Errr.... Broken Wanda?

[Droganis]

So, I was trying a solo game in The Big W. I had Josh, Phil, Amy, and Wanda. Things went fairly normal, with Wanda running off to open the three big buildings while the other three acted as distractions (she hid in the end of the 2nd one so zombies would go by, looking for the loud people) until the horde became too massive, got lots of activations, and wiped out the other three. Wanda had managed to make it to orange, between the tokens and a few easy kills, so was slippery with 4 actions. She made it to the building in 5E with a chainsaw, got the token, and that's when things got odd. You see, I realized that since that building is 2 deep, she can pop out of the building, make noise (or hack away at the gathering horde) with two actions, then dive back into the back of the building where the zombies can't see her. Technically, if she kept that up, hits red to gain a 5th action, eventually gathering every zombie in the game in her noise zone. Then she could run forward, make noise as usual, but go around the corner of the 1 space building so she's still out of the zombie line of sight. Next turn she can just make that as her new noise zone (opening the door will provide extra actions), open the door, and run in for victory the turn after.

This seems completely broken, and you could technically do that in almost any level (all you need is a building with more than 1 room and only one open door) Heck, if the building is large enough, the rest of the group could just hang out elsewhere in it searching once she's in orange. Any thoughts?

 

[skeeter]

Are you spawning zombies in every room of each building as you open them ?

 

[Droganis]

Yup. The issue is that if I start playing the noise and retreat game with Wanda, every zombie figure possible will be on the board. Opening a new door (there is one, but only one) would instantly activate all zombies, but as long as there is more noise where they are than Wanda, they do not move (since she would only open a door when out of their line of sight)

I thought about it more last night, and realized an easy solution would be to have the zombies move to the next noise source once the one they were going for was investigated. That would prevent Wanda from being able to kite the entire game, while making thematic sense and not being too difficult to implement.

 

[Shoogoo]

I find slippery to be way too strong, and house-ruled it so that you have to pay 1 action to escape 3 zombies, it's still very powerful and more balanced imho.

I tried Big W and found it to be super hard!!! No way I could approach the two objectives near the spawn zones, we were already at orange level and there was just too much stuff spawning everywhere argh!

 

[Droganis]

Yeah. Once my three were holed up in that building, thy were doomed, unfortunately. I think the scenario requires you to be more aggressive with zombie culling, since otherwise the map is filled and extra activations start poring in. Waiting for the zombies to come to you all the way around the corners is a no-go. I'll try it again later, I think.

And slippery is questionable. I think slippery with Wanda is broken. Slippery on Josh or Doug is less powerful, because they don't get that many extra action abilities, so it's not quite as powerful. Hard to say, though, and it certainly can mean life or death quite easily.

 

[Sharkey1337]

I don't like using Wanda myself as I find her double movement too powerful. Nick has permanently replaced her as far as I care.

 

[Slippery]

I like Wanda, but she probably is OP. We might redo her orange powers so Slippery isn't an option. (Despite my obvious love for Slippery.)

 

[Droganis]

For note, any character with slippery and 6 actions (movement or combat +1s are ok, but searches don't count) could potentially pull off what I was seeing with Wanda. someone in a car, similarly, could lockdown the horde like that, although running over walkers would at least keep more spawning. It just feel like something that could be fixed fairly easily, by the zombies losing interest in the largest noise zone if they activate in it, but.... *shrug*

 

[uglybug]

I thought that the level abilities didn't stack. Meaning one you reached a new level you could immediately use the new ability but in the next turn you lost the lower level ability. Of course the ones that start with extra weapons keep the weapons. But I guess I'm playing it wrong.

 

[Droganis]

Nope, uglybug, you keep all abilities all the time. They are additive. Although making you swap would certainly provide yet another level of difficulty for going up in level too quickly.... yeash.

 

[AdamSouza]

In our games I found that they players with Slippery were they most reckless and frequently most eaten.

 

[Thuulzax]

we've banned wanda from use at the comic shop i play at, she is waaaay too cheap with her abilities. Near unlimited kitting for zombies is ridiculous.