Asmodee HZR01 HZR01ASM Hit Z Road

Product Information

Hit Z Road Survive a post-apocalyptic road trip by bidding on the best route A very different kind of zombie survival game, Hit Z Road focuses on its players' journey across the USA. The cards: As discussed above, we loved the theme presented by the cards, especially the art and the notes. As for the card quality, they are good and did not bend due to humidity unlike many other cards have in my house. How to Play:

Alternatively, before any melee round a player may choose to run from the fight. To do so, they spend 2 gas tokens. If a player runs away, they don’t claim the card. Instead the card is discarded from play. There are hordes of zombie games available to gamers, so will this latest foray into the post-apocalyptic world rival the best zombie-themed games? Or will Hit Z Road end up in the trash with the other contenders to the undead crown? Hit Z Road, though, could be the Wallace game that flies under the radar. Besides the uninspiring name, gamers might take one look at the zombie theme and immediately pass. At first glance the bidding mechanism seems out of place in a zombie-themed game, but it drives the tension in Hit Z Road. All of the paths are laid out in front of the players, so you’ll know which path offers the most reward for the least amount of risk. For example, a card may have 3 ammo tokens as its resource reward and it may offer 1 VP, but you must fight 3 zombies to gain that VP. Since each ammo token is worth 2 dice, you could spend two of your newly gained ammo tokens on 4 dice to blast through the 3 zombies during your Ranged Roll. However, if you roll miserably, then you’ve wasted your ammo and you’re looking at a Melee Roll with multiple zombies. If you’re low on adrenaline tokens, you may lose a survivor if you suffer another bad roll. Of course, you could spend your fuel tokens to flee, but then you’d lose the VP. Don’t call me Daryl. I know our youngest child is now a teenager, but I can’t imagine pulling this out to play with younger kids. Our neighbors and friends still have kids in the younger age range and I can’t imagine playing it with them. For starters, I wouldn’t want them to be disturbed seeing some of the card images. Zombicide The ultimate zombie adventure RPG-in-a-box Zombicide is among the biggest and best zombie board games going, offering an RPG-like campaign across multiple scenarios.In addition, resources become less plentiful in later rounds of the game when the zombie count increases. So getting a lot of resources early can really pay off. On a player’s turn, they must choose one of the remaining paths. A path consists of a pair of cards in a row. The player first has an encounter with the card on the left and then follows to the card on the right. 5 zombies to fight to get past this first card!

The auction only ends once all players pass in a row. Then each player pays for their bid using any combination of their resources. (A player can’t bid on a higher amount than they have resources to pay.) While this first gripe may fall in the ‘personal preference’ camp, my second gripe is about the game play itself. Each player takes the lead survivor of their color, four additional survivors, and four each of the three resources: Adrenaline, Ammo, and Gas. If more than one player survives 8 rounds, these players total up their points from the adventure cards they’ve collected. They can also score bonus points. There are 4 bonus categories and the player with the most in each category will score 3 bonus points in that category. For example, the surviving player with the most ammo will get 3 points. If there is a tie in a category, no one gets the bonus points.If all your survivors are killed, you are out of the game. The last player left alive is the winner. If more than one of you makes it to the end, the tie is broken by points earned from encounter cards completed along the way. If more than one player survives, the points will be tallied to determine the winner. Players add up the points from their cards, plus they hand out the “epilogue” cards, which are worth three points each. The epilogue cards go to the player with (1) the most adrenaline, (2) the most ammo, (3) the most gas, and (4) the most survivors. After everyone has paid for their paths, they resolve each card in their chosen path during the Encounter Phase. First, players take any resources indicated on the card. Next, they resolve any text on the card; some will affect the ensuing battle while other cards require players to take/discard resources or survivors. Finally, they fight any zombies on the card. Collect resources, resolve text, then deal with the undead. Most zombie stories end with the survivors escaping their current predicament into a hopefully brighter future somewhere else. Hit Z Road dares to continue the story on the road - specifically a cross-country road trip across the undead-infested Route 66 in the United States. Road trip!

The artwork in this game is superb and the three different stages of adventure cards show very differing scenery (Chicago city, middle America, West Coast) that really makes you feel like you’re progressing across America and each stage presents its own thematic and increasingly difficult challenges. Despite its potential complexity, the game is highly customisable with multiple difficulty levels that greatly alter the gameplay and add entirely new mechanics - hence all the rulebooks. If you like the zombie genre but want your tabletop gaming with a bit more meat on its bones, Dawn of the Zeds is the zombie board game for you. Zombies remain one of the big icons of horror - especially action horror - but that doesn't mean they have to be limited to just films and TV. In fact, there's plenty of zombie board games out there to bring the ravenous horde to your tabletop, either with you trying to survive, escape, bring down or even control the undead themselves. With that in mind, we've outlined the best zombie board games below, to bring a little more mortality to your games night. Best zombie board games City of Horror: Cosy up to your fellow players for when the time comes to vote to throw one of your dwindling survivors to the zombies. While I actually like the retro style of art chosen, I really don’t like a number of the cards in the game because of their disturbing depictions.

CONCLUSION

The theme of the game, playing a game that was created by a child that survived a zombie apocalypse, is carried well throughout the game. Don’t let the theme and emphasis on dice rolling fool you: there are some strong elements of a Wallace-style Eurogame here. The auction is essential: it can be nice to snag the best path (either due to a low zombie count or good resources), but at what cost? Overbidding in the auction can be fatal, and while Hit Z Road is simple to learn, it can be unforgiving to poor resource management. This is a great introduction to Wallace’s emphasis on careful planning. The wood components: The wooden tokens are standard fare; however, my kids particularly enjoyed how the zomeeples had little outstretched arms. The wood dice are also nice and the symbols are easy to understand, although I am not sure how Martin, the zombie apocalypse survivor, would have managed to craft these dice during his travels (these are really the only components that did not meet the theme I discussed above). City of Horror is a survival game where players desperately negotiate to save their survivors and gather the precious vaccines scattered around the map. Each player is dealt several survivors and, unlike the typical zombie-killing heroes of other zombie games, these are just everyday people. And they'll get eaten. A lot. Knowing that, I’ll let you make the call about Hit Z Road for your family. Hit Z Road had a great setting for demo games at Gen Con 2016.