I got invited to join a group of scavengers and STALKERs to
play the skirmish wargame Zona Alfa by Patrick Todoroff, published by Osprey
Wargames. What is Zona Alfa and what the
heck is a STALKER? Well, in very brief, the
former is a Russian-themed post-apocalypse scenario featuring extraterrestrials
and the reality bending detritus they left behind on Earth after a short
stopover. This area that the aliens
visited that is currently suffering errors in reality as humans understand it
is called The Zone. A STALKER Is an acronym
for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and
Robbers. Gentlemen (and gentleladies)
that explore The Zone are called STALKERs because they often fit all of these
categories depending on the situation and time of day. They are desperate people
scavenging for alien artifacts in the mutant, radiation and Anomaly-riddled Zone
for a massive payout. Assuming they survive unscathed. That’s a joke. No one
survives unscathed.
Zona Alfa, The Zone and STALKERs are based on the 1971 novel
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It is a great piece of Russian speculative
science fiction that spawned both the STALKER and Metro series of video games
and ultimately the skirmish wargame I am playing.
So, I bought the Zona Alfa pdf from Osprey, and initially
having no idea what I was doing because I was in a rush to play, I made a crew
of STALKERs for a game after a few hours of knocking around the rulebook. I was looking on the internet for advice on what
equipment, skills, weapons and units synergize well together; and after not
finding much help I decided to write this blog post with my initial assumptions
and crew combinations. Subsequent blog posts will discuss my adventures, and retrospective
analysis on if my setup and assumptions were worthwhile investing in or not. Let’s put some equipment together and go on an
adventure then, shall we?
When building a crew or squad in Zona Alfa you initially
have two considerations. How much Khrabrost do you have to spend to
assemble your squad, and what faction do you belong to? Khrabrost (Russian for ‘mettle,
bravery or courage’) boils down to the number of actions collectively your
squad has. This is used as a balancing
factor between opposing squads or squads engaging in campaign play. At any
rate, I have 12 Khrabrost (K) to spend for my side. I decided to take a Crew Leader (mandatory)
and 3 veteran units, each having 3 actions per activation (or in other words, 3K
per unit, for a total of 12K spent). Now
because actions per round are critical in this game, I’m looking for ways to enhance
the number of actions I have. There is
an item called Electric Juice (Meth and Vodka) which immediately grants two
additional actions, however only one action is allowed on the following turn. Because
I want to be able to run a blitz with the number of actions I have if I need to,
I stock every unit I own (4) with one Electric Juice item.
Now maximizing my actions is fine and all but I also want to
be able to hit when I use my actions for ranged combat. That’s why I chose the faction I belong to as
Military. Joining the Military faction gets you two Red Dot Sights and one load
of Hot Load Ammo to be distributed to your units as you see fit. A Red Dot
Sight gives you a +1 to the ranged attack combat ability roll at half the
weapon’s effective range or less, and it can only be affixed to pistols, SMGs,
Shotguns and good old Assault Rifles. Now I don’t want to stop there, so I give
two of my three veterans the Steady Hands skill, which gives them a +1 to
ranged attack rolls. You see, when I
shoot, I really really want to hit successfully. Most monsters and units in
this game only have 1 wound so if you hit successfully with a ranged shot and
the target misses their armor save, then they suffer a wound unless they have a
Med-kit.
Speaking of Med-kits my squad is a little vulnerable because
with the exception of my Crew Leader (who has two wounds) each veteran only has
one wound. So, not only do I give one
Med-kit to everybody, I make one of my veteran units a medic by giving him the
Bone Doc skill. The Bone Doc skill
allows the unit to carry 2 Med-kits per slot and Med-kits are enhanced, a
Med-kit can replace 1 wound with 1 pinned counter on allies and on self. Non-Bone Doc users of Med-kits replace 1
wound with 2 pinned counters. Pinned
counters negatively affect initiative outcomes and are generally bad things to
have, so I want as few of them as possible. I also give 2 smoke grenades to my
Bone Doc veteran. My hope here is that Bone Doc stays out of trouble and uses
the smoke grenades to set up a controllable field of fire for my two veterans
with Red Dot sights and Steady Hands, you know the guys who can shoot real
well, to optimize their killing field strategy.
Now this might be a liability because I’ve committed 3 actions per turn
to reside in the Bone Doc, but this is an experiment in tactics, so we’ll see
if I can manipulate the battlefield to my advantage with the tools I have
deployed.
Will this combination of skills, units and equipment work?
Only time will tell. The only thing for certain is that there is nothing for certain
in The Zone.
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