October 31st, 2014
–Shuffling Horror Week Update: Day 6, Thursday–
The Shuffler and his zombies arrived for their first game in Pennsylvania (zombie home turf). The game was played at 1 Up Collectibles in West Reading, PA. Four players showed up to put some hurt on the zombies, who were now behind by one point. The zombies needed this victory to give them a chance of winning the series.
The Shuffler managed to eliminate one player at the mid-point of Reel 2. A second player was eliminated at the end of that same reel, which triggered the Turning Point (the number of zombie players was equal to the number of survivor players). Turning Point came too late to benefit the survivors – there were no cards left in the reel. The two remaining players still had two full reels to go!
The third player fell in Reel 3, leaving the last player with two Survivors in play. The third reel was also played out to its completion point. The zombies had one reel to finish off these stragglers.
Luckily in Reel 4, one of the two survivors was eliminated, leaving the Sheriff as the Last One Standing. He did his best, but just wasn’t quick enough…
Back Into A Dead Heat!
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October 30th, 2014
–Shuffling Horror Week Update: Day 5, Wednesday–
The seventh game in our Shuffling Horror Week series was played at Time Warp Comics and Games (Cedar Grove, NJ). This was the second time we played here this week (so, yes, we did the Time Warp again). Unlike the game from the prior night, this game was versus a quartet of survivor players (the toughest scenario to beat in Pittsburgh 68). This filled the Shuffler with a little trepidation. Each player was dealt their three survivor characters and the zombie horror began to unfold.
Reel 1. A cornucopia of weapons was revealed, and the survivors used these to keep the Shuffler and his zombies at bay. A “Surge” bonus was triggered though, and the zombie ranks swelled. These, too, were trimmed back effortlessly. The survivors suffered a single casualty. Eleven survivors to go!
Reel 2. Like Sheriff Rick Grimes and his crew at the prison fence, the survivors continued to systematically whittle away the zombies as they arose. They stayed focused on this task and actually cleared every single zombie in sight – INCLUDING THOSE IN THE DEALT HAND. The Dealt Hand held two items and the Scream Queen power play card. It was about halfway through the reel and things looked dismal for the Shuffler. There was nothing to do but evoke a special rule: Clear The Slate.
A variant of Clipping the Reel, Clear the Slate allows the Zombie Master to clear the three cards in the dealt hand and replace with three new ones from the reel pile. This is costly to the reel, as you have just reduced it three cards. Luckily for the Shuffler, the three replacement cards were all zombies, and triggered a Three Card Zombie bonus. The Shuffler took one for his hand, and then triggered six more 3CZ! And then the Surge card appeared (which gave him 5 bonus zombies from the discard pile).
Things were looking rather grand for the Shuffler. For all their proficient zombie elimination, the Survivors now faced four full throngs!
Reel 3 and Reel 4: The Shuffler had the players on the run and even destroyed both sanctuaries. His undead joy was short lived, though. The Survivors pulled it together and got to work. In fact, they went into overtime and made it their mission that there wasn’t one stinking zombie left at the end of the fourth reel. The game ended in humiliation for the Shuffler…
Where’d all those zombies go?!?
Total Zombie Annihilation!
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October 29th, 2014
–Shuffling Horror Week Update: Day 4, Tuesday–
After the Kid Sister’s skin-of-her teeth victory in the last game, the Shuffler and his zombies hunkered down at All In One Collectibles (Randolph NJ) for the sixth game in the series. Due to some player cancellations, the game was played in an unusual fashion: versus one player who was dealt three independent Survivor hands.
Pittsburgh 68 is suggested for three to thirteen players. We shy away from recommending the game for two players as it takes away that whole “us versus them” atmosphere. The game becomes a single person’s strategy to survive and you don’t feel the dramatic impact of losing fellow players one-by-one. The strategy and banter between players also disappears. And the game is just a lot more fun when the Zombie Master has a group of victims to choose from!
For a two player session, the Zombie Master deals the single player three separate hands of characters; the player plays each independently (acting as if three different players). Each of these three players starts with their standard seven general spoints. The player declares which hand goes first, second, third, and then keeps to the clockwise order of the game. With three players slots, the first end game mechanic, The Turning Point, is triggered when one of these player hands is eliminated by the Zombie Master (as the number of zombie players (2) is now equal to the number of remaining survivor players (2)). The Zombie Master assumes control of this hand at its normal sequence. Just as the player managed multiple survivor hands from the start, the Zombie Master does the same.
Enough about playing one-on-one (we’ll probably cover this topic a lot more in a future post).
Back to the Shuffling Horror Week results…
The game went the full four Reels and the survivors almost made it to the end. The Bartender was the Last One Standing but wasn’t quick enough to withstand the final wave of zombie attacks…
Back to a Dead Heat!
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October 29th, 2014
–Shuffling Horror Week Update: Day 3, Monday–
With back-to-back wins for the Midnite Shuffler and his zombies, the fifth game in our Shuffling Horror Week series got underway at Time Warp Comics and Games (Cedar Grove, NJ). The Shuffler sat down against three players, who were all new to the game. Each was dealt three survivors and the horror got underway. It was a game that would be remembered for a very long time…
Zombies flooded the field in Reel 1 and had the survivors on the run for their lives. The zombie dice were hot, the survivor dice not: all players lost one survivor in the first reel. A sanctuary was revealed, The Car, and, seeing the way the game was heavily in the zombies’ favor, the Shuffler let the players decide if they wanted to play the alt rule, Backseat Zombie. He warned them that it might lead to a future zombie attack to whoever went into the Car first. The players thought that sounded like fun (the Shuffler’s undead heart joyfully missed a beat). One random card was thrown in the backseat for later enjoyment.
And then things got worse… Reel 2 was an unbelievable wave of Three Card Zombies and the Shuffler’s hand quickly grew to three full throngs and the start of a fourth! At the end of Reel 2 the first survivor player was eliminated and the Turning Point endgame mechanic was triggered.
And then things got EVEN worse… What happened in Reel 3 was unbelievable. It was another reel loaded with Three Card Zombie bonuses from the start. Before the reel actually began, this is what happened:
The 12 o’clock position is the Zombie Master. The 6 o’clock position was the second Zombie Player.
Team Zombie could not benefit from another Three Card Zombie bonus: both Zombie players reached their three throng max. They could take and replace, but just look at that mess above: the survivors were surrounded by zombies and the Dealt Hand was loaded, too. The survivors did not stand a chance. It wasn’t long before the third player joined Team Zombie and the final player was whittled down to a lone survivor.
The Last One Standing was the Kid Sister, who immediately dove into The Car. A zombified Nurse was hiding in the backseat; luckily, the Nurse failed her attack! The Kid Sister hunkered down in the Car, praying it would hold. The zombie horde assembled for the final wave of attacks: nine attacks (includes Nurse in car), seven of which were from three fully loaded throngs.
The attacks began from the Zombie Player at the 6 o’clock position above. The Car was destroyed quickly, sending the Kid Sister into the woods and running for her life. This did free her from the Nurse attack. The second Zombie Player did a Take and Attack off the wall, the zombified Business Man. The Kid Sister flailed away.
The Shuffler was the last to attack. He had four attacks. The Kid Sister flailed away from the first two. The third throng fumbled (rolled a 12) which allowed a counter attack by the Kid Sister! The Shuffler’s final attack, a lone King of the Zombies, took one final bite…
She rolls and…
The Kid Sister Survives!
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October 27th, 2014
–Shuffling Horror Week Update: Day 2, Sunday–
With two losses haunting them from the night before, the Midnite Shuffler and his zombies shuffled into Satellite Comics and Games in Chatham, NJ. They were hungry for a win and some brains.
Here’s the Shuffler’s report:
Game 1: The game was played to the fourth reel. All three players did their utmost to stay ahead of the zombie shuffle, but one by one, they fell prey to the zombie horde. Both end game mechanics were triggered: Turning Point and Last One Standing. The pressure was on the Nurse to make it to the end of the film. She wasn’t so lucky. The zombies had their first victory and it was delicious!
Game 2: This game was versus four players (the Zombie Master’s bane). The zombies though were still in their feeding frenzy and out of control. This game looked like it would be over by Reel 2, when The Turning Point was triggered. The two remaining players managed to make it to Reel 4, but not to the end of the film. Another zombie win!
Here’s the Day 2 score, folks!
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October 26th, 2014
Shuffling Horror Week has begun! The Midnite Shuffler and his zombies shuffled into All Things Fun! in West Berlin, NJ. Two games were played to start the series. Both games were set against four players; in game terms this is the toughest scenario to beat for the Zombie Master. The Midnite Shuffler was going to have to play hard if his zombies were going to eat this evening…
Here’s the Shuffler’s report:
Game 1: My zombies had the Opening Night jitters and they quickly flooded the table in Reel 1. Starting with almost three full throngs, I thought this was going to be a walk in the park, gobbling up Survivors as we strolled by. Boy was I fooled! My dice were cursed and much of the game had the survivors laughing at my futile efforts to rally the zombies (who really just stood around looking not-very-scary). Excellent and daring strategies by the Survivors, too. The zombies did somehow manage to take out two Survivors, but the game ended with ten happy survivors, well armed and well rested. In game terms this is what we call a Scooby Doo.
Game 2: Quite the opposite of Game 1! The zombies composed themselves and started to bring out the horror. One by one we picked off the players, until one player and one survivor remained: The Waitress (aka the Sigourney Weaver of Pittsburgh 68). Despite the fact that is the tables had turned an it was now four Zombie Players versus one Survivor Player, she finished the game as a lone survivor, bringing a second win for the Survivors in one night. Drats!
Here’s the score, folks!
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