Dystopian Wars - Hurricane Season

Yesterday saw the arrival of my copy of Spartan Games' first expansion for Dystopian: Hurricane Season.

I must say that I am very impressed with the book as when I ordered it, I had done so believing it to be softback like the rulebook, however I was delighted to find out it was hardback, as after all, despite the fact that when you were a kid you just wanted to be advanced enough to read soft backs, there is something about a hardback rulebook that sings to the very soul of the common or garden Geek.

The majority of the book is devoted to driving the story line onwards. In fact, of the 121 pages, 84 pages are taken up with the background. The story picks up with the Japanese establishing a new colony in Argentina which eventually leads to a large scale confrontation with the KoB and the FSA.

The writing is solid and cohesive and gives a good standing which players can use to develop their own background including incredibly detailed fleet structure and deployment.

Each of the major nations has inclusion within the book, however due to the timing of the book, it focuses less on the Republic of France and the Russian Coalition and more upon the Covenant of Antarctica to whom they have used this book to draw them into head on conflict rather than them using espionage tactics as they had previously. In this vein, the back of the book contains all the units for CoA in the same manner as the main rulebook does for KoB, PE, FSA and EotBS. In addition it includes the rules for all of the new small fliers as well as the Black Wold and all supporting MARs and generators not included in the rulebook.

Having had a glance over the new missions, they each look fun, and the inclusion of nation specific Commodore rules is a nice touch. I won't go too in depth as to what other rules are included, though obviously the landing barges are there and there is a nice section to support the campaign play including a simple weather chart.

So all in all, I'm very impressed with the book and am happy to pay the £20 RRP (though I paid a bit less) for this and look forward to the next book. Who knows, I may try to get an inclusion within it!