Got mine last week. Like what I've read thus far. Yes, the rules are crunchier than all the other MYZ systems, and I'm happy that's the case. The rules are still not overbearing. You're basically rolling two dice (Attribute + Skill) and looking for a 6+ and 10+ (2 success). Glad they kept the Coolness Under Fire, and even added Group Morale (with a base of the highest Command skill in the group) as a sort of shared Attribute for individual CUF when it comes to checking suppression and such. It's a mix of hex-crawl survival RPG and a light hex & counter wargame, which is a fun combo. The random tables & cards are very helpful, especially if you decide to play solo or co-op using the short solo rules included. I'd probably use some additional generators if I wanted more detail for storytelling purposes, in that case, but it has all the essentials included in the box. Especially for a wargame-ish post-apoc campaign game. Good stuff!

Thanks for the review. I played this as a teen and fun to see it back again. I haven't played rpg since that. Pushing 30 years.

i remember playing this with my brother and some friends back in late 80's and look forward to seeing the release of this edition

In defense of the sandboxy nature of the game, the original idea seems to be that the players are going to spend the first few games after being over run & cut off, running for their lives. After that, depending on the choices made in the sandbox of running around part of Contested & Soviet controlled Poland, the players can then decide what they want to do. Find a way home? Regroup with NATO forces back West or South? Become roving bandits? Take control of an area & become the rulers of a city? Defect to the other side? Join Polish liberation forces? Once that is decided, the GM/Referee then takes a more active hand in designing adventures.

I really like the part about playing dice and drawing cards in the video. All the board game accessories are exquisitely made and the printing is complete. Eastar is a pleasure to be the maker of this board game. We will continue to work hard on manufacturing to turn more board game fantasies into reality.

Hi! what Free League Publishing has dose with T2k is outstanding, personally I think this edition is the best version of T2k to date. It is easy to see that a lot of care was taken in the design process to bring T2k into the modern era of pen-and-paper rpgs, all the while preserving the elements that made the game and setting so awesome. I'm looking forward to playing the new T2k edition and designing/running a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. campaign as the new T2k system is just a perfect fit for such a thing. Thanks for the review, excellent as always.

I'm waiting for a polish edition. It would be interesting to play in a setting around my home town Warsaw :)

We had a lot of fun playing it. I ran the game and was able to run it mostly sandbox with only 2 pre-planned plot hooks. The random encounters were really easy for me to incorporate with my plot hooks. It kept my prep time pretty low and allowed for the players to really tell the story they wanted to tell.

Ohh, yeah, I almost forgot... great page through and review!

hey, this video has been very helpful for me thanks!

Yeah, of course you don't have to play it as the sandbox type game you described. It works great; the system adapts well with a bit of work.

Great page through and review. Thank you sir.

The line work seems in line with the original book...some of those pics were a little rough but they worked...I'm happy the artwork keeps the old feel to it

Great review. I'm going to start running a campaign via roll20 on the 28th of November. I like the character generation and I used to play the old Editions since first edition way back in the 80s... Seems like it has less crunchiness than the older editions, and more thematic role-playing.

Excellent and thorough review :)

Best game ever made for solo play!

Already pre-ordered! 😎

I keep hearing the issue with the game being a sandbox and that if you played for a long time you'd just keep running into random events. I'm not a pro gm or anything but in my mind I see the event cards as things to do between major beats. As player characters and NPC's reveal their drives, they can move toward a goal on the map. That location can be a custom creation of the GM and not rely on that deck of cards at all. They could even look at the special named stories in the book for a structure. Right?

Super review. Would it be difficult to play Soviet?

Thanks for the review. Considered buying it, but this is a very hard pass. The maps and especially the art are just bad. (Seriously, grab a copy of the old T2K rules book and compare the Bradstreet art to this generic stuff.) And "role-playing in the WW3 that never was" just doesn't have the same feel as the original scenario. Even though that timeline was never truly plausible, and outdated by the time T2K 2.0 rolled around, it would have been easy to update the setting. Part of what makes a "realistic" post apocalyptic setting work is suspending your disbelief into "this could happen!". Can't suspend your disbelief when you're told, off the bat, "oh none of this ever happened, it's all BS, gg thanks for playing". Verisimilitude is a thing for a reason. I mean, not even the Fallout universe - which is basically a comic book reality in its style - tells you "oh this is all fake" as its tagline. Very derpy. Also, pointless custom dice, no thank you. On the plus side, replacing the precursor of GDW's "house system" with something (anything) more modern is probably a good thing, and the layout of the books is definitely good. But hey, nostalgia products are all the rage these days I guess, why shouldn't RPG publishers try to milk that market a little.

Could not agree more about plot versus random emergence. As a player I can tell if the GM has no point and I get bored immediately. I think sandbox games are highly overrated and tend to rely on game mechanics. Additionally a GM with a plot still had plenty of improve to expect and that's plenty for me. Great review, thanks!

Can this be played solo?

As far as sandboxy. to each his own. You did have adventures in the original and I understand FL will release some. Also don't think you can do this sort of game without being a bit Sandboxy

WARSAW CITY AT WAR

You didn’t even mention (or notice) the solo rules on pages 102 to 106 and even stated on another comment that you felt this was not possible to play solo- you could have even tried to actually play some of the game solo before you rated it. Probably worth mentioning during a global pandemic where people are unable or unwilling to put their friends and families at risk by playing in person. This is the only reason I bought the boxset. The One Ring is also having a stand alone solo rule-set written by Shawn Tomkin (Ironsworn, Starforged) and Matt Click (The Mecha Hack) which is being released separately from the main game.

Custom dice...no thanks.

Poland is Eastern Europe not Western.