Day 2: Bulat Depot

Another KONTRABAND AAR Second day of an expedition in the deep Zone. The crew’s search for artifacts takes them to the Bulat Depot, a small outpost that serviced military vehicles in the pre-Incident days. Nine Points of Interest Locations and two Anomalies, our characters must not only extract more artifacts but salvage much-needed supplies. (*Live […]

ZONA ALFA: KONTRABAND

NOW AVAILABLE AT WARGAME VAULT and AMAZON *** KONTRABAND – More Salvage and Survival in the Exclusion Zone. 1. What is KONTRABAND? 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 […]

Pavels at the 107

*a quick Anomaly terrain piece for ZONA ALFA/KONTRABAND. Pavels at the 107 The Nuretsky brothers, Big Pavel and Little Pavel, are on a job for the trader, Savak Tul, delivering food and ammo to a stalker camp on the southern perimeter. They stop for the night near a well-known landmark: the ‘107’ – an abandoned […]

Nespokiyna Tysha

Restless Silence A Zona Alfa Battle Report Occasional Tom and I managed to carve out some game time. We were determined to put the new Solo/Cooperative “Point of Interest” rules through their paces. The idea here is to replace the usual set number of Hot Spots/Mission Objective with more numerous ‘points of interest’, all of […]

“Wrong Turn, Alexei.”

A ZONA ALFA Battle Report. Help! This is convoy S37. Can anyone hear me? We’re holed up in an old industrial facility by a swamp and these huge rats and ghoul things are swarming us. The drivers are dead. So are the scientists. Now there’s only two of us left. Anyone, come quick. We’re running […]

ZONA ALFA Terrain Contest

Held the first ever ZONA ALFA contest over at the Book of Faces S7 group, a small terrain piece for a 3″ x 5″ base. (or thereabouts) Received 11 solid entries, lots of support and encouragement, then had an incredibly difficult time selecting winners. At the end of the deliberations, 3rd place went to Kieran […]

Zone Hostiles

Zona Alfa is a competitive, multi-player game where you and your opponent fight to accomplish mission objectives and acquire valuable salvage. However, other players aren’t the only enemies you need to be worried about in the Exclusion Zone. Each game feature a central Mission Objective, as well as a number of Hot Spots. These are […]

In the Zone

*the following is an edited version of my recent interview in Miniature Wargames magazine. It offers an overview on ZONA ALFA development and game play. Can you introduce Zone Alfa? Zona Alfa: Salvage and Survival in the Exclusion Zone leans heavily into the fictional STALKER/METRO 2033 settings. If you’re not familiar, think Post-Apocalypse Soviet-style, in […]

Two new STALKERS

A couple new crew members for Zone runs, one a head swap on a Mongrel Miniatures Russian, the other on a fig from The Assault Group. Here are several shots from today’s game. An experienced STALKER crew happened to be in the neighborhood when a recon UAV went down in the town of Yoshkav-Ola. A […]

Footage from the Zone

The real Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl, that is. Perhaps I’ll take a tour there one day, but the place already seems strangely familiar because the game developers were faithful to reproduce not only the tone and aesthetic of the area, but actual buildings and locations. I’ll certainly reference this for inspiration for more Zona Alfa […]