Zombies!!! Setup Variant

Zombies!!!
Graceful Boot Quick Play Variant
April 26, 2011 draft

Introduction

The idea of the game is to build up the neighborhood in which zombies chase you and the other players in the style of old zombies movies. I think the right length of time for each game should be about 30-45 minutes. That's about right to get into the theme without it lasting long enough to drag.

This is a variant that replaces the original rules. Doing this will both shorten the game and add a little variety to each game, especially when you add the Zombie Corps(e) expansion, the Mall Walkers expansion, the The End expansion, the School's Out Forever expansion and/or the Six Feet Under expansion.

Object Of the Game

Be the first player to reach the center space of the Helipad tile killing any zombie on that space, or be the first player to kill a number of zombies depending on the number of players.

Number of Players	Zombie kills needed to win
2	21
3	19
4	17
5	15
6	13

For The End expansion, you must make it to the Cabin, clear it of zombies and perform the spell. Perform the spell by rolling a die, adding one per Page in play. A six (6) completes the spell. You may attempt a spell once per turn.

Game Setup

Before you start, remove the following cards from the Event Card deck. Put them back in the box because they will not be used.

1x Where Did Everybody Go
1x Bad Sense of Direction
1x Hysterical Paralysis
1x The Keys Are Still In It
1x We're Screwed
1x Fear
1x Brain Cramp
2x All The Marbles

Place the Town Square tile in the center of the table with a Shotgun Guy for each player in the center space of the Town Square.
Randomly choose the dealer. Remove the following map tiles and shuffle them. They will go to the bottom of the draw deck in a later step.

1x Helipad
1x Toy Store
2x right angle bend (has Warehouse)
2x straight through street (has Theater)
2x T-junction (has Media Buy)
2x cross roads

The draw deck is created this way:

Shuffle the remaining tiles.
Now place the tiles containing the Helipad created earlier at the bottom of this deck.
Remove two tiles from the game without looking at them for each player without changing the order of the tiles. Yes, the Helipad may not appear at all.
Take the top ten tiles and shuffle in the entrance tile(s) for any expansions you want to add. For example, Front Gate from Zombie Corps(e), Front Door from Mall Walkers, Bridge from The End, School Entrance from School's Out Forever, etc. Place these tiles back onto the rest of the tiles.
Set aside, face up, a cross road from tiles for each expansion (School's Out Forever, Mall Walkers, Zombie Corps(e)) and a straight road (Zombie Corps(e)), if the rules for an expansion say so.
For tiles from each expansion, randomly remove one tile from the game for each player, then shuffle the tiles into their own draw piles.

Shuffle the Event deck (adding the event cards from the expansions you want included) and deal three (3) cards to each player face down. Players look at their cards but don't reveal them until they play them.
Each player receives three (3) ammo and three (3) life token. No player may ever have more than five (5) life tokens, but can have as many ammo tokens as they can collect.
For the School's Out Forever expansion, each player receives three (3) guts tokens.
For the Six Feet Under expansion, each player receives two (2) sewer tokens.

Turn Sequence

During a turn, each player must do the following, in order:

Draw a map tile and place it.
Combat a zombie in your Shotgun Guy's current space if there is one.
Draw back to three (3) cards if you have less than three. For the School's Out Forever expansion, draw back to the number of guts tokens you have -- at least one (1).
Roll a die for Shotgun Guy movement. The higher of the die roll or number of life tokens at the start of the turn is Shotgun Guy's maximum movement. You may skip this step for the Mall Walkers expansion, as noted.
Move Shotgun Guy.
For the Six Feet Under expansion, pay a life token or a guts token if you're in the sewer.
Roll a die for zombie movement.
Move zombies.
Discard. At the end of your turn, you may discard one (1) event card from your hand.
Proceed to the next player clockwise.

Here's an explanation of the turn sequence:

Draw a Map Tile and Place It

Skip this step if all map tiles are drawn.
A tile may be drawn from the stack for any expansion, but may only be drawn if the entrance for that expansion has been placed. The drawn tile must connect to a tile from the same expansion.
Tiles may be rotated in any direction, but must be placed so that all roads are connected. They may not block any road with the side of a building. If this is not possible, discard the tile and continue to the next step.
When playing named tiles, place the number of zombies (Z), ammo tokens (B) and life tokens (L) indicated under their names. All zombies and tokens must be placed inside the building, not on street spaces. A zombie may exist in a space with a token, but no space may contain more than one zombie and one token. This means you can't place two or more tokens in the same space.
It is possible to place map tiles in such a way that no further tiles can be placed. If this occurs, the player who played the last tile loses the turn and play continues until a player collects enough zombies to satisfy the victory condition depending on the number of players.
When an unnamed map tile is played, it comes into play with a number of zombies equal to the number of access spaces it has. For example, if there are two spaces entering the edges of the tile, it gets two zombies. They are placed on any legal spaces.
For The End, when an unnamed tile is played, roll a die and add that many zombie dogs to the tile.
For The End, two zombie dogs may occupy one space.
When the helipad tile is turned up, the players bid a number of kills to see who places it on the table. Bidding starts with the player with the most kills. Each player in turn following the normal turn order must bid at least one more kill than the previous player, or pass. Once a player passes, that player may not bid again. Bidding continues until all but one player passes. At that point, the player with the highest bid places the Helipad at any legal position and discards the number of kills bid.
When an entrance tile for an expansion turns up, place the tile along with the required crossroad, or straight road and crossroad for Zombie Corps(e).
For the Mall Walker's expansion, the escalator is the entrance to the second floor. All tiles connected beyond the escalator are not connected to tiles on the first floor.
For the Mall Walkers expansion, the expansion's helipad must be attached to the second floor.
For The End expansion, When the Cabin tile comes up, the player with the least number of pages in play determines the location. If there is a tie, the tying players roll a die and the highest number places the tile.

Combat Zombies

Any time Shotgun Guy begins the turn in the same space as a zombie, or Shotgun Guy moves into the same space as a zombie, combat ensues.
Combat is resolved by rolling a die. Use the following table to determine combat results. If you would normally lose a life token (because you lost a combat roll and didn't have enough ammo to raise the roll to a four (4)) and have none, you must lose one zombie from your kills and you cannot move any more this turn, regardless of your movement allowance. You still follow the rest of the steps for your turn. Your best bet is to head back to the Town Square and replenish you health and ammo.

Die Roll	Result	Result, Zombie Corps(e) expansion (government enhanced zombies)	Result, The End expansion (zombie dogs)
1	Lose one (1) life or three (3) ammo	Lose one (1) life or four (4) ammo	Lose half life or four (4) ammo
2	Lose one (1) life or two (2) ammo	Lose one (1) life or three (3) ammo	Lose half life or three (3) ammo
3	Lose one (1) life or one (1) ammo	Lose one (1) life or two (2) ammo	Lose half life or two (2) ammo
4	Add zombie to kills	Lose one (1) life or one (1) ammo	Lose half life or one (1) ammo
5	Add zombie to kills	Add government enhanced zombie to kills	Add zombie dog to kills
6	Add zombie to kills	Add government enhanced zombie to kills	Add zombie dog to kills

Zombies in the Zombie Corps(e) expansion and The End expansion are harder to kill, killed on a five (5) or six (6).
Once the zombie is dead, you may collect any life or ammo tokens in that space, because that space is now free of zombies.
Combat continues until you win or lose a kill because you run out of life tokens and don't have enough ammo tokens.
When your turn ends with no zombies in play, then place zombies on any ten (10) legal spaces on any tiles in play.

Event Cards

Events may be played at any time
You may only play one event card per round. A round lasts from the beginning of a players turn to the beginning of the player's next turn.
You may never have more than three (3) event cards in your hand at once.
You may have any number of event cards face up in play.
You may discard one (1) card at the end of your turn. This is the last thing you may do and signifies the end of your turn.
For the School's Out Forever expansion, draw back to a number of cards equal to the number of guts you have – minimum of one (1).
You may only use one weapon at a time.
You may only have one copy of each card in play – weapons, pages and items.
Event cards supersede normal rules.
For The End expansion, Page cards may only be placed in front of you during your turn. They may be played at any time, but only one page per round.
If the event deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile into a new draw deck.

Shotgun Guy Movement

Shotgun Guy's movement is determined by rolling one die. If the result is less than your remaining life tokens at the start of your turn, you may move up to that number of spaces. Otherwise, you may move up to the number shown on the die. Note that your movement allowance will not go down as a result of losing combat during your turn. Likewise, your movement will not increase as you pick up life tokens.
You don't have to move the full number of your movement allowance. You may end movement at any time.
You must engage in combat with any zombies encountered along the way during movement. The event card Alternate Food Source allows you to move through spaces containing zombies as if the zombies were not there.
If you move onto a space with a life or ammo token, and no zombie is present on that space, you may claim that token.
Zombies and Shotgun Guys may only move into or out of buildings on named tiles from any adjacent street space. No other buildings may be entered.
All spaces in buildings on named tiles are used as indicated by the lines in the buildings. For example, the Sporting Goods Store has seven (7) interior spaces and one road space.
Players may not move diagonally.
Players may occupy the same space.
If Shotgun Guy ends movement on the center space of the Town Square, he may replenish to three (3) life tokens and three (3) ammo tokens. For the School's Out Forever expansion, replenish to three (3) guts tokens as well. However, you don't discard tokens if you have more than three -- just add enough to get you back to three tokens of each type.
For Mall Walkers expansion, you may forgo rolling the movement die and use a duct in the same space as Shotgun Guy to move to an adjacent store's duct.
For the School's Out Forever expansion, a roll of a natural six (6) adds a gut token (to a maximum of five.) A roll of a natural one (1) loses a gut token.
For the Six Feet Under expansion, when you enter a subway station building you may declare that you are going to use the subway system in the city. Once you have done this, you finish your turn as normal. You must completely skip your next turn except to fight any zombies that may have found their way into the building and on your space. On the following turn you may move your pawn to any other subway station building on the board. If there are no other stations on the board, this ability may not be used.
For the Six Feet Under expansion, you may place a sewer token on a street space. Then you may use it as an entrance or an exit. When you enter a sewer, turn your Shotgun Guy on his side to indicate he's in the sewer. He will move normally but he will not encounter zombies in the sewer. To exit, when Shotgun Guy is on a space with a sewer token, stand the Shotgun Guy up to show he's not in the sewer any more.

Zombie Movement

Your zombie move die roll is as many zombie movement moves to distribute among any zombies in play.
You cannot use more than half, rounded down, of these moves on any one zombie. For example, if you roll a five (5), you could move five (5) zombies one space each, three (3) zombies one (1) space each and one (1) zombie two (2) spaces, or two (2) zombies two (2) spaces and one (1) zombie one (1) space.
No zombie may end up in the same space in which it started or move over the same space twice. In other words, no doubling back.
Zombies may move through spaces occupied by other zombies, but may not end movement in a space with another zombie.
Zombies may not move diagonally.
For The End, two zombie dogs may occupy one space. A zombie dog may share a space with any other kind of zombie.
For The End, double zombie dogs movement.

Discard

For the School's Out Forever expansion, discard down to the number of guts tokens you have keeping at least one (1), before deciding on your optional discard.

Credits

This variant by Vitas Povilaitis at Graceful Boot. It simplifies and clarifies the convoluted and misunderstood rules of an earlier draft.

Slightly different rules for a quicker game, compiled by Rich Stokes.

Abbreviated rules originally prepared by Moonsylver, and hacked to death by Rich.

Additional Variants

You can mix and match the following variants.

Remove from the game the named tiles that dead-end. These tiles really interrupt the flow of the game. It's no fun to back-track through empty streets.
Separate out the cards associated with buildings, and set them aside face-up. Then, when a player enters a building, they can automatically obtain the item for that building. This will prevent players from holding disappointing dead cards in their hands for buildings that were removed from the game.
Allow tiles to be placed adjacent to any other tile as long as it connects to at least one existing road. If you create a dead-end, make sure there is at least one open road out of the tile. In other words, newly placed tiles must be accessible, but they don't have to match road-for-road. This will hopefully allow for more possibilities in placing T-intersection and crossroad tiles.
If you have the Zombie Corps(e) expansion, and the Glow-in-the-Dark Bag O' Zombies, make all the zombies placed on army base tiles government enhanced zombies (killed on a roll of 5 and 6, double movement.)
You may enter or leave a named building door spaces only.

All these variants work fine with the Zombies!!! 3.5: Not Dead Yet! event card expansion.

With the addition of Zombies 4, the end-game condition has changed to the person casting the spell in the cabin wins. I would change this so that the player with the most kills when the spell is cast wins.

Click here to purchase Zombies!!!

Or just buy a Bag-O-Zombies and say "brainzzzz" a lot!

Contents by Vitas Povilaitis

email to vitas@GracefulBoot.com