Amerithrash Showdown Zombicide vs Dead of Winter!
The question which must be answered is are you Team CMON or Team Plaid Hat Games?
2 beloved zombie-infested board game franchises. 2 games spanning many expansions. Standees vs miniatures? Objective-based semi-cooperative vs live together or die alone?
This article takes a brief look at 2 of the well-known zombie genre board games for those Ameritrash players out there, particularly the ones who love chucking dice, living on a prayer, and smashing zombies till there are no more undead walkers to smash.
I have friends who love Zombicide and I have a friend who is all-in on everything Dead of Winter. But what makes these 2 games tick? Why the sustained popularity despite the rather primal play pattern?
Let’s do a quick overview of these two tabletop giants of the board gaming world before taking sides.
Dead of Winter is a game I first tried a couple of years ago with two friends from our local board game group. One of the friends had a giant plastic container full of everything Dead of Winter. Needless to say, I was intrigued. I love a good zombie movie as much as…who am I kidding, I love zombie movies more than the next guy but I’d never really played this type of tabletop game before.
Dead of Winter is for 2–5 players with a playtime of 60–120 minutes for ages 13+. The game components look downright scary with many different zombies and player characters. “As you struggle to keep survivors alive, how will you value group vs personal needs?”
Dead of Winter keeps you on the edge of your seat because your characters can seemingly die at any moment. Bites can be deadly and dice can be cruel. One of my characters went on a routine supply run fit as a fiddle and barely made it back in one piece.
“Oh, I’m dead,” my friend remarked as the horde claimed another innocent soul.
But for me, the most fun part of Dead of Winter is playing the strategic secret objectives cleverly and without letting on what I have to the others. Everyone expects a certain amount of teamwork to survive but how and when will you break away from the group dynamic to accomplish your personal goals?
The game has more built-in thematic elements than I’d anticipated and it’s certainly a challenge keeping supplies and morale as high as is needed. The components are of decent quality and get the job done. The story element takes shape with narrative-filled cards that come up during the game. I’m not usually big on playing with standees but on a board that can quickly fill up with baddies they are fine, some of the art on the standees is quite humorous!
Are you a big Dead of Winter fan? What makes this game special for you? I’m happy to play it again but I don’t have enough experience to have a strong opinion on it just yet.
“Work together to kill zombies! Improve skills! Then kill more zombies!” That’s a lot of exclamation points!! And it’s an apt description. For 1–6 players with a playtime of 60 minutes for ages 14+ Zombicide is dare I say a “classic” in the board game space. Not because it’s necessarily a better or more unique game than any other but for the fandom it has cultivated and then many vastly different versions of the game that exist. Weird West? Cleck! Zombies in Space? Check! Zombies in Epic Fantasy? Check! Zombies in Washington D.C.? Check!
Zombicide is exactly what you think it’s going to be the first time you sit down to play it. No, really. Survive and kill zombies. Move around the board, find some items, level up. Rinse and repeat.
A dice-chucker for players who love to fling ‘em! Move across varying maps alternating between killing zombies and running your ass off!
This game is nice and casual but gets intense as the end of the scenario draws near and the zombies start spawning from every which way you can imagine. It’s fun to search for better weapons and to explore as much as possible before the horde gets too dangerous and comes after our poor brains.
Zombicide’s leveling mechanic is fun but can sometimes be dangerous and can lead to players suddenly becoming lunch for the zombies as stronger and more numerous enemies begin to spawn across the board.
This game has launched so many reskinned expansions and they keep getting bought up with a fervor any game company would love to inspire. The pop-culture references in the miniatures are also a lot of fun.
What is it that you love best about Zombicide? The minis or the dice-chucking? What is your favorite version of Zombicide?
For myself, I could definitely enjoy a round of either game but all things being equal, I’d choose Dead of Winter. It’s a bit more complex and less dungeon crawl which favors me better.
But how about you? Tell me what you love best about both of these games?
-the BoardGameNerd
