Run Fight or Die: Reloaded Review

As of today’s writing (March 31, 2025) there are currently 1,535 games on BoardGameGeek themed with zombies. The highest ranked game is in at 238 with 12 games in the top 1,000 of all games (of which there are currently 28,194 total titles). All that to say that perhaps we have hit our limit on zombie titles? I just went through my entire collection and have eight games that are either about zombies or that simply have a zombie in them. It’s really not my favorite theme; I think it’s overdone. So will I like this game about surviving zombie wave attacks?

Run Fight or Die: Reloaded is technically a simple push your luck dice game. However, it feels more like Tower Defense Yahtzee. That may sound like a dig, but it isn’t. In the game you are attempting to complete the objective while staving off wave after wave of zombies and possibly even the Mutant Zombie boss who are literally just after your brain. If the player(s) can do that, they win!

To setup for a game, dump everything on the table. Then sort it. Or sort it first and then dump it neatly. Each player takes a zombie board that has three distinct zones, choose and place a Character board, and one Loot card from the shuffled deck. Add zombie minis to the appropriate zones per the rulebook, place out the Wound tokens, Zombie tokens, and Leadership tokens as well. Assemble the Location deck per the rules (these are all according to number of players), and place it near the Follower deck, Loot deck, and Mutant Zombie deck. Decide first player and give them the six dice. It’s time to begin!

Run Fight or Die: Reloaded is played over a series of turns when players are trying to find the Town Line Location card in the deck. This ends the game and has the players escaping the city. However, turns could not be simpler. They are made up of two or three phases. There will always be the Action Phase first, then possibly a Mutant Phase, and then always an Advance Zombies Phase.

The Action Phase consists of the active player rolling all the dice and determining their next move. The dice all have the same icons on them, and each icon corresponds with a certain action to be taken at the end of this phase. One side shows an orange bat. The bat can kill two zombies in Zone 1, the closest zone to the Character board. Remove two zombie minis from this zone for every bat rolled and kept. A second side shows a green gun. It allows the player to kill any one zombie in any zone, or the Mutant Zombie (if he’s been awakened – more on this later). Remove zombies likewise once slayed. A third side shows a yellow run icon. This allows the player to choose any zombie mini and move it back a zone. If already on Zone 3, the zombie instead moves off the board. The fourth side shows a brown backpack icon. This is the Search icon and with one Search icon showing in the group it allows the player to draw a Loot card from the deck and add it to their character. Two Search dice allow the player to draw a Follower from its deck and now the player has a tag-along to accompany them in their journey. The fifth side of the die shows a blue map icon that represents Exploring. When Exploring, like with Searching, the more icons showing, the better. One icon allows the player to flip a Location card over and deal with the event on top of the card (usually a bad thing). Two icons has the player flipping a Location card and dealing with both the bad and the good event result. Three icons means the player only receives the benefit of the good event on the bottom of the card. Finally, the red zombie icon is concrete and cannot be rerolled, but every other icon may be. For each red zombie icon showing, the player will add that many zombies to their Zone 3 IN ADDITION to the 3 or 4 they would normally be adding.

After all dice have been rolled, any dice showing non-zombie icons may be rerolled. After the second roll, the player may roll any non-zombie dice again and is then forced to keep the total result. The player then decides in which order they will carry out the results of the dice rolls. When considering all possibilities, each players’ Character board also features three Combo attacks or abilities if the correct icons were rolled. Some of these combos increase damage done to zombies, or affects any cards drawn, or other outcomes.

Next, if the Mutant Zombie has been awakened, the players complete the Mutant Phase. The Mutant Zombie boss starts the game sleeping (I guess) and is only awakened when a Location cards instructs them to awaken it, or if any player rolls five or six red zombie icons during their Action Phase. Once awakened, the Mutant Zombie is a possible target for any green gun icons rolled. For every attack targeting the Mutant, the player will take a Zombie token from the Mutant. These tokens act as its hit points as well as VP for the end game scoring. Once the Mutant Phase begins, the active player draws and resolves a card from the Mutant Zombie deck. Usually these are terrible events, so keeping the Mutant Zombie either asleep or slaying it is the best way to circumvent this phase.

Once done, the final step of a turn is completing the Advance Zombies Phase. All zombie minis on the board in front of the active player will move one zone closer to the Character board. Any zombie minis already on Zone 1 attack the Character and inflict one wound for each mini attacking. The Wounds may be taken by the Character or by any Followers they may have accumulated. Sometimes a Follower’s special action happens when wounds are added to their card, so the player must be aware of their Followers’ abilities. Once all zombie minis have been advanced, the active player spawns more zombies into their Zone 3 and then prepares for their next turn.

Play continues in this fashion until any player dies, any player finds the Town Line Location card, or the Mutant Zombie runs out of Zombie tokens (I have never seen this happen). Players then count up their points earned from Leadership & Zombie tokens, Follower cards, and each unfilled Wound icon on their Character board. The player with the most points is the winner! But at that point, I would just be happy to still be alive and moving on to somewhere else. ANYWHERE else.

Components. Now this is what gets me. The art style in this game is simply awesome. It’s not too gritty and real, and though there are blood drop tokens to track Wounds, it also mostly strays away from being gory. So that’s a great thing in my book. All of the components are of very very high quality. I have no issues with the quality. But I have questions. Why are the zombie minis orange and blue? Why not all just one color? And also, if this is a true minis game, why isn’t the Mutant Zombie and the token for player movement in the solo campaign also miniatures? That’s just two more minis. Missed opportunities, man.

My other gripe is that in the rulebook, Grey Fox Games has elected to include rules for the solo campaign, which consists of four missions. They dedicated 12 of the 22 pages of rulebook to this solo campaign, but you have to buy another expansion module from their store to get the appropriate components to play it. WHY???? If you include something in the main rulebook, include the components in the box. Otherwise, just ship the solo campaign components with the solo campaign rules and keep them separated. That bothers me so much. This isn’t a cheap game, and I really only acquired it to play it solo mostly, but I will not buy ANOTHER box to be able to play the campaign. Sure, they included a solo mode in the rules, but it’s basically just, “play the game with one player instead of multiple players.” Come on.

All in all, Run Fight or Die: Reloaded is a pretty dang good game. I love the tower defense feeling, the never-ending waves of baddies beating down on us while we try to find the right Location, and the high level of stress throughout. The game looks GREAT and plays very smoothly. As a solo game I think I would love it even more, but as is Purple Phoenix Games is giving this one a 5 / 6. I don’t think this will ever make it into my Top 10 Games list, but the more I play it the more I like it. I haven’t yet played with all of the Characters, nor been able to recruit all of the Followers, so I think there is a fair amount of replayability built in, which I deeply appreciate. There aren’t any expansions to this that add any real content (aside from the aforementioned Solo Campaign Deck), so I don’t have the ability to go off on other adventures in this universe, but that’s okay. I think for what it is, Run Fight or Die: Reloaded gives me a pretty good experience in a short play time. Pick this up if you find it, or better yet, come play my copy with me!