Cryptozoic 1617680893 The Walking Dead Board Game (TV Version)

Product Information

Walking Dead Risk has two playable versions, Conquest and Survival. The Conquest version is for 2-5 players and is similar to the classic Risk style of total domination. The fifth player assumes the role of the Walkers as each player attempts to control all territories and eliminate all of the other players.

Expert Difficulty: Event cards are hidden from other players until played, and there is very little cooperative discussion Food: You gain food tokens which you can discard to heal your survivor or defy (move on your turn).The gameplay is repetitive, not in the good way, but in the boring way. The weapons suffer from huge disparity in their effectiveness. The katana pretty much guarantees you the game as if you roll a 4+ you keep on rolling and adding it up. This allows you to pretty much dominate. Beginner or Easy mode is pretty much a guaranteed win normally. The life counters are double sided. One side has a 1 and the other a 3. So that can get confusing and for that gamer that likes to cheat they will be flipping it.

If you’re wanting the biggest challenge, combine Hardcore mode with Expert Difficulty (We found we had the most fun playing this way). The ulterior motive cards, though optional, add nicely to the theme. Yes, you’re a team working together… but you’re also a group of individuals from all walks of life, each with your own responsibilities for survival. It's always an excellent service with brilliant products at a very competitive price - will use again!Two modes of play allow for beginners and experienced players to tailor the game to their skill level This isn’t a game you’ve played before with The Walking Dead franchise layered on. Cryptozoic Entertainment has taken the gritty survival atmosphere of the TV series and created a completely fresh cooperative gameplay experience. My biggest gripe, and yes Cryptozoic – this is your fault, is the box and box insert. The box is huuuuuge compared to what you get inside. It’s a store shelf billboard trying to sell you on the fact that this is The Walking Dead game. I can’t fault them for that, but it’s a beast of a box to try to transport when all the components could easily fit in a box the size of Pandemic. And that insert! Whoever designed a beautiful looking insert that allows almost all of the cards inside slide around like a small tornado ripped through zombie town should get a boot on their car. I’m seriously going to look into a card container to fit inside the box to protect the cards. I’m also going to replace the very lightweight, very bouncy six-sided dice. Like most licensed games, there is an extra level of immersion you’ll enjoy if you are a fan of the TV series. At the same time, you’ll still have just as much fun if you’ve never heard of The Walking Dead.

The miniatures in the set are, on the whole, excellent and are a joy to paint, the detail in the Walkers is extremely good and these characters show a wide range of sculpts, from zombie waitresses to old men. The sculpts for the human characters don’t seem to be as refined, and whilst clothing details are great, a couple of their heads seem a little bulky and large. The Walking Dead can be credited for revitalising the zombie genre when it appeared first as a celebrated comic and then as the long-running TV show reusing characters and recognisable narratives from the comic. The continuing narrative, focusing on a central group of survivors from the Atlanta area of the States, challenged what we would expect; here the zombies, or Walkers to those familiar with the mythos, were not villains here. Instead the regular challenges facing the survivors is the regular discovery of other groups of survivors willing to do anything to survive and scavenge the last remaining resources of food and firearms. This isn’t a game like Pandemic or Flash Point: Fire Rescue where you save the day and live happily ever after. In Best Defense, IF you win, your survivors will probably be battered and bruised, some barely alive… your resources will be almost completely depleted, and the board will probably still have walkers all over it. The experience of winning could be compared to making your way through a zombie ridden building looking for resources, and barely making it out, closing the door behind you with a building still full of zombies (and maybe a survivor or two who didn’t make it out). Now don’t let this discourage you though. It’s the challenge of working together as a team to beat overwhelming odds that makes the game so fun. For those that think they could manage this without too much difficulty, I need to warn you that as the rounds progress, the number of territories and Walkers where these Outbreaks take place increases!As an option, each player can receive a secret Ulterior Motive card. They aren’t shown to other players and typically involve collecting things or performing certain tasks to complete them. What’s fun is how they may cause players to make decisions that might not be in the best interests as everyone else. They also act as “mini achievements” that can make the game more fun for each player. We found these are the most fun while playing in Expert Difficulty. Also, you don’t need to complete them to win the game. Take your turn The operational mechanics of the cards is great. As a lone Survivor with the Machete as my weapon, I get a +3 to my Combat Dice roll. Why? If you think about it, I would be more apt to swing for the fences if I didn’t have to concern myself with hurting others around me. Does the card say that? Nope. But my brain is free to fill in the blanks. Love it.

The Walking Dead Board Game: The Best Defense does an awesome job of letting players experience the “reality” of surviving as a team during a zombie apocalypse. Things don’t gradually get better, they get worse! In many zombie games players will gain resources and other items that make it much easier to overcome whatever challenges come next. The things you gain in Best Defense will only give you a little bit of an edge, and finding an awesome weapon will do you no good unless you’ve also got matching ammo on hand. Best Defense is very easy to learn and teach to others. There are even rules for solo mode which is a great way to take the game for a spin before teaching others how to play. Non-leaders can’t move unless they choose to “Defy the Leader.” To do this they discard one food token and can then move one space. This is useful if they don’t like where the leader moved them. Or, if they coordinated this with the leader, it could essentially allow them to move two spaces in one turn (note that you can’t move diagonally)The game plays as many tower defense games do – you shuffle around the board protecting resources from the invading hordes. In this game, the hordes are zombies thirsting for human flesh. As soon as the Outbreak is resolved the player controlling the most territories, bonuses etc. will be considered to be the best positioned to survive the new world, and declared the winner of the game. Looking for a really good The Walking Dead card or board game 🧟‍♂️? Then we've got just the thing - a list of the top The Walking Dead games. What is "The Walkind Dead" anyway? At this point, surviving Survivors with 4 or fewer hit points may use 1 Food to regain 1 hit point. You can only use 1 Food per round to regain 1 hit point, so try to stay away from the bitey end of the Walkers.