Excellent game. Everything you need in one book (with suggestions if you want to add).

The system is deceptively simple and it offers power levels of play...

Want ordinary folks in extraordinary circumstances? It's here.

Want extraordinary folks in for extraordinary circumstances? Here.

Want to play an Immortal, a Demi God or a "Super..."? Yep.

Get this... as source material alone, it is worth the price.

The AFMBE Character Journal is one of those products that is quite literally great on paper, but must better as a PDF resource. Why? Because for the price of the PDF and printer ink I can print out as many as I like. I can reorder pages, print multiple pages and assemble it all as needed. Typically that is a 3-ring binder with extra pages of paper. This journal follows in the same great level of artistic style that we come to expect from Eden. It looks like a spiral notebook, like the kind a zombie hunter might keep in a back pocket. But instead of lists of kills or notes on how to kill what supernatural beastie, this has all the information you need for your character. Plenty of room for qualities, drawbacks, skills and notes. And of course pages dedicated to weapons and gear. There is even a place to record how to kill what supernatural beastie.

It would also work good for WitchCraft or any of the other Classic Unisystem games, but no dedicated pages for Metaphysics.

A solid game backed up with extensive options to customise both characters and zombies. Its ideal for a quick pick-up game using the provided archetypes and one of the deadworlds contained within.

The only downside is this product isn't bookmarked which would be useful to those gamers using a tablet to read it.

This is one of the prettiest and best written game books I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across. The book is full-color, and chock full of pictures and quotes from the series. What truly makes the book stand out is the writing style. CJ Carella and his crew have written something that looks less like a rulebook, and more like a transcript of someone talking about the TV show, and how a game system for Buffy would work if he could just design one. The book is almost as funny and irreverent as the show it draws from, making this book an easy read.

Character Creation is a walk in the park. Even an inexperienced player can put together a Buffy character in about 15 minutes. There are two types of characters: Heroes and White Hats. Heroes get more points to play with in terms of attributes, skills, and qualities, and get 10 Drama Points (explained below), which cost more to buy with XP for them. White Hats aren’t as talented, but get 20 Drama Points to start, and they can buy more for half-price. This lets both the superheroes and the every-man-types to fight on the same battle field and be useful.

The key devices for Buffy characters are the Qualities and Drawbacks. Qualities are traits like the usual Merits we see in most games, but they also contain packages like Cop, Nerd, and, of course, Slayer and Watcher. These packages are a quick amalgamation of other Qualities and Drawbacks, as well as attribute and skill bonuses that help get your character where it needs to be.

Drawbacks are the other side of the coin. Only in Buffy will you find Drawbacks like Teenager and Showoff. Also, in keeping with the angst-ridden nature of the show, Love is either a Quality for those how live happily ever after, or a Drawback for its Tragic variant. Take a look at the character sheets of the Original Cast. Guess which version appears most often? Want full-write-ups of Buffy and her Scoobie Gang? The book does provide full character sheets for all the main characters up through Season Five, with a section devoted to Seasonal Adjustments so you can use earlier versions of them if you wish. Also, the book does not skimp on example characters for an entirely new cast. My personal favorite is the Slayer who was studying to get into college for a medical degree before getting Called, and though still has trouble dealing with the concept of magic, is very comfortable doing her own research. The book provides an entire cast of characters that goes along with this Slayer as a cast of its own show.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Core Rulebook is another game for the Unisystem rules, originally created for Eden’s Witchcraft game. This version of the Unisystem has been altered for a more cinematic feel, making it less rules-heavy and more drama oriented. Rules Lawyers won’t be happy with this, but for gaming groups that are more like improve acting troupes, this is game designed with them in mind.

The system is a basic d10 system, with the standard attributes and some fun skills (Gun Fu, Getting Medieval, Mr. Fix-It, etc). Just roll d10 and add in your stat and your skill ratings. A total more than 9 is a success, with various levels of success above that. Opposed rolls are one by who has the highest level of success. Simple, no? Average NPCs don’t even make rolls. They have Ability Scores that are simple values for the PCs to roll against to determine success. Full-on skill checks and character sheets are only for the Big Bads of the series.

The use of Drama Points allows for even normal White Hat-types to stand up and fight the good fight alongside the more powerful Heroes. They not only grant bonuses to die rolls, they can be used to get clues from the Director (this game’s version of a GM), do a quick heal to keep the character standing, or even bring the character back from the dead. Be warned though, the exact method of return is left to the Director’s discretion, and like Joss Whedon himself, she will surely come up with something unpleasant.

Probably the best feature of the game is how awards of Drama Points can be used by the Director as a kind of payment for doing unavoidable bad things to PCs. Need to have someone abducted? Pay them a Drama Point or two, depending on how much danger the character will be placed into. Oh, and Big Bads have Drama Points too, so the playing field is always level.

The combat system is just an extension of the skill system. Roll 1d10; get more success levels than your opponent. What you can do in combat is taken from a list of combat maneuvers, from a simple punch, to the infamous Spin Kick. Damage is off a simple equation where you just plug in your Strength rating for base damage, and then add your success levels for a bonus. The character sheet has a section to keep track of the number you add to your roll, base damage, and any little quirk a certain move might have, so once you try a move once, just jot it down, and you never need look it up again, making combat after the first couple game sessions flow smoothly and rapidly.

What really sets the combat system apart from most other games that I’ve played is how it allows for called attacks, and one-hit kills with simplicity that doesn’t unbalance the game, yet keeps the flavor of the vampire slaying intact. Decapitation, Stake Through The Heart, and Groin Shot are all standard combat maneuvers. Simply make an attack roll with a penalty, if you succeed, you calculate damage. Instead of applying it, multiply it and if this number exceeds a vampire’s Life Points, welcome to the dust pan. If not, just deal normal damage. This keeps things simple, and explains why it’s a good idea to beat on a vampire first before going for the kill shot, like they do on the TV show.

The magic system of Buffy is where the game makes its biggest departure from the original Unisystem. For those familiar with Witchcraft and Armageddon, there is no Essence. Anyone can cast ritual magic with the time and proper texts and components. Flashy, D&D-style casting and staking vampires through levitated pencils are reserved for Witches and Warlocks. In game terms, these are the people who take levels in the Sorcery Quality.

Like the rest of the system, casting is just a simple roll. Sorcery adds a bonus to it. Each spell has a power level, which is how many success levels are needed to make it work. The real fun begins is when, you do get successes, but not enough of them. Something happened. Just not what the Witch intended. Once again, we get that Joss Whedon touch, where the Director gets to exercise his twisted imagination in an exercise of a Hellmouth-tainted version of the Three-Fold Law. Magic is quite powerful in the Buffyverse, but the risk of using it can be quite high for the arrogant or unprepared.

The final chapters of the book deal with Sunnydale and how to run a Season of Episodes for your new Series. This book takes the TV show metaphor and makes it work, and is one of the best written treatises on adventure design, that I’ve seen, Buffy-related or otherwise. You also get quick NPC stats for most of the major villains of the series, as well as generic NPCs for vampire grunts and lieutenants, cops, high school students, and other creatures of the night.

The book ends with a Season Premiere episode that introduces a creature called the Djinn, which will be the running theme for adventures presented in the various Buffy books. I own all 5 supplements, and you can use these as a core for a Season with the Djinn as the Big Bad.

The Appendices gives you a quick quote file of all things Buffy, to let fledging fans have an idea of how the dialogue of a Buffy game should go in certain situations. It’s a bit of fluff, but its good fluff, and always worth a quick read even by experienced Buffy-holics just for the trip down memory lane.

This is one of the best written and well-thought-out role-playing games I have ever had the pleasure to come across. The rules are simple and cinematic. Everything positively drips with a taste of the Buffyverse (okay maybe I should rephrase that…). If you’re a gamer and a fan of the series, this is a must-have. If you’re just a fan, consider getting it just to read from time to time. You may find a new hobby. It’s great for both long-time fans and newbies alike.

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/10/08/tabletop-review-all-flesh-must-be-eaten-character-journal/

The All Flesh Must Be Eaten Character Journal is an odd duck. It basically amounts to an eighteen page character sheet, which just might be the longest one ever created for a game. Now, I’m a big fan of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and I try to review everything that comes out for it, like last month’s Band of Zombies, but this is the first ever release for the system where I honestly can’t think of any time I would ever use it.

Now, granted, we all need character sheets for our various games, be they printed off official versions or just written hastily on notebook paper. The problem is, I can’t think of a time you would want to have an eighteen page character sheet. Sure, the Character Journal gives you a lot of room to take notes on the events of your character’s life, but so much of the Character Journal is just unneeded space due to a character sheet for AFMBE being spread out from one page to eighteen. Do we really need two pages just for skills? A full page for Qualities? A full page for drawbacks? An entire page for weapons? How about that page where you just list the amount of ammo you have? No, you will NEVER need that much space. Oddly enough, you only get a tiny sticky note size space to write up your character’s personality. Obviously this Character Journal was not well thought out as, if anything, that’s where people need the extra room. I was glad to see a full page for character history, but that’s about the only thing about the Character Journal I think was done right.

I’m not sure why anyone would want to keep track of every zombie they have ever killed. That seems a little OCD/anal retentive, but you have a full page for that. Same with the space for tracking every head shot your character has ever made. That seems unnecessary and a little bit psychotic to boot. Basically, the Character Journal takes eighteen pages to do what you normally can do in just one or two pages, and that feels like a waste of paper, ink, and time to me. I would never even think of using this, nor can I think of any tabletop game where I would have the desire to need or want a sixteen page character sheet and two pages to act as covers for it. Now, if you CAN get use out of this, more power to you, but it seems fundamentally worthless to me. The more pages a character sheet is, the harder it is to find the information you are looking for, the more resources it wastes, and the easier it is to lose a page. The PDF version of the Character Journal isn’t an interactive version, allowing you to type information in or click a button to check things off (like the ammo), so you can’t use it digitally at all. You still have to print it off and handwrite everything on it, making it outdated and not very useful if you’re trying to stay electronic.

Obviously, this is not a release for me. It’s a product I neither understand nor can fathom how anyone would want such a thing. That said, the cover art is nice, the product is well laid out for something that spreads a one page character sheet over sixteen pages, and it is a neat idea for those that are pretty much only playing All Flesh Must Be Eaten and have characters in campaigns that will be going for years. Again, if you can find a use for this thing, good for you, because I can’t. My advice is just to print off a character sheet for the game, as it’s a saner alternative. The production values are high and I’m sure someone somewhere will get a kick out of this; it’s just not for me in any way, shape or form.

This is a detailed, elegant character log - it's far more than a mere 'character sheet' - that will let you record every detail of your All Flesh Must Be Eaten character. After all, it may be his only memorial.

It is presented well, with good effects from crumpled and bent edges to notes attached with paper clips. However, PDF technology has not been utilised to enable you to type and save your notes. You'll have to print it out and write on it.

If you use Adobe Reader, however, you can open the Comment section and use the Text tool in the Annotate menu to add your notes directly. Remember to save a copy of the PDF under a different filename first, so that you can repeat the exercise if (when?) your current character succombs to zombie jaws. This works quite well, although you need to be careful about positioning your text to appear just where you want it.

As a fully-detailed character log this is a good one... just hope that your character survives at least as long as it takes you to fill it out!

AM is a fun, easy to learn game with a good pace (and fun artwork). a wonderful little card game with an RPG feel. although I have not had a chance yet to introduce it to my grand children (they are only 3 and 2 currently), I look forward to seeing them enjoy it in years to come.

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/09/26/tabletop-review-derby-day-ghosts-of-albion-quickstart-rules/

Ghosts of Albion is an odd duck of an RPG. The electronic version of the game came out in 2008, but the physical copy wasn’t released until 2011. It uses a “Cinematic” version of the Unisystem rules, which is a system you might recognize from such RPGs as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conspiracy X, Army of Darkness and my personal favorite Eden Studios RPG – All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Ghosts of Albion is even odder in that unlike most licensed RPGs, which are based on comic books, TV shows, movies or video games, Ghosts of Albion is an eclectic mix of animated flash movies, novels, Realplayer Audio files and of course, the RPG. It was an interesting premise, but alas, Ghosts of Albion stopped being updated in late 2006, a full two years before the RPG came out and seven years before this latest version of the Quickstart Rules for the game. I myself didn’t discover Ghost of Albion until years after the BBC stopped producing anything for it, which is a shame because it’s all quite fun. The downside, of course, is that the lack of support by the BBC means Ghosts of Albion never found its deserved audience, especially for the RPG, which is a shame as it’s very well done. If you’re interesting in learning more, the BBC has archived the entire Ghosts of Albion series and who knows? Perhaps between the free animated films on the web and this quickstart set, you too might discover why Ghosts of Albion still has a small extremely devoted following.

There was an original version of the Ghosts of Albion Quickstart Rules released in June of 2007, but that was before my time and I can’t seem to find any evidence that Derby Day is a rerelease or updated version of those rules. This particular set just appeared on DrivethruRPG.com and RPGNOW.com on September 12th, so I’m going to treat this as a new release as it is to me and both major RPG PDF retailers. The good news is that this Quickstart Rules set is completely and totally free, so there’s no reason why you should click the link at the top of the review and download them ASAP. The better news is that the Quickstart rules are well done and feature an exceptionally long adventure that should take your troupe a few sessions to get through. By the time you’re done with Derby Day, I am pretty confident you’ll want to check out the core rulebook for Ghosts of Albion….which admittedly is a bit pricey with its $20 price tag for the PDF version and a $40 price tag for a physical copy.

The Derby Day PDF clocks in at forty-four pages, which is quick big for a set of Quickstart rules. They’re so well laid out I wish I had a physical copy of these to distribute to those that just won’t adapt to modern times and cling to dead tree versions of games. Half the document are the rules for playing Ghosts of Albion, along with six playable character sheets for the “Original Cast.” The other half of the QSR is a five act adventure called well, Derby Day that is pretty open and allows for Cast Members (PCs) and the Director (DM) to explore much of the location, politics and feel of the time period in which the adventure takes place. Again, the adventure is pretty long and its easy to go off the rails, so don’t expect to finish Derby Day in a single play session.

The rules for playing Ghosts of Albion are pretty straight forward, especially if you’ve ever played a Unisystem based game before. The cinematic version of the rules are streamlined to be more accessible to newer, younger or more casual gamers and it works really well here. You basically just roll a single d10 and add/subtract your particular character bonuses and any modifiers. If you get a 9 or higher, you succeed in your particular action. Combat and magic are similar and the end result is a system that is designed more for exploring and talking, but still provides for fun and fast combat situations. You’ll also find rules for fear effects and Drama Points (think Edge from Shadowrun and you have a good idea). What you WON’T find are character creation rules, but that’s okay because you have six pregenerated characters (all from the Original Cast of Ghosts of Albion), along with a description of who each character is and what their Drawbacks and Qualities mean in terms of gameplay. For example Lord Byron (Yes, you play as Lord Byron!) has a Quality of “Hard to Kill.” This gives him a +4 on any Survival based check. He also has a drawback entitled, “Covetous (Desperate Lechery)” which means the player has to made regular lewd comments, even when it is exceptionally inappropriate. Much of the system relies on roleplaying rather than roll-playing so except to see most of the Qualities and Drawbacks to feature notes on how to play the character instead of anything mechanics based.

Then there is the actual adventure Derby Day. This five act adventure is set during the actual Derby Day Holiday in May of 1839. As an ex-resident of Epsom, where the adventure and the real Derby Day take place, it was really fun to flip through the adventure and see what I recognized about the holiday and the locale. Sure it’s 150 years before my time, but it’s still always fun to discover an adventure set in someplace you used to live, right? Anyway, the adventure revolves around two coins infused with demonic energy. Now don’t think these coins are enchanted to give massive wealth at the costs of one’s happiness or mental/physical well-being. Nor are they going to massively curse whoever holds them. No, this is the beginning of Victorian England after all. Plots like this generally have a more mundane and/or genteel reasoning for occurring. In this case it’s an attempt to cause minor short term possessions of two important members of the British government. The reason behind this? To keep a railway from being built to close to a Lord’s home so as not to ruin his enjoyment of the scenery or to scare off the wildlife. WOW THAT’S PRETTY EVIL, ISN’T IT? That’s half the fun of Ghosts of Albion. On the surface, it seems like a pretty minor reason to get involved with satanic powers, right? Look at it closely though? Railways are very new, very load and very expensive at this point in time and creating one dramatically changes the landscape. It’s not like today where you just plop down a new road with little to no inconvenience. It’s pretty humdrum. Also, think of the sheer arrogance that comes with feeling that your one particular home is more important than the will of the entire country. Welcome to the British aristocracy, especially in this time period. This is what I love about Ghosts of Albion. It doesn’t just slap a time period coat of paint on some adventure that doesn’t really fit the mindset, attitudes and way of life from that age. It actually has adventures that are befitting the way people thought and acted back then. It’s really great to see that attention to detail, but I can definitely see some people being underwhelmed by the scope of the adventures or the fact that so much attention is paid to the class system of the time period. Indeed, three pages of the QSR alone are for detail the differences classes and their attitude towards certain things at the time, from who should vote to whether or not Canada means a tax increase. Again, I love this, but people who play hack and slash dungeon crawls will probably recoil in fear at this game.

I really enjoyed Derby Day, especially as it’s the only release for Ghosts of Albion besides the core rulebook. It’s a damn shame this RPG didn’t get more support as this game is vastly underrated, although I guess you’d have to know of its existence to even rate it, so perhaps that isn’t the best turn of phrase for Ghosts of Albion. I really wish that we had more than this single adventure for the game as it’s incredibly well done and I would have enjoyed reading more. Alas, even if you enjoyed this set of Quickstart Rules as much as I did, you’ll only have the core rulebook to take you any further unless you want to watch the animated films and read the books. At least Derby Day is free as it gives you the chance to experience Ghosts of Albion for yourself. I mean, it’s FREE. I don’t need to keep saying that. Everyone one of you taking the time to reads this review should be downloading Derby Day immediately upon completion of this text, right? Right. Well, we’re done. Get to it.

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/09/09/tabletop-review-band-of-zombies-a-world-war-ii-sourcebook-all-flesh-must-be-eaten/

Man, do you know how long it has been since All Flesh Must Be Eaten received a new release? Several years! I think the last was Thar Be Zombies, and that was roughly three years ago. So it’s nice to see a new release for the line. I’ve been so desperate for new AFMBE content that I reviewed the 2011 free Quick Start Rules when they came out, and in August, I also covered the Kickstarter exclusive Zombiemaster screen that accompanied this book. Now Band of Zombies is finally out, and I’m happy to say that it is a fine addition to one of the best horror lines tabletop gaming has to offer.

Band of Zombies is a sourcebook for an alternate universe’s World War II era. Here, the Nazi’s obsession with the occult actually bears fruit, and they use it to stifle or outright squelch the successes the Allies had in our world. Imagine a world where SS troops get up and continue fighting after being shot dead. Where a Japanese kamikaze pilot has no fear or qualms about crashing his plane because he knows he will come back to fight for Emperor Hirohito afterwards. That’s a pretty scary picture. Not to be outdone, however, the Allies have found a way to harness the power of the undead without limiting the loss of humanity and subduing the earth to devour living flesh and blood. Enter the CAPTAIN PATRIOT program today soldiers! Yes, it’s a bit of a parody of the super-soldier formula from Captain America, but with more dramatic (and possibly gruesome) results.

It’s also worth noting that pieces of Bands of Zombies has been cribbed together from other All Flesh Must Be Eaten sourcebooks, like Atlas of the Walking Dead, Worlds of the Dead and more. In this respect, those that have every AFMBE release up to this point might be a bit disappointed by the repeated content, while those who only have the core rulebook and maybe a few other releases like Dungeons & Zombies or Zombie Smackdown! will be happy to have all the content they need to run this campaign setting without having to purchase multiple books, ala Shadowrun and several other games that do nickel and dime you in this fashion.

One thing I really loved about Band of Zombies was the in-depth coverage the book gives you about WWII and showing where and how the two timelines diverge. There is so much actually historically accurate (and detailed) information in this book, you could probably use it as a citation for a paper. Just make sure you use the real world stuff and not “the Auschwitz victims come back from the dead to devour their Nazi tormenters” part, or your professor will look at you funny… and fail you. It doesn’t pull any punches with the atrocities committed by the Nazis or their Japanese allies (the latter of which were often worse, which most people forget these days), but the Allies (specifically the Russians) weren’t exempt for a litany of horrors either. It’s good to see how much detail is put into the book in that regard without making readers squeamish about the events that occurred so very long ago.

Band of Zombies is divided into eight chapters, along with a ninth entitled “Shambling Commandos,” which are pregenerated characters based off some high level Kickstarter backers. Each chapter is primarily devoted to world background, setting detail and the timeline for this WWII era campaign, but there are stats and mechanics littered throughout. The Unisystem, which All Flesh Must Be Eaten uses, doesn’t really need any mechanics above and beyond what you find in the core rulebook, so what’s here are primarily WWII era vehicles, weapons, new (reprinted) zombies, pregens and some new walking dead like mummies, ghouls, vampires and the like. The extra undead were an unexpected highlight to me, as I loved the idea of Vlad Tepes returning to wage war on both sides and trying to make Romania the home for vampires, or the Ancient Egyptians rising and wanting all these crazy white people out of their country. Band of Zombies just is dripping with potential, and the book lets you set a campaign before any real zombie outbreak occurs, to after nuclear weapons have been dropped in Japan, which caused radiated zombies to shuffle across the floor of the Pacific towards the gaijin devils who slew them.

Chapter One, “Introduction” is self explanatory, as it gives an overview of the book, gives some DM hints and tips on how to use Band of Zombies, and has a list of books, movies and video games to help make the setting come alive. Chapter Two, War is Hell, is where you’ll find a lot of the new character creation bits, such as the new qualities, drawbacks, and hindrances. Want to make a Captain Patriot? You’ll find all the information on how to do so here. “Aces High” is the next chapter, and this is where you’ll find vehicle and weapon statistics along with the new sanity aspects, such as shell shock and combat fatigue. There are also rules for mass combat (slightly converted from Army of Darkness) and even a set of rules for miniatures in a tactical style game. Very nice! Chapter Four is “Altered History,” and it’s the big chapter for the alternate timeline that Band of Zombies takes place in. Chapters Five through Eight continue this trend, with each one being about a different section of the world. “Fortress Europe” is Europe, “The Eastern Front” is Russia, “Decaying of an Empire” is the Middle East and North Africa and finally, “The Heart of Darkness” is Southeast Asia. I would have liked to have seen more information on the Australia and South America of this time period, as both are so rarely and/or briefly touched on when looking at World War II, but what’s here is excellent, and this is a small quibble at best from me.

Basically Band of Zombies is a wonderful look at WWII, and there is a lot of potential for various storylines and campaigns using this book. Don’t want to use the exact alternate timeline unveiled here? You don’t have to! The sheer amount of mechanics, new creatures and items are here for you to design your own WWII era campaign. Your imagination is the only limit. I can’t emphasize enough how highly detailed and well written this book is. To be honest, I originally backed this on Kickstarter to support All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I had no real interest in the subject matter or time period. Now that I’ve read the book and spent a decent amount of time with it, I have to say I’m mightily impressed by the content, and think Band of Zombies is one of the best campaign settings of the year. With a price tag of only $12.50, this PDF is a must buy for anyone interested in AFMBE or who is just looking for a good guide to WWII. My only worry is that this will be the last All Flesh Must Be Eaten release for a while, if ever, but with enough support and attention paid to Band of Zombies, the game might have a lot of life left in it after all.

War is hell. And that's BEFORE you add zombies to the mix. So take the real history of World War 2 and stir in troops coming back after you've shot them, grey and wide-mouthed, seeking not to slay you but to eat you, and you have a potent mix indeed. One which, as a veteran myself (of more recent vintage, though my father fought in WW2), I am glad to see has been handled sensitively and with respect for the men and women who laid down their lives during the real conflict this game setting is based upon.

The book opens with some fiction mixing authenic-sounding tales of an opposed landing by US forces on a Pacific island defended by the Japanese with the first stirrings of the zombie menace. Scene set, the introduction then lays out what this setting, the most complete one yet provided for All Flesh Must Be Eaten, comprises.

Chapters 2 and 3 present a range of new rules tailored to running a game of all-out war, including aerial combat and the vast array of military weapons and equipment available to service personnel in WW2. It also looks at the personal skills military personnel need, and which zombies may (in part at least) retain...

The rest of the book builds a compelling alternate history of WW2, beginning with the facts as the war actually happened and blending in the emergence of the zombie threat (as if opposing armies, navies and air forces weren't enough to contend with!). Chapter 4 gives the overview, with following chapters exploring the different theatres of war: Europe, the Eastern Front (Germany vs. Russia), the Middle East and North Africa and finally South East Asia. Any of these would provide a good setting for a WW2 zombie game.

The first couple of chapters are useful to player and Zombie Master alike, whilst the rest are mainly for the ZM's eyes alone. Each theatre of war has its different attractions: Europe with ancient legends, likewise Russia (not to mention the cold...) and in South East Asia the jungle can prove as much an enemy as either your opponents or a bunch of zombies! Each chapter is replete with ideas for play throughout the course of the war, which raged 1939-1945 although different nations became active at different times during its course. The general emphasis of this book suggests that characters will be serving in the Allied armed forces fighting against the Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan; but there is sufficient information for those who wish to explore the effects of zombie horror from the Axis standpoint.

As time wears on, all manner of strange things happen. For example, can you imagine the effect on a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot when a bunch of WW1 biplanes come buzzing around (piloted by zombies of course)? Warriors from even earlier conflicts may eventually be raised to join the zombie hordes too....

Overall, this is a quite spectacular concept well-handled, a considered and thoughtful setting that lets you and your players rampage through recent history, rewriting it as they splatter zombies along with live enemies... and maybe find out where all those darn zombies are coming from!

This is by far one of the best books of the "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" line. I am SO glad that I got this book. It is like opening a wrestling encyclopedia.

It lists every move that you can think of and gives you the ability to create more. It explains "American" wrestling from start to finish and then moves on to do the same thing with Mexican wrestling. It is wonderful, as this is the first time that I actually understood what it is that I see on the tv screen with Mexican Luchador wrestling.

You can use this book strictly for having fun wrestling matches, but adding in the Zombie factor takes it to a whole n'other level!

When it comes to the moves, I recommend creating a list of all of the moves or printing out the moves on cards so that the Player Characters can pick and choose moves, rather than be stuck trying to describe what it is that they want their wrestler to do. You'll find several pages of types of matches that you can have, more than you ever thought possible.

The book also has 4 pages of weapons that you can use to liven up your battles! They thought of everything with this book, including tossing in a couple of short stories about wrestling and wrestling with Zombies that are excellent reading.

The book also explains in depth Aztec wrestling and Japanese wrestling and even Immortal Kombat!

Admittedly, this isn't your typical Resident Evil concept, but man is it fun to play. Get a group of people together, hand out a bunch of pre-made characters and you got yourself a party! You'll be surprised at how much fun it will turn out to be.

Buy this book! You won't regret it.

It has a very well founded and easy magical background. Although I haven't played it yet I have read parts and found it very well written and anyone who likes this themed Role Playing will use it. The way to create a character is very defined and what I most like of the book is that it's not complicated. I also loved the art displayed in it. A definitive must try for all magic and mystic lovers!

This book is the rosetta stone of 'getting' the unisystem. And it's free.

Fields of Blood is a book for the 'old' D&D 3.5 system, but it can work with Pathfinder very well. The book covers running a realm and fighting battles in d20, and it handles it very well. The rules for realms are clear and concise, offering a multitude of different styles of government and cultures that can be combined to produce a wide number of potential societies. You are given a number of options for things like resources (you need to stay solvent somehow, after all), guilds (thieves, wizards, etc) and the things they can do for you, temples that can bless your land in a variety of ways, and more.

The bigger part of the book is given over to mass combat. It gives you a system to raise and improve troops for yourself in a wide variety -- foot and horse and other sorts of cavalry, air troops, missile troops, specialists like combat engineers, monsters, etc. It also provides a system of mass combat that is among the better done in D&D, making combats exciting and quick and allowing for PCs to affect what happens.

The book ends with a few new prestige classes and spells, as well as guidelines on how a great many spells and magical items can be used to affect a realm's prosperity or the result of a battle.

It's an amazing value for the price, and if you want to run campaigns that involve ruling realms or warfare, you'll be happy that you got this one.

This is a Unisystem game, the same rule set that powers All Flesh Must Be Eaten. And WitchCraft is free! If you think you might run All Flesh one day, stop reading this and download WitchCraft right now. Before Eden Studios wises up and starts charging you for it.