A Couple of Rules Reviews - A View of the Disunited Kingdom and The Zone

Taken from the Miniatures Page

Skirmish Wargaming in the Late C20th Century

Written by Wayne Bollands

ISBN: 978-1-85818-758-7

56 pages

Paperback

$29.00 from On Military Matters

A new "Cold War Gone Hot" rules set has hit the market, and I've gotten an chance to take a look at it. The only reference to the novel series is that shares the name, and something of the premise, but no hovercraft or hard as nails snipers to be found here! It's a shame, because that series was very, very gameable, both from a RPG and wargaming perspective. The production quality was fairly good, and I was pretty chuffed with it when I first got it, but there were some issues. 

First, I wasn't too happy that some of the gear mentioned in the squad organizations was not stated out in the game. Granted, an M113 is probably very much like an FV-432 in game terms, but it's really kind of phoned in IMO, or one size fits all ATGM?!

You can tell it's descended from "Living on the Frontline", which is a plus, (with some minor but needed changes to activation) and the game's system is very, very similar, if not identical, especially when the game mentions you can even resolve thrown bricks! (Something tells me the Soviet and East German views on suppressing rioting West Germans would be very different from, oh , say, the British in Northern Ireland). Again, my issues are more with what is missing, than what is present.

All in all, I got the feeling they took "Living on the Frontline", ported some elements over to make it more "Cold War Gone Hot" and then printed it. Like that recipe you taste and say, "it's good, but it just needs something." That said, the production values are nice, with gorgeous photos and readable text throughout. The system is solid, and very easy in execution, one wishes there was a bit more here.

Sorry gang, but I have to give this one 3 out of 5 Mushroom clouds. It's not bad, but it could be a lot better.

Authors Note: Wayne Bollands reached out on Facebook and pointed out some cogent points that I may not have elucidated enough on in my initial review. His comparison to Force On Force and derived rules is fair, and I would certainly take that under advisement. As a point being made that there are future supplements coming. I do look forward to seeing those.

We do try to be fair in our reviews at "500 Miles.." and we hope this note of clarification helps better explain the rating "The Zone" got.

Taken from the Miniatures Page

Living on the Frontline – Winter of 79: A View of the Disunited Kingdom

Wayne Bollands

ISBN: 978-1-85818-715-0

48 pages

Paperback

$29.00 from On Military Matters

This is a supplement for "Living on the Frontline" that thrashes out a potential scenario for a "Winter of '79" style "British Civil War". I really liked this book. For a Twilight: 2000 head like me, this is a really good alternate campaign idea and you can use this for a variety of ideas to set a campaign in a post-apocalyptic UK. It's certainly better than SGUK turned out to be, eh?

The book is in full color, and it's got a lot of nice one paragraph writeups of all of the various factions, including flags (which I suppose you could make flags for the various factions if you were so inclined?). I thought the product was solid, and it comes with additional rules for cavalry (riot cops on horseback anyone, or perhaps something more...basic, armed TA on horseback?)

It's also got nine scenarios, and I was very, very happy to see the variety of scenarios available, all of them easily adapted to the Twilight: 2000 milieu. The production values were solid, and I was happy with the ideas behind the scenario laid out in the book as a means to further putting troops on the table, or even role playing? All in all, this is a good purchase, and I would recommend it. 4 out of 5 mushroom clouds here.