DISCLAIMER: THIS POST WAS MADE GIVEN MY PLAYGROUP’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE RULES OF AAZ. IF ANY OF THIS INFORMATION IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP SO I CAN CORRECT IT. THANK YOU
Yo (again),
Last night’s game was certainly an interesting experience, but it wrapped up far too late for me to write something immediately, so here I am now.
This is my second post of 3 I’ll be making on this topic, where I’ll cover Axis & Allies & Zombies from a gameplay perspective. I played this game the way I believed it was “”“meant”“” to be played by the designers (in a 5-player game with Zombies, the Zombie Cards, and the “Desperate Measures” features of the Zombie Cards (and technology, by extension) all enabled ). The intention here is not to evaluate balance necessarily (that’s certainly not something that can be determined from just one game anyway), but to get a “feel” for how the new game plays compared to other A&A titles. This is about fun-factor and play-ability for now, not necessarily design quality and game balance (although I may end up lightly touching on those points in this post).
One thing that bores me to tears when reading reviews of other board games is that the reviewer tends to attempt to explain the rules of the game to the reader. There are other posts and resources explaining how to play AAZ in varying levels of detail on this site, so I would direct any reader who is new to this game (or to Axis & Allies as a whole) to seek out those posts/resources.
However, I will explain the changes to this version in high-level details, to be fair to those of you who are like I was and have not played AAZ yet. Out of politeness, I am also going to mark where the rule-dump begins/ends, so you can get through this post faster if you’re already up-to-snuff on how Zombies work:
ZOMBIE EXPLANATION START
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Core Rule Set (unit set, costs, stats, etc.) is based on AA50. That being said, there are a few differences.
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No Cruisers or AA Guns.
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No SBRs.
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You can no longer use an ally’s TT or CV for your land units or FTRs.
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You buy/place units at the end of your turn, meaning you can better adapt your purchases based on how the turn went. This has strategic implications I’ll go into more in part 3, so stay tuned.
Zombies exist:
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Spawn every time an INF dies (1 INF -> 1 Zombies, 2 INF -> 2 Zombies, etc.)
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Spawn whenever directed to by a “Zombie Card” (more on those below).
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If only Zombies exist in a territory, that territory loses its IPC value (and the Zombies “gain” its IPC value, more on that below).
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If Zombie-Controlled territory (they even have their own roundels, printed on the back of the normal ones) reaches 25 IPC, the game ends and “the team with the highest IPC value wins”. This effectively means the Allies win, given the huge discrepancy in starting IPC values.
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Players can coexist with Zombie-Units in their territory or attempt to remove them (ask me if you need more details on this, the rules are a bit complex and I’d be here a while trying to explain it. Better yet, ask Panther or one of the other “rules guys”, as I’m liable to give you incorrect information).
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Zombies get a post-shot at the occupiers of any territory they exist in at the start of a turn. The controlling player doesn’t get to fire back.
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During combat in a territory where Zombies exist, all 6-rolls kill a Zombie, whether you want to or not.
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Also during combat, Zombies mindlessly attack at the start of every round of combat. The Zombies have their own special dice, but the breakdown of their attack is as follows:
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Roll 1 die per-zombie.
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1 - Kill Defending Land Unit.
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2,3 - Kill Attacking Land Unit.
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4-6 - Miss.
(Killed units are taken as casualties, but still get to fire for the combat round).
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After combat, if the attacker won, they may stay and continue fighting the zombies in an attempt to wipe them out before they can potentially become a problem later.
ZOMBIE EXPLANATION END
I apologize again for explaining all of that. Hopefully someone finds it useful.
Anyway, regarding the core gameplay changes, I’m sad to see AA Guns and SBRs go. The AA in particular was an extremely important unit for defense, but there are barely any air units in the starting setup so I guess I can let it slide (the rules for AA Guns were always a bit nebulous anyway, the changes they made in G40 only made them more nebulous, in my opinion).
I feel that they could have simply reverted to the old SBR rules from Classic/Revised (direct IPC Damage instead of “damaging facilities”) if they wanted to “simplify the A&A experience” or whatever Wizards was thinking (also; if they wanted to “simplify” things why did they make the Zombie rules so bloody complicated?).
I couldn’t care less about Cruisers though. Easily the most useless unit in all of A&A. Even the Battleship is a better purchase because at least it can soak up a hit.
The changes regarding sharing transports/carriers were just to clear up clutter in the rulebook, I think. This is fair, and I couldn’t spy any openings for either side where the rule would have helped if it still existed.
Again, I’ll hold off on commenting on the “purchase/mobilize units” changes until part 3.
I’m going to review the gameplay factor by briefly stepping through the game I played with my group last night. I’ll explain my thoughts as we go along, with a conclusion at the end. No, I do not have exact unit movements recorded. I figured there’d be no point in that, because:
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It was everyone’s first time playing the new game.
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There are huge gaps in player-skill in our group. Some players are competent, but others simply do not make moves that would be considered acceptable by most of the players on this site.
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This post is already getting a bit long the way it is.
Anyway, with that in mind, let’s dive in, shall we?
R1:
For starters, this map and setup are more-or-less based on 41, but with a few changes:
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IPC Values are buffed across the board.
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“Eastern Europe” has been split into “Eastern Europe” and “Balkans” to make the game feel more like Revised/42SE.
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“North China” has been split into two territories, the names of which I can’t recall. One is basically Sinkiang from Revised/AA50, a final barrier between China and Russia. The other is a buffer zone between the “Sinkiang-esque” territory and Japanese holdings.
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India and the “Sinkiang-esque” territory have special Industrial Complexes that can only build INF. I’ll talk about these more in part 3 but I wanted to note them here.
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A few extra SZs have been thrown about. US still can’t make it to UK in one move, which makes land bridges slower. The US and Japan can both make it to the Solomon Islands SZ in one move, which makes the prospect of setting up the USN difficult, given the huge disparity in starting forces.
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The setup is pretty close to 41 from what I remember, but Russia seems a bit stronger and Germany a bit weaker. This is probably to address the fact that OOB 41 was basically unwinnable for the Allies.
Anyway, on to the Soviet Player’s turn.
The first “Zombie Card” of the game went to FIC. One Zombie was more-or-less ineffective for the time being. We had a good laugh at the Soviet Player’s expense, as they were clearly not going to be able to kill 3 Zombies this turn to get their tech roll.
In a normal play for this scale game, the Russians hit Ukraine and West Russia with basically everything, leaving a blocker in Karelia (No IC there in this map). West Russia went well for them, but after 3 rounds of mediocre rolling on both sides in Ukraine the Soviets had to retreat. They bought 2 INF/2 ART, typical stuff.
Even at this early point, one of the nuances of this edition of A&A became very clear to us…
…The Zombies weren’t going to make land easy to hold. 4 Zombies were left behind in Ukraine due to the INF casualties. In a normal game, the surviving TANK would be in good shape to be reinforced by the other German starting units, and Germany would be on-track to securing a huge advantage due to the failed Russian attack. But in this game, things were different. In this game, Zombies were a thing.
G1: I was the German Player
And a thing they were… I didn’t even get to make my move before my TANK was killed off by Zombies, and my IPC value dipped. The Zombie of the turn took out Mexico, which immediately hurt the US Player’s income (no units start in Mexico). This prompted a few jokes, none of which I can share for obvious reasons.
I got a free roll on the tech chart for my troubles, and wound up with the “Zombie Mind Control Ray.” It moves Zombies in territory I control during NCM, but I never got a chance to use it.
Anyway, being the Germany player, I was immediately faced with two options:
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Attempt to retake Ukraine and establish a stack (…that would be perilously in-range of the West Russia Stack + Caucasus reinforcements)
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Hold the line.
After thinking back to the discussions I’ve had regarding the Zombie mechanics before the game launched, I thought of a more sinister plan…
- Strafe West Russia until all of my INF die, leaving a mass of Zombies on Stalin’s front-porch.
Perfect.
To add insult to injury, I sailed 2 INF on a TT from Italy to Egypt on a suicide mission. The idea was to let Zombies pile up in hard-to-break territories and force the defenders out, then swoop in after the defenders die to get easy kills on the zombies. This turned out to be half of a good idea, but retaking Zombie-held land proved more difficult than I anticipated.
Naval combat is the same as ever in this game, so I wiped out the entire Royal Navy G1, even the Canadians. I lost most of my subs doing this though due to lucky die-rolling on the UK’s part.
I bought a mix of land units and passed play to UK.
UK1:
Sweden has joined the game
That’s right. The Zombie card for the UK Turn spawned a Zombie in Sweden, meaning they join the war and the Zombies gain more IPC Value.
The existing Zombies had a good run this turn. FIC Zombie got a hit, and the West Russia Zombies got 2, reducing the Soviet stack to 6 INF (the Soviet Player took non-INF units out first to try to slow the rate of new Zombie).
The UK Player quickly picked up on my tactic, and strafed the poor Japanese position in FIC just to kill their own INF and the surviving Japanese INF. Other than that, they weren’t able to do much except destroy the Japanese fleet off FIC (to establish a blocker for India) and pick off the German Battleship with the RAF. They blew all their money on INF for India and the beginning of a new fleet.
The tactic of indirectly crippling the enemy with the Zombies was proving powerful.
J1:
This turn’s card saw a Zombie show up in Finland-Norway, and with no starting German TT in the Baltic, the two units I had there were basically sentenced to death. Japan was also able to convert a Zombie in FIC into 3 IPC, which was helpful, but too little too late to save the territory.
The Zombie rolls continued, spelling doom for FIC and taking a bite out of the forces in Egypt and West Russia. The main Russian army was down to 5 INF at this point, looking great for my Germans.
The Soviet Player made the common mistake of stacking Siberia (literally called “Siberia” in this game instead of “Buryatia” like it usually is). The Japan player attempted to exploit this by landing in-force. Other than that, they committed to a China-centric attack while also dumping INF on the beaches of the Philippines to die intentionally (and so further damage the US economy).
Japan’s attacks in China went well, and they even stayed to ensure that the Zombies were cleared out afterwards. Sadly, Siberia did not go as smoothly. Only a TANK/ART/2 FTR remained after the Soviets (and Zombies) dished out some strong rolls during the battle. That means 6 Zombies (originally 7 but one died during the battle due to someone rolling a “6”) were set to prey on the TANK/ART that were left behind. Japan’s economy had been severely crippled due to the player’s bad decision to not retake FIC from the Zombies, but position-wise they were in good shape. The UK Pacific Fleet was 100% destroyed, there were no Soviet Forces in the East, and the main Japanese army was one move away from seizing the Chinese “INF-only IC”.
A1:
The Americans flipped over the next Zombie Card, which brought a Zombie to Australia. It also would have allowed the yanks to grab a tech if they killed enough Zombies this turn, but they were in no position to do so.
Zombie Rolls were merciful this turn, but an incredibly lucky roll killed one of the INF in Norway-Finland, meaning only 1 INF was left to deal with 2 Zombies.
The US started the process of cleaning up the Atlantic, but other than that they just amassed their forces and prepared for the rest of the game. They didn’t bother to retake Mexico, and led the Chinese on a suicidal march into Japanese China, successfully spawning a Zombie. Not a bad play.
R2:
“Why am I commenting on the entire game?” You’ll understand soon enough…
The Zombies continued, this time arriving in the Balkans. Fortunately, my main stack was there, and the Zombie wasn’t able to get a kill. However, Siberia fell to the Zombies, leaving Japan in a rough position. Meanwhile, the last remnants of the mighty Red Army died in West Russia before the Russia Player could even begin their turn, leaving them in a rough spot with basically no army.
Resigned to their fate, the Soviets sent a lone INF from Karelia into Eastern Europe, desperate to cause a diversion with a Zombie. To everyone’s surprise, the lone INF beat the INF blocker I had in-place there, completely cutting off my planned Tank Blitz into Karelia.
Now relatively safe, the Soviets sent the rest of their standing army into China to hold the INF-IC, and built as many units as they could manage.
G2:
I now faced a position that I believe the developers intended. The Soviet Army was totally crushed and defeated. but a White Wall of Zombies stood between me and victory. The Zombie Card dumped a Zombie into Borneo, threatening the UK Economy. My objective card was to kill 3 Zombies for a tech, which I barely failed.
The Attrition Rolls this turn were brutal. Norway-Finland died, Australia lost an INF (leaving a Tank to deal with the Zombies), Borneo fell to the new Zombie, Japan’s Chinese territory lost an INF to the Zombies, and Egypt was reduced to just 1 FTR (and 4 Zombies).
Figuring that Egypt was crippled, I decided to go for the kill on the FTR, and marched my troops in. I was ultimately horrified to learn that the Zombies were already more than I can handle, and my 2 TANK/FTR were all wiped out in the process of killing the UK FTR. That means Zombies ruled the day in Egypt.
Meanwhile, I cleaned up the Balkans and retook East Europe. Next turn, my death stack would be ready to hit Karelia, and from there my path to victory, around the Zombies, would be clear.
B2:
The UK got a truly terrifying “Desperate Measures” Zombie Card this turn:
“Choose a Zombie-Controlled Territory. Move half of the Zombies from that territory to an adjacent territory.”
4 of the 7 Zombies from Siberia were now in Manchuria (which was unoccupied), and Japan’s economy took a nose-dive. Scary stuff.
Attrition rolls were ineffective this turn, but the threat of losing Australia made the UK’s turn uneventful anyway, as they were delegated to cleaning up Australia, flying a FTR to Philippines, and stacking India. The Royal Navy was finally established, which threatened to liberate Europe in the coming turn…
J2:
Japan didn’t have much to offer this turn. Their Zombie Card took out New Guinea, and attrition rolls did nothing.
The Japanese Player attempted three objectives this turn, and failed all of them spectacularly:
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Finish off the Chinese (2 INF/ART/2 FTR Vs. 2 INF/ART/FTR) - Result - All defenders destroyed, but no surviving attacking land units (Zombies Win, 4 Zombies on territory), Japan retreats 2 FTRs to Kwangtung (“Coastal China”)
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Reclaim Manchuria from the Zombies - Result - A landing with 4 INF was attempted, but horrendous die-rolling saw the 4 Zombies roll 4 “As”, killing the entire Japanese landing party and leaving Manchuria in the hands of 8 Zombies.
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Seize the Philippines from the weakened defenders - Result - 1 INF/1 TANK/3 FTR + Bombardment Vs. 1 FTR Vs. 3 Zombies somehow resulted in all of the land units, the British FTR and one of the Japanese FTRs dying. Attempts to strafe the Zombies failed spectacularly. 4 Zombies now lived in the Philippines due to not a single “6” being rolled.
The critical mistake here was that the Japan Player forgot that Zombies can’t hit air units. Let me elaborate a bit:
The Japanese player whiffed the bombardment and lost an INF to the Zombies. They got their hit on the UK FTR and the UK FTR got a hit back, killing a JPN FTR. Knowing that 1 TANK would likely not survive a full round of Zombie Attrition, the Japan Player tried to stay and fight the Zombies. Immediately, the Zombies rolled an “A” on their combat round. The Japan Player wanted to take a FTR as a casualty, but were reminded that Zombies can’t hit planes. Thus, the poor lad had to take his last land unit as a casualty, resulting in the Philippines going Zombie.
A2:
The USA Player laughed at our misfortune, as the game was already over.
“But how?” You may be wondering.
Two Words. Zombie. Apocalypse.
Yes, the alternate win condition that was mostly written off by my play group game into effect, ending the game in the Allies’ favor (their IPC count, naturally, greatly exceeded the Axis). 25 IPCs were really gone in just two rounds.
WINNER - ALLIES
So that was a game of AAZ. Our total playtime was about 2 and a half hours, and that includes the time it took to setup and review the new rules with everyone.
Honestly, everyone in my playgroup had a blast playing it. The Zombies add a chaotic factor to the game that is not normally present, and the quick result was greatly appreciated, even if it was probably a symptom of everyone’s unfamiliarity with the Zombie Mechanic.
However, I did find that the Zombie Cards added a degree of luck to the game that makes the thought of playing it competitively laughable. Our game was basically decided for us when the UK Player Top-Decked a card that transferred a horde of Zombies into Manchuria, which spelled disaster for Japan and triggered the “Zombie Apocalypse”.
Disclaimer (again): This bit on the zombies is based on how our group interpreted the rules. If I’m wrong on something please let me know ASAP so I can fix this. I do not want to have misinformation taint my image of the game
I also found that the attrition rolls for the Zombies consume a disproportionate amount of time that could better be spent playing. This could be sped up by just making the Zombies stronger during the attrition phase or by removing the attrition phase outright. I’ll give the attrition phase a pass though, because it was hilarious making people roll to see whether their troops would randomly keel over and die to the Zombies. Watching the invincible West Russia INF Stack, an icon of the series in my opinion, melt into nothing over the course of a round was extremely satisfying to watch.
If anything, it was way too hard to actually get rid of the pests. You have to roll a 6 to kill one Zombie (except in the case of spillover casualties, which are suffered by the Zombies). This means that, barring the one round of combat where you get spillover hits, you have the same odds of hitting the zombies as they have of hitting you. This makes attempting to seize Zombie-Controlled land effectively impossible unless you are bringing armies with 0 INF to clean-up, which becomes cost-ineffective when the enemy is just going to use the Zombie Stack as a Dead-Zone and kill your army for free once you’ve removed the Zombies for them.
All-in-All though, this game was great to play with friends who weren’t taking things seriously. Highly recommended for a late-night activity, for when there’s simply not enough time to play a larger A&A Game, or even for a time where everyone’s not quite in the mood for ultra-serious gameplay.
That being said, this game in its base form has no business being anywhere near a competition, and I hope that this game is not seen at Gen Con, Origins, WBC, etc., lest the reputation of the franchise as a competitive strategy game be damaged. At the bare minimum, the Zombie Cards cannot and should not be used in a tournament, and the “Zombie Apocalypse” victory condition should result in a draw rather than what is essentially a free win for the Allies. In its current state, the “Zombie Apocalypse” encourages suicidal play by the Allies to drown the Axis in Zombies and rush to 25 Zombie IPCs before the Axis can even have a prayer of reaching Moscow.
I mean, just look at the starting IPC values:
Allies: 68
USSR - 14
UK - 22
USA - 32
Axis: 38
Germany - 23
Japan - 15
That’s a 30 IPC difference (15 IPC swing). Yes, Japan will hopefully nab at least Philippines, Borneo and 2 Chinese territories (6 IPC Swing) J1, but the Soviets will trade West Russia and Ukraine (4 IPC total) for Karelia and Egypt (3 IPC total) between R1 and G1, which is an overall 1 IPC swing back to the Allies. That means the Axis only make up 5 IPC of the 15 they need to close the gap round 1, and that’s before factoring in territories that might arbitrarily fall to an inconveniently timed Zombie Card.
My point in explaining the IPC gap between the powers is to illustrate how easy it is for the Allies to win by forcing the Zombie Win Condition. Just march tons of INF into the Meatgrinder on the Eastern front and create a wall of Zombies. That effectively secures Moscow, as the Russians can easily punish any German Attempt at taking the clay by throwing more INF in their face and letting the Zombies do the rest. Japan is in a safer position to expand, but similar tactics can be used to slow them down by drowning FIC and the Chinese territories in Zombies. The Islands are probably a safe bet, but if the initial Zombies can’t be scrubbed from the islands quickly it will prove impossible for Japan to expand its income beyond its miserable starting value.
So that’s it. The game’s a blast for a fun time with friends, but competitively it’s a bloody mess. Stay tuned for part 3, which is a bit of a bonus part, where I’ll try the interesting experiment of playing this game Zombie-Free. I’ll also be running through the 1939 Scenario, which is an overly-glorified tutorial where Germany crushes Poland, France, etc., to see if has anything exciting to bring to the plate. Finally, I’ll share my thoughts on AAZ as a whole, and what elements of it I’d like to see in future A&A Installments.
If you actually read all this, way to go.
If you actually read this and the last part, double way to go.
