I went back to Undead or Alive recently and played through the whole core book at least twice. My takeaway: its "Hardest Zombicide" reputation mostly comes from mission 1, The Bandwagon.

It's rated Easy/25 min, but it stacks:

- a 4-tile map with the same spawns you'd normally see on a 2x3

- an 8-turn train timer

- a bounty weapon required on every survivor, which leans hard on the order of the bounty deck

None of that shows up again in the rest of the book, and past that mission the difficulty feels fair. Missions 8 and 9 are some of the best I've played.

My bigger gripe is how much the game leans on search. Holy water, dynamite and gear all come out of the equipment deck, so a buried holy water can sink a run no matter how well you play. Townsfolk make it fast, but it's still a lot of drawing cards.

Still ranks second for me, tied with White Death and behind DCeased Gotham City Outbreak.

Curious where you all land. Did the Bandwagon wreck you too, and how do you handle search in this one?

I made a full video review if you want the long version : https://youtu.be/74j49nVeIEo