zona alfa in 15mm - battle report

introduction

With my brother back from living overseas, and seeing Patrick Todoroff (The writer behind the game) launch a battle report competition on the stalker 7 facebook group, you know I had to play another game with him and enter the comp!

The last time we played was In 2022 (You can see the game there in this other battlereport)

 

 

Some of my 28mm minis for zona alfa

I’ve been recently 3D printing terrain, and I even managed to model a set of the classic Soviet PO-2 type prefab concrete fences in time for the game! There are already a bunch of them available for 28mm, but I wanted some suitable for 15mm.

 

 

The walls printed and painted for 15mm games.

They are accurately modeled for the scale, based off the real soviet plans. They are available here as a free download for 3d printing.

After a busy weekend and frantic drafting, printing, laser cutting and painting of terrain and miniatures I can now share our battle report with you!

 

I've just made some 15mm versions of the Chornobyl & Pripat City Signs for the game!
Without further ado;

 

zona alfa setup & mission

 

My soldiers deploy near the wrecked truck and tree.

The three soldiers continued on their course towards the site. Guards at a mothballed soviet era vehicle storage yard had not made any contact for days. So their unit had dispatched them to investigate. The site was not deep in the zone, but it still wasn’t their preferred job. There were reports of mutant moaning and even shambling figures could be seen on the horizon, from time to time.

The vehicles themselves were not in the best condition, and some even contaminated with radiation - but they may be needed in the future. So a small detail had been stationed there to make sure stalkers, bandits or other bad actors wouldn’t try to go for a joyride in a BTR-60 or T-72.

 

In front of them, a ruined red-brick pumping station grew larger. Ruined apartments cast shadows over the poisoned earth. Serzhant Oleksiy Babiak had been told that the buildings around had been demolished with old WW2 era ISU-152s after the government had evacuated the population. But he noticed that the nearby ruins were only partially demolished - perhaps cleanup was more urgent elsewhere?

 

 

Soldat Artem called out. “Just tying my laces Serzhant Babiak- they got pulled by some weeds!”
Oleksiy turned around and nodded to Artem.  He then walked a few metres past the copse of trees next to the ruined pumping station. They had been walking for hours now, and it was time for a quick break.  He peered through a crack in the brickwork of the ruins to check it was safe. Satisfied, Oleksiy squatted  and got out his flask for a swig of unpleasant tasting water. “Tastes like shit.” He thought to himself - “This is nothing like the water back in Shpola, hey Matviy?” Gesturing to the other soldier with him. Matviy was also from his town in the centre of Ukraine. Matviy wiped the sweat off his brow, took a sip and sprayed it out for dramatic effect. “No shit Serzhant!”

Putting the flask back in his pack, the young Serzhant grabbed his rifle. “Stay here with Artem and until I call you. We’re close to the tank yard now. I want to make sure these ruins are clear. Then Artem can cover us while we investigate the guardhouse. Those lazy bastards are probably drunk or twiddling their thumbs. We’re in the zone sure, but most of the action is much further in.”

zombies!

 

So, having hopped over the wall into the ruins, our Serzhant Oleksiy unwittingly triggered 8 zombies! They rose out of the ground behind him and attacked Artem (The RPG and explosives expert, and Matviy - who had the unload skill and an Assault rifle, and 2 grenades. Matviy managed to disengage from the zombies to kill one. A couple of Zombies followed after the Serzhant to the north of the building.

 

 

Meanwhile the unlucky Artem was surrounded and cut off from his comrades by the swarm of dead soviets.

enter 'chimmy'

 

To the north, unbeknownst to the Soldiers, three cultists were heading towards the hotspots there, eager to loot and boost their arsenal with new artifacts to worship. The cultists were well armed, with a heavy machine gun, medkits, electric juice and a chainsaw.

 

 

 

They moved towards a coveted prize, and their research paid off. A hotspot triggered a bunch of foes - this time, humans with a healthier nervous system than the zombies the soldiers fought. 4 Bandits!

 

 

 

For the meantime, both factions were battling with the zone hostiles.

 

My Sergent and other remaining soldier moved towards the middle of the table. Unluckily, they couldn't save Artem, my RPG soldier. 

 

 

BOOM - grenade! 2 x activation zone hostiles from a red hotspot should not be taken lightly!

The two men used all their grenades and finished off all but two zombies, taking care to not go to close and trigger the other red hotspot by the guardhouse.

 

 

Meanwhile, the cultists finished off the 4 bandits easily with their HMG from range, and the cultist leader personally butchered 2 bandits with his chainsaw! They then uncovered a valuable artifact from the anomaly, worth 500 zone scripts!

 

 

My troops had only just survived, having slain 6 zombies with greandes, bullets and rifle stocks, when they were made aware of sudden DshK rounds tracing towards them! The cultist machine gunner got into a position, fired past two intervening terrain pieces (terrain negative modifers are cumulative in Zona Alfa)

He fired over a couple of rounds, and in 2 turns, my troops lay bleeding out as darkness engulfed the field.

The Cultists then proceeded to explore the other hot spots, coming across 6 rad-ghouls.

 

 

These cultists had clearly a lot of experience - one well aimed grenade ended the threat before anything bad could happen.

 

 

The cultists proceeded to move towards the armour storage yard.

 

Another hotspot turned out to be 6 more zombies (Yellow level zombies should be noted to have only one activation per round, not 2 like the ones I fought!)

That shouldn't detract from the bravery of Michael's leader, which he'd named 'Blyatman'.

Blyatman again chewed through 2 more zombies with his chainsaw, and the others were finished off by the battle rifle and HMG armed cultists. 

 

You lose some, you lose some. Not so happy now... Time to read up and plan for my revenge! (Michael has won both games now).

That was a lot of fun! My partner helped control the NPC hostiles, which she enjoyed.
I was very rusty with the rules and very under-prepared, so I will now make sure to build a well rounded force.

minis and terrain used

I've ordered some fun 15mm minis from Khurasan Miniatures and Clear horizon miniatures. 
The minis used for this game were from Slave 2 Gaming. I think the guys I used represented spetsnaz type troops perfectly - they even have AK's! 

Terrain wise, I designed most of it myself - I recently bought a commercial license to sell STLs and prints from another designer too, so printed a bunch of the zone-appropriate designs. More to come on that soon - I need to make sure they all print well before I add them to the website.


I played another game with my friend Will, which was great fun - a few more bonus pictures for you here!