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Inspired by the 2005 ‘Marvel Zombies’ comic book series, ‘Marvel Zombies – A Zombicide Game’ not only puts you into the shoes of Earth's Mightiest Heroes but also takes a unique spin on the Zombicicde formula by having you play as the ravenous flesh eaters.
But being a superpowered zombie isn’t as easy as it sounds. Standing between you and your banquet of famous faces of the Marvel Universe are some of Marvel's most powerful surviving heroes and an army of specially trained S.H.E.I.L.D. agents.
Sounds like fun? Read on to find out more.
Contents
The first thing out of the box is the 44-page full-colour rule book, including the full set of rules, 1 tutorial mission, 10 missions to be plaid straight out of the box and 5 missions to be used in conjunction with the upcoming Marvel Zombies – X-Men Resistance, allowing you to use the superheroes from the set to fend off the zombie hordes. The rules portion of the book is very concise and is a breeze to get through for both Zombicide veterans and newcomers alike.
Next comes a total of 87 miniature game pieces. Broken down into 6 types, including 6 zombified heroes, 6 survivor superheroes, 12 bystanders and 63 S.H.E.I.L.D agents made up of troopers, Specialists and Guards. Including Zombie Hulk and Spider-man, all well-sculpted and a lot of fun to paint, but if painting isn’t your thing, each type of game piece is moulded in a different colour plastic, making it easy to tell who’s who and what’s what on the table.
Also included are 9 double-sided game boards featuring famous locations from the Marvel Universe, including Avengers Tower and The Dailey Bugle and 41 tokens, made up of doorways, spawn points and objectives. All packed with colour and detail.
Additionally, there are 140 cards. 116 of which consist of Zombie Hero IDs, zombie traits, spawn, bystander and Superhero cards. The remaining 24 cards aren’t usable in the game on their own and are intended to be used alongside the upcoming Marvel Zombies – X-Men Resistance.
And lastly, there are the plastic dashboards, colour bases tracker cubes and dice.
Set Up
Marvel Zombies allows between 1 to 6 players to choose between 4 to 6 zombie heroes to use during the game, including the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Wasp, Marvel and Deadpool, each with their skills and attacks representing their respective powers, recognizable from the comics.
Players then choose from 10 missions, each with their game board layout and unique mission objective. Each with its playtime and level of difficulty, there's plenty of variety if you’re in the mood for a quick casual experience to be played in under an hour or a gruelling challenge over a couple of hours. Having more zombie heroes may seem like a “no-brainer” at first but each mission has special rules to increase the challenge for the more zombie heroes being used.
The whole setup takes around 15 minutes at most for the larger games and is made super easy with the instruction, clearly stating what tiles are used and where and the location of all tokens.
Game Play
Most of the gameplay revolves around players taking turns activating their zombie heroes to ‘move’, ‘attack’, ‘break down doors’, ‘gain zombie trait’ and ‘devour’. Most of these actions will be familiar to anyone who has played previous versions of Zombicide. The two not recognised will be the ‘devour’ and ‘gain zombie trait’, both new for Marvel zombies.
‘Gain zombie trait’ is the closest equivalent to ‘search’ action from previous games. Rather than searching for weapons and equipment, zombie traits give zombie heroes special abilities that can be used to give them an advantage, such as free actions and bonuses to dice rolls.
The ‘devour’ action ties into one of the most interesting new systems in the game, hunger. As well as managing the zombie heroes' health points, players must also manage their hunger levels. The higher the hunger level, the more deadly the zombie heroes become, with extra attack dice. However, if they don’t devour a bystander or SHEILD agent before their hunger reaches its maximum level, they become ravenous and are only able to move or devour. They also lose health each turn meaning if a zombie hero becomes ravenous, they need to eat someone fast.
Like other ‘Zombicide’ games, as players complete objectives and defeat enemies, their zombie heroes gain experience and new abilities. But with each time a level is gained, so does the threat level, taking us into the next round, the enemy phase.
The phase begins with all enemies making a movement action in the direction of the nearest zombie hero, or attacking a zombie hero if they are in the same space. Bystanders will either try to escape the map or attack zombie heroes if they are a ‘combat bystander’. Superheroes get 2 actions each having their unique abilities to represent their comic counterparts, such as Thor inflicting 2 wounds to demonstrate his immense strength and Spider-Man appearing in the closest space to a zombie hero’s, representing his ability to web swing at high speeds.
Their step is the enemy spawn. Scattered around the edges of each mission are spawn points where enemy reinforcements appear. Players draw a spawn card for each spawn point and space the designated enemy type and numbers there. The higher the threat level, the more enemies are likely to appear at a spawn point. Some spawn cards can also give enemies extra action, meaning the difference between victory and defeat in some situations.
The last step is the end phase. At this point, any game effects stated to happen in the end phase happen here and if any zombie heroes were defeated in the round, the game ends and the mission failed.
Final Thoughts
The Marvel iteration of ‘Zombicide’ is different enough from previous versions to warrant giving it a go for ‘Zombicide’ and represents the Marvel universe well with its lore-friendly rules for both comic book and MCU fans alike.
This game is easy to learn, set up and play, and most importantly a lot of fun. After playing each mission more than once, I'm looking forward to the ‘X-Men Resistance’ and other expansions for new zombie heroes and game types.
Editors note: This post was originally published on 9th October 2023. Updated on 20th March 2024 to improve the information available
