The traditional Blue Book has 64 pages and is illustrated with atmospheric full page plates and photographs.
The rules are intended to be fast and fun.
Player will field between 4 - 12 figures each and the core of the rules are D10 rolls under a number. This can be against a set number or opposing rolls.
Activation alternates with initiative rolled at the beginning of each turn. The different levels (Veteran, Hardened, Rookie) can make different numbers of actions each turn (3, 2, 1). Veterans and Hardened can go on Alert which allows them to take one action in an opponents turn. Leaders can pass one of their actions to another figure - that figure completes the action before the Leader can continue. This allows group actions ("you and you, move forward").
Weapons are generalised, so there are pistols, heavy pistols, sub machine guns, assault rifles, battle rifles, RPGs, heavy machine guns etc rather than different sorts of assault rifles (so an assault rifle could be an AK-47, AK-74, M16 or M4).
The Exclusion Zone is dangerous, not only do you have to contend with other players, but each time you get within a certain distance of a Hot Spot or Mission Objective, you have to contend with various nasties being spawned.
The rules are figure agnostic, the included critters (in increasing order of danger) are Vermin, Feral Dogs, Zombies, Rad Ghouls, Bandits, Mutants and Large Mutants.
Of course you can can choose what represents each critter - to taste or depending on your figure collection, and tailor the critter tables to suit your story line.
"Boris is convinced that Something is eating all the vermin. We think it is just one of his worries. Saying that, we have not run into many rats recently. And the number of feral dogs seems to be decreasing"Each Hot Spot may contain salvage, or even an anomaly with added perils and rewards.
The rules include a campaign system, surviving and achieving are rewarded with increased skills and equipment.
The rules are clear, the only query is on a couple of the tables not having the die roll number associated with them being present, plus there are five items and you roll on a D6. The Author (who is active on the Lead Adventure Forum) has stated that you roll D6 - if you roll a 6 you can choose an item from the five items in the table. He also has a blog here.
Within the rulebook there are no Solo or Cooperative rules beyond the critter AI, it is playable solo as supplied, but there is an official Solo and Cooperative supplement available for download from Osprey, plus there is also an additional set of Points Of Interest rules on his blog.
The background is inspired by the Stalker and Metro computer games and the Russian novels Metro 2033 and 2035. The imagery is inspired by the ghost city of Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion zone. Of course you can use any background you like, such as Stephen King's The Mist.
