Having spoken with Pete and read his recent post Zona Alpha: From the shed to the table I decided to invest in a copy to see how the rules played.

Explore, salvage, and survive inside the Exclusion Zone in this near-future Eastern European-themed skirmish wargame.

Zona Alfa is a set of simple, fast-play skirmish rules for scavenging, exploring, and surviving in a near-future, post-apocalyptic Eastern European setting. Players take on the role of bandits, mercenaries, and military units fighting over the blasted Exclusion Zone and its abandoned artifacts. Customize your fighters with a variety of weapons and specialisms to create your ideal warband. With extended rules for campaigns, character progression, terrain, and environmental hazards, Zona Alfa contains all the tools required to engaging in blistering firefights within the Exclusion Zone.

—description from the publisher

There is nothing really special about the movement, shooting and close combat mechanisms which are much the same as most rules.

They have a good campaign section, but again very similar to a lot of other rules out there.

Where they differ is in the simplification of weapon types with just three categories, melee, rifle and support weapons. They compact categories into broad weapon types like heavy machine guns, squad machine guns, assault rifles, and battle rifles, thus eliminating large tables with a plethora of different types of weapons. A variety of support weapons can be chosen, but can be expensive and difficult to obtain during a campaign. If you want these then it is best to purchase them when initially setting up your crew.

The other thing I like about the rules is the initial crew selection. You have 12 purchase points that are aligned to the amount of action points each figure has. A leader or veteran has 3, a hardened crew member 2, and a rookie only one. The amount of equipment they have is determined by their level although you have a choice of what types. For instance a rookie has the choice of 1 ranged weapon, 1 melee weapon 2 grenades and 1 piece of basic equipment and NO skills. You may choose within these parameters.

This makes crew selection quick and easy and you don’t have to add up various points for weapons and equipment, A ranged weapon is considered a slot and does not matter if this is an AK47, a sniper rifle or a PK squad machine gun.

There are six different factions that you can choose to belong to. Each has different advantages and disadvantages. I chose to represent a group of independents although they would equally fit in as military types.

The short back story is that they are a group of ex-Russian trained special forces whose specialty is working in hazardous environments, especially near failed nuclear reactors. As a result they must all be equipped with NBC suits and masks and cannot include or recruit any rookies. This makes them a small but well trained and equipped crew.

I have some of the Eureka Russian moderns with NBC suits and intend to use these as my crew. As you can see they are currently just undercoated with my usual Tamiya TS3, and black washed, but with the arrival of these rules I will add them to my current project lists and hopefully completed soon. I will paint up a leader (1), one each of a flamer, RPG, sniper rifle, and PK squad machine gun (4) and seven with AK 74 assault rifles (7) for a total of 12 figures. This will allow for enough variety. The remaining figures (including a mortar and 2 crew, Dshk HMG and 2 crew, a sagger missile and crew, 2 soldiers with contamination meters, a leader, a sniper, 2 RPG’s, a flamer, a PK, and 2 with AK47’s) can wait to be completed further down the track.

The Zona Alpha rules also differ as they can also be played solo, or cooperatively. Free download rules for this can be found on the Osprey website.

They also start with an excellent introduction which outlines the authors intentions. For Patrick Todoroff it is all about the story which immediately endeared me to the rules! With this in mind he created an excellent “environment” to play in, complete with monsters, hostiles and all sorts of nasty hazards.

The rules are non-aligned to figure manufactures and so as long as they are WISIWYG you can use any suitable range you have on your shelf. I am planning on painting up the Eureka miniatures mentioned above but could have equally used my GW Steel Legion figures as they would have also fitted the back story I wanted.

I have enjoyed reading the rules and am looking forward to painting some figures up and getting down and dirty in the “Exclusion Zone”.

The image below is my starting crew consisting of a leader (3), a veteran (3), and three hardened crew (2).

The leader has an assault rifle, a magnum pistol, 2 hand grenades, leader and bone doc skills, and gas mask, electric juice, and Med-kit equipment.

The veteran has an assault rifle, a magnum pistol, 2 hand grenades, scrounger and bone doc skills, and gas mask, binoculars, and Med-kit equipment.

Hardened crew 1 has a Sniper rifle, a magnum pistol, 2 hand grenades, the steady hands skill, and gas mask, and Red Dot sight equipment.

Hardened crew 2 has a PK squad machine gun, a magnum pistol, 2 hand grenades, the bone doc skill, and gas mask, and Med-kit equipment. It is not stated but I assume

Hardened crew 3 has a assault rifle, a magnum pistol, 2 hand grenades, the scrounger skill skill, and gas mask, and Red Dot sight equipment. It might also be a smart move to give this fellow a flamer instead as it would be costly to buy one down the track, but that is a bit too gamy for my liking.

The Independent Faction alignment gives them a free Gas Mask, Med-Kit and scope to start. It is not stated but I assume these can be swapped for one of the selected pieces of equipment or kept in a “stash” to be used later when required (those more experienced than I can correct in the comments section and I will update if required) . The sniper would therefore replace his Red Dot sight which cannot be used on a sniper rifle with the scope. The Red Dot sight can then be given to a new recruit when the crew has enough salvage to pay for one. The stash therefore has the Red Dot sight, Gas Mask, and Med-Kit awaiting allocation to a new crew member down the track.

This will make the crew a very tough and resilient team, but their low numbers could cause problems against strong hostiles, lucky shots, and lots of firepower.

As for the hostiles I have all sorts of “beasties” and I think enough zombies to just get me through!