Ye Olde Inn

Daedalus wrote:... yet four locations are placed on the board to start, the wandering dead in the halls are described, and the falling block traps are warned about.

Four locations? Keep in mind that when a door is shown as opened (and the contents to be placed on the board), that it affects both sides of the door! This automatically implies that 3 of the 4 X's are also revealed at the start of the game - and allows the EW to place extra Undead on the board right from his first turn onwards. Keep in mind that the number of the various types of Undead present on the board right from turn 1 prevents the EW from swarming the Heroes with 1 specific type of Undead.

Because new Undead will appear from the first turn onward, it also immediately puts pressure on the Heroes to move quickly.

One exploit my players have used in the past, though, is to occupy at least two of the X's on the board with Heroes armed with a crossbow, so they can shoot whatever shambles their way through the halls, while the other Heroes explore the chambers. When needed, they can pull back to the hallways so the Heroes armed with crossbows can assist in clearing the build-up of Undead.

Perhaps I wasn't being clear, but by locations I was referring to singular or connected rooms revealed at once due to open doors. As for the X's, I'd say a monster may be placed at any of the four X's from turn one onward. The specific case in Note A about ". . . any of the four starting spaces . . ." overrides the general LoS rule in this case, in my opinion.