Alchemy's Workbench #12: Panic Stations!

Given how much our little group both loves zombies and Castle Panic, I was delighted to come across this news snippet.

We were pretty sure that there was never going to be an undead expansion released for the original game as it is very much a family affair and, I agree. The wide appeal of the game is a big part of what's made it a success. That said, there has been a great cry out across the Internet that this is what gamers where looking for. So the release of a zombie themed game that expands the mechanics, creating more of a gamers game is a dream come true.

But this doesn't mean that you can't add zombies to your Castle Panic. Just that you'll have to homebrew it!

Now I could sit down and design counters, print counters and, use counters but with what I have at hand, there is an easier route. Because I have ZOMBIES!!!

Now, these rules are still very much at the draft stage but if you have a copy of Castle Panic and want to give them a try, I'd love to hear how well they worked for you. You don't even need ZOMBIES!!! Any counters will work as all monsters in this game are identical (until I get creative anyhow) ;0).

Zombie Panic Homebrew

Play is pretty standard with a couple of alterations:

• The monster tokens are not used in this variant.

• At set-up, place 1 zombie in the forest section of each numbered ring (6 in all).

• All zombies have 1HP.

• All zombies move 1 in the monster movement phase.

• Instead of drawing monster tokens you roll D6 based on the difficulty (see below) to spawn zombies and then roll 1D6 for each zombie spawned, placing it in the appropriate forest section (as if you had drawn it as a monster token).

• You win the game when all zombies are destroyed.

 In order to keep the game fresh you can alter the difficulty of the game with the following adjustments:

Standard Game: Spawn 1D6 zombies each turn. 50 zombies in the spawning pool.

A Hard Game: Spawn 1D6+1 zombies each turn. 75 zombies in the spawning pool.

A Virtually Impossible Game: Spawn >2D6 (roll 2D6 and spawn zombies equal to the highest number shown) each turn. 100 zombies in the spawning pool.

A Hell Froze Over Game: As a Virtually Impossible game with the following additional rule:

Return Of The Living Dead: Whenever a double is rolled for zombie spawning return that many zombies from the scrap heap (pile of defeated zombies) to the spawn pool. No zombies spawn this turn.