Escape from Stalingrad Z

Allegedly Greg saw this game advertised as being available at UK Games Expo and immediately thought 'Chris will be buying that'.   Apparently he knows me well as having had a play test of the game I did indeed return with a copy of it (along with a few other things, but that's another story).

Escape from Stalingrad Z by Raybox games

The game is the latest in the Weird War 2 category with the backdrop of the grim battle for the battle of Stalingrad becoming even worse than it was  by the dead coming back to life.  The game doesn't fall into the trap of trying the explain why this has happened instead presenting a first had account based on one of the soldiers involved.  What makes this game unusual is is also has a campaign system based on a series of campaign maps that your character or characters try and work though to escape.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, when surrounded by hungry walking corpses, the living German and Russian forces decide that fighting each other is no longer their priority and join together to escape the dead.

The game comes in three distinct levels.  Firstly the most basic level comprises a slip case containing two booklets (The Rules and the Scenario book) and two sheets of card counters representing your characters, zombies, items, weapons, food, ammo and first aid kits as well as some markers and six standee doors.  The inside of the slip case also doubles as a Quick Reference sheet.

The components of the basic version of the game

This contains almost everything you need to play the complete campaign and while a little rudimentary the components are high quality and the artwork perfectly acceptable.  You will need to supply your own twelve sided dice (or use a suitable phone app) and have a paper and pen to keep track of your characters wounds and fatigue, but that's all.  The counters are heavy stock cardboard and will survive a lot of game play.

If you fancy spending a little more the game also comes in a boxed set which includes all the above components (literally the slip case is in the box) together with 8 character dashboards, dice, two more sheets of counters and cardboard standees of all the characters and zombies along with plastic stands for them and the doors from the original set.  There are also coloured markers for tracking wounds and fatigue for your characters.

Additional components from the boxed version of the game

If you fancy using miniatures rather than the standees then these are also available and looked to be good quality metal sculpts, but with a lot of 28mm Weird War models already in my collection I decided to stick with the boxed version.

The scenario book contains all of the scenarios you will play in your quest to leave Stalingrad with 48 different games in total, although you will not have to play them all as there are a number of routes out.  The scenario book is spiral bound allowing you to lay it flat with the scenario rules and instructions on the left and the map on the right.

The Stash Scenario set up and ready to play - just add your characters on the squares marked 'A'.

The game is perfectly suited for solo play with the zombies moving with a fairly basic set of rules - but then they are zombies, tactical finesse is not expected.  Alternatively it can be played cooperatively with each player taking a character.  Eileen and I both tested the basic scenario at UKGE with the characters having to collect a knife and possibly a pistol before escaping the board.  Even for the first mission it was challenging and I just managed to escape the board with the knife and pistol in my possession.  Eileen managed to get both items but got swarmed by the undead before she could escape.

Following our return Tony popped over for a game and managed three scenarios in an evening including learning the game, finding his favourite weapon before getting trapped in a room surrounded by zombies and getting killed attempting to get out.

Overall the game plays pretty fast and with 8 starting characters to choose from has a good amount of replay-ability considering the number of available scenarios to work through.

Tony is planing to return so we can try a co-op game.  Once that is done a further report will follow

Chris