...
Ah yeah if you know how to play you can ship that gameplay summary part - was it worth it in the end? :)
@@TheKingofAverage ah come on, you know it was!
Doesn't mean I don't mind hearing it ;)
I have got some bended bases to.. the packaging for this game kinda a sucks. Some of the game boxes were damaged but I don't care because I always make a custom box to contain all the game with expansions and I like to change the bases with trasparent resin version. For teh bended game tiles is annoyng but I'll change that also with battle system terrain, this game deserve a power up imo
Dude it sounds like your set is going to be awesome!
@@TheKingofAverage I hope so! :D
You need a humidifier lol
It's been a while since I made this review, what's this in reference to? I think all of Idaho needs a humidifier :D
I get accused of being pedantic in my reviews. But you take it to the next level! ;) very detailed review. Very detailed. Enjoyed watching some of it, for sure!
Haha thanks? :P I try to be pretty thorough and always provide examples of why I feel the way I do, but it can end up being a bit long winded :D
The King of Average I get it. :) One thing I’m super critical of is the shape of the rule book. Lol. I hate those big 12x12 rules books. They take up too much space on the table!
I also totally agree with you that the unboxing of a game really is the first introduction a player has with the game, and it’s important to present the game in a good fashion.
The King of Average I meant my original comment more in jest. Hope it didn’t come off too jerky. ;)
A few things here:
1. You complain about the Kickstarter- extra heroes breaking the game, but then complain about the Kickstarter-extra xenomorphs making it too hard. You can't have it both ways. They added the ability to include tougher xenos in order to balance out the tougher heroes. In fact, the rulebook specifically tells you how to add in the new cards in order to tune the difficulty, along with other ways to tune difficulty to suit your game. Unless someone just wants to play without any possibility of losing (what's the point in that, though?), then I don't see why they would opt for some of the tougher heroes without also adding in the tougher xenos or other difficulty mods.
2. You complain about the ability for a random card draw to end the game. That's a feature, not a bug. The randomness of the game is what makes strategy so important to game play. A player ending their turn with no available actions right next to a spawn point (like the example you provided) is just playing poorly and asking for trouble by depending on random draws going their way to win.
3. Complaining about the dice just seems like you're really stretching for things to ding the game on. For one thing, the Zombicide themed dice are really not all that user friendly. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen in person and in game play videos players misreading the die rolls because of the wacky icons for 1's and 6's. I'd rather have simple to read dice that don't hinder game play over gimmicks any day. Furthermore, at least they actually give you enough dice to play the game, unlike some other companies out there (*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough).
Having said that, I do agree with you that some of the other production quality issues (such as warped board tiles) are frustrating from a company that has managed to hit it out of the park with some of their other releases (such as Rising Sun).
Thanks for the comment! I'll add some more info:
1) I feel this is an oversimplification made to make a point but I do always try to provide nuance and explanation. While you're the first to jump to this (and voice the thought) perhaps I did indeed not convey what I meant well. I have never once lost a game of invader while playing SG characters. Not once. In fact I've not even had an "oh crap" moment. Even when adding a total of 5 abombs so there are 2-3 on the board fairly often, we typically just wipe them out in the next round before the activate and if nothing else, before they get close. This sort of power creep makes it super silly to have abombs on the board and then easily handled while in yellow. The only way to really lose this is just bad luck of the draw in a single turn to wipe (which I talked about how you tend to go from full health on everyone to lost the game over a single enemy round already). I've played Invader plenty by this point and actually lost our first game yet just this week. We restricted ourselves to only the core people and included 3 abombs in the deck + all of the other new enemy types.
Yes you can artificially make things harder, just like you can go through an entire campaign of Descent with the house rule that you can only move 1 space, or never hold any items, or some other random self imposed difficulty. The point is that at it's core, Zombicide swings wildly in difficulty for the base game from season to season, either being very hard or very easy. This time I felt it's on the very easy side, and playing with a full stretch goal team is just always easy mode all the time unless you try to play blindfolded or something.
Again, just my experience of course, but it's my review too so I feel that's applicable :P
2. It was just an example, extra activations can give abombs 3+ turns with no interrupt from players. Additionally there are scenarios where objectives are directly next to a spawn point. Lastly I feel perfectly in my right to complain about a "feature" of a game if I don't like it in my review. Roll to move in Monopoly and Clue are features, but that doesn't mean I like it and certainly doesn't mean I shouldn't mention that mechanic in my review.
3. Yeah I'm weird but this stuff really bothers me when I see stuff taken away from the "expensive" edition. I do have a disclaimer right in front warning you that this is a heavily opinionated, rant likely review as are all of mine. Not everyone likes so much opinion in reviews but I can only provide my own thoughts and my thoughts here are that my retail edition from years ago came with stuff this newer, expensive version does not. Phone reviewers to this day mention headphone jack removal on phone reviews. If it's good enough for MKHD I feel it's okay for me to mention something similar here :)
No harm no foul on any of this. We all have our own opinions and mine not always align with yours. As a say early on in the disclaimer, I just provide what I care about and my reasoning, and then it's up to you to decide if you care about that as well or not. I might not care about storage options and just casually mention that Okko Chronicle expansions are the type that artificially the box size to make it seem larger, but a viewer might be at their storage limit, in their apartment and what was just a footnote for me might be something that fulls tops them from backing the game. I can't make that judge for everyone so I just call 'em like I see 'em :)
Maybe one of the solutions is to remove 2-3 abomination card from the deck. Why not? As for the rule that as soon as one player dies it's game over, that's the only rule I really don't like and find it stupid. Why?! There are 5 more players. It will be more difficult for them because there is less of them and therefore less player action in the player phase and less dmg output but why it has to be the end of the game right away. I plan to buy this game though, but if I buy it, I will surely change some rules and add some stuff. For example I plan to make cards with armor that will go in body slot and can receive a certain amount of damage (light armor 1 point of dmg, medium armor 2 point of dmg, and heavy armor 3 point of dmg ( a -1 move action penalty with heavy armor)). Also, for example, there will be only 2 heavy armor cards in the item deck.
I also don't like molds mechanics. Either I would put no mold at all or I would say that mold could be destroyed with a flame thrower but permanently.
Yep agreed pretty much :) At least Zombicide can easily be modified/house ruled which is nice :)
The game is great fun but - *insert 1 hour of disappointment
Ha that certainly was a very comprehensive review - thanks for your time and thoughts.
LOL! :D I need to start putting warning at the start of my reviews because getting hit with that unprepared could cause whiplash :D
Seriously though, really glad to hear the extra effort was appreciated!
I have almost everything for Zombicide: Black Plague and really enjoy that. Invaders looked kind of bland to me and i didn't like the theme or the aliens. Didn't enjoy the sculpts at all.
I like a good chunk of them, but mainly got it for the rules updates as I already have Rue Morgue as well, and don't have very many sci-fi games. That's the nice thing about Zombicide, there's at least one for everyone :D
@@TheKingofAverage The other good thing is the rule changes are so minor they can be plugged into any of the previous games for the most part.
Yahtzee box... lol. Ya I paid for one set of extra dice. So someone else has to use the lame Yahtzee dice. Which makes me a horrible host.
HAHA my wife made me take out those Rue Morgue dice out of the box so she could roll those while we rolled Yahtzee dice like chumps :D
Nice rating scale 😂😎
Hah, thanks! :D I'm pretty against numbered rating scales (what makes an 8.5 game better than an 8? How is that defined?) But thought this might be something fun to do. I've already decided on the "rating" for Chronicle X haha
KoA... Some KSE characters are OP... That’s when you make the zombie deck OP too... instead of ignoring all the KSE just use stronger enemies when using stronger allies... problem solved 😇😇😇
Eh, sort of :D For instance in Green Horde we were super excited to finally fight a dragon. The problem was even the giant dragon was a joke because we had Wonder Woman on our team and she starts in blue with super strength and was hitting for 3 every time so he'd get knocked out the moment he landed each time.
I've played with 4 abombs and all KSE aliens before and still have never lost when using all KSE characters.
Adding the KSE enemies with core box heroes, or only 1-2 KSE heroes can work though and I've had that be okay.
But in general, after a ton of play sessions with zombicide, I can say safely that the best balance hands down has always been the core box of aliens and heroes.
TBH this is pretty common for many KS games these days. Core box is balanced, the myriad of SG's and KSE's simply haven't had the TLC of development time as the rest and it tends to show.
The King of Average
Yeah that’s mostly a paragraph I can get behind.
I own every single Zombicide Fantasy & Sci-fi piece but mostly played Black Plague so far. Only played Invader core so far. I feel any zombicide core box would almost be a rip off at retail for $100. I need the stretch goals to make it a great deal.
That said, if you’re playing with Super Strength characters (in Black Plague) what I do is add in all the abom cards for like 6 abominations so that every few cards is a new abom. on board. This becomes problematic when you hit orange and red very fast and then run out of zombies and then get extra activations.
Another major difference that may be taking place is the people in your game group. If I had everyone in my Game group be as good as I was, then I probably would almost never lose unless it was just super bad luck. That may be the case where everyone in your playgroup is experienced and quite good at games. I always play this with at least one or two people who are very inexperienced with games and aren’t always able to figure out the most optimal moves. I always give advice, and help when they ask for it, but ultimately I let them make their own moves and see what happens otherwise I’d be Alpha gaming them
As for the characters breaking the game, we usually play with less than the recommended character count as my group usually plays with 2-4 players each with 1-2 characters each.
Yeah that's one way of doing it. After 8 or so iterations of Zombicide though it'd be nice for them to warn new players saying SG heroes are all overpowered and will ruin game balance, to fix that try and figure out what amount of Abombs and fewer heroes you need to get a sense of challenge back in the game." :D
Apart from the legit criticism here, I find that you are so wrong when it comes to the section "why back on KS". KS should be used for projects that cannot become reality without their funding. THAT is the primary reason why one should back projects. Not the amount of SGs, exclusives etc.
And that is the reason why CMONs latest projects suck (apart from their innovative Trudvang). People back old ideas without innovation nonetheless so CMON were pushing the boundaries with Invader of course. I have no idea why so many hardcore gamers still back Zombicide projects...
I can understand that reasoning, but it's definitely an ideal separated from reality. Kickstarter, at the end of the day still loves money enough to be perfectly fine with these campaigns so they can get their cut.
Personally, I am mostly concerned about the consumer side of things. As long as it helps the consumer get a good deal in some fashion and KS themselves are okay with it then I don't mind.
It's certainly better than every time we buy a smartphone made by Foxconn.
@@TheKingofAverage If only that would not cause smaller projects fail in funding. :/
It doesn't :) First of all the board game industry is not a zero-sum game. Second you cannot assume that if Zombicide: Invader released retail instead of Kickstarter, that people would not have bought it. Retail is still the largest sales point, even for CMON.
Additionally, it's not so simple or black and white. The more big names are on KS the more people learn about KS and see other games. Additionally these large KS's give us the false illusion to what it means to be "successful" on KS. Back in the pre-zombicide days making 100k for a board game was great! No one dreamed of a a 500k goal and if you did and you reached it that's a star example. Now, with these big KS's going on we see anything in the low millions as somewhat as a failure. The indie games on average, from what I've seen do better than they did years ago before the huge push for gigantic campaigns.
am I the only weirdo that puts the tokens back in the punch tab when they're done playing? It makes it way easier to find and set them up when they're on the flat sheet. #dontjudge
I've been known to do it before, however I find it can often times wear out the tokens faster, and bagging them in certain groups (not so much for Zombicide) can help with setup time. #didntjudge :)
lol u buyd 300 dollars i buyd 89 dollars u should have buyd from amazon man im this was really dumb from hope u react because u should buyd from amazon
Well I did get a whole bunch of Kickstarter heroes I suppose which is nice, but mostly agree with you actually :)
Buying a Zombicide game at retail is like buying the most expensive steak at Denny’s. It’s still really good and hits the spot. But pay double or triple the price of the Denny’s steak and you’ll get a steak that’ll make your undies sticky lol. Steaks are 1 & Done. A board game is forever.
Great review. Appreciate the focus on the manufacture quality. Agree on all of your negatives. Many thanks.
You are quite welcome, glad to hear you enjoyed the more "in-depth" review! :)