Set in the same world as The Walking Dead: All Out War, Call to Arms represents larger scale conflicts. The lone travelers struggling to survive in what’s left of the world have now formed communities, built walls, and gathered arms. However, the harsh conditions outside their walls have led these groups to fear the outside world. They see other groups as a threat to their very existence – no longer are the dead the only ones to fear… The Walking Dead: Call to Arms is a totally new way to play The Walking Dead! Use your existing miniatures from All Out War to create large-scale clashes in a Walker-infested world." The miniatures in the set are, on the whole, excellent and are a joy to paint, the detail in the Walkers is extremely good and these characters show a wide range of sculpts, from zombie waitresses to old men. The sculpts for the human characters don’t seem to be as refined, and whilst clothing details are great, a couple of their heads seem a little bulky and large.

The unique feature of The Walking Dead: All Out War is the role of the walkers on the game board. At times, if you plan your moves correctly they can be your best weapon against your opponent but they can also be the most devastating curve ball that will be thrown at you. Instead of this just being a player versus player tabletop game the random nature of the walkers means that you always have to keep an eye on them and consider the consequences of any actions that you are about to take. The Walking Dead: All Out War Miniatures Game has been built around a solid wargaming core – the character and equipment cards provide hundreds of list-building options and many different play styles, coupled with the AI and Threat system for endless replayability. This is a nice, tight set of rules designed to engage wargamers whilst showcasing Robert Kirkman’s excellent IP.A: The red dice are (blank, blank, 1, 1, 1, 2), then the white dice are (blank, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2!), and then the blues are (1, 1, 2, 2, 2!, 3!). The exclamation points are headshots. There is an action dice with 3 stars and 3 blanks which is used for all the 50/50 decisions and lots of other special rules.

It is not a game for young children, but that said the 9 & 10 year old EH Gaming members have lapped it up since that first game on Boxing Day and have become very adept at it. It helps that they have an already (un)healthy interest in tabletop games and miniatures though so perhaps this isn’t one to drop on a young child who still hasn’t graduated from Teletubbies and Junior Monopoly. At this point there is the drawing of a random event card that dramatically impacts on the gameplay. For example, a car alarm has gone off, drawing all the zombies towards one of the die-cut cars in a certain direction meaning that your previously “safe” spot on the table is now in the path of the hoard. If we were creating a Runner, it’s likely we would have had more, because they would be dashing across the playing area to grab as many supplies as possible.The Event Cards have different actions on them relating to the different levels of threat. Taking the ‘Won’t Stay Down’ card as an example, in the All Quiet and Low Threat stages there is a 50:50 chance that any prone walkers will stand up (which is tame enough). On Medium Threat this also happens but each player also rolls a dice and can take control of a number of walkers relating to the dice roll. On High Threat all prone walkers automatically stand up and 2 dice are rolled giving the possibility of up to 6 new walkers entering the field of play!! A: There will be multiple copies of equipment cards. Anything that is needed frequently (ammo reloads, bandages, basic weapons, gory clothing…) you will get a few copies of, but only one of the rarer stuff. Ezekiel is then shown in a house in Alexandria with Michonne, having telling her the story, he tells her about how ashamed he feels and that he wishes he would've died instead of his men and that perhaps his death would've had some positive influence for his men and that they would have won and that his death would have been seen as a heroic sacrifice. He somberly adds that if he had died he wouldn't have to face the loss of his men, and he wouldn't have lost Shiva herself. I went ahead and decided to work on an English version with some quality of life improvements since it seemed highly requested. I've scanned all of my cards from my own personal collection, as well as what I could gather from others of the All Out War community. I will continue to update this with more expansions and boosters, as well as custom content.

Carl hears the grenades going off, and rushes outside to help his father. Andrea stops him before he gets himself killed. A: The core game will have a single scenario – a multi-purpose player vs player setup. We will follow that up with the narrative expansions, which will have as many scenarios as are required to tell the story from the comics. Atlanta currently has 6, and we’re planning roughly the same number again to tell the next part of the story, from leaving Atlanta, to the farm, to reaching the prison. There will be more as we go through the story. Mantic have helped in creating a suitably post-apocalyptic atmosphere by supplying a printed full-colour game sheet featuring urban areas with disused roads and streets. There are flat cut-outs of barricades, abandoned cars and supplies, all presented from a top-down perspective. This meant we went through the scenarios for The Walking Dead: All Out War and looked at the sort of things you might need for specific missions or when creating your own bespoke missions. We also looked at items that were were tough to get, like tents, shopping mall pieces (a staple for any post-apocalyptic setting) and hospital beds. All of these are super useful for different games, but fitted in with The Walking Dead particularly well.

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Naturally, since the announcement, there have been people online trying to dump their collections. While I am a little sad that there will be no Commonwealth models, or various other bits and pieces, I am happy to have a “closed” system. As someone that collects and plays Kings of War, KOW Armada, Deadzone, Fallout Wasteland Warfare and The Elder Scrolls, it is handy to have a game that is “complete”. There is a completely different feeling to a game when the obligation to “keep up” with purchasing new releases or reading errata ends. What we have now, will always remain so. What is dead can never die Q: What sort of range is there between points costs? How much is the cheapest type of gang member and how much is the more expensive, and what does the difference get you, just better stats, or more equipment slots/extra rules etc. This Walking Dead miniatures game represents larger scale conflicts than All Out War. The lone travellers struggling to survive in what’s left of the world have now formed communities, built walls, and gathered arms. However, the harsh conditions outside their walls have led these groups to fear the outside world. They see other groups as a threat to their very existence – no longer are the dead the only ones to fear… How to Play The Walking Dead Call To Arms? If a walker gets a critical hit result against a survivor and wins the combat then the survivor has been ‘Bitten’ and this can lead to that model eventually turning into a walker later in the game! I am sure it could have been a perfectly good competitive game, but for whatever reason, I have always seen it as a narrative game (i.e., as the game unfolds, my friend and I are more interested in telling a cinematic horror story, rather than worrying about who “wins” a game). As I get older, I find myself finding the idea of a binary “win” or “loss” on something that is purely designed to be a fun thing, to be a bit odd. This came to a head, at a local game store at the end of last year as I gave a demo game of Deadzone to someone who was desperately trying to “win” the demo of me trying to show him how the game works, and why it’s fun.

In 2019, Mantic Games released a series of miniatures for a new version of All Out War titled Call to Arms. All Survivors start with three health and if you want to increase that, you’ll need to add some extra points. The maximum is eight health points, which costs a whopping 20 points! We’re opting for a fairly decent five health points, which costs an extra five points. This means we’re currently sitting on a total of 35 points.Victory usually revolves around who can grab the most supply counters or who can kill every member of the opposing group of survivors, but you can make up your own conditions or ‘missions’. We tend to play with an odd number of supply tokens on the board and when you collect a majority you then have to also make it off the board safely from the side that you started on. There is a gaming mat in the box for you to play on but as you get more used to the game you will want to perhaps play on a bigger surface and add more scenery elements. Barricades and buldings from other tabletop games work perfectly well, as do some toy model cars if the scale is about right. Mantic have produced a scenery booster set which adds 3D cars and barricades and these are very good also. So too is the deluxe gaming mat accessory which is the same as the one in the box but made out of mousemat material instead of paper. The Walking Dead: All Out War is not a perfect game…but what is? It is definitely an outstanding game though and even with a re-release of Blood Bowl getting me all giddy I am proudly awarding the EH Gaming 2016/17 Game of the Year accolade to Mantic for this box of fun. I am completely hooked on it and have found myself playing the solo scenarios in lunch breaks when no-one else can be found to play with. I don’t see the novelty wearing off anytime soon either and that is the mark of a great game for me. The ongoing support with new releases has also been outstanding so this game is frequently getting a refresh and evolving.