Dark Heresy - Enemies Beyond : Review

(Back you fiends! Back to hell!)

So here we are with the third and possibly final book in Dark Heresy 2E's series of sourcebooks dedicated to the major Ordo's of the Imperial Inquisition.

Overview :

Enemies Beyond deals with the Ordo Malleus, the oldest and most secretive of the three primary Ordo's of the Imperial Inquisition. The Ordo Malleus are Daemon Hunters, dedicated to preventing Daemonic Incursion wherever possible, and putting an end to them where they cannot. Theirs is a secretive war that by necessity is hidden from the bulk of the Imperium's population, with only their peers in the Inqusition and figures in equally high positions of authority fully aware of their work.

Just like the other two books in this series Enemies Beyond contains new backgrounds, homeworlds, roles, talents and equipment of great use to the Daemon Hunters and those who serve them. The book also provides the new Astropath elite advance and two new Psychic Disciplines in the form of Sanctic and Malefic daemonology as well as rules for the creation of Daemonhosts and rites of summoning, binding and exorcism.

In addition to these new rules the book provides further background material focussed around the Askellion Sector and the Daemonic incusions that have plagued it over the millenia. The book also contains general information on the Ordo Malleus, their methods and servant as well as an overview of the four great Gods of Chaos and the nature and methods of their Daemonic servants.

Let's take a more detailed look shall we?

Fluff :

The quality of the fluff and background writing remains excellent, and I very much enjoyed the short story at the start of the book which gives an excellent piece of insight into the operations of an Ordo Malleus team of acolytes and how they operate.

The book begins in the same manner as the other two, with an overview of the Ordo Malleus, how they operate, and the enemies that they face as well as the methods they use to attain their goals and battle the Enemy Beyond. This is followed by a short analysis of Radicalism within the Ordo Malleus and the types of Acolytes they make use of. This is followed by fluff information dedicated specifically to the Askellion Sector and the oft-mentioned Vaxi Atrocity which is examined in greater detail from the perspective of the Ordo Malleus and it's part in that calamitous event.

This is followed by overviews of the four Chaos Gods, the manner in which they and their servants operate in the Askellion sector (with Nurgle being the most prominent amongst them), and the nature of those that dedicate themselves to the dark powers. Next come details on a selection of power groups (both Inquisitorial and otherwise) that are either composed of or are of interest to the Ordo Malleus. These are particularly interesting, and an excellent source of allies and antagonists for games set in the Askellion sector, as well as of ideas for games set elsewhere.

The entirety of Chapter 1 is peppered with sidebars detailing famous inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus (including Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Covenant and Torquemada Coteaz) as well as a selection of events and notable daemons that threaten the Askellion sector.

The third chapter of the book contains more fluff information, starting with overviews of a number of planets / installations suitable as sites for Malleus adventures. These include the Daemon World of Kul, the Prison World of Nexum, and the Astronomicon Relay Station The Emperor's Song. Each of these is accompanied by alternate rules for characters hailing from that world, as well as details on the unnatural fiends that threaten those worlds and an investigation template that can be used to build a full adventure or provide ideas and hooks for one set elsewhere

Next come details on the servants of the Chaos Gods, their Daemons. I'll go into my issues with the provided crunch for these creatures in the appropriate section, but for the most part the fluff is solid even if it's nothing new to long time 40k players. Just like the planetary information sections each God's section is followed by an investigation template, providing further ideas for adventures.

All of the above are useful, being an excellent source of ideas and adventure hooks for anyone planning to run a Malleus based adventure. Along with the smaller sections of fluff such as item descriptions and information scattered throughout the book Enemies Beyond retains the high writing quality of the previous publications in the series and it is an absolute pleasure to simply read idly in addition to it's use as a source book.

Though the fluff is overall very good, I do have a pair of issues which are not necessarily Fantasy Flight's fault. The first is that the book overwhelmingly focusses on the forces of the four major gods of chaos, with virtually no mention being made of unaligned daemons such as furies and other such minor warp entities. I take issue with this as I've always been a fan of Undivided/Unaligned daemons, despite the fact that in recent years Games Workshop's fluff has leaned towards completely sidelining such entities in favour of the four primary gods. Enemies Beyond even follows through on the recent(ish) fluff decision that Daemon Princes MUST ascend due to the intervention of one of the four, rather than the older fluff that claims that a mortal can achieve Princedom via a variety of different methods and that there are other gods and warp entities of tremendous power in the warp aside from Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeench. I dislike this change, as to my mind these changes are imposing a degree of unecessary order and limitaiton on entities that are, by their very nature, chaotic. The warp is vast, technically infinite, and it's impossible to catalogue everything that lurks in it's depths or that claims some sort of twisted divinity.

Secondly we have the Exorcised role and the books rules for performing Exorcisms. Both claim that once a character has been exorcised they can never again be possessed by the Daemon that possessed them. This is a change from the older fluff that stated that once a character has been possessed and exorcised they are COMPLETELY immune to Daemonic possession in any way, shape and form. Again I favour the older fluff, as it makes characters that have undergone Exorcisms that bit more special, as well as linking into the long standing fluff of the Exorcists Space Marine chapter and their brutal training methods.

Both of these complaints are purely personal and subjective complaints, but then what else is a personal blog for? Aside from those two issues the rest of the fluff is very solid and I have nothing else to really complain about.

Crunch :

So we've taken a good hard look at the fluff provided in the book, what about the actual rules? Well there's a LOT to cover, if nothing else Enemies Beyond provides plenty of options both for the players and the GM to play around with, something I'm a big fan of. It's impossible to accuse Fantasy Flight of skimping on content with these books, something I've really come to appreciate as whether or not you're running games using the opponents each book is dedicated to you'll still find something of use to you or your players.

After the introduction and overview of the Ordo Malleus we move onto Chapter 2, which begins with more character options for the servants of the Ordo Malleus (and as I've just stated, the other Ordo's as well). We begin with a selectin of new homeworlds in the form of Daemon Worlds, Penal Colonies and Quarantine Worlds. Next up we have a new Background, the Exorcised (which I'm very much a fan of despite the minor fluff issue that I've already mentioned), and the Crusader role for melee based characters. I really like the Crusader role, partially due to my own love of the concept of armoured, sword and shield bearing warriors marching into battle in a science fiction (well, let's be honest Science Fantasy/Horror) setting.

All of these are interesting and well thought out, providing interesting new options to the players, though just like in the other books there are a few odd choices when it comes to Characteristic Modifiers and the like. The Crusader's special role ability is particularly powerful, giving as it does a +X bonus to melee weapon damage and penetration whenever they attack an opponent with a Fear value, where X equals that value. I don't regard it as being overpowered however, due to it's relatively narrow application, though of course the usefulness of the ability varies depending on what kind of opponents they're going up against.

The final character option provided by the book is the Astropath Elite Advance. I like the fact that this has been added in as a separate advance from the standard Psyker (though the Psyker advance is a prerequisite), and the advance itself comes with a selection of unique talents that both evoke the supernatural flavour of these blind mystics as well as providing them some very useful mechanical abilities. The Astropath advance is accompanied by a selection of Astrpath-specific psychic powers, and whilst I understand the reasoning behind their restriction I personally see no reason why they shouldn't be available to any Psyker with access to the Telepathy discipline. The Mind Scan power in particular is one that I would personally regard as being a common weapon in the arsenal of any Inquisitorial telepath.

Once past the character options we move onto some new Reinforcement Characters (the Culexus Assassin and Daemonhost), which though solid in and of themselves suffer from being Reinforcement Characters. I've already made my opinion of that particular mechanic clear in previous reviews, so I shan't belabour my repeatedly made point. The chapter them moves onto the equipment section, which is stuffed full of powerful and useful wargear ranging from Psycannons and Daemon Hammers to Heavy Power Armour and Psyocculae. The rules are all solid and my girl in particular got a little overexcited when I mentioned that the book contained stats for Power Glaives due to her unholy love for polearms. Personally I'm a boring old Sword and Board man.

Just like the previous books Enemies Beyond contains a selection of unique "relics", each of which is more than suitable as the focus of an adventure, or even a series thereof. Unlike the xenos and heretical artifacts of the previous publications these are all remnants of Daemonic Incursions and are all of great value to the appropriate parties. Following these "Daemonic Remnants" are the rules for the creation and use of Daemon Weapons, which though somewhat perfunctory are fairly useful. Personally I've always been a fan of the slightly excessive rules found in the ancient Realm of Chaos books, but if you've got access to the Black Crusade books then there's plenty of scope for overlap between the two.

After the artifacts and daemonic items we've got the rules for two more Psychic Disciplines, namely Sanctic and Malefic daemonology. For those unaware these are a pair of disciplines that deal directly with Daemons and the raw power of the warp. Sanctic daemonology focusses on banishment, exorcism and a mixture of defensive and flame based offensive powers. Malefic daemonology is instead a tool for Daemon summoners and provides powers that augment their authority over the denizens of the warp as well as debuffs and a few offensive abilities. This is followed by some basic rules for summoning which again I find somewhat lacking, especially compared to the rules for daemonic rituals in the Black Crusade books which I'm a big fan of. I honestly think that Enemies Beyond should have contained similar rules instead of a simple series of Forbidden Lore and Willpower tests, one of the few failings of the book in my opinion.

Now we come to some more character options, in the form of a selection of new talents. While most of these focus on both resisting the foul influences of Daemonic entities (as well as augmenting the abilities of Daemon Summoners and other such characters) there are also a few very useful talents applicable to any kind of acolyte band. There's a good selection of talents all of which I can see plently of application for, both for the DH party I'm running with my girl, and the bunch of penal legion reprobates I'm sporadically putting through hell with Infinity Circuit and company.

After the talents we have the rules for Daemonhosts, Exorcism and Possession. Unlike the aforementioned rules for Summoning these are quite comprehensive, dealing with the generation of statistics for Daemons, different types of possession, varying binding strengths for Daemonhosts, and reasonably comprehensive rules for exorcism and surviving possession. All of these rules are solid, with plenty of options for representing different types of daemons each with their own methods for corrupting and consuming those they are bound to. All positives, and I'm sure plenty of GM's will get a lot of use out of them, especially if they have one or more players who they can trust to be their "Inside Man" when setting up stories and adventures based around Daemonic Possession.

Next up we have one of my favourite parts of the book, the rules for Daemonic Pacts. Daemonic Pacts are deals that players and NPC's can make with the denizens of the warp, giving them some sort of benefit in exchange for service, a sacrifice, or some other kind of price. I love these as a plot device and mechanic as they allow players and antagonists to dabble with the Daemonic without delving into possession, summoning, or other overt daemonic manifestations. That and I've always enjoyed the idea of power coming at a price, and playing with how far a character go when sufficiently desperate or driven. As well as rules for entering into a pact in the first place the rules present 7 different kinds of pact, each with a selection of Boons and Banes that effect the character making the pact.

Boons are the direct benefits of the pact, with examples being longevity, knowledge, martial might, familiars and psychic power. Banes are the pacts downside, and range from obvious effects such as mutations and insanity to more subtle effects such as obsessions and the wonderfully flavourful "Subverted Doom" bane which causes a close friend or ally to die instead whenever a character uses a Fate Point to prevent their death. Finally characters entering into a pact must also pay it's price, in the form of service to their Daemonic patron, sarifices, sacreligious observances, or the damnation of their soul.

All in all I really like the Pact rules, and intend to make good use of them in the future.

Finally we have what I would regard as the most underwhelming set of rules in the book, those for the daemons of the four Chaos Gods. Whilst I wish that the book had rules for unaligned and unusual daemonic entities other than the usual Bloodletters, Horrors, Daemonettes and the like, I do realise that in a book dedicated to the Ordo Malleus such stats are necessary. That's not my real issue though, whilst I appreciate that the book (combined with the Core Rulebook) provides rules for the common Daemonic servants of the Four Gods as well as for Daemon Princes, the problem is that it does nothing to make them seem, well, Daemonic.

Perhaps I should be clearer, the rules provided for the various Daemons, Gifts and the like are fine, but they simply make the Daemons in question feel like stat blocks and piles of wounds that can be treated like any other enemy. The book does nothing to make fighting Daemons feel special, aside from the bog standard Baneful Presence and a short section on how to utilise relics and legacies of a Daemon Princes mortal life as weaknesses and weapons against them (which admittedly I really do like). I think that Daemon's should be something special, beyond the aliens and heretics that the Ordo's Xenos and Hereticus battle against on a day to day basis. Perhap's that's something I'll address in the future, but for the purpose of this review I'll simply say that the Daemon rules are perfectly servicable, though nothing special.

Art :

Much like the other books in the series, that in Enemies Beyond remains very solid, with a variety of artists providing some excellent pieces of work to illustrate the work of the Ordo Malleus and the threats that they face. Unfortunately due to the subject matter of the book there's a fairly large amount of John Blanche "art" within it's pages, not that it's unexpected due to how much he's produced over the years on the subject of Daemons. That aside though the art remains very good, I'm still a fan of the layout, and there are perhaps two or three pieces in the entire book that I'd class as being or poor quality by comparison to the rest of the illustrations.

I realise that I've basically been repeating myself for all three of these reviews, but in all honesty there's little else to say about the quality of the art in these books. For the most part it's excellent, there's a little bit of reprinting from older Fantasy Flight publications, John Blanche continues to rear his messy, badly painted head, and there are a handful of less than stellar illustrations here and there. That's about it, and to be honest it's not an unfavourable assessment of these books art quality.

Conclusion

Overall Enemies Beyond is another solid entry into Fantasy Flight's catalogue of Dark Heresy products. It's content ranges from excellent to passable, though in my opinion there's considerably more of the former than the latter. I find this book to be a very good resource both for GM's and players, and I'd more than recommend purchasing it whether you're running a Malleus centred group or not, if only for the story ideas and extra character options.

So, with that said we've come to the end of the current crop of releases for Dark Heresy 2nd Edition, all of which I own with the exception of the adventure Forgotten Gods. Unfortunately nothing else has been announced for the game line since the release of Enemies Beyond, and it's entirely possible that nothing will be. Even so I'm happy with what we've had, and my girl and I have been having a lot of fun with our characters and adventures. I'm planning to go into more detail with regards to those adventures soon, with my girl and I intending to write up and chronicle both the adventures themselves and the house rules that we've adopted over the last year or two.

Watch this space kids, and venerate the Immortal Emperor.

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael

Kickstarter Unboxing : Deadzone Infestation

So, it's time for another Kickstarter unboxing. I've had this one in my hands for a good month now, which has given me plenty of time to go through its contents and formulate my opinion thereof. I've been looking forward to this Kickstarter for a while, as my beta test review indicates, and I'm really happy with what I've gotten out of it.

So without further ado, let's get down to the nitty gritty.

Also yes I'm aware it's hardly an unboxing when you do it a month or two after you've already opened it and gone through the contents. Shut up.

What Did I Get? :

Weeell, quite a bit, actually. Like all Mantic Kickstarters this one certainly didn't skimp on content. Specifically I paid for the Quarantine Pledge and went for the Enforcer faction booster. I also paid a bit extra for the deluxe gaming mat which I'll talk more about later.

I'll start with the Terrain, which as you'd expect is part of Mantic's signature Battlezones terrain system. Just like the original range it's a selection of panels and accessories that can be clicked together to construct buildings, watch towers, industrial machinery and the like. This set comes with a LOT more accessories, in the form of fans, conveyor belts, walkways and a LOT of piping. I absolutely love this stuff, it's amazing terrain for the cost and as well as being nice and durable (being made of hard plastic) it looks really damn good.. Even my girlfriend who is not a fan of the early Battlezones set's chunky appearance really loves the industrial feel of this terrain.

Next up are the models, almost all of which are the same hard plastic that Mantic are shifting into using and that Games Workshop have been using for years. I got a good selection of models in my Kickstarter, which are as follows...

• 10 Enforcer Pathfinders.
• 5 Enforcer Peacekeepers.
• 2 Pathfinder D.O.G Drones.
• 2 Enforcer Jetbikes.
• 10 Veer-myn Night Crawlers / Night Stalkers.
• 2 Veer-myn Shredders.
• 5 Forge Fathers Steel Warriors
• 1 Enforcer / Plague / Reb Strider (This model is sadly not in hard plastic, instead being made of the resin plastic Mantic used for a lot of early models.)

All of the above models come with plenty of weapon and equipment options, such as Defender Shields for the Peacekeepers, Sniper Rifles and melee weapons for the Pathfinders, and a selection of weapons for the Jetbikes that the published rules don't actually allow them to use... making me think the kit was pre-designed for the upcoming Warpath 2nd Edition release. I also got a few resin models

• N7-117, an Enforcer special character.
• The Piper and his rats, a Veer-myn special character.
• Blaine on Jetbike, the signature model that I really don't care about.

All of the models are really nice, well sculpted with plenty of detail and loads of extras and gubbins making them a delight for converters and obsessive bitz-box fillers like me. They're well posed and easy to put together too, the fact that they're mostly in hard plastic making them far more durable once they've been assembled with poly cement, minimising the need for pinning. The resin models are, just like those I received in my Dungeon Saga Kickstarter, are really crisply sculpted and look amazing. I'm really looking forward to getting some of these fella's assembled and painted.

There are some minor issues, the larger models (namely the Peacekeepers and Shredders) seem a bit sparse in terms of detail compared to the other models, feeling like they've been sculpted at a smaller scale and then upsized. Unlike the awful Valandor model from Dungeon Saga however they're still detailed enough that it's not really an issue, it's just noticeable by comparison.

Here are a few of the models blu-tacced together for your viewing pleasure. Again I apologise for the poor quality of the pictures due to me being restricted to a phone camera, but I think you can make out a reasonable amount of detail. From left to right on the back row we have my jetbikes, Blaine, the Piper, and NC7-117. On the front row we have a Night Crawler, a Steel Warrior, a Peacekeeper, a pair of Pathfinders, a D.O.G Drone and the Piper's rat swarms.

My absolute favourites out of my models are the jetbikes, which you can see here. There's something about the design that I adore, they're a perfect mixture of sleek and chunky, and the pair of stabilising vanes mounted on either side of the fuselage can be fitted as shown above or in a reverse position to frame the rider, both options looking equally cool. To be honest, it may be their resemblance for Imperial Scout Bikes that's winning me over, but is that such a bad thing?

I really do love the heavy, rubberised game mats that Mantic have released for Deadzone. Pictured here are my rubber mat and the basic paper version, both of which have the same print on them but the rubber version is simply superior in every way. If you're planning to play a lot of Deadzone, thoroughly recommend that you pick up the rubber version, it gives you a far more stable playing surface and is more resistant to accidental beverage based catastrophes.

Here we have the core rulebook, the Infestation campaign book, a small (A5) art print, the games counters, dice, and a small leaflet which has a Containment Protocol warning on the one side and a short letter from Mantic on the other

I'm a big fan of the small rulebook, it's solid, portable, well made, and presents the rules in a simple and straightforward manner. That's not to say it's perfect, as there are a few rules issues that I'll go into later in this post, and there are some problems with the layout that put me off somewhat, but overall it's a really solid rulebook. Said issues are a little messiness with the unit rules layouts, with said layout not being identical due to the size of the model pictures being used. It's a really daft, minor problem but my vaguely obsessive nature takes issue with it.

A greater problem is that there are a number of models who's unit photos are either repeated multiple times (this being the case for the Rin Nomad and Hund Rebel Bounty Hunter), or instead of having a photograph of the model have a placeholder symbol. I know full well that several of the models with these symbols did have concept art or sculpts when the book was released, so the failure to illustrate them is a bit lazy in my opinion.

The Infestation book is likewise a solid, well made little paperback that complements the core rules well. The counters are nice and thick, with just enough weight to them to make their scattering around the battlefield as models are moved a little less likely. The art print is alright, but it's too small for me to want to put it up anywhere, though I appreciate it's presence. I do like the small warning poster, and the letter to the backers on the other side is a nice touch and a nod towards the fans.

Here are the Command Dice, which I'll go into the use of later in this review. These are one of the few things in this Kickstarter that I feel a little let down by. The dice themselves feel strange, almost sticky in texture, making me think they're made of some very cheap plastic. Furthermore as you can see on the above picture the symbols on them are really poorly painted, with the pain smearing in and out of the recesses and giving them a very messy, non uniform appearance. I know it's a really minor quibble, but still I'm a little disappointed. I'll probably pick up some more at some point, once I can confirm the quality of them has improved.

Right, that's it for my physical rewards, let's move on to the game itself.

Fluff :

The core rulebook that came with my pledge doesn't really expand on the fluff provided in the first edition book and in the supplements that were released for it. The book itself focuses primarily on the rules of the game, which I'll get to in the next section of this review, and to be honest I appreciate that. Being a long time 40k player I'm used to a good 70% of the rulebook being filled with fluff, art and utterly unnecessary painting tips and model galleries. It's a breath of fresh air to have a rulebook which is just that, a book of rules.

What little background and story information the book contains consists of a single page spread near the start of the book, a half page for each faction in their respective army lists, and a sentence or two of fluff text for each of the available units. Like I said I'm not complaining, however I think for players fresh to the Deadzone/Warpath universe the contents of the box don't give them a properly detailed introduction to the setting and factions. That said the Deadzone/Warpath universe is still very young, especially in comparison to venerable franchises such as Warhammer 40,000, Warmahordes and the like.

The Deadzone Infestation supplement, on the other hand, is much heavier on story and background information as you'd expect from a campaign book. It provides an overview of the planet where the campaign takes place, it's history, and goes through each faction and their reasons for being interested in Exham IV and the orbiting facilities of Priory Station. Much like the earlier Nexus Psi and Contagion expansions there's plenty of fluff and a set of campaign rules specific to the planet in question, all of which is well written and provides valuable little story and fluff details.

Overall the quality of the fluff is solid, the Infestation book in particular doing a good job of depicting the Deadzone/Warpath universe as a suitably grim science fiction setting. It's got a much better feel to it than the background I've read for Mantic's fantasy products, and as I stated in my original Deadzone review it's a setting that I'd like to read more about and that I'm enjoying seeing expanded upon.

Currently the primary repository for Deadzone/Warpath (Deadpath?) setting information is the Warpath Universe website. As well as a basic overview of the setting the website also provides PDF dossiers for each faction, useful to new players of both Deadzone and Warpath in addition to providing extra detail for fluff lovers like myself. The original drafts of these dossiers were lack luster at best, and included a fair few self contradictory statements and fluff issues but I'm glad to see they've been ironed out over time and though there's still plenty I'd like to know about the setting the website is moving in the right direction.

Crunch :

So now we come to the rules of the game itself. I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail as I've already gone over the core rules of the game in both my original Deadzone review and my Beta game rules review. Instead I'll focus on what's changed, and how that effects the game for the better or for the worse. Overall the rules have been streamlined, with several mechanics having been removed entirely in favour of a more straightforward and easier to understand system.

Most notably the Command Cards are gone, and have been replaced with Command Dice. Instead of drawing and keeping a hand of cards that are used to augment figures and grant additional actions each player instead rolls a variable number of Command Dice, each result of which allows the use of a single special ability ranging from activating an extra model, to a bonus dice on a check, to a specific special ability determined by the model acting as the Strike Force leader. I'm happy with this change, and in my beta games it helped the game flow faster. Additionally in the first edition the size of the Command deck and its exhaustion determined the length of the game, something that always felt a bit arbitrary to me.

Likewise the Morale system has been revamped, with the different "levels" of morale having been entirely removed and replaced with a much simpler set of rules. Models are either unaffected by their morale or "Pinned", represented by placing the model on their size. Models can be pinned by morale effects, psychic powers, suppressing fire, and the effects of powerful explosives. 

Effectively it combines both the mental effects of a morale system with the disorientation and confusion caused by explosives and concussive effects. Again I like it, as it's a simpler way of dealing with what was in all honesty as slightly over complicated system.

A few of the modifiers for actions have likewise been removed, leaving each action somewhat simpler to resolve and with fewer variables. This is one of the areas where I actually dislike what's changed, namely that the Support Fire action that allowed multiple models to "gang up" on a more powerful model and combine their attacks into a single more powerful assault has been removed. When playing one of my Beta games the lack of such a rule as well as the fact that I had minimal anti-tank weaponry in my strike force was a major issue. I suppose the change is to force a level of tactical flexibility in force selection, which I'm not going to complain about, but still I think that the ability to perform combined attacks should have been retained.

The games Victory Conditions have also been streamlined. Whereas originally the game finished when certain conditions were met or when the Command Deck was exhausted, now the game ends when one or both players have accrued a set number of Victory Points. Under the new rules all models are worth a set number of VP's determined by the model and any upgrades it has taken (see later in this review for details of that). Likewise objectives have a set VP value that is earned at the end of every turn by the controlling player, making a mobility based game a lot more viable. I vastly prefer this to the original rules, as it adds a level of tension to the game that wasn't previously present whilst simultaneously making the conditions whereupon the game will end abundantly clear to all players.

Force selection has been altered, with a force consisting of one Leader model (and only one), along with any number of Troops, up to one Specialist per Troop, and on vehicle per three troops. In and of itself that's nice and simple, and multiple leaders were only really necessary in the original game as backups should the Strike Force leader be killed. Models are still able to take Items, with items being split into different Rarities the exact number of items available of each rarity being determined by the points value of the game. I don't have any issues with this, but I do find the naming convention in use somewhat odd, being in order of rarity from lowest to highest Common, Rare and Unique. I'd have used Common, Uncommon and Rare instead, seeing as the "Unique" items are hardly unique in the grand scheme of things. But that's me, and little things like that bother me...

Yes I'm weird, deal with it.

Also, whereas each model had set equipment under the original rules (save for the ability to take a single item), now most models can upgrade their weapons and replace them with others. I like this, as it cuts down on unnecessary unit profiles and allows a greater degree of force customisation. The way it's been implemented however is needlessly complicated, with weapons being split into many different categories and sub categories that individual models have access to specific permutations thereof. For example an Enforcer Sergeant is armed with a Pistol and an Energy Gauntlet, and has access to the Leader, Small Arms and Light (Melee) categories. Likewise I think that when replacing a weapon models should reduce the cost of their upgrade by the cost of the weapon they're replacing, as in come cases models have quite powerful armaments by default and the additional cost of an upgrade on top of that can get rather prohibitive.

Some of these categories and what models have access to them don't seem to make a lot of sense, and there are numerous typos and obvious mistakes that make equipping certain models rather confusing. For example the Marauder Guntrack has access to the Vehicle (Heavy) category, but the table of weapons at the end of the Marauders section has no weapons in that category. Likewise the Enforcer weapons table includes an "Electro Shock" weapon, this weapon has no categories and no model in the Enforcer list is armed with it by default. It seems... rushed, though I'll go into that later in this review.

The campaign rules have undergone a few alterations too, and overall they feel a lot more fluid. The need to have "Clearances" for different model and equipment types has been removed entirely, which I'm very thankful for as it was an utterly unnecessary restriction. Instead a starting Strike Force is limited in how much special equipment they can take but otherwise follows the normal rules for force selection. The way models advance as they accrue experience has also been improved, with players now able to choose their advancements instead of having to roll for them. Perhaps more importantly the entire system has been reworked to be closer to Mordheim and Necromunda, with factions making exploration rolls, being able to hold certain territories, that kind of thing. It's a lot more open and accessible than a linear campaign progression, and I appreciate it. I also really like the flavour of the exploration rolls, with variables depending on what faction is rolling and so on and so forth.

I'm undecided on how the rules for battles between a Strike Force and an "Underdog" force have been altered though, originally as a model accrued advances and special abilities it's points cost increased, making forces smaller and more elite as their members advanced in level. Now instead the less experienced Strike Force gains a number of "Underdog Dice" which can be added to rolls over the course of the game. I've not played enough campaign games to determine which approach I prefer, but that's something I'm going to try to get around to over summer.

Other than those changes and a few other minor tweaks the core rules are unchanged, and quite frankly that's a good thing as they didn't really need changing. I appreciate that Mantic don't feel the need to change everything when they update a game, and with the exception of my minor issue with the removal of combined attacks I think the rules have been greatly improved.

However while the rules themselves are very solid, a fair few of the entries for individual models have rules that are blatantly incorrect. For example the Enforcer Strider lacks the Construct rule (which both other Strider variants have), and instead has the Scout special rule. This is an obvious mistake and it's not the only one, I've already mentioned the discrepancies with weapon selection earlier in this review but another example would be that the rules for how many Victory Points are needed to win a game when playing games larger than the standard 100pt size are, well, missing. There is a table for them, but the contents of that table are completely incorrect and seem to reference a mechanic that was removed from the game in one of its earlier incarnations. Again Mantic seem to have been in a bit of a rush to get the book printed, and whilst the mistakes aren't as egregious as those in their Dungeon Saga kickstarter they're still present and make the need for more careful editing very obvious.

Conclusion :

Despite the fact that the last paragraph or so may seem rather negative, overall I'm really happy with the second edition of Deadzone. I regard is as very much an improvement over the games first edition, it plays quickly, it plays well, and despite the slightly obnoxious number of mistakes it's still a well made product that I'm more than happy to recommend.

Mantic still have some issues with quality, not of their models necessarily but of their rulebooks, their editing, and their peripherals. While I realise that a Kickstarter reward is not necessarily the final product, indeed I hope they learn from the handful of mistakes they've made with the Kickstarter version of this game and release a more refined product for the retail release, it's still an issue that keeps rearing its head with their products.

That aside however I'm really happy with my Kickstarter rewards, and I'm looking forward to playing a lot more Deadzone over the rest of the year. The quality of the models and improvements to the rules have actually left me regretting that I didn't get in on the Warpath 2E Kickstarter, my concerns with Mantic's Kickstarter quality that reared their head with my Dungeon Saga rewards having been mostly negated by the improved quality of this one.

I'm looking forward to see what Mantic do next, and while I'm unlikely to back their upcoming Dreadball 2E Kickstarter, I'm certainly going to be keeping an eye on whatever they decide to work on next as well as looking forward to the retail release of Warpath.

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael