ZOMBICIDE UNDEAD OR ALIVE UNBOXING

Giddy-up! My crate of goodies from participating in the CMON Games Zombicide: Undead or Alive Kickstarter campaign has arrived. A zombie apocalypse has infested within the Wild West and it is up to you to help a group of survivors get out of Dodge in this new variation of the Zombicide tabletop game. By purchasing Zombicide: Undead or Alive through Kickstarter rather than retail not only did I lasso the core game, but I also wrangled an exclusive Dead West expansion kit that includes 79 extra character pieces to enhance game play. Plus, I unboxed a few extra goodies to add to the Wild West theme of the Undead or Alive Zombicide adventures.

In this standalone game, instead of trying to survive a zombie infestation of a modern day city, players are transported back to the American West of the 1800s as they attempt to survive swarms of the undead. Carried by infected travelers aboard trains, the plague quickly spread across the Wild West. Horses became meals to the zombie hoard causing the surviving people to be isolated in overwhelmed frontier towns.

Zombicide: Undead or Alive is a cooperative game where players work together to face scenarios involving them confronting and escaping a zombie menace. Players make their own decisions to utilize weapons and abilities while the zombies are controlled by the game itself using simple rules and a deck of cards. This tabletop game can be played for 1 - 6 players and is recommended for those aged 14+. 

The Undead or Alive core box includes 14 characters that players can choose to play as divided up as four different classes: Brawler, Faithful, Gunslinger and Townsfolk. 

Brawlers are hand-to-hand specialists who use melee weapons to bring down zombies. Being tough as nails, they can also endure more wounds than other survivors.

Faithfuls use their faith and conviction to paralyze zombies and destroy zombie spawning points.

Gunslingers are able to unload a heap of lead in a split second by fanning a hoard with pistol fire. This ability can devastate large bands of zombies at short range.

Townsfolk know where to search for supplies and find everything needed for killing zombies.

Also included in the core box are 64 zombie game pieces to utilize in the game. There are four types of zombies players will encounter in Undead or Alive: Walkers, Brutes, Runners and Abominations.

Walkers slowly trudge towards you in a deadly mob. Beware that though they aren't speedy, walkers can quickly overwhelm you.

Brutes are hard to kill making them nasty menaces. Watch out because they are often shielding other zombies hiding behind them!

Runners often catch survivors by surprise. You don't think of zombies as fast but this type is quick. They move twice as fast as other zombies!

Abominations can be the worst nightmare of survivors, plus they aren't always zombies! Sometimes abominations are mutated monsters or worse. These are the toughest, ugliest adversaries your posse will come across. They can only be hurt by dynamite. Moreover, their mere presence stirs the dead to come to an abomination's aid. As soon as one enters the game board, special places called Abomination Spawn Zones become active causing even more zombies come after players.

There are ten missions included with the core box that can be played with included character pieces and twelve double-sided game board tiles. Players can also just create their own random scenarios as well utilizing the Zombicide A.I. system and their own tile layouts. Click here to check out the rule book for yourself. 

By participating in the Kickstarter campaign, I also received an exclusive Dead West expansion kit that includes 79 more character pieces adding more survivors and zombies with their own unique quirks and qualities to enhance gameplay. This is particularly nice for adding new challenges to the game with its inclusion of some impressive abominations that range from a cactus monster to a wendigo. The expansion kit also includes some outlaws that can provide some extra firepower to your team of survivors including Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid and Jesse James. For those who missed the Kickstarter campaign it is possible to find Dead West in the secondary market for an elevated price to what it was originally sold for.

In addition to the Dead West expansion pack, I also picked up a few other exclusive content goodies in the Kickstarter campaign. I harnessed a Deadstock Pack that includes mutated abominations of a buffalo, grizzly bear and longhorn cow for survivors to battle. I also dug up a Long Dead Walkers Pack that has skeleton versions of the zombies from the core box. This game can be more than just a zombie encounter with a variety of different monsters led by the Great Trickster Spirit available through Kickstarter exclusives to fight against players. The quality of exclusives are one of the main hooks for me when it comes to joining a Kickstarter campaign and these had me biting at the Zombicide: Undead or Alive one.

Keep an eye out for more updates as I delve into the contents of Zombicide: Undead or Alive and begin playing the game. The core box is available now at retail. For more information about this and other games in the franchise, head over to zombicide.com

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