Zombiaki 2: Attack On Moscow Review [BGG]

Zombiaki 2: Attack On Moscow Review

This is my first review for BGG and is based on about four plays of the game with my better half.

Introduction

Zombiaki II Attack On Moscow is a two player strategic card game between zombies and humans. One player plays the defending humans the other the attacking zombies. The human player wins by stopping the zombies from overcoming their defences. The zombie player wins by overcoming the human defences before dawn.



Presentation

The card box contains: 40 cards for the zombie player, 40 for the human player, 5 cross street cards, a barricade card (human side) and a cemetery card (oddly enough the zombie side). The cards are well done with a large clear title (chains, pickaxe, steroids, shot etc), a generally entertaining picture, a visual representation of a cards health (for zombies) or damage dealing potential (for human cards), a bit of flavour text ("Fresh zombie steak!"), more text describing the gameplay of the card and a number telling you how many of that card are in the deck. The cards seem to be about as tough as a card from Magic.

The text is generally clear enough to work out what each card does. For some cards there seemed to be an odd missing word and one of the zombie cards was in German. Which actually just added to the entertainment for me.

Gameplay

The game is played on a three by five grid.

ZC ZT
CS5 L1 L2 L3
CS4 L1 L2 L3
CS3 L1 L2 L3
CS2 L1 L2 L3
CS1 L1 L2 L3
HB HT

ZC Zombie cemetery - The pile of zombie cards the zombie players hand is drawn from.
CS5 to 1 - The cross street cards used to mark the progress of the zombie horde. Cards are played on the L1 to L3 spaces
HB Human Barricade - The human players card pile. If the zombies reach here they win. All your brains belong to them.
ZT and HT - Trash piles for discarded cards.

Each turn consists of five phases.

1 Clean Up
2 Movement - All cards belong to the player that can move do so. For example most zombie must move forward one square. If they can move they must move.
3 Draw cards - (starting with the zombies) the player draws four cards and chooses to keep three.
4 Discard card - So one is discarded to the trash.
5 Play cards - The remaining three cards are then played, kept for later or discarded.

The zombie player tends to play zombies, normally starting at cross street five. These zombies then turn by turn shuffle forward seeking tasty tasty human brains.

The human player plays various defences. Ranging from gun shots to damage individual zombies to traps that they must cross. Some markers would be handy for this. We just used a handful of coppers.

There are cards that tweak the rules. Zombies have cards that allow them to start further down the street or restrict the human players actions. The human players have varying types of attacks and can use vehicles to attack a lane full of zombies.

The game continues until either the zombies breach the barricade or the sun comes up.

So far in the few games I have had it has always come down to the last few cards and has been quite suspenseful.

Summary

I like the general theme of the game. It is quite easy to picture any number of any recent zombie movies when playing the game. The game moves fairly quickly and neither player is left for too long twiddling their thumbs. The game for me had a very East European feel which should come as no surprise.

I am less than impressed with a German card stuck in an English language game, but can live with it. Also occasional phrases seem to be translated a bit roughly. Neither of these actually diminish my enjoyment of the game.

I am not sure what longer term play will throw up. It may be repeatedly winning strategies for one side or the other become apparent. The game might become a bit repetitive eventually though there does seem to be enough variation in the cards to offset this.

I have rated the game at 7 out of 10. I look forward to my next game and sharing it with others. Especially my zombie loving nephew.



Please feel free to ask any questions about my review. If my opinion changes as I play the game more I will edit this post.