Dead Presidents 6 (1979)

Just when he thought he had put American history behind him for good, Benji Frankel is once again caught up in the machinations of the shadow government. Will he be able to break the necromantic curse that’s been placed on the US Constitution, or will the Dead Presidents arise to return America to the Old Ways? There’s no term limit on horror in the sixth installment of this fan-favorite cult franchise!

Design

It had to happen. Can you believe there wasn’t an explicit zombie monster in the base game of Spooktacular? You think it would be obvious! We thought so, too! Zombies have been a staple in horror cinema since as far back as I can remember. Bride brings them to Spooktacular.

We obviously wanted you to have a horde of zombies to control, but we ran into a problem: we’ve done a lot of multi-figure monsters already (ReGoo, Wolfpack, Deadline). How could we make these zombies feel different? The answer was to simply let you reenact an entire zombie movie yourself!

Unlike a lot of the multi-figure monsters, the Dead Presidents begin with all the presidents already on the board, giving them unparalleled early game board control. However, most of their potent abilities can only be unlocked by getting them killed. That’s right, you have to manipulate and herd the zombies into other figures, so that the survivors can kill them! Only when the presidents have been laid to eternal rest will you truly save the constitution and gain ultimate political power!

Ideation

With a theme as ludicrous as zombified presidents, we had to go equally ludicrous with the poster. Some sort of recognizable “president” imagery that’s been changed and zombified in and of itself. From the signing of the declaration of independence, to modern monuments, finding all sorts of things to riff on was fun!

We ultimately decided to go with a zombified Mount Rushmore overlooking a horde of hands below. I think it perfectly conveys just how absurd this movie series must have been. Can you believe there’s six of these things?

You can also see that we were originally going to make it "Dead Presidents 4" (there was a bevy of "Four score" puns to be made), but we ended on 6 since there's 6 zombies!

Strategy

The Dead Presidents are a multi-figure monster in reverse. While it’s powerful to be in many places at once, it’s even more powerful to avail the presidential decrees you get from sending zombies into the Wight House (we had fun with the names). Playing the Dead Presidents, therefore, is all about finding ways to gain points while also getting your chosen zombie killed by survivors.

To help you gather more survivors to fight against the zombie horde, the Dead Presidents have cards that let them manipulate and amass other figures on-demand. Meat The Public (I told you we had fun with the names) is really powerful as it easily sets-up a dead president while also setting up the Wight House effect all in one election!

Play If You Like:

• A morphing gameplan
• Powerful one-time effects that change the game
• Manipulating other figures on the board

Avoid If You Dislike:

• Managing lots of pieces
• Incremental gameplans
• Opponents having agency over your power growth

See it LIVE!

See presidential power in action!

COMING SOON!

It's hat's off to next week's monster: The Headhunter!

Alternate Poster

The Polish poster for Dead Presidents comes from the awesome BionicBandit. The contrast of merging faces and the simple cut-out of the Wight House really bring this poster together in that old Polish style!

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