Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Description

The snow lies thick and heavy on the ground, but that hasn’t stopped thedead who prowl the town and clatter against the walls of your colony. You’reonly safe behind the walls, but you need the supplies outside… and can youreally trust your fellow survivors? Even if they’re not crazy, or trying toburn the colony to the ground, everyone has something they can’t livewithout.

Dead of Winter is a story-centric board game that puts you and up to fourother players together in the tortured aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. Thedead are pushing in on every side, but mere survival is not enough. You’llhave to venture beyond the confines of the colony to gather vital supplies,resolve crises, keep up morale, and fulfill your own secret objective. Whetheryou plan to betray the colony or lead it to safety, you can’t trust anyone.Everyone has a secret…

The Good of the Colony
Every game of Dead of Winter invites you and your fellow survivors to tell yourown harrowing tale of survival in this wintry apocalypse. It all starts with themain objective for your colony. Each main objective has unique setupinstructions for this specific scenario, and it tells you the victory conditionfor the colony—whether that means setting up camp and barricading your colonyor venturing out to collect enough medicine that you have a chance of finding acure to the zombie plague. Importantly, however, this main objective does nottell you how you—the individual players—will be able to win the game.

For you to win as an individual, you’ll have to refer to your secretobjective, which you also receive at the beginning of the game. For the majorityof these secret objectives, the main objective must be completed, but you havesome additional tasks that are unique to you alone. For example, you may have acompulsion to Burn It All Down, requiring four barricades on the colony and onefuel card in your hand, in addition to completing the main objective. Even forplayers with the best intentions, these secret objectives can create difficultdecisions as you choose between the good of the colony and your own needs.

Not every player has the best of the colony at heart, however. Some secretobjectives create a betrayer—a player who will surreptitiously work to drainthe group’s morale and undermine the colony and the other players. If you canidentify the betrayer, you may vote to exile this player, but even oncethey’re cast out, they may continue to be a thorn in your side!

Fight for Survival
Even once you know what you need to do to win a game of Dead of Winter, thereare countless twists and turns along the way, commonly arriving in the form ofcrisis cards. A new crisis card is revealed at the beginning of each round witha challenge, whether that’s a Fuel Shortage or a Zombie Surge. In each case,players must work together to contribute a specific type of item to combat thecrisis, but all contributions are made in secret, making this the perfectopportunity for a betrayer to sabotage the community.

If you’re going to find the items that you need to stave off a crisis,however, you’ll have to send your band of survivors out of the colony tonearby locations, such as the school or the grocery store. Each turn, you’llroll a number of action dice, and by allocating those dice, your survivors cankill zombies, rummage for items, set up barricades, lure zombies to theirlocations, or perform other actions.

The locations outside the colony walls offer the cards you need to stave offcrises, fulfill your objectives, and give your survivors the edge in the frozenhellscape of Dead of Winter. Of course, venturing out is not free from risk.You’ll be coming face to face with the undead, and you’ll need to fight tokeep your supply lines clear. Battling zombies or moving between locationsforces you to roll the exposure die, which can lead to a wounded survivor orworse, a deadly bite that could spread the zombie plague through the entirecolony! Danger is everywhere, but if you’re not willing to take a few risks,the colony may be doomed long before the snow melts.

A Fork in the Road
If the apocalyptic plot in your game of Dead of Winter is told across the crisiscards, your objectives, and the actions that your survivors take each round, theindividual story moments are plucked out by the game’s crossroads cards. Atthe start of every turn, the player to your right will draw one of thesecrossroads cards. Every crossroads card has a specific trigger, and if thattrigger happens during your turn, you’ll have to face the choice on thecrossroads card.

You may have to choose between venturing out in a blizzard or staying safe atthe colony. Perhaps you need to decide if the colony will spend the food to havea real Christmas celebration. Or maybe you must weigh whether or not you’llallow a flatbed of refugees into your community. Every player must weigh theirown objectives carefully in light of these crossroads cards, and no decision isas simple as it first appears.

Deeper into Winter
If you’ve already played and love Dead of Winter, there are plenty of placesyou can go from there. For starters, you may explore Dead of Winter: The LongNight, a new standalone expansion that can be played on its own or integratedinto the core game. The Long Night ultimately offers more of everything thatmade Dead of Winter an epic struggle for power and survival, including a newcolony full of new survivors and new gameplay elements. You can fight offbandits from another colony, build improvements to your colony, and mostintriguingly, unravel the mysteries of the new Raxxon Pharmaceutical location,which is full of Raxxon’s twisted human experiments that show up in the gameas disturbing new enemies.

And finally, you can enjoy Warring Colonies, an expansion to both Dead ofWinter and The Long Night with new survivors, items, crossroads cards, andcrisis cards. Additionally, if you own all three, you can play the epic colonyvs colony variant for four to eleven players! With a wealth of new content andvariants for you to explore, Warring Colonies ratchets up the intensity as theworld grows ever colder.

The Dead Are Coming
You’re no longer human beings. You’re survivors—and you’ll do whateverit takes to keep it that way. Choose carefully who you can trust and make thetough decisions it takes to reach the finish line in Dead of Winter!

The Dice Tower Seal of Excellence is a trademark of The Dice Tower,LLC and is used with permission.

Delivery

Delivery Rates
Australia Delivery

Our delivery rates vary based on the weight and volume of your total order. An accurate shipping cost will be calculated during the checkout process. Orders are shipped by air via Australia Post straight to your door! 

Delivery Times
The Board Gamer orders ship from our fulfillment partner Mighty Ape. Their warehouse is based in New Zealand with daily flights across the Tasman with Australia Post.

As a result of courier delays the current standard delivery times for In Stock products using Australia Post are as follows: