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.

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. 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!Scenic items, tokens or chits to mark the important Points of Interest locations on the tabletop, as well as ones for the strange and dangerous micro–rifts in reality known as Anomalies. Whatever you choose, they should be distinct and easily identifiable to all players. 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: The Mission Objective was a cache of supplies in the old factory. There was a Six Turn Limit and no Visible Hostiles in sight.

As far as anything left out, no. Zona Alfa is meant to be a simple, reliable system. Over four decades playing table top wargames, board games, and RPGS, I never ceased to be amazed at the imagination and creativity of the gaming community. I felt the best thing I could offer would be a set of tools for people to stat out their miniatures, form salvage crews, and undertake their own missions in the Exclusion Zone. Like any specialty area of interest, wargames have their own jargon. Here are some terms and concepts you’ll need to know for Zona Alfa. When you do hit, there are armor saves. Depending on what you pulled from a dead stalker or bought in the stalls, this will drastically improve your chances of survival. Some weapons or ammunition are also better at penetrating armor. If you fail this save, you’re down unless you have a med kit. If you do make the save, you have to take a Will test to see if you have to change your underwear after getting plugged with a 7.62. A zone event, an anomaly shift will take place at the start of turn 4. The crew move up to the top RH corner of the board to search the POI, next turn. This will not affect the crew as they will be out of range.

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Why Alternating Activation? Simply because I’m not a fan of IGO-UGO turn sequences. My goal is to keep all players on both sides involved as much as possible, acting and reacting to events as they unfold in the course of a game turn. IGO-UGO doesn’t do that for me. Setting. All Kontraband missions take place in the dangerous and unstable Deep Zone, an area filled with mystery, monsters, anomalies, and artifacts. As such, players will control only Veteran level characters, each with three Actions, two Skills, and three Equipment Slots. Also, a player can field a maximum of four characters per mission, not including any NPCs added for narrative purposes.

Turn Three and Four saw both sides scrupulously avoiding any more secondary Hot Spots, moving wide around them to avoid the triggering radius, and trading fire, trying to Kill or at least Pin their opponents. The race to the Factory was on. Well I’m obviously going to keep playing, making crews and terrain, and posting Battle Reports. I’m fortunate to be part of a great local gaming group and Zona Alfa is definitely in the rotation.So, you decided to sneak past the Cordon, eh? Slip by the patrols and the towers, through the minefield, under the electric fence, to take your chances in the Exclusion Zone. 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. A 2 v 2 game, Other Pat and I faced off against Matt and John. Each player was allowed 12K to form their crews. In typical authoritarian fashion, Matt’s Evil Landlord and a Property Manager Henchman rousted the Serfs, kitted them with AKs and E-Juice (Amphetamines and Vodka) gave them a rousing speech and sent them into battle. The rest of us opted for more balanced forces with a mix of Veterans and Hardened Zone dogs. 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.