Last Night On Earth - Avioid The Mansion Scenario
Last night we sat down to play the Last Night on Earth - our favorite zombie board game to date - and something bad happened: we didn't have fun. Why? We had the unfortunate event of randomly drawing the Manor House scenario, something that we'll ensure won't happen again.
This scenario pits 4 nimble axe toting heroes against 16 shuffling zombies. The goal: prevent the sea of zombies appearing on the cusp of the board from reaching the mansion in the middle. If 9 zombies set foot indoors before the sun rises (some 15 turns) then it's lights out. Game over. You lose.
It all boils down to this: there are just too many zombies to fight, and there ain't no way to kill 'em all. As soon as one dies, another appears on the edge of the board, walking in the dead Z's footsteps. While this is great for theme, it stinks for balance. Due to the combat mechanics of the game - a hero has to roll doubles on two dice to kill a zombie - the heroes quickly become flooded with beaten zombies, but not killed zombies. Their only chance is to pick up some key weapons drawn from a random deck, but they have to reach the fringes of the map to successfully search for weapons, knives, and supplies. Spending the time moving and searching means even more zombies make their way to the Mansion, setting up forts with kitchen tables and couch cushions.
Sure the heroes can use their bodies to attract zombies away from the Mansion (zombies have to move towards adjacent heroes), but they soon fall due to the mass mob and the nature of the fight dice. And once it's down to three heroes things just start falling apart fast. Even the Zombie player was having a pretty lame experience , and felt sorrowful as he tore the intestines out of the heroes and wore them as hats.
It got to the point that we thought we had done something wrong, or played the game in some stupid way, so our group played it again; the heroes lost 7 turns in the second time around, too.
We've had lots of great times with Last Night on Earth, and we hope it remains a mainstay in future, including the Growing Hunger Expansion coming in the next few months. But we'll be sure to ditch the Mansion House scenario when it comes around next time.
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Posted by Critical Gamers Staff at February 28, 2008 2:34 PM
Maybe we did something wrong when we played the Manor House scenario, but we had a harrowing experience that left the Heroes winning the game and everyone having fun. I think the key was running to the outer buildings to search for items/events that would help in the upcoming defense of the house. At one point there were seven zombies in the house, but with a shotgun and chainsaw (sometimes you have to get your hands dirty), we cleared out more than half of them on the Hero Turn.
If you find the Manor House scenario weighted toward the zombie player(s), then a couple house rules could be used such as either allowing the Heroes to search the Manor House (very generous!) or allowing them to search the House so long as no zombies are inside at the start of the Hero Turn.
Either way, I wouldn't dismiss this scenario based on one bad experience. Dice rolls and random card draws have a big effect on the game.
Thanks and happy hunting!
John
I recently got this game and played several rounds of "Defend the Manor House" tonight. Here's the key: The zombies MUST move towards a hero that is within one space of them. So, the way for the heroes to win is to quickly get a weapon and then draw the zombies away from the manor house using strategic movements. Depending on the characters you use you can often draw a few zombies away, fight them (and hopefully kill at least one), then move far enough away to heal. Rinse and repeat. The heroes will require a little luck and should use the characters that can heal, but the scenario is definitely winnable by the heroes if you use this strategy.
Our last game tonight came down to the very last turn. The zombies had killed all survivors except the Sheriff. There were 7 zombies in the manor and 2 right outside the walls. The sheriff shot and missed (and ran out of ammo) and the zombies won. Had the sheriff rolled a 4 instead of a 3, the heroes would have won because the zombies were out of turns and wouldn't have enough zombies to get 9 in the manor. It's a great scenario and is a ton of fun. You just have to use the zombies weakness (their insatiable hunger for human flesh) against them.
No kidding. Just found this post while looking for new scenarios. When we first played this one, the zombie player won four times.
We then got the expansion and created house rules which actually gave the hero's a fighting chance.
Each hero starts with one number markers and one letter marker (randomly chosen) and you start with that many cards. The letter cards were assigned to a weapon and the hero started with that weapon if they could carry that. This game actually was down to the final turn.
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