When DCeased was announced a lot of returning fans were a little disappointed to learn there would be no playable Zombie mode to match with Marvel Zombies. Now of course there are a number of reasons for this; they’ve been explained elsewhere if you’re interested. As for myself, I say there’s always reasons not to do something. I think a bunch of us want to do it anyway. So this is my effort, over the coming months, before the Kickstarter ships out I will have posted playable rules for every Zombie Hero. You can mix them with your Marvel Zombies, custom up some rules to run them in DCeased missions, or just laugh at how bad my ideas are. Lots of people have some cool ideas for how to make these characters. These are just mine.
My customs are designed to feel balanced next to existing designs. They are designed with simplicity in mind; simplicity is what makes Zombicide so fun. I also design my customs to match the sculpt of the model and the version and powers that are presented there. In designing custom playable Zombie Heroes I have developed the term “Militia” as a shorthand to mean Trooper, Guard or Specialist. All cards were made using Wuxyteo’s card creator, which is pretty great.
So here we have our Zombie Aquaman. This is the first time I will come up against what I think is a pretty common theme among Justice League heroes; these guys are in general a lot stronger and more powerful than most of their Marvel counterparts. Looking at these guy’s wikis “strong enough to brawl with Superman” is like a job requirement for League membership. That makes it hard to focus down on a few unique things to make each character stand out. They’re all super strong tanky fliers with limited or situational weaknesses that wouldn’t come into play in an ordinary balanced scenario. So how do I do right by that power level and make them all feel unique?
For Aquaman I focused on the best representation of his silliest power; aquatic telepathy. This is represented on his base with a bunch of zombie kraken tentacles. And thinking back to the old Justice League cartoons and comics, my favorite scenes with him, the most iconic ones are where he is riding around on a sea monster. So I leaned in to that. If you want a version that leans more on his personal hitting power, you could just use Namor’s rules. But for my version, I’m going to focus on the reach and board control elements he gets from riding a zombie kraken.
Right out of the gate at Blue he’s a solid melee presence with the ability to get ranged attacks and strike evasive targets by having the tentacles wind past protectors. This doesn’t let him Devour protected Bystanders, but it can be clutch to get some Specialists off the board or rip apart some Troopers behind a wall of Guards. At Orange his reach extends and he can now pull even Bystanders out of their protection and into his waiting maw. Nom nom. Finally at Red he gains mobility and more accurate Devour attacks, going on a sea monster rampage. When you combine this mobility and accuracy with his reach and selective targeting, Aquaman becomes a very capable of ripping any soft target off the board no matter where they hide, while also keeping his own Hunger right where he wants it with reliable Devour attacks. I hope you enjoy fishing for brains! See you next time.
