Anyone who has read my reviews of Zombicide: Second Edition or my recent 14 Best Dungeon Crawlers article will already know that I am a big fan of the Zombicide system. Zombicide is a series of cooperative, zombie-bashing miniatures games that brings simple rules, fast-pacing and occasionally, a challenging difficulty level to your tabletop.
Zombicide: White Death is the third game in the Zombicide fantasy setting, with Zombicide: Black Plague and Zombicide: Green Horde having released in the past six or seven years. The Zombicide fantasy setting is known to be more difficult for players to win in than some of the other settings, especially when compared to Zombicide: Second Edition which is, without doubt, the easiest game in the series.
In this compilation review, I’ll be explaining what you get in all five of the Zombicide: White Death products that have been released at retail. Here in the UK, we haven’t yet received our Kickstarter pledges for it, and there is a whole raft of content that I have not yet been able to see — and which I may never see given that I didn’t go for an all-in pledge. As with all CMON products, it has extensive stretch goals and Kickstarter exclusive expansions, so if I am ever able to add those to this review, I will.
With all that said, let’s dive into the content:
As with all Zombicide core games, Zombicide: White Death contains everything you need to play the game and may well be enough for many players. In this box you’ll get six heroes (and you will need to use them all in almost every mission) so replayability could well be your main sticking point. This point is underlined by the inclusion of just one necromancer and one abomination — meaning that you’ll face the same “big boss” enemies each time you play.
There are also several other zombie types included, ones that have become quite standard in Zombicide games, specifically walkers, runners and brutes. You’ll also get all the other components you need to play — including several board tiles, lots of tokens and cards, dice, player trays and pegs and so on. Most (if not all to be honest) of the expansions I will list later are compatible with both Zombicide and the older fantasy setting games, so returning players may not actually need this core set.
For both new and returning players, the main differentiator for Zombicide: White Death is the way that the ten or so missions are set out here. Unlike in any other Zombicide series game, Zombicide: White Death brings an almost tower-defense style of gameplay, with a “Great Wall of China” inspired set of battlements frequently being used to divide the board. To help players protect this wall, Zombicide: White Death includes a set of guard models — which can be ordered around the board to complete various tasks.
Whilst it’s hard, I always encourage new Zombicide players to buy the newest product they can — unless it just happens to be a stinker. Zombicide: White Death is not a stinker, and in fact it’s easily my favourite game in the fantasy setting. The tower defense aspect is fun and interesting, with players often tasked to hold a location down whilst also venturing beyond the wall to reach a specific objective. It’s fun, it’s frantic and, like any good cooperative game, it will kick your arse.
In the Zombicide: White Death – Climbers and Terracotta Walkers pack, you will (perhaps unsurprisingly) receive two new types of zombie: Climbers and terracotta walkers. For me, additional zombie variants are more or less essential for making the most of Zombicide system games and Zombicide: White Death – Climbers and Terracotta Walkers is no exception to this rule.
Now, I may have already said that Zombicide: White Death is tough, but my goodness adding the terracotta walkers makes it unbelievably so at times. Once you have one (or more) of these guys on the board, you then need to add more to each space where they are present up to five, or until you have no more models, at which point all terracotta walkers activate. What this means is that you cannot ignore terracotta walkers under any circumstances — making them almost as high a priority as necromancers and abominations.
Climbers have a fairly obvious skill — climbing — which means that they can head straight up the battlement walls, or over ledges/barriers and other obstacles in Zombicide: Black Plague or Zombicide: Green Horde. There’s nothing else special about them, but their presence on the board means that you have one more problem to deal with whilst trying to handle any mission involving the battlements (which is most of them).
In the Zombicide: White Death – Divine Beasts Abomination Pack, players will get access to what I believe is one of the most interesting and enjoyable abomination variants that we’ve seen in any game so far. This pack contains four brand new abominations that include a giant bird, a tiger, a tortoise and a dragon, each of which is associated with a different season.
What makes this abomination pack so interesting is that when this abomination is drawn, the first beast to appear will be the Vermillion Bird — and when you defeat it, the next abomination will spawn and so on. So to spell it out, you’re actually facing four abominations for the price of one, and what’s more, each abomination comes with its own deck that will drive its behaviour. The upside? Well, whoever defeats a Divine Beast will gain a permanent skill to add to their player board.
The Zombicide: White Death – Divine Beasts Abomination Pack has four fantastic, sizable miniatures and it adds a chunky, challenging (but rewarding) element to your game. I love the recurring/escalating threat that these abominations pose, and the fact that you’ll face different challenges from them each time you play is just fantastic.
A simple and straightforward pack, the Zombicide: White Death – Crossfire Pack includes two new sets of models — 12 crossbow guards and 15 deadbolt crossbowmen. The guards are friendly, and can be used to substitute any normal guard from the base game of Zombicide: White Death, offering additional range and the ability to go on an “overwatch” style mode where they will only shoot on the zombie turn.
The deadbolt crossbowmen are much less friendly, with armour piercing bolts that deal two damage. Honestly, this is too much — Zombicide: White Death is hard enough already, but with these guys in, it just gets absolutely mental. Two damage means that any survivor facing two deadbolt walkers and in line of sight will be killed in a single activation, and even one can be deadly if somehow a second activation happens. It’s fun, it’s a real threat, but these guys should be used very carefully and with experienced players only.
The first of two large, story based expansions for Zombicide: White Death is the rather surprising Zombicide: White Death – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Timecrash. In this licensed collaboration, Shredder has somehow managed to join the Zombicide city of Wintergrad with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s home city of New York — resulting in the titular Timecrash. Of course, the Heroes in a Half-Shell are keen to respond, as are a small selection of their most iconic friends.
Whilst Zombicide: White Death – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Timecrash is not a true campaign expansion (as Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire is), it does feature ten sequential missions that tell a cohesive story. Inside the box you’ll find all four turtles, plus Spinter, April, Casey Jones and Shredder, as well as a handful of Foot Clan soldiers to add to the enemy ranks.
Zombicide: White Death – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Timecrash is basically more of what you love – especially if you love the TMNT universe. Gameplay differences are minimal, except that the turtles introduce a concept known as “Turtle Chi” which powers up some of the turtle attacks, and of course, you can’t have turtles without pizza — which also features as a health restoring power-up.
Last but not least, we have Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire, which is the second large expansion and the only campaign expansion. We’ve seen a handful of Zombicide campaign expansions before, with similar ideas used in Zombicide: Undead or Alive, Zombicide: Second Edition and possibly others.
Inside the box you’ll find six new survivors and one new abomination, but you’ll also find a new kind of brute enemy and three chi statues (which allow players to channel powerful energy — much like the Turtle Chi. One option here is certainly to take the extra characters, brutes and abomination and add them to your normal game, but the Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire expansion itself also has some interesting missions to delve into.
In keeping with the “Tower Defence” style, Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire adds chi statues which must be protected. The interplay between statues, the battlements from the base game and the new enemy types, gameplay in Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire is rock hard – but so long as your characters progress through the campaign, you will start to see things swing back in your favour. An expansion for more serious Zombicide players, Zombicide: White Death – Eternal Empire is a challenging and exciting campaign that lives up to expectations.
So there you have it – everything there is to know about Zombicide: White Death now that it’s been released at retail. A fantastic game that in my opinion might be the best in the Zombicide series, it’s quick, clean and straightforward, but very challenging. Players will need to set a clear strategy, but due to the new necromancer and abomination combo, tactical decisions become more important than ever — with any mistake potentially resulting in defeat and certain death.
If you want to start your collection, you can pick up the core game, Zombicide: White Death, on Amazon.
