Zona Alfa: Salvage and Survival in the Exclusion Zone: 25 (Osprey Wargames)

Product Information

In Zona Alfa, players start by forming crews of 4 -12 miniatures, each with special gear, weapons, and abilities, with the intention of salvaging valuable items and artifacts in the dangerous and eerie quarantined area known as the ‘Exclusion Zone’. Game play rests on three pillars: Streamlined Game Stats, Alternating Activation, and Troop Quality Levels. Kontraband is a set of supplementary rules for Osprey Wargames’ Zona Alfa, Salvage and Survival in the Exclusion Zone. While built on the core game, Kontraband is better described as a variant than an expansion, and differs from Zona Alfa in three distinct ways: Part of my squad angled toward the factory while the Sniper and RPK looked for good angles near the fuel tanks. Other Pat’s Veterans leap-frogged between the Conex containers and the Office. The Zone event roll results in another Alpha predator arriving. Things are not good for Spassky. He takes the full force of the Zone emission, he’s pinned and wounded and it takes all his actions to recover. Nimzo gives him an action to go on alert. The rest of the team move round to deal with the Predator when it enters. There’s plenty of activity on the Stalker 7 and Zona Alfa Facebook groups as well, and nice ideas and scenery to look at. It may not be the next Necromunda, but it’s got a fun and dedicated following. The author is also a regular contributor and there’s plenty of stuff to find on his other games as well (which may get a review later).

Kontraband is not a stand-alone game and so first and foremost, you need a copy of the Zona Alfa rule book. This was a one shot game. We all agreed we would be much more cautious with our crew if we were in a campaign. I expanded the basic rules for Zona Alfa to include a simple campaign and progression system so a player’s individual models can be rewarded, promoted, and improved over the course of several games. After all, the Zone is an excellent teacher – if you live long enough to learn her lessons. the following is an edited version of my recent interview in Miniature Wargames magazine. It offers an overview on ZONA ALFA development and game play.Equipment. Kontraband not only changes some details on existing pieces of equipment, it introduces several new ones. It also adds a new category of gear, Weapon Accessories, which are separate from items that fill Equipment Slots. Details on Weapon Accessories can be found further in. Kontraband is the first expansion for Zona Alfa, and leans fully into the co-op/solo play. Instead of starting out with a starter band, you get 4 vets that either belong to the scientist or stalker faction. Each faction has its own types like smuggler, bounty hunter, field agent that have their own skills and specialisations. The reason you enter the Zone with a bit of a head start is that like Zona Alfa, Kontraband is just as deadly, and in some cases, very hard. Rookies have no place in the heart of the Zone.

Because Zona Alfa is miniatures-agnostic, t hese are intentionally broad and abstracted so players can generate values for the wide range of models in their collection, then select categories of body armor and personal weapons. A. It shifts from the traditional player-versus-player competition to a player-versus-the table effort, and as such is geared toward Solo and Cooperative play. The combat ability, which covers both melee and shooting, gets worse the greener you are. You roll under combat ability on a D10, so a Vet with combat ability 6 will have a better chance than a rookie with 4. A roll of 1 is a natural success, which should give hope to players like me, who shouldn’t really be playing wargames with dice.

We found that the rules for Zone hostiles were satisfying but not overly oppressive. This was probably because we were playing at Zone Threat Level 1, the “easiest” setting in the game. As you get closer to the Zone’s enigmatic center, the threats become much more dangerous. Near the perimeter, the Zone hostiles were just a nuisance. But those zombies definitely tied up Lawrence’s leader for a good portion of the game! Characters. With a focus on a single squad of individual characters rather than larger gangs or crews, Kontraband players can choose to venture in the Zone either as Stalkers or Scientists. Generally speaking, Stalkers are stronger at tactical skills while Scientists excel at technical ones. Details about each character class, specializations, and a list of new Skills can be found further in. B. It narrows the game’s setting from an open region with varying degrees of danger to exclusively high-threat locations. For those who want to dive into miniatures gaming, or have short narrative games with a low model count, the market for miniature skirmish games is in a golden age. There’s a plethora of rulesets and settings to choose from out there depending on your taste, but if you’re a fan of the S.T.A.L.K.ER. or Metro 2033 video games series, you can’t get much better than Zona Alfa. People who like slow Russian movies – like the ones that inspired those games! – can also apply.

Zona Alfa is the latest iteration of my fast-play house rules that were titled ‘Cleared to Engage’. I’d been using them for years here to introduce people to miniature war gaming. It’s a skirmish game that uses D10s and was made with 28mm miniatures in mind, but 15mm or 20mm will work just as well. A fairly simple system, it’s played in a 3’ x 3’ or 4’ x4’ area with a set turn limit, so games typically run one to two hours. Four members of the Cape Cod Wargame Commission spent Saturday afternoon playing Zona Alfa. We decided on a Factory Raid in a Threat Level Two area – four Hot Spots plus the Mission Objective. John gives a the low down on the Kontraband expansion for Zona Alfa, and a prize winning battle report on one of the scenarios from the book. As the players began to strategize a way to neutralize the scavengers, Dan took it upon himself to deliver the coup de grace. His leader climbed onto the catwalk of the nearby electrochemical factory and tossed a grenade right into the midst of the bandits. Problem solved, comrade.Zona Alfa was an extension of my interest in the computer game, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. That was the first ‘open world’ game I ever played and it was fascinating. It was so different from the frantic, run-n-gun games I had previously encountered – the landscape, the pace, the mood, the enemies, the missions… all of it. I immediately set about trying to recreate it on the table top, converting some of The Assault Group’s modern Russian figs with gasmask heads from Pig Iron Productions. I painted up squads from every major faction and started running skirmish games with them.

Zona Alfa draws inspiration from the crumbling, abandoned Cold War industrial heaps that you might find in the hinterlands of Eastern Europe. Players muster crews of stalkers, scavengers, and mercenaries and pit them against similarly motivated bands on the battlefield. But the Zone itself plays a huge role in each game … Zone hostiles can appear at any moment, and the very environment itself can suddenly erupt in violent fashion.

Shop

There are two types of Game Stats: Model and Weapon. Individual models have four basic stats: Combat Ability, which covers both Ranged and Melee. Armor Rating to deflect or reduce the effects of combat. This is linked to the particular type of body armor the character is equipped with. Movement which is the distance in inches the model can move for one Action. And Will, their mental acumen and resolve under fire. It’s used when testing for Morale and performing specific, in game, mission or plot-oriented tasks. Tags 28mm 40k army battle report caluphel campaign chaos club death guard dragon rampant dwarves fantasy game night grimdark hobby miniatures narrative nurgle painting post-apoc project saga sci-fi skaven skirmish terrain warbands wargames warhammer workshop