Q&A with Axis & Allies & Zombies Game Designer, Scott Van Essen Part 1

@thrasher1 said in Game 192; Whoops Dave Does it Again:

Guys,

Interesting to read about your experiences with the East Front battle in this version of Axis and Allies (AAZ).

I was wondering: how does the (in-)famous Decoy Card play out here?

You’ll have to remind me. Which one is “Decoy Team?” Is that the one that says something like:

“Select a Territory with Zombies present. Move half of the Zombies from that territory to an adjacent one”

If so, that’s easily the most game-breaking card for the Eastern Front. If the Allies draw it they can have an easier time creating the wall of Zombies I mentioned above (to shepherd the German Spearhead on a longer path to Moscow). On the other hand, if the Axis draw it they’ll be able to either dump Zombies straight into Moscow (seriously damaging its defenses) which also eliminates the only obstacle between 6-10 German Tanks/3+ FTR/BOMB (and accompanying INF) and a (comparatively) lightly defended Moscow.

Talking Technology here…

Air D.O.T.s:

Somebody already brought this up. This does technology imply that you may initiate (start) a combat without any land units on your side and then have that extra round of combat? Or does this technology only apply if you start combat while having land units present?

If it is the former (you can start combat with no land units on your side) then this technology seems to be rather powerful… What do others think? Any official word on this?

Axis & Allies Zombies was recently announced so we got a ton of questions about the game answered by Wizards of the Coast and the lead game designer, Scott Van Essen.

Click here to see the full blog post

On Sep. 27, Wizards of the Coast hosting an AAZ launch party with the Puget Sound A&A Players Meetup group. Attendees played the game, met the design, and left with good first impressions of the game.

Click here to see the full blog post

@BananeDC

Zombies are roughly the same size as infantry. A little bigger wouldn’t hurt and might look better.
Europe is the only area where space is tight, but that is true of all A&A games.

@taamvan
Yes that could really tilt the balance of the game!

The major problems that we faced were that taking out france g1 got signifycantly harder and it got a lot harder to take moscow due to zombies being a big help for the defender.

@Gen.Nehring:

Could someone please stop by the Axis and Allies booth at Gencon and take some detailed pictures of the board and the pieces? I was hoping for some new pieces! At Avalon  hill or wizards of the coast hopefully!

From what I’ve seen of what has been posted online, I would expect the pieces to be a re-run of the pieces from the Anniversary reprint. To be honest, the only new sculpts they promised were the Zombies, of which they have three.

-Midnight_Reaper