Wow, what a great first full expansion that Flying Frog Productions have produced. We have had a chance to dive in and play for the first time tonight and I have to say... great job... (mostly)

Components
First with why I gave 4 stars and not 5. The new city cards are not the same quality as the original. They seem to be just a tad thinner or not as sturdy. The new city cards seem to be just a little different. The next thing that is wrong with them is they are not the same color artwork. The grass is tons lighter than the original and the art work to me seems to by a little less quality looking. Maybe it is because on a whole, the new city cards are lighter in color and just does not match the original.

Now to the good stuff... TONS AND TONS of cool markers. There are new vehicles... motor cycle and fork lifts. There are statues and alters... green slime... MONEY... TONE OF MONEY... and a whole bunch of new search markers with good stuff and bad stuff to go along with the new scenario rules that come with the game. There is plenty now to really make some real home scenarios which trust me, my sons and I will do just that!

The hero and scenario cards are top notch like LNOE. Same sturdy material and art. The cards themselves are the same quality... EXCEPT ONE BETTER... THEY ARE NOT ALL STUCK TOGETHER LIKE LNOE was... for the cards! The miniatures are just as great as well. (except mine came with 5 and not 7 cool red zombies. )

All and all, the components are right up there with LNOE and you will not be disappointed.

The new heroes
LNOE now have plenty of characters to have them zombies chew on... yum yum yum

Sam, The Diner Cook:
One of the baddest man on the planet... ex-navy seal (with a mug like that, he has to be...). He will be tough to stop. Not only does he have an extra wound... he has a 50/50 chance on canceling out any zombie fight card. WOW! Do not mess with him...

Kenny, Super Market Bag Boy:
He is young and dumb... but can kill them zombies with ease. his ability to take a would to kill a zombie when he beats is great. Mix that with his student ability to heal and he can be a one man wrecking crew... "Herb, clean up on isle 3."

Rachelle, Detective Winters:
Another police officer graces our little sleepy town. Rachelle is from out of town looking for some action. She has some zombie proof suit that will keep her from taking a wound on a roll of a 6 during combat. Nothing is worse than the zombie rolling a 6 and you can not stop it... Rachelle may not kill the zombie, but on a roll of a 6 she is not hurt either.

Amanda, Prom Queen:
The little sex kitten drives the men nuts ... If she is in the same space as a male character, they roll one extra dice... NICE! Then she knows just how to hide on a 4+ she can just cancel any fight...

The scenarios
A great addition to the growing number we already have.

Burn it to the Ground!
This is a very tough mission where the hero's have to torch the manner house. Not as easy as it sounds. with all the new cards, it makes finding the scenario search items that much harder. More zombie power!

Plague Carriers!
In this little number, you have to kill the 7 red zombies that are carrying the disease... they are bigger and badder so killing them will be a challenge!!

Zombie Apocalypse!
These bad zombies are out to destroy the town... they are trying to crush 6 buildings... your mission is to stop them... can you do it?!

New optional rules
OK, after checking out the webpage and ready posts from FFP, I will not go into details on the rules... but I will say this... good job. They have several new option rules that come with the game. New search tokens that give the heroes quick way at getting items. The really cool thing is they rate the new option rules with a dot system. Both hero's and Zombies have new options they can choose to play with, each with a rating. You can pick and chose what you want to make the game different as long as you both the heroes and zombies use the same amount of points. Excellent way to implement them.

overall
Except for the above mentioned issues with the components, this is a great expansion... We have only played twice and played the same scenario, but it went smoother. The added rules did increase playing time, but not by much... I am guessing by 10 minutes, 15 tops. If there is an issue that may come up is with the card count now. There are more cards and for the zombie player, it makes it harder for the hero's to run out and lose. For the hero's, it makes it tougher to get the item you need because you have more to go through. Unlike other games where the expansion is needed to fix the original, this is not the case. this makes a great game better!!!

ENJOY!!

uuurrrrggghhh now I want my copy more than ever!

Sounds great, but aren't the new heroes potentially a bit too strong by the sound of it???

Cheers,

Matt...

I look forward to getting my hands on this expansion, but having just bought Descent & all its expansions I think I need to resist buying any new games for a while.
I'm still enjoying vanilla LNOE a lot yet anyway - though I haven't played it in a while.
This all sounds like good stuff though.

I think the new heroes are fairly well balanced and add some new dimensions to the game.

Any advantage they have is offset by some killer card additions that can even the playing field alot. I was also able to finally use the "Last Night on Earth" card effectively because of the lure of Amanda's "special ability". Most of the time, that's a dead card because the hero players know it's there and avoid pairing up like that.

I played (as the zombie player) last night against all 4 new heroes with the Zombie Apocalypse scenario and won with only one turn left to go. The new characters do have some added advantages, but in the end Sam, Kenny and Amanda all wound up as zombie heroes.

The new heroes lasted pretty well when fighting one zombie, but (as usual) they go down fairly easily if overrun by about 2 or more zombies. So it's still a good idea to run away from multiple zombies, even with the new heroes.

Need to play it more to really get into that... they are stonger than the originals... but the zombies have gotten even nastier... some of the cards they have and special abilities really can cause grief.

I think with any game using the new rules, you have to have at least one of the new charators with the bonus they have... Sam rocks!!

Owen - how many new cards are there?

Are the cards supposed to be integrated into the base set? If so, seems like the threat of using up the HP cards just got harder to accomplish...

25 Hero, 25 Zombie. Some of the new cards & locations let you burn through the deck quicker, & at least 1 more "discard 10" zombie card has been added, so it might not be as hard as one would think.
---MS

Yes, but there are new hero tools that let your farm better... Plus the new building that allow you to shuffle discarded cards back into the hero deck will affect it as well.

The flash light allows you to look at the top hero card... if you do not like it... discard it and grab/keep the next.

I will check the rules to see if you integrate them in... as well.

I can get a count tonight.

just checked, I can not find any rules in the new book on how to integrate the new cards into the game.

I just added all the promo cards I have, LNOE, and GH cards together... one mean deck!

Thanks Moon and Owen. With 25 more cards in the deck, it's nice to know at least one more ZP card is there to help the HPs burn their cards...

Not sure when my copy will arrive, but we're eagerly watching for it.

Great review Owen. I like how you pointed out the issues in a constructive manner and didn't dwell on them. The focus was on the application of the new rules and characters and how it played.

Awesome job!