"Empire of the Dead Thorough Review " Topic

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This is the third part in my series of horror rules reviews including Chaos in Carpathia
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and Strange Aeons
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EotD is not groundbreakingly original, but a solid game that will satisfy VSF/horror skirmish gamers and Mordhiem players looking for a new 'fix'

As usual, I hope this helps out the "fence sitters"

Nice review. How hard would it be to uee models i already have. I have some Malifaux figures I would like to use

Matthew

From what I have seen and experienced talking with other EotD gamers it won't be hard at all.

There are many players who have used existing Victoriana and Steampunk minis as well as vampires and werewolves from their own collections. Heck, mosto f the character models are not all that specific to Westwind.

Holmes and Watson have been done. The Ripper has been Done. I think the most specialized figs are a gorilla with a hat and vest and some interesting haunts.

Many of the gangs are remarkably open (I hesitate to use generic) and can be interpreted in a number of ways. Any colelction of humans can be used as a Gentelmen's Club and any clergy can be used as Brotherhood.

I should add that many players are creating unique "gangs" by reskinning the ones in the rules with alternate figures. One player has done a "Lord of the Apes" gang out of the Werewolf list. another player used the Gentlemen's club to do a women's Temperance Group.

-Eli

hi I have just got some malifaux canine remains to use with my zombies..

I've still not seen the rule book in person but from what I've seen on other reviews and heard from those who have dripped their toes in the water a number of different ranges of Gothic and VSF figs could be used.Which is always good when starting a new game.But later on if I like it my invest in some of Westwinds mini's.

I'll be adding the book to my wish list to Santa.A bit busy with other projects at the moment.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for the help and advice evertone. I will be on the look out for these

Matthew

adding the melee skill to the D10 roll along with the other modifiers ought to fix the combat system.

i.e. an expert fighter rolls D10+8 while a werewolf-fodder yokel rolls D10+2

The game seems like a retread of other rules, especially Games Workshop and the Lord of the Rings engine. I find the rules kind of bland.

Since I don't have any of the Games workshop or Lord of the Rings (which were all d6 based) rules, it will all be fresh to me. I really dislike all d6 games. Go with d8 or d10 to give a better spread of variables to the game.

There are several flavours of rules for the humans "gentleman's club" – military, British Empire good chaps, evil occultists, etc – which show ways to get variety from the base mini templates.

You could adapt most VSF minis pretty easily but it lacks a "unit builder" per se. Weapons and equipment are costed though.

CPBelt – calling it a retread is not far off – it IS GW's LOTR system with d10s. You could release it from Warhammer Ancients and call it "Legends of the Old World".

Good clear rulebook, generic fluff and slick presentation; but nothing new here that's for sure.

We've just recently played a game of this and had such a laugh, especially with silly accents. Played 4 games now and have 5 players with the following Groups out of the 4 starting faction… Needless to say we really like the game.

The Red Hat Gents, The Darkest Game Hunters, The Men in Bowler Hats, The Suffer Gettes, Keystone Peelers, Retired Red Coats club, The Knight Ladies, The Tigers of Pan Tang…plus a few wolfies, cults and vamps in the mix…and 1 player has adpated the Dreamer faction from Malifaux and I'm doing that to the Kirai, Dead Easy.

Play it with accents and have a laugh.

laters