Scenario difficulty ratings

[Droganis]

No one has tossed anything up from what I can tell, so I figured I'd see what people think about the various scenarios. I just got my copy yesterday, so it'll take a bit before I play through them all, but here's what I'm currently thinking, with the numbers related to difficulty:

01 City Blocks - This seems to often be quite difficult, but as always is highly dependent on strategy. tactics, and plain dumb luck 8/10

02 Y-Zone - I'm guessing this is one people on BGG have complained about. Looks stupidly easy, since there is no real reason for you to actually fight any zombies. Just run and stay in Blue. Maybe if you played with 4 people, removing wanda (for super move) and Josh (for slippery) it would almost be difficult, but... 1/10

03 The 25hrs race of Zombicity - I played this solo with Phil, Josh, Doug, and Amy. This was really easy, even with a 3rd turn abomination (I went through 3/4 of the items before getting a molotov) by just not opening anything but the middle building, and driving around with everyone in a car. Making cars inoperable might help make it slightly harder, but, honestly, killing lots and lots of zombies is not that difficult. 3/10

04 Drive-by Shooting Tried playing this with 2 other people. We died horribly, but I don't know if that was a map issue, bad luck, or just us screwing up. Likely fairly difficult 6/10

05 Big W - Looks a lot like City blocks, but kinder spawn zones. Probably easier, haven't played.
06 The Escape - I want to try this one. Looks... interesting. Might not be too hard, though, once you're far from the zombie spawn points.

07 Grindhouse - I'm not sure about playing this one until they give a ruling on zombies inside a closed building. Assuming they continue to not be able to open up doors? Extremely easy.

08 Zombie Police - Need to play, I really can't say anything until then. Drivable cars worry me, though, after my experience today.

09 Might Makes Right - Tried solo 3 times. I believe that it's nigh impossible that way.Ned failed miserably the first two times, Amy rescued Doug, and they put up a hell of a fight, but could not make it out of Doug's room. Played again, this time giving myself 2 survivors. Much more survivable, even with another early abomination (which I just ran around the map the entire game) It was still difficult, but I survived with 4 of the 5 survivors wounded, 3 in the orange and 1 in the red (the unwounded Amy was still in the blue, having been the last survivor rescued) Lots of fun, though! 6/10, 9/10 with only 1 starting survivor.

10 Small Town - Beat this one with 3 people. We lost 3 survivors, and had one more wound. I'm thinking it could be easier with different strategies, but the spawn points being where they are is tricky. 7/10

 

[Scorpion0x17]

FYI: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/844494/scenarios-difficulty-ranking

 

[Droganis]

Indeed! I just found that a few minutes ago. I guess I'll just add in my 2 cents. If people want to toss in more points of view, though, feel free!

 

[Archon Shiva]

It's more convenient for me to rate here than there, but I'll be happy if you can forward them with your next batch. Say they're from Archon Shiva, also my name over there.
05 Big W I've tried twice, with 4 and 6 survivors. Rating it 8.
04 Was entirely our fault, but these huge buildings with sewer grates at the doors might make it legitimately hard. No rating.
10 Small Town I think you're being harsh, I'm giving it a 6

 

[strewart]

I've only played the tutorial (obviously very easy) then got most of the way through 01 - City Blocks. We found it a big step up in dfficulty! In fact the game is still setup from last night so hopefully we will conclude it later today, currently 2 survivors dead and another wounded with hordes of zombies on the board, there is a slim chance we can scrape out a victory since we just pulled 2 molotovs but not looking good. I actually came on here to find a thread like this and see how difficult others are finding it!

 

[Archon Shiva]

01 City Blocks is widely considered a very hard mission. Unless you're familiar with controlling zombie flow and each character's individual abilities, and pick the right people (which assumes you even have the promo survivors), it's considered almost impossible.

I suggest 05 Big W and 10 Small Town as learning scenarios. I would rate them 8 and 6 out of ten, whereas City Blocks gets rated 10 by a number of players (I haven't played it, but reading it after playing 05 is obvious)

 

[Archon Shiva]

Re-played 10 Small Town as a fake 3-players game. I stand by my <7 rating, and am tempted to hint at 5, but I may have gotten really good spawns and searches, so 6 until I can do this again.

I opened all buildings in the blue zone and finished in six turns, no deaths.

 

[Niranth]

My first game was a Pick-up at Gen Con. We played 01 with a random draw of survivors and won without losing any survivors. We did play one thing incorrectly, the extra activation cards. As the highest level character was still blue, we mistakenly added no zombies instead of giving no zombies extra turns.

I have not had that kind of luck since.

 

[strewart]

01 City Blocks is widely considered a very hard mission. Unless you're familiar with controlling zombie flow and each character's individual abilities, and pick the right people (which assumes you even have the promo survivors), it's considered almost impossible.

I suggest 05 Big W and 10 Small Town as learning scenarios. I would rate them 8 and 6 out of ten, whereas City Blocks gets rated 10 by a number of players (I haven't played it, but reading it after playing 05 is obvious)

Yeah we couldn't beat it in the end, but I think we did get pretty close. We had two survivors down at the bottom with all the food ready to escape, just waited a long time with Ned at the top of the map trying to search for something to bust open the last door and grab the last objectives needed, and Dave back in the middle room attracting zombies and going mental with a chainsaw. Due to bad luck, one turn before Ned would have found what he needed, we ended up with all zombies on the map and during spawning they got two free activations which allowed them to kill the two survivors with all the food... Oh well, there were a lot of things we did wrong and I think if we knew what we were doing a bit more we would have beaten it. I think it took something like 4-5 hours all up over 2 nights though.

 

[Shoogoo]

Ironically, I found Big W to be very difficult, we couldn't get past the crossways where the two spawned zombies unite, and we got overrun.

I'll try it again today

 

[Archon Shiva]

Well, I'm not using a 4-point scale: when I say 8/10, I mean it.

Tried Grindhouse last night. Rating it a 4, but I think we made some mistakes and it could be lower. Then again, maybe we had better spawns than I think (we got an early abomination and a bunch if runners, and two early manholes, but also a number of empties). Still, let's start with 4. (lost two survivors, no zombies escaped, but we prioritized blocking the escapees.)