7 Days Zombie

[Oliver Parkes]

LastDays: Zombie Apocalypse is a skirmish-scale miniatures game of survival horror. It pits players against each other in a nightmarish near-future where the dead have returned to life and are feasting on the living.

Players build their own factions, representing desperate civilians, military personnel, or hardened survivors, and must explore, scavenge, and fight in order to survive another day. Rival gangs are only one of the dangers they face--mindless zombies wander the streets, driven by insatiable hunger and drawn by the sound of combat!

A gang's ability to scavenge is as vital as their combat ability, and players must ensure that they have the resources to survive in this hostile world. Scenarios and campaigns allow you to develop your gang, gain experience, and recruit new henchmen to build up your strength or replace the inevitable casualties of the zombie apocalypse.

If I have a base with a killing corridor, that wraps around to the side and merges with the platform I'm on, the zombies will completely ignore the path around my island, and instead attack the front of the corridor.

If I back up 10 steps, they instead ignore the front of the corridor, and start rushing the wrap around path to my 'island'. I'll upload some graphics if people can't picture what I'm talking about. But the Zombie pathing in 21 seems really weird.

I think you've already figured out though, it sounds like it's just really short paths. I saw JaWoodle struggle with it a bit, but it didn't look that out of the ordinary; he had an unusually long loop for his penetrator spec. Similar effect, stand on the wrong side of your safe area and zeds would not path, stand on the right side and suddenly at least some would.

I've been noti8cing this as well, but with shorter distances too. They look right at me as they wake up or attack, but decide they need to take the long way around and turn to beat on a nearby wall to reach me. Like, dude.. I'm right here. I'm three feet in front of you with a clear path.

That is pretty common too, now that you mention it. I've actually been abusing the three meter Parkour to trigger it lately, just jumping high enough makes them go into "destroy area" -mode pretty reliably. But even without jumping they'll just waddle off somewhere, on occasion.

I did have some issues getting them to path a .. "horde base". A playground fence of a Poopy Pants, three high half blocks, on top of which I made two little boxes, to different sides from a corner I placed an up ramp to. They did walk the fence fine to one of them, but couldn't figure out the other, so they spun in circles couple meters away from the confusing one. Shortening the distance didn't help, so I think it was something to do with the plate-pole blocks I ended up using. But if it was a "no-path" situation, they should've gone Destroy Area, but didn't really; they were just running a tiny circle like a zombie mosh pit...

They also tend to run past you when inside a smaller area in a POI like a hallway with rooms and then turn around to attack. It's almost like you are stealthed and they run to where they last detected you or something. It usually happens near a doorway where they'll run into the doorway and then turn around to come toward you. Pathing does seem worse in A21.

I actually had issues with this even in A20 with this sort of behavior. Some zombies at my horde base just have trouble pathing properly, it worked fine in a17, 18 and 19, but since a20 its been.. weird at best. They often just randomly go and hit a random wall while still looking at me, the problem? they are hitting a pillar nearby that has a electric fence pole on it, that has NO valid path for them to go to me from as its 5-7 blocks away from the bunker, so they basically are just annoying me. Usually shooting them once gets their Ai to "wake up" and path properly.. usually. They take no fall damage, so its not being triggered by a fall, I do have log spikes thou as this is in darkness falls. So I thought maybe it was them taking damage from the traps that was causing this? but no, its not, as even without them walking on flat ground they still randomly do this behavior. Gonna be intersting when I try my horde base in a21 from what I been hearing, might need a redesign.

The only actually annoying thing is the animation-less stance changes, which also can happen when zombies get back up from prone position (sometimes the animations starts fine but then a part is cut from the end). Makes zombies really goofy.

Another reason I looked forward to Last Days is because I just like the theme of the game. I also have plenty of miniatures and terrain that I can use to get into the game quickly. Unfortunately, the move to a new house got in the way of me actually getting the game to the table.

Your group of survivors will spend their days defending a Refuge. Some days you will have to leave that refuge, and other days, you will have to fend it off from attack. With Zombies everywhere and groups hostile to your efforts, how are you going to survive?

Once you choose your leader, you choose your refuge, and then recruit your starting characters. Depending on the leader that you choose for your group, it limits the number of certain types of characters that you can take.

Gamewise, the mechanics of Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse are very simple. In fact, there are just 16 to 19 pages of core rules depending on how you count them. Outside of that, there are another 9 pages of special rules which cover the skills and abilities available to your characters and equipment.

The Menace Phase contains rules for Noise, Ammo and Zombie Activation. It is here that you may find that your gun ran out of bullets or that all the noise they have been making attracted more Zombies to the board.

When two models get into close combat, they make opposed tests using a d6, their Close Quarters Combat statistic and a few other modifiers. The model with the highest roll is the winner of the combat.

Last Days itself is very simple, but its charm is in its campaign rules. This is the sort of thing that I really like. Character and base development. I talked a lot about this in my First Impressions Article, but we are going to take a look at it a little further here.

When recruiting, there are 15 character types to choose from for your non-leader characters. Characters get 8 stats each and special abilities too. As characters level up, they can gain better stats or abilities.

Now what gets me really excited about this game is base building. You can choose your refuge. Some examples of Refuges include a Farm House, a Mall, or even a Church. Each come with different character capacities, empty spaces for upgrades and built-in perks.

For those that have not read my reviews before, I do not assign scores. I find that what I like about a game, others do not and vice-versa. What I think is most helpful to readers is information on what the game is like and about. From there, you can make up your own mind on whether you want to get into it or not.

Hopefully you enjoyed this review of Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse published by Osprey Games and written by Ash Barker. Personally I really like the game and am looking forward to setting up my new studio so I can get some pictures of this game in play.

In addition to Must Contain Minis, I would like to share with you two other places that you can find my content. Gaming Related, I write as a columnist for Bell of Lost Souls and contribute periodically to other sites on the internet as well.

I built a base about 8 blocks up, and had a walkway to it about 17 blocks with a support in the middle. the zombies broke the support. I'm not sure why. They would stop on the bridge and attack the block connected to the support. this seems like very odd behavior, and I would like to understand why the zombies are doing this to help my base design in the future. I have watched some videos from Izprebuilt, and GunsNerdsandSteel but I haven't seen an explanation.

They would stop on the bridge and attack the block connected to the support. this seems like very odd behavior, and I would like to understand why the zombies are doing this to help my base design in the future.

As mentioned, there is a state called "destroy area" which is triggered when a zombie's path is broken or interrupted and take damage. This is most apparent if you are on an elevated fighting position. If they get knocked off, they will likely take fall damage and go into destroy area which will last for a short period of time (I think it's something like 15 seconds) after which they will attempt to path to you again.

That being said, what you are describing here is somewhat new in A21 and I do not know yet what causes it. I've observed it myself and it's slightly annoying. In past alphas, the zombies would never stop in the middle of an elevated path and start beating on it unless they couldn't get to you. For now, I would just make sure that the main path is strong (concrete if you can) and is regularly repaired between blood moons.

It's possible that a new mechanic in A21 is partly to blame. See, zombies will not go into destroy area if, after falling, they are more than 11 blocks away from the player. The reason for this is fairly simple: it reduces the load of the AI and makes for better performance. This means if you make your base tall enough, there shouldn't be any real danger to the supports below your fighting position (unless a cop or demo explode next to them). The thing is that if they get within the 11 blocks too quickly, their destroy area mode will still trigger. It's entirely possible that this is playing into the weird behavior of them stopping in the middle of the elevated path and beating on it. Ensuring that their path back to you is a longer one might help with the issue, but I haven't done enough testing on that yet to say for sure.

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