The Walking Dead... solo

I played 2 games last week and this is the 2nd game that I’m reporting on, mainly because rules errors.

After a very quick and dirty (incomplete) paintjob on the terrain, I played a 120pt game with Rick, Sandra and Patrick. Collect a minimum of 5 supplies to get a minimum win, with each supply collected beyond 5 upping the win level. There are 4 supplies in the Walker zone, and 3 more beyond. (This was because my earlier game had all Supply tokens in the zombie free area, making it too easy to win).

The idea is to have Rick and Patrick run interference for Sandra while she grabs the loot. Since she's a Runner, she can navigate obstacles and terrain for free that the other 2 need to roll a die to successfully cross.

Rick as usual, shoots a Walker, drawing the majority (7 out of 8) to him using his LAST BULLET (thanks to getting a crit and needing to roll for ammo). So he now has TWO Walkers attacking him during the melee phase. Since he's behind a barrier, he opts to Defend for the extra defence die. That did the trick and Rick is fine.

Meanwhile Patrick engages the Walker with his baseball bat, clearing the way for Sandra to run up to grab the Supply token on the back of the blue truck. Unfortunately, because he didn't roll a crit, that Walker just went down and got up again at the end of the Round due to a die roll. Sigh.

However, a fortuitous Event Card draw manages to move all other Walkers mindlessly to a far point, freeing up Rick and Sandra to go grab more Supplies while Patrick deals with that pesky Walker.

Sandra grabs another Supply token that turns out to be Booby Trapped. Fortunately, the blast is away from her and into the mob of nearby Walkers, downing 3 of them!

That frees up Rick and Sandra to really go for the Supply tokens at the far end of the table. Which they do, aided by ANOTHER fortuitous (I thought) Event Card draw that made a crashed car's alarm go off, causing MAYHEM until it's switched off. HOWEVER, it also causes the Threat level to go up by one each time (very important to note). Patricks' job is to stay behind and make noise and all kinds of commotion to draw the Walkers away from Sandra and Rick.

Anyway, long story short, at High Threat, a Walker pops up (wouldn't you know it) right where the Supply tokens are located, preventing Sandra from running to grab the 5th and final Supply token required for a bare minimum win. 

My end game is NOT helped by a series of horrendous Event Card draws that immediately sends the Threat Level to 18. That combined with the Walker popping up and blocking Sandra ensures that I lose the game by running out of time. Awesome!

In my game, my tactic of having relying only on Sandra to grab the Supply Tokens has too many points of failure. Either Rick or Patrick also need to get involved much earlier on while the Threat Level is still low. This is good as it shows that failure was down to me. I have to take into account that Events will screw me up and to remember the pressure will always be on, no matter what it seems at the beginning.

TL; DR: I like the game. It supports solo, co-op and PVP modes so you can play it any way you choose. The Threat Level really ramps up the pressure as it will start None to Low... then progressively gets higher and higher. The Threat Level has a direct effect on the Event Cards, with (of course) worse events happening at high level, compared to Low.

As seen, it really screwed up my end game. I thought I could cruise to a comfortable minimum victory level but ...

However, for longevity I do need more minis and some narrative scenarios or the Atlanta expansion. Not sure how the new Mantic relaunch will package the expansions. Do I wait for mantic to repackage them to what I need (the relaunch isn't very helpful)... or do I get them off eBay (now that the relaunch is imminent and all the scalpers are gnashing their teeth)?