The Whitehouse has fallen, Washington is compromised and the President, the most powerful person in the free world is in grave danger as the hordes are coming. Protecting the President is one major challenge (or problem) of the Washington Z.C set for the survivors to have to cope with. It’s important to note you will need a copy of Zombicide 2nd edition in order to be able to use the Washington Z.C set. So, what does Washington Z.C bring to the game?
New Survivors
It is always pleasing to get a set of new survivor characters to add to the game. Within this set you have a secret service squad, each with a suite of unique skills as options to use in the missions. Some new skills are specific to Washington Z.C, I’ll come back to those but they are very much linked with the “all out” rules. The beauty of Zombicide is all survivors are interchangeable. It is about finding a balanced group to try and get through the scenario.
POTUS
The President is one stand out miniature within the set as well as a character called Taylor. Strange that there is nothing in the ruleset about what these characters mean or do.
Their involvement is within the campaign missions and that is later defined. You will simply have to play to find out what that means.
New Kit And Kit Rules
I like what has been added here. You have a new standard kit deck, a new pimp weapon kit deck, and (most excitingly) an all new secret service weapon deck. There’s a lot of options here. Having run through some of the missions this kit is pretty fundamental for survival.
The reason for the all new decks is the new “all out” rule. If anything, the gambling rule. Every weapon card, as we know, has a set amount of dice to roll when using it, ranged or melee, they all have this. There is now a little red number to the top right of the base number which is your all-out option. The set comes with 6 more all out dice. Unique dice that instead of a 1, have a break symbol printed on. If you choose all out with your weapon you roll your normal allotted base dice plus the all-out number of dice with these new unique dice. So, a Katana has 2 standard dice and 2 more all out dice as an example (A secret service agent with a Katana is irregular, but just roll with it). You therefore have a chance to take a lot more zombies in a single action. But, and it is a big BUT and a gamble. On the all-out dice only, if just a single break symbol appears, that weapon is broken and discarded instantly. I don’t need to point out how than can quickly cause the survivor team problems.
Circling back as well. Some of the survivors within here do have skills that allow the all-out option to be further enhanced. Extra all out dice, increased damage with the all out, all making that gamble even more appealing.
After Sunset
As if battling the hordes wasn’t challenging enough, now you cannot see them! You are playing at night.
There is an upgraded first player counter which is a 24hour clock. Simply 12 hours of day time and 12 hours of night time. Each turn is an hour of play on the clock. Night time results in range being dropped to a maximum of 1 and you only hit on 6’s, regardless of what that weapon may normally do. Melee combat rules unchanged (thank goodness). There is more to it than this, but this day/night feature adds a huge level of drama to the game. Primarily due to giving the survivors additional challenges to overcome.
The Washington Z.C Campaign
A 10-mission campaign lies in the back of the rule book. With the opportunity to gain experience, to pick up additional skills or actions to carry forward as well as the possibility of carrying kit through into the next mission, instead of starting over with the basics. Of course, it might break between missions and you have to go again.
These missions are not so typical of Zombicide. I have found in the standard missions, I can look at the board from the off and plan a route through, it doesn’t always work out but you can see a path to the end. Not here in Washington Z.C! Instead of objective tokens there are objective cards and notes. You spend an action still to collect, however you then read the narrative printed on the underside of the card and this leads to rule and objective changes which you cannot possibly see coming at the start of the mission.
I loved this feature because I was debating when should I actually turn the next objective over and should I even do it at all. It is proper jeopardy if you cannot see what is coming.
Your survivors don’t necessarily die out right in the game either. You have 1 turn after a survivor is eaten to get back to them and spend an action to recover them. If you can do this, then place the mini back on the survivor dashboard and you will have them available for the next campaign mission, assuming the remaining survivors can get you there. If you cannot save them they are dead. All experience gained is lost, but you can replace them with another survivor to top your team back up to 6 survivors.
There are a few other little rule elements for consideration but these are your significant updates to the game.
Final Thoughts
Washington Z.C is an awesome expansion and I’m thrilled to have picked it up for the depth added. Instead of single plays there is carry over between the games. It has that “walking dead” series feel now and I love it. You get attached to your survivors on the way which only intensifies the further along you go.
You can also bring all these rules in to your other missions. All out can be included; the day and night rules can be included which will change the dynamic of those missions giving an added level of replay ability to those missions.
If you are looking to freshen up your Zombicide play or increase the challenge I highly recommend picking up this expansion.
This blog was written by David Ireland.
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