LNOE Survival/Hero Pack/Grave Weapons $75 preorder

Flying Frog store page.
The big pre-order bonus is the seven Zombies with Grave Weapons miniatures in Growing Hunger red. (Also two cards and a signed photo.)
I've ordered.

Survival of the Fittest has: 3 new decks (Unique Items, Survival Tactics, and Grave Weapons; 20 cards each), 8 new Hero and 8 new Zombie deck cards, 4 Scenarios, and 4 countersheets.
Hero Pack 1 has: 4 Heroes and 4 character sheets, 1 Scenario, and a mere 5 new Hero and 5 new Zombie deck cards. It's definitely the least for the price.
Zombies with Grave Weapons has: 7 green and 7 brown Zombies with Grave Weapons miniatures and 2 Grave Weapon cards and counters.
All with rulebooks, of course.

EDIT- Cards:-
Stench of Death
Sledge Hammer - EXCELLENT!!!!!
Explosive
Jade's Skateboard
Rusty Axe
Holy Blessing Hero

Screw FFP.

Over a year ago I was a big champion of theirs, but with their fan-gouging policy, screw'em.

No need to mention the fact that Growing Hunger contained considerably less than the base game but for nearly 80% of the cost, the fact that they sell scenario cards for $10 a pop, but this latest gimmick of breaking up what should be a $30 expansion into three $25 dollar is inexcusable. And oh yeah, I hope they didn't stick you with that $42 shipping on your pre-order. "Oops".

I also feel like LNoE has already gone as far as FFP could take it with the first two and now you're just getting a lame overpriced "expansion" to extend it's life. How? let's look at the three:

Heroes: 4 new heroes, a scenario, and 10 cards. Hmmm...nothing really new to enhance gameplay here, just more of the same.

Grave zombies: Not even really needed as the counters and rules are in another set! To be clear this means you have to buy another $25 expansion to even use this one. That's $50. Their whole 'buy only the sets you want' is bull. Even then, all it is is giving zombies some weapons. wow.

Survival of the fittest: let me get this straight. You're going to add more cards which a) make some scenarios even harder (find the keys) and b) further prevent the hero deck from expiring and taking away one of the zombie master's way to win? Doesn't seem like that option to win for the ZM was well thought out then. why have it? The cards themselves contain "magic items" (johnny's varsity jacket, the priests' bible, etc) which from what I read essentially give that players ability to whichever character is holding the item. Now johnny and anyone with the jacket can blitz. So, the big idea was to simply take rules already in play in the base game and put them on cards to sell?!

Like I said, I think their inexperience as a company developing games has really shown over the past year. Where's the scenario book to make use of all the random counters you already bought in LNoE and GH? I guess they'll bleed ya for them at $10 a pop.

I don't want to even get into how dumb aliens vs circus freaks is, but don't worry, they couldn't fully develop that idea either so they just used the LNoE engine. yay...

Enjoy.

I dunno if I'm quite as feisty as Jack about it, but yeah, what he said.

I love the base game, the first big expansion was kind of a rip off but added some good stuff, but fuck all those $10 mini expansions. I wish they didn't blow it like they have been.

I was turned off as soon as I saw the expension was just as much as the base game but with so much less stuff in it.

I am unwilling to pay this much to not significantly impact my game.

LNOE is awesome. Touch of Evil is OK

The expansions suck.

Yeesh. As much as I like LNOE, I think that I may be done. Why can't they offer affordable expansion decks like FFG does with Runebound and maybe a scenario book? This is getting ridiculous.

I've played LNOE a fair bit recently and damn, its a great game.
But I find I'm not using any of the new rules from "Growing hunger" unless the scenario specifically calls for them. This stuff doesn't sound like it adds much either.

I think Jacks statement about the game being done is veru true - It's beauty lies in its simplicity and tacking stuff onto the base game just doesn't work. The game doesn't need expansions, with the possible exception of a scenario book or pack.

ATOE expansion was aces, and really brought out the strength of that game. But that probably has 1 more expansion in it and its done as well. Expansions for the sake of expansions really suck.

I've been a big fan of LNOE, so I'm gonna pick these things up, even though it does seem like they should have just been combined into one big box expansion. But I agree with Skeletor that the base game on its own is still just fine as it is, and I only add in expansion stuff when using one of the scenarios that requires it. That's probably going to be the case with the Survival of the Fittest stuff, although the additions of barricades and sewers sound like they might be good to add into other scenarios, and might give some new life to the base game scenarios. Defend the Manor House, for example, could really use a barricade mechanic.

I also think the single scenarios for $10 is too much. I could see a 3 pack of them for $15... that'd be reasonable. Some of them are quite good, though, and mix things up in new ways. Zombie Pillage, in particular, is one that I'm hoping to try soon. And FFP have been generous to give away a few of their scenarios for free online, so it sort of balances that out a bit. They've mentioned the LNOE Scenario Book for a long time now... I think at one point it was stated to be released late in 2008. So that is a disappointment and I'd rather see that come out than anything else, really. I guess they've had some personal/business issues this year, though, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.

I'm a LNoE junkie as well and while the expansions might not be adding anything new to the game mechanic-wise, variety in and of itself is good too. But at US$25 each, these are priced way too high for me to consider. I would be happy with paying maybe US$40-$50 for all three and then only if I could pick them up from my FLGS to negate shipping costs.

Jack Hooligan wrote:
" No need to mention the fact that Growing Hunger contained considerably less than the base game but for nearly 80% of the cost"
True, I reckoned the price had nearly doubled, based on comparing the components alone. But decided the new rules made it worthwhile.

" this latest gimmick of breaking up what should be a $30 expansion into three $25 dollar is inexcusable."
Can't say I'm happy about that, but the pre-order extra zombies sold me on it.

" And oh yeah, I hope they didn't stick you with that $42 shipping on your pre-order. "Oops"."
Bizarrely, it's only $36 to England...

" Heroes: ..."
Yep, not much here; as I said, this one's the worst for pricing.

" Grave zombies: ..."
Yeah, yeah, just buying for the eye candy. I know...

" Survival of the fittest: let me get this straight. You're going to add more cards which a) make some scenarios even harder (find the keys) and b) further prevent the hero deck from expiring and taking away one of the zombie master's way to win?"
So far they've done a good job of keeping the new additions balanced between the Heroes and Zombies, so I'm confident this'll mesh smoothly.

" The cards themselves contain "magic items" (johnny's varsity jacket, the priests' bible, etc) which from what I read essentially give that players ability to whichever character is holding the item. ... So, the big idea was to simply take rules already in play in the base game and put them on cards to sell?!"
Like Cosmic Encounter wild Flares... But I'm not sure where you're getting this from, e.g. Johnny's jacket allows him to take an extra wound, which is the same as the Endurance card from (I think) the Radioactive Grave Dead supplement. (Assuming that forum post is correct, of course.)

" I think their inexperience as a company developing games has really shown over the past year"
Yeah, I thought ATOE was too similar to LNOE for their second release.

" Where's the scenario book to make use of all the random counters you already bought in LNoE and GH?"
I suspect we've been getting that piecemeal in the Supplements and downloadable scenarios.

" I don't want to even get into how dumb aliens vs circus freaks is"
Agreed, I won't be touching that one with a barge-pole either.

Squigherder wrote:
" LNOE is awesome. Touch of Evil is OK"
My choice was either to go for both or concentrate on one. I decided on LNOE.

ubarose wrote:
" These are pretty outrageously priced. And they don't make any sense. Why is the Grave weapons deck in one expansion and the Grave weapon Zombies in another expansion?"
Officially? So customers can choose not to buy it... Weak, I know.

" The Hero Pack is just insulting."
Subtract the $10 for ten cards as per the Supplements and that leaves four Heroes for $15. Still doesn't seem any better does it?
LNOE hasn't crossed the rip-off line for me yet, maybe this trio will do it, depends on how much play they get.

Mr Skeletor wrote:
" But I find I'm not using any of the new rules from "Growing hunger" unless the scenario specifically calls for them."
Same here, but I've only started playing GH recently, so it's been plain vanilla, as written. After a few more plays, I figure go back to the base set and use some of the dot rules, then on to GH with the dot rules.

" It's beauty lies in its simplicity and tacking stuff onto the base game just doesn't work."
I really, really liked the streamlined base system and GH enhanced it without making it too baroque. Whether this latest batch of expansions takes it a step too far, I'm curious to discover. I'm still optimistic.

Grudunza wrote:
" FFP have been generous to give away a few of their scenarios for free online, so it sort of balances that out a bit. ... so I'm willing to cut them some slack."
Same here, I've adopted a vague mental averaging: LNOE cheap, GH average, the rest expensive. So far it still feels cost effective because of the added playability. And game prices in England are more of a rip-off anyway, due to Esdevium's stranglehold on the distribution, so it doesn't feel quite so bad as it does to Americans.

Face it Adrian, you just have too much spare cash !

Actually it's the result of deciding to cut down on buying too many new games.
Expansions are the exception of course...

Or a last gasp purchase for 2009 with the New Years resolution of not buying anything in 2010.

I'm going with the majority here that these expansions are a ripoff (as past ones have been) and adding all this new shit into the game isn't going to make it better or add much replayability. Its a fun game, but doesn't need this level of investment.

The pre-order bonus packs are officially sold out, see soundgirl's post near the bottom of the page.