Blast From The Past: ReZolution

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.