Combining seasons/expansions

[BasenjiMaster]

I'm new to the game. Just how does combining seasons/expansions work? I have been looking at the missions on the website, and I can't see any with builds using everything.

How does zombie spawning work if you combine them?

Can't find any rules about how this would work. I have the core game, and the Toxic City Mall...waiting for Season 3.

 

[donnbobhardy]

The item decks from all expansions get combined. Same with spawn decks. If you're feeling more energetic, you can remove some of the cards that are in both PO and S1. That's pretty much it. Scenarios will still use whatever tiles they were going to use. You can always make custom scenarios that use tiles from all 3 sets if you can't find an official one.

 

[BasenjiMaster]

Hm, but how do you set up missions? Do we just combine 2 separate missions from the games resulting in having 2 different objectives/areas?

And do I still just have the zombie spawns at the outer edge of the boards? Because now the distance if much farther away and it will take longer for zombies to reach the Survivors


This is how I would think it would work:
1. Toxic Zombies will only start to apear once the Mall is opened.
2. The items decks are seperated, resulting in different types of loot according to area.

 

[oistene]

Just play one mission at a time, from one of the expansions. Of course, if you are making your own, you can make a larger or even use two or three separate boards. And there is nothing saying that spawn zones has to be on the edges.

Also, there are a bunch of design notes about this in The Compendium.

 

[guerra]

And do I still just have the zombie spawns at the outer edge of the boards? Because now the distance if much farther away and it will take longer for zombies to reach the Survivors


This is how I would think it would work:
1. Toxic Zombies will only start to apear once the Mall is opened.
2. The items decks are seperated, resulting in different types of loot according to area.

I use everything in the same deck! Toxic zombies spawn everywhere and you can find the itens anywhere!

 

[BasenjiMaster]

Just finished our game. Decided to mix the decks. Was a really exciting game. Sadly we failed, the number of zombies eventually swarmed over us. Got pushed back until we got trapped in the corner. :laugh:

 

[Teskal]

Don't put to much cards in your deck, you need a chance to get damage 3 weapons or 2 matching sets. You do not want to search all the time!
I put no more than 4 cards of the same type in a deck. Few Weapons I removed, some I do not like or don't want to use or some of the really good weapons. If I use Toxic or Berserks, I will put the good weapons back in the deck.

 

[guerra]

I think is is not really a problem with season one and two... However when season 3 arrives, I think the equipment deck can get really big! In my personal opinion, with a larger deck the game became more unpredictable...

About the zombie spawn deck, now we have the regular, toxic, berserker and the dogs... With season 3 we will have the seekers, the skinners, the VIP and the crows. There will be 8 different types of zombies! I think it will be pretty cool to have a deck with all these "flavors" of zombies!

Does anyone take something out of the zombie spawn deck?

 

[drakan]

I do...

I personaly tried some missions of the first season (internet missions) with normal+toxic+berserk zombies and found that it was sometimes quite hard (because of the number of zombies I have and the extra activations it involves - I ordered a 'walk of the dead' set ^^). The combination: toxic + berserk is really mean

I prefer to take normal+berserk / normal+toxic depending on the mood of the day - I don't know if I would like the fact of having so much types of zombies on the same board... The game would become unnecessarily complicated, where I think that a really important advantage of Zombicide is its simplicity...

I think it will allow a lot of funny scenarios and a lot of fun, I may try to mix all kinds of zombies but I'm not sure it will make it 'better'. normal + dogz + crows could be my basics (+ VIP depending on the mission maybe) + another kind.


For the equipment deck, I just take the weapons out that I don't need (gas mask when I don't use toxics... or red level weapons etc) and always use the start equipment of season 2 (nightstick instead of pans - which I also take out of the equipment deck).

 

[BasenjiMaster]

I went through all the items deck, and there is not really that much "junk" as I thought. Only something like 1/4 is rice/water/cookies/canned food. So combining the decks does not seem to be an issue.

But I don't remove anything not needed. To me having more loot to go though is a good thing, it feels more realistic in a way. It would be odd having to find guns in every room.

 

[Teskal]

I went through all the items deck, and there is not really that much "junk" as I thought. Only something like 1/4 is rice/water/cookies/canned food. So combining the decks does not seem to be an issue.

But I don't remove anything not needed. To me having more loot to go though is a good thing, it feels more realistic in a way. It would be odd having to find guns in every room.

It will make it only harder to get matching sets.
Or to find a damage 3 weapon or gasoline+bottle fast enough to kill Abominations.
Also you get so often unuseful stuff or low power weapons which slows the game, because you need to search to often.

Especially with Berserkz and/or Toxics and/or Dogz it will be very hard it you do not find fast enough good weapons. It's still possible, but you need to be really lucky...

I think with Zombies uprising, everyone will try to get as much weapons in their houses as possible, so it could be a little more logical that you find so much weapons. Ok, really small 'little'!

The Survivors are searching at places where others tried to defend themselves from Zombies and lost. The Survivors enter the areas after everything cooled down and most zombies tried began to search other areas to find new food.

 

[guerra]

About the toxic+berserk combination, I think it could be interesting! I only have the Toxic City Mall expansion and I think that things became easier with the new guns, barricades and zumbivors. Having some challenging situations can make the game more interesting!

I also just bought the zombie dogs expansion! 8 dogs in one activation! It should be hard to face! If you don't kill them as soon as when they appear, they can be brutal!

 

[BasenjiMaster]

@Teskal

Yeah I get all that. We are currently only playing with the Core game and Toxic, so it's not bad. But I imagin once I get Season 2 and Season 3 I will have to rethink the game setup.

But we are playing very tactical, and hardly have any issues anymore.

 

[Wyrmypops]

Our group has played through everything so far, as intended. Toxic mall with the extra zombie and weapon cards added to the regular deck.
On playing the Prison Outbreak we used the zombie and weapon decks supplied in that - it was released as being able to be played as is, so we played it that way, without any deck mixing (although of course I had a ton more zombie minis available so we rarely got extra activations from running out).

We've since played old scenarios not designed with the new zombies in mind, but used decks that included them so it was a fresh experience for us.

Last couple of games we've merged the decks. So there's less berserkers turning up than in the prison but we get see a fair number of each zombie type.

The biggest smack to our survivability comes in the form of zombie dogs. So fast, and at high levels so many turn up per encounter card. They can be a real problem in scenarios not designed with them in mind. Spawn zones close to a T junction where a survivor may hold position blasting away in various directions, that survivor can be overrun.
I may change their 3 actions to 2 actions and free use of the leap skill that is coming in the next season (we can see the skill in one of the Kickstarter updates). Or some other mechanic. Something characterful, but nerf them a bit. Being at the end of the targeting priority doesn't help.

 

[Black Leviathan]

And do I still just have the zombie spawns at the outer edge of the boards? Because now the distance if much farther away and it will take longer for zombies to reach the Survivors.

I'd just be more concerned that the zombies spawn with even distribution across the map. You can put a Zombie Spawn in the middle of the map if you think the center of the boards is too far from the edges. They could be pouring out of a building or the sewers.

We've been playing with Toxic and berserk and Dogs. I randomly draw 6-9 tiles and order them with at least 3 exits per building and I scatter a zombie spawn for each 2 survivors after the first two, and about as many street zombies (Usually walkers). The missions are usually searching for a food card per survivor and getting to the exit or activating two objectives per player and getting to the exit but I'm thinking of new free-form objectives.

So far I haven't seen any problems with mixed seasons. Dogs are rough, especially indoors but with teamwork they can be taken down. I've pulled a few cards out of the deck, but kept in the Zombie X takes an additional action, because with such a variety of different zombies I find that we get a lot less Zombie Surges.

 

[Aliblabla]

Hi,

First, I like my game to be challenging, I don't mind dying after trying to survive for a couple of hours if I got to blast a lot of zombies . So I really love the toxic + berserk combo and use all the spawn card on more or less any mission. (and therefore I don't use the Zombivor version the characters or the ultrared weapons). If this is not your taste well you probably should not take my deck as it is.

Here are the cards from the season 2 I have added to the deck of season 1 + toxic mall :
- automatic shotgun (0/2) (enough range with season 1 and toxic mall)
- Aaah! 4/4 (personal preference 2/4 works well too)
- Bag of rice 2/3
- Baseball bat 0/2
- Canned Food 2/3
- Chainsaw 0/2
- Claw hammer 3/4 (2 -4 should work fine, I think the 2 complete sets would be too much like for the sub mg)
- Concrete Saw 1/1
- Fire Axe 0/2
- Flashlight 1/2
- Gasoline 0/2
- Glass bottles 0/2
- Hachette 3/4 (I put them in so I don't take only the op weapons but feel free to leave them out or take the kukuri, meat cleavers or the night sticks instead)
- Katana 0/2
- Kukuri 0/4
- Meat cleaver 0/2
- Nails 2/2
- Nightsticks 0/3 (to powerful for starter weapons)
- Pistols 0/6
- Plenty of ammo (heavy) 0/3
- Plenty of ammo (light) 0/3
- Rifle 0/2
- Riot shield 0/2 (to overpowered)
- Sawed off 0/4
- Scope 0/2
- Shotgun 0/2
- Sub mg 0/2
- Wakizachi 2/2
- Water 2/3

I tried to keep the amount of added card to a minimum to not dissolve the great working season 1 + toxic deck too much. The amount of Aaah, water etc. is personal preference, if you want it to be easier don't put them in.

You can also try taking out the .44 magnums and the concrete saw and put in all the gasoline, bottles and flame thrower. This way you get the real bad ass abominations back like in season 1. If you have never experienced it you should definitively give it a try.

 

[Ken Redington]

Good day,

My lady and I have started playing and here are a few things we found out.

1st : When making custom maps use the season 3 advice for placing spawn zones. 4 zones for 6 characters and add one for every 2 extra characters. (Or they said something like that with the spawn dice).
2nd, First time we played I added everything from season 1, mall, and prison as far as equipment went. The added all non toxic/beserk cards. It was a wipe out, talior your decks a little better to your play style. Remember all 3 seasons reinvent the wheel with the basic cards and then add extras. That means for all three seasons something like 3 abom at every level and 6 walker and 3 runner/fattie extra activation cards. This can overwhelm a party quickly if things go bad on the draw.
Last Pimp/ Police cars. These are good stabilizers if things do not work well, as they bring in quick weapons for the team to defend themselves.

House rules....I have made up a 36 card deck of one off skills and placed them on cards we draw. Considering we are heros , and heros always have an ace up their sleeve it helps avoid party wipeout from a random draw. Rule is a player draws 1 card every time one of his characters goes up a color on the kill bar (blue to yellow..ect). The can have no more cards in their hand then they have characters in play, and they can only be used for THEIR characters. In a 6 character game the most you could draw reasonable is 18, so I made a 36 card deck. 50% chance of getting that one card they depend on per game max.

Rule 2....Every time they get an objective allow them to draw 2 cards from the equipment pile ( discard arrghh cards). The objectives were supposed to be things they needed anyway.

As it states in the rules it is about fun, so make sure the games are fun. We lost the first 3 we played and my lady was getting tired of it. On our first win she got excited and re enrgized about playing it. Now I hear her complain it is getting too easy....heh...heh...heh....big mistake on her part.

In the end have fun with it, it is just a game.

EDIT:..One last thing, painted figures, 3 d doors and other bits enhance the game a lot.