Why is the future always terrible? Oh, wait, that’s because we’re
people…
Have you ever found
something and wished you had found it sooner? And known that it would
have been great for you? For me, that’s ReZolution. I’m getting
ahead of myself, let’s loop back around to this.
ReZolution is a
miniatures game made by a company called Aberrant Games and was
released in 2004. It’s a dark future cyberpunk-ish game, full of
grit and grime and sexy outfits. It’s 2175 and the world is, in a
word, fucked. Pollution has caused climate change and the seas have
risen, Mars is being terraformed, and there’s even colonies around
Alpha Centauri. But earth is in bad shape. A lot of governments have
collapsed and reformed, with several corporations becoming
nation-states themselves. Africa was decimated by a virus called Pale
Horse. The entity that replaced the UN uses slave labor to mine the
moon and Mars. At some point, AI and robots achieved sentience, had a
rebellion, and now have a moon around Neptune. The Vatican, under a
new name, even has a massive space station. Oh, and in addition to
the massive internet infrastructure that requires hackers, there’s
also people with psychic powers.
In this game, there’s
four major factions you can build crews from, and each one is unique
and different. Not just in terms of game play, but also of who they
are and what their goals are. While they’re mostly similar, with
nominal leaders, squads of grunts, hackers, psychics, and heavy
weapon folks. What differences there are, are based on who they play,
along with their aesthetics. Let’s get started.
APAC is a major company
that owns and controls most of Asia, as the company was once called
the Asia Pacific company. Based out of what was once Japan, they have
a very strong Japanese look to them, including the killer school
girls. Their leaders are supernatural beings with massive psychic
powers. Their main grunts are their Enforcers, who carry blades and
pistols, sometimes two pistols as once. They have psychic nullifiers,
called Numb Sisters, that have a Geisha look to them. There’s also
the aforementioned killer schoolgirls. And a few other things. When
it comes to how they’re suppose to play, they’re a mid range and
close combat type force. Personally, of all the factions, I like
these the most in terms of how they look.
Next up, we have the
CSO or Central Security Organization, that’s one part military and
one part police force. They’re the only “real” army left and
let me just say, there’s some deeper commentary on the police these
days, but I doubt they meant that at the time. Anyway, the CSO has a
leader in the Marshals backed up with groups of Troopers, Peace
Keepers, and Penal Legions. They’ve got Rangers, who are
investigators, and the expected Medics and Engineers. If you do pick
up this game and want the shooty group, this is the one for you.
However, they’re also expensive in terms of points.
The next faction is the
Ronin, who are the hired muscle of the various corporations. In fact,
the other three factions can take a percentage of their units to
balance them out. They have a leader, a second in command, hackers,
psychics, punchers, shooters, heavy weapon people, and mechanics.
Unlike the other factions, they don’t really have troops or groups
to fill out their numbers. Each model is going to have a different
role in terms of combat and other things. Visually, they have a more
Road Warrior look, combined with a similar vibe of the APAC crews,
but with even more skin showing.
The last major faction
is the Dravani and they’re unique in a lot of ways. The Dravani are
aliens that arrived on earth, centuries ago. The last survivors of a
race that feeds on biological energy and can take the form of humans,
along with massive psychic powers, they’re clearly the source of
vampire myths on earth. Now, their race is in even worse shape but
have a solid control over things on earth. Of course. Their history
is long and complicated, but is really interesting. The short version
of it is that earth isn’t really habitable for them, but they can
mimic and feed on humans. As time as gone on, they’ve had several
conflicts among themselves, further reducing their numbers, but they
are now a (mostly) united group. And what a group they are. They’re
the close combat group of the factions, using humans for basic
troops, but having those that have failed them to be used as
dangerous hunters and mutilated close combat fighters. Of course,
their own butchers and monsters are also melee combat models.
The last group, while
not being a faction in and of themselves, are the mercenaries.
Really, these are previews of the factions they intended to have in
expansions, as there’s a Cardinal and Nun from the not-Vatican,
which seems to have been fleshed out into a faction in the only
expansion this game got. There’s also an emissary of the Nile
Empire, which I feel was supposed to be another faction that would
have been introduced in full.
Okay, let’s have a
talk about the rules. They’re pretty standard fare for the time, as
this came out in 2004, which was around the same time as the 4
th
edition of Warhammer 40k, and it shows. Thankfully, rather than
rolling fist fulls of d6s, you roll 2d6 and add the stat needed.
There’s stats for movement, shooting, close combat, a toughness
like stat, and the stats for hacking and psychic powers, which not
every model has.
When it comes to
damage, things get interesting. Each weapon does a set number of d6s
in damage, reduced by the target’s armor. For every roll that meets
or beats the toughness stat of the target. As the model takes more
damage, it suffers more penalties. There’s also different types of
damage, beyond just ranged and melee, with each having different
effects on different models. As this was also the heyday of Warhammer
40k, there’s also templates for weapons. There’s blast templates
in 2/3/5 inches, a flame template with different range marks on it,
and a template for smoke grenades. Honestly, if I had found this game
while I was still playing 40k, I would have been over the moon for
this stuff. Now, however, it show its age, as you can’t really find
those templates easily and they put them in the middle of the damn
book, so making a copy is a pain.
Another thing that show
its age is how there’s units in the game, but only a few, that
still require unit coherency. Add to this the fact that they wanted a
300 point game, at the small side, up 1,000 points, it feels like
they wanted to make a skirmish game, but didn’t know how to do it,
and took too much from 40k and the size of those games. The fact that
units have morale stats and have to make tests only makes it more
obvious.
When you get right down
to it, this game is one that could have been a well known one. If it
had come out a little bit later, and with a few changes, it could
have been something we talk about in the same breath as Malifaux,
Warmachine/Hordes, and the Grave games. The rules are solid, if a bit
dated, but the real problem comes from what the creators were trying
to do, make something that was near the scale of Warhammer 40k, with
touches of skirmish game rules. If they did a new edition, or perhaps
a continuation of the original, with a focus towards proper (or
current) skirmish game rules, this could really take off. A unique
and interesting setting, several interesting factions, and a unique
aesthetic to how the minis look makes for a great combination in
today’s wargaming environment, especially with new resin minis, or
even just STL files, could make some waves.
Personally, I’m glad
I ended up with a copy of this game. I really like the art design by
Sophie Ross, and how that’s reflected in the designs of the models.
The only faction they didn’t seem to have designed is the CSO,
making for a bit of clashing visuals. Sure, it’s very fetish fuel
type art, but I think it fits (and I like it, so sue me) because
fetishization is very much a part of the cyberpunk genre. I even
picked up some ACAP models, as I found some good deals and I liked
the designs. They’ll work for something like Rogue Stars and
StarGrave easily enough.
If you think this is
something you’d like, several models can be found online, but they
should be easy enough to proxy. The rules can be found on Wargame
Vault for $12, and even the expansion is there. Maybe I’ll pick it
up. Maybe not. We’ll see what happens.
