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The latest in the Osprey Wargaming Series arrived at my door with a bunch of other wargames. However, I had seen a lot of positive buzz about this game online so swooped in and snatched it up for the first review of the batch. As a part of the Osprey Wargaming Series, or Blue Books; I think we are all familiar with the format and the 64 page limit. That makes it a quick read.

Zona Alfa is set to take place in a Eastern Bloc country where something really bad happened. This really bad thing was corralled into an exclusion zone. Your team is entering the zone to snatch goodies and anomalies and haul them out. People often refer to this game as being themed around a series or set of genre books called STALKER, Roadside Picnic or Metro 2033. I am not familiar with any of these sources, but the author calls them out. I was thinking more along the lines of the Natalie Portman vehicle: Annihilation or the real life Chernobyl Incident. The game is agnostic enough where you can tailor the setting to fit your own needs.

Now, with a rambling pre-amble out of the way, let's get into the game.



You can read the rest of the review at the Blog: https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-zona-alfa-osprey-games.html

I of course pre-ordered this as soon as I could, hving follow3d the author’s thread over on LAF. This is one of those games that I am really dying to play. Thanks for your thoughts as always!

Game's a good start, but it's got some big errors and balance issues. Definitely feels pushed out the door.

Thanks, good review. It answers what I have been unsuccessfully asking about this game for months: what's the unique thing it offers compared to the dozen other indy skirmish games out there.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Game's a good start, but it's got some big errors and balance issues. Definitely feels pushed out the door.

It was not pushed out the door. As Manchu states, it has been in development for sometime. I also followed the LAF thread as it was being made. That said, there are some balance issues. I have yet to find a campaign oriented game that doesn't. The more options you put in, the more likely you are going to break the game!

As the designer himself says, the main goal was to get guys on the table with a high cool quotient. I think balance concerns were a bit secondary to the 'Rule of Cool' with this game. I honestly think it was intended to be more you (and your player buddies) vs the Zone more than anything else.

For example, a Veteran with an automatic weapon can fire a lot of lead, especially if they score a critical and get the extra action. That means, they can wipe out whole squads of threats in one action. When they are shooting at Zone Hostiles that is pretty epic cool! When they are lead hosing your guys in a PvP game it is not as cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Thanks, good review. It answers what I have been unsuccessfully asking about this game for months: what's the unique thing it offers compared to the dozen other indy skirmish games out there.

I actually find the action system in this game to be very clever. It is basically an "action point" system only without wasting the time and tracking on action points.

I read through this one, too, and agree on the interesting part of actions based on experience of the model. That is kinda neat, and I liked that. I haven't played a game yet, though.

And yeah, I think that inevitably, campaign games are not going to be "balanced" in the long term, because there are just too many permutations to be able to effectively playtest that balance, and you also hit a point where even if it was balanced for a while, if you go longer than "the average campaign" you wind up building combos of skills that just really aren't balance-able. That said, lots of people (myself included) enjoy campaigns, so it's perfectly reasonable to include them. You just have to realize that at some point, you're gonna "game the system" for pretty much every campaign system.

My brother and I just picked this up and have played through the opening mission. Tomorrow we'll start our own campaign. We've already encountered some things that we've had to house-rule around, but I think overall the game is pretty good. Combat feels appropriately dangerous but good use of medpacks can keep your team going for longer. The Zone feels dangerous, and I would often let my brother activate a hotspot and deal with the threat while I would sneak in and grab the artifact.

Definitely open to abuse from power gamers - when you make your initial gang roster, you just choose weapons and equipment from the list - you don't have to spend any money on them. There's no real reason not to take the best equipment. That's fine with me - we're just playing for fun.

I do wish there were more explicit rules about AI for the hostiles, and for some reason the modifiers for cover were more difficult to keep track of then they were meant to be. But overall it's a fun experience.

There's a nice bit of narrative-to-mechanic in justifying each model having 360 degree vision, basically saying "in the Zone, only the most alert stay alive. You have to have eyes in the back of your head." It simplifies things to keep it a tight skirmish game, but offers an in-universe justification that allows you to suspend your disbelief.

The only limit to initial gang creation is WYSIWYG on the models you have.

Regarding the AI hostiles, you might want ot check the solo-play rules as it might have more to say on that topic. I have not read them myself yet..... so no idea.

I agree with your comments on the game. I feel that it was made for multi-player for a group of friends more than anything else.

Guerilla Miniatures Gaming has a few nice video reports of Ash playing Zona Alfa. If I already wasn't into Gaslands, This is Not a Test, and Draculas America, I would definitely give it a go.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Guerilla Miniatures Gaming has a few nice video reports of Ash playing Zona Alfa. If I already wasn't into Gaslands, This is Not a Test, and Draculas America, I would definitely give it a go.

Ash is the best thing that ever happened to indy game designers, isn't it?

Worst thing to ever happen to my gamer ADD, though.

Yeah, I'm not give this a free pass. If they wanted more coop, they should have not been so scattered and made a coop only game, then added PvP later.

There's also issues with things like enemy AI, even the GZG games crew points it out in later videos. Lots of problems overall, so best to wait for second edition.

Heck, I think Zone Raiders actually does this better.

Nice review, Easy.