How to Kill a Zombie

From Michael:

My kids and I played Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Board Game for the very first time last night. Hayden is almost 7, and Brandon is 4. They chose the heroes, so I took the zombies. They randomly picked their four heroes: Hayden drew Jake the Drifter and Sally the High School Sweetheart, and Brandon drew Becky the Nurse and Billy the Sheriff’s Son.

The goal: Kill 15 zombies in 15 turns without losing 2 of the 4 heroes.Now, keep in mind that I very rarely let them win, and this game was no exception. I don't need to... they win enough without me being artificially soft on them!

I started out with a whopping TWO out of a possible 12 zombies on the board - one in the Junkyard near Jake and one in the Hospital morgue with Becky. When the zombie moved towards Becky, Brandon thought he could take out the first zombie easily, so he moved Becky to the zombie… and got wounded.

Then the face happened. You've seen that face before. The face where a young child's chin turns to quivering stone. The face where his eyes start squinting and get all watery. Then... WAAAAHHHHH!!! Poor Bran.

With a little consoling from me and big brother, he calmed down (and was absolutely fine the rest of the game, despite almost losing both Becky and Billy). My two zombies quickly became 14 zombies as reinforcements came shambling out of the Junkyard and Bank. From the nearby Gas Station, Jake saw the zombies approaching, shot a couple, and ran.

After sensing that the zombies were hard to kill, the kids mostly tried to stay away from them, and it seemed like bad luck followed the heroes around. Baseball bats broke. Guns never had ammo. A rainstorm kept Jake from getting to the High School for four turns! And by that time, Billy and Sally had left the school. A zombie appeared inside the Gym with Jake. The lights went off in the High School… then the Gym.

By turn 7, they had killed only 3. By turn 13, they had killed only 7. Jake had a bunch of Hero Cards, Billy had two, and the girls had none. I sensed that there would not be enough time for the heroes to kill 8 more zombies and win. Hayden sensed the same thing, asking me, "Daddy, do the good guys always win like in the movies?" Thinking back to the horror movies of my youth, I told him, "The good guys usually win... but not always." He nodded in understanding.

Jake and Becky stood at the windows of the Gym while Sally waited outside the door as a mass of zombies headed towards them in a line. Billy was wounded and was running around scared near the Junkyard as a couple straggler zombies found him to be more interesting than the brain meal in the Gym.Turn 15 arrived, and the kids still had 6 zombies to kill.

Fortunately for them, there was not a lack of targets, as the zombies were starting to come towards the Gym door and through the windows! By the heroes turn, the kids still had 5 zombies to kill, and only Jake had a gun. Jake shot a zombie outside the school... and killed it. 12 down, 3 to go.

Becky managed to kill one zombie in her square while taking a second wound from the other zombie. Billy, wounded, and after running away from the zombies all game, found some hidden courage and ran towards a single zombie near the town center... and killed it!One more to go. Sally, weaponless and cardless, had a single zombie in her space in front of the Gym door.

It was down to this roll. Hayden played a card from Jake that allowed Sally to kill the zombie even without rolling doubles. Hayden rolled a 4 and a 2 – so the zombies would have to get a 4 or higher. I rolled a 5. But Hayden remembered that Sally had a Luck skill, which made me reroll... and I rolled a 2, with no zombie cards to help me.

The kids got wide eyed and said "We won! I can't believe it! WE WON!!! Hey, Mom! MOM! We beat the zombies! It was soooo close! We almost didn't beat them!"

Just like in the movies.