Zombicide: Undead or Alive - First Play!

4th August 2023

It's a Friday night and we're round Simon's which means it's time to welcome in the weekend with some gaming goodness.

Load up the Winchester, strap on the peacemaker and head out to the west: Travel over prairies and along dusty long-dried gulches, see the monolithic sights at Monument Valley and encounter zombie hordes in.... Zombicide: Undead or Alive!

A while back I played a few games of vanilla Zombicide, a cooperative survival game of dispatching zombies while completing objectives.
Zombicide: Undead or Alive takes that game and moves the setting into the wild west.

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What's in a game?

Tile boards: There are 9 of these large tiles, they're double-sided and placed out together to create the game's playing area. Each side depicts a bird's eye view of one of various old western buildings on a street. The street on each tile is broken down in 'zones' while interiors of said buildings are also displayed with different rooms also being broken down into 'zones'. 
​Train tiles: There are 3 of the oblong tiles. They're also double-sided and one side shows a railway track while the other show a train on the track.

A 4 tile (2x2) setup along with track tiles running down the centre.

Player board: Each player gets one of these enormous plastic player 'dashboards' with a faux wood finish and they about A5 in size!
Each dashboard has indented spaces and spots to place tiles, character cards, equipment cards as well as tokens. There's even 3 grooves along the top to hold 'backpack' cards upright.

• Adrenaline track: Running along the bottom is a numbered and colour coded 'adrenaline' track that goes from blue to red for when things go from cool to hot! It is used to track a character's adrenaline numerically and 'danger level' according to colour.

Player dashboard.

Character cards: Each of the game's named 14 playable 'survivors' has their own card with accompanying illustration.

• Class: The card lists which of the 4 'classes' the character belongs to and thus which 'class ability' is available to them. It has a space to place a specific weapon.
  
• Special actions: There's also a track for unlockable special moves (which is colour coded and linked to their adrenaline bar on the dashboard.)
  
• Hit points: Finally, there's a hit point (HP) tracker.

Hanna the home defending markswoman!

Cards: There's essentially 2 types of mini-sized which cards are used in Zombicide: Undead or Alive.

• ​Equipment cards: This type is broken down into several further different types, each with their own deck.
  Regardless of this, cards will tend to share a lot of common elements.
  E.g., no matter where a weapon card comes from, it will always show whether it's a melee or ranged weapon - and if so, its associated range along with the type of ammo its uses, number of dice rolled when attacking with it, the target number the roll needs to hit and how much damage it does. Finally it shows how much noise the weapon produces.
  Starting weapons: These are the beginning weapons that characters start the game with.
  Classic equipment: These cards can be acquired during the game and will include a fair variety of items to use as well as weapons.
  Bounty weapons: The weapons found in this deck are particularly effective.

A twin barrelled shotgun.

• Reference cards: These are for 2 usual pieces of equipment; the wagon and the Gatling gun.

Gatling gun & wagon reference cards.

• Zombie cards: The other type of cards found are zombie cards and these are used to determine how many zombies and what type spawn when drawn. Each zombie card displays 2 important pieces of information.
  Firstly, it shows which of the 3 types of zombie (Walker, runner or fatty.) is spawning. Each card also displays how many are spawning, this uses a colour coded number that corresponds to the player adrenaline tracks.
  ​More on this later.
  Abomination card: This card for a particularly mean type of zombie that might appear. The base game contains a single abomination card while apparently, expansions add more.
• Dice: The dice used in Zombicide: Undead or Alive a normal six-siders, although the 1 has been replaced by a zombie face and the 6 by a stick of dynamite. Icons for numbers 2-5 are inspired by the 4 suits from a deck of cards.

I guess that a 2 would be represented by clubs?

Tokens: Lots of card tokens are used in the game.

• Bang/BOOM! token: This double-sided token is used to represent the last sound a player has made and that which zombies might hear. The BOOM! side is always louder than the bang!
• Exit token: Players always need an exit strategy and this card token is good for that!
• Objective tokens: These are styled to look like crates and come in 3 types all of which are double sided. There are 7 red tokens and 1 green and 1 blue and they can be used in various ways as required by the selected mission.

A red objective token.

• Zombie spawn tokens: There are several of these rectangular tokens, come in various colours indicating their type and some are double sided.
  Yellow spawn: This is the game's 'starting' spawn point.
  Orange spawn: These are 'mobile' spawn points that can appear during the game. as the name suggests, they can be moved around the playing area if players 'destroy' them.
  Red spawn: This spawn token has a active/inactive side and is the 'abomination' spawn point.
  White spawn: These are 'corpse pile' spawn points and can only be found inside buildings. Corpse pile tokens are also double-sided and can be flipped to an inactive side when destroyed.

Orange 'mobile' spawn token.

• Vade Retro tokens: These round tokens display a cruciform shape. The 'Faithful' class can use them to 'turn dead'.
• Wagon token: The large token depicts a birds eye view of a typical western wagon.
• 3d trackers: There are 6 of these 3d tokens in each player colour which are used on their relevant dashboard and they resemble bundles of dynamite!

Models: Zombicide: Undead or Alive uses plastic 3d miniatures in lieu of tokens or standees and there is a lot of them, over 70 in fact!

• Zombie models: Grey miniatures are used to represent zombies which come in 3 types; walkers, fatties and runners. Each type has its own corresponding set of miniatures.
  Abomination: There is one model of this very special type of zombie, it's far larger than all the other zombie types and just in case someone doesn't notice this, it comes in red plastic.

Millions of zombies, zombies for me! Also visible are some zombie spawn points, the bang token and 2 Vade Retro tokens.

• Character models: As with the zombies, all 14 unique characters get their own individual models.
• Gatling gun: The game's Gatling gun gets its own miniature too.

2 of these models have been painted but otherwise they a flat plain colour.

There's an impressive number of components to Zombicide: Undead or alive and they're all of a uniformly good quality. Cards, board, tokens, they're all good but the standouts are the 3d components and the dice.
The models obviously look good but also, the player dashboard with along with dynamite trackers are a nice touch and they all feel suitably sturdy.
The dice are wooden, nicely rounded and the card themed numbering on them are a nice touch.

A colourful and slightly cartoony style is used across the character and zombie cards, it's a humorous style that suits the game's tone well. The main board tiles seem a bit more subdued in comparison and they are perhaps a bit too busy for my liking but it's not detrimental to the game.
The zombie models, being grey risk sort of merging into one dull greyish blob when on the board but wisely, the runners have been constructed in a distinctly different shade of grey that makes them easily spotted against their undead compatriots while the fatties look distinctly different. The abomination is of course, red.

There's quite a lot that goes on during Zombicide: Undead or Alive, fortunately, much of the game's information is provided via text descriptions.
That's not to say there isn't a fair amount of iconography - because there is but it won't be overwhelming to seasoned gamers or players of previous versions of Zombicide; although this version has some differences to the vanilla game, in this case, adding character classes. More novice players will probably find themselves referring to the rulebook early on in the game.
It all shows that attention and care have been put into the components and presentation.

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How's it play?
​Setup

• Mission: First decide which mission will be used for the game. It will list how to set up the tile boards and train tiles. It will also determine where spawn points, objectives etc will be placed on the boards.
  Finally, the chosen mission may restrict which characters may be used.
• ​Players: Generally, the game expects 6 characters to be used regardless of the player count. With a lower player count, some people may well be playing more than one character.
  Character: First give each player a character card and it's matching miniature. Also give them the 3d trackers in their colour.
  Dashboard: Give each player a dashboard. They should place their character card onto the allotted space on the dashboard and trackers on their allotted starting positions on the special moves and HP trackers.
  ​Ensure the adrenaline tracker is placed at '0'.

Starting set up for Pablito.

• Starting weapon: Each character card will dictate which starter card the character begins with. This should be placed on its spot overlapping the character card.

• Starting spots: Character miniatures should be placed on their starting place as per the chosen mission.
• Bang token: Place the bang token on the playing area as per the mission description.
• Cards: Take all the remaining (Non starting cards.) and sort them by type. Shuffle each pile into a face-down deck.
• ​​First player: Determine a starting player.

Onto play
Zombicide: Undead or Alive is a cooperative game in which the players will be attempting to complete an objective and escape the board before becoming zombie fodder!
A round takes place over 3 phases and players will take their turns using an action point system during the 'player phase', while the 'board' will run the 'zombie phase' in which zombies will spawn and chase characters in an attempt to defeat them.
Player phase: During this phase the active player will act in turn order and will have 3 action points (AP) to perform 3 actions, which include the following.

• Move: The active player may spend 1AP to move their character orthogonally into an adjacent zone - this can be outside or indoors. If there is a door adjacent, then the character may enter or exit a building.
  Entering buildings: Some buildings contain 'corpse piles' and the first time any character enters a building with a corpse pile, a corpse pile spawn tile should be placed on it.
  Zombies: Typically, the walking dead complicate things! If a character exits a zone which contains 1 or more zombies, then they pay 1 extra AP per zombie to exit that zone! This means if a character is in a zone with a lot of zombies, they will potentially be stuck there.
  Additionally, if a character has an ability that allows them to move more than 1 zone per AP and they enter a zone with zombies, that particular move action immediately ends.
• Search: If a character is indoors and there are no zombies in their current zone, the player can spend 1AP to search. This allows them to draw a card from the classic equipment deck and add it to their dashboard, they may then 'reorganise' their inventory (More on this below.)
  Unless a character has the 'Townsfolk' class, they can only perform 1 search per round regardless of AP they have.
• Reorganise/trade: The active player may spend an AP to shift equipment cards around their dashboard. A character may also freely discard a card.
  As part of this action, the active player may also trade with 1 other player sharing their zone. This allows the 2 characters to freely exchange cards in any way they see fit. It also allows the inactive character who is part of the trade to reorganise as well.
• Combat: Now we get to the meat (SIC) of the game! Combat is broken down into 2 types; melee and ranged.
  • Melee: A character may attack any zombie who is in the same zone as them, if there are more than 1 zombie, then the character can choose which zombie to target.
    This is done by rolling the dice as determined by whatever melee weapon they are using and if successful, will deal damage.
  • Ranged: Ranged attacks are somewhat more complex, they roll dice in similar fashion, but there are more factors to take into account.
    Line of sight: First, the character must be able to draw a line of sight to their target. Generally, any target outside can easily be seen, even at several zones away unless they're round a corner.
    However, a character can only see 1 zone into a building or out of it, furthermore, if the character is inside, they can only see into any interior zones if they are adjacent
    Range: Even if a character can see a zombie, it must still be within the scope of the ranged weapons range.
    Some weapons have a range of 0-1 which means a target can be hit up to 1 zone away or in the same zone as the character.
    Some weapons may have a range of 1-2, which means zombies 1 to 2 zones away can be it but zombies in the same zone as the character cannot!
    Target priority: Unlike melee (where when faced with multiple zombies in a single zone, the attacker can choose which to attack,) when a character uses a ranged weapon and there are multiple zombies of different types in the same zone, they must attack zombies as per the targeting priority.
    What does this mean?
    It means that certain types of zombie must be targeted before other types first, depending on what type of zombies are sharing the same zone.
    The priority is:
    Abominations/fatties first.
    If there are no abominations/fatties, then walkers must be targeted first.
    Finally, if there are no other types of zombie present, then runners can be targeted. Phew!
  • Damage: Walkers and runners can be destroyed by 1 point of damage and fatties need 2 points of damage to dispatch and abominations require 3 points to be defeated!
    Damage does not carryover from attack to attack. This means that unless a weapon does 2 damage, it cannot destroy a fattier and unless it does 3 damage, it cannot be used to defeat an abomination!
    This also has an added impact on ranged attacks. If a character is attacking a zone with multiple zombies which includes abominations or fatties with a weapon that only does 1 damage, then it will have no effect! They must target the abomination/fatty first but cannot do it any damage - sucks to be them!
    Noise: Guns are noisy and when used, the bang token is usually moved to the zone where the attacker fired from.
  • Adrenaline: Whenever a character defeats a zombie, their adrenaline goes up by 1 and if they manage to defeat an abomination it goes up by 5! Destroying spawn points can also push up adrenaline.
    When the tracker moves into a different colour it unlocks the linked special ability for that character.
    The first unlock is always 1 extra AP when yellow is reached. When it reaches orange, the player gets to pick 1 of the 2 orange abilities to unlock (Not both!) and when it reaches red, they get to pick from one of the 3 available unlocks.

Adrenaline starts at 0 in the blue area.

• Take/activate: By spending an AP, the character may interact with an object in the same zone as them, typically this will be regarding a mission objective and will vary depending on that mission.
• Machine: If a character is in the same zone as a 'machine' such as the Gatling gun, or the wagon then APs can be spent to make use of them.
• Make noise: A character may spend an AP to make noise to distract/lure zombies, this means the bang token is moved to their zone unless it has been flipped to the BOOM! side, in which case, it does not move. A bang is never louder than a BOOM! and zombies cannot be lured away from a BOOM!!
• Do nothing: Finally, the player may pass, this ends their turn immediately, regardless of how many APs they may still possess.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of phase: Once all players have completed their turn, the player phase is over.

Zombie phase: Play now moves on to the zombie phase in which zombies will move or attack character and then more zombies will spawn!

• Activation: Every zombie currently on the board must activate! Players can choose the order in which they do so. When activating, zombies will have 1 of 2 actions available.
  • Attack: If 1 or more zombies is in the same zone as characters, they will attack! When attacking, zombies always automatically hit and each zombie will do 1 point of damage which is dealt to the characters.
    If there is more than one character in that zone, the players may assign the damage between characters as they see fit.
  • Move: Any zombies not attacking must instead move and will move 1 zone.
    A zombie will move towards any character the they see, prioritising a character in the same zone as the noise token. Otherwise they will move towards the largest group of characters they can see.
    If a zombie cannot see any characters, they will move toward the noise token.
    Distance: A zombie will always the shortest route to their destination. In the case of multiple routes of equal distance, players can choose which route the zombie takes. If a mob of zombies is moving along multiple routes, then they should be split between the routes as evenly as possible.
  • Second activation: Once all zombies have resolved their activations, runners get a second activation! This is basically a repeat of the above 2 actions, although a runner may change action.
    E.g., if a runner used it's first activation to move into the same zone as a character, it will use it's second activation to attack. Or if it moved towards the noise token with it's first move and it now sees a character, it will change direction towards that character.
    This also means if it starts the zombie phase in the same zone as a characters, it will attack twice!
• Spawn: In this part of the phase, more zombies will spawn.
  • Danger level: First determine danger level, there are 4 levels and they correspond to the colours on player adrenaline tracks. The danger level will match the colour of the character who is furthest along their adrenaline track.
    I.e., if a character is in the orange part of their adrenaline track and they are furthest along, then the danger level will be orange.
  • Draw cards: Then, beginning with the starting spawn point, draw a zombie card for each active spawn point.
    Generally, the card drawn will be a zombie card. It will list the type of zombie and how many of that type will spawn - it will be colour coded to the danger level. Thus the higher the danger level, the more will spawn.
    Abomination spawn: The abomination its own special rules that occur when its spawn card is drawn.
    Extra activation: Some cards will be activation cards. It means instead of spawning more zombies, those on the board get an extra activation - which means they can move or attack again. This can be bad news!
  • No supply of miniatures: If there are not enough miniatures to put on to the playing area when a spawn card is drawn, then the abomination gets an extra activation.

End of round phase: Once all spawn tokens have been resolved, the game goes to the final phase and the following occurs.

• Bang/BOOM! token: If the BOOM! side of this token is showing, flip it back to the bang side. It's already on the bang side, then move to the zone which contains the largest number of characters.
• New first player: The first player token should be moved to the player to the left of the current first player.
• Next round: A new round starting with another player phase begins

Additional rules: The game also has rules for the Gatling gun, wagon, train and so on. There are also specific rules on how objective tokens are used from mission to mission and there's too many to list here.
If you really want to know, feel free to read the rulebook online, it's only 50 pages long.

​Endgame
There are a couple of other lose conditions that can make the game end badly for the players and which are:
If any time there are 7 active spawn points, then the players lose.
If any character has their HP reduced to 0, then the players lose.

Otherwise play progresses until the chosen mission's win or lose criteria are met in which case the players collectively either win or lose.

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Overall
​With it's old western art style and equally styled components, the theme fits well within the frame of Zombicide. Although, it's tricky to think of a setting that wouldn't fit.
The character classes feel right for the theme and work well to differentiate between the characters.

There's quite a lot going on in the game but some of that is down to options and choices available to players. Mechanically, Zombicide: Undead or Alive isn't too complex and wisely, zombies actions are streamlined, although there may well be a lot of zombies to shuffle around the playing area.
Seasoned players won't really find anything tricky to learn.

The only quibble I have with the rules is the targeting priority when performing ranged attacks.
I know why it's there; to stop players targeting runners and using their superior movement to keep out range of all the other types of zombie.
Generally, I consider the runners the most dangerous type of zombie, they can reach characters quicker and attack more often. Tactically, players would likely target runners first if it wasn't for the priority targeting, at least that's what I'd probably do.
Understandable from a game-balance perspective but nonetheless, frustrating.

Because the game is so mission driven, it's hard to give a comprehensive overview of what players will face but in game like this but gameplay-wise, the game has that classic cooperative game structure of slowly, over turns threatening to overwhelm players who will be faced with balancing the need to complete objectives with the need to reduce the burgeoning zombie horde.
It's a fairly common predicament in cooperatives games but it serves this game well by putting the players in situations where they have to make meaningful decisions. Luck also plays a part in games like this and players will need to adapt to manage bad luck - especially if there's a couple of bad draws from the zombie deck.

While the game looks great, particularly so when there's 70 odd zombies that can be stumbling around the playing area, it can feel a little clunky to manage despite the fairly streamlined rules for the zombie phase.
In fact, with it's involved set up it all feels clunky. Playing with 6 characters can also slow it down somewhat with what seemed like lengthy downtime between turns and overall play time.

I don't think this makes Zombicide: Undead or Alive a bad game, there's nothing bad here and if you like the western theme, you'll probably have a fun time with it but for me, it felt like the payoff wasn't worth the effort to get there.​