The beating heart of Zone Raiders is in the campaign, taking the story of your Raid Team from mission to mission and seeing them rise or fall. You can play a simplified version of the rules in the First Encounter Demo Rules, but the full campaign engine has even more possibilities.

Let’s look at an example Raid Team, and go through what happens after a mission. The team is a group of Zone Stalkers, known as Strelov’s Company, a mercenary band of hunters lead by the hardened Colonel Strelov. They’ve survived many encounters in their hunt for riches in the Zone, and have just made it back from another close call.

Download: Roster for Strelov’s Company

Featuring:

• Colonel Strelov – Zone Warden, with leadership and close quarters gun fighting skills.
• Pavlicheko – Jaeger, stealthy marksman supporting the team with ambush camo and a heavy Interdiction Rifle.
• Kovskaya – Jaeger, expert sniper covering the team to allow aggressive advances and providing support for extractions.
• Yevgeni – Scout Stalker, a veteran with the flexible Vesper Rifle and in the heart of the action.
• Yuri – Scout Stalker, rookie with a cheap auto-carbine and smoke canisters,
• Renko – Scout Stalker, Yuri’s brother and no less capable recruit.
• Artyom – Trespasser, Hard-boiled sabotage expert and master of grenades. He’s a close quarters problem solver for the team as well as a passable hacker.

In the last skirmish over an ancient Cryo-Tube against an enemy force of Exanthrope techno-barbarians, the team managed to find and revive a human frozen for millennia. This Level 1 Ancient Survivor is no fighter, but she has lost knowledge of the Matroshka’s systems from the ‘Ancient Proficiency’ trait. She is named Metascribe Tanisi and will join the team for future skirmishes as well..

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In the last skirmish, Kovskaya, Yevgeni, Yuri and Artyom were taken out from their wounds. Pavlicheko was downed as well, but was picked up and dragged to safe extraction by the Colonel himself.

We roll a die on the Casualty Table for each member downed. Pavlicheko was rescued, so despite wounds he may roll two die and pick the best result.

• Kovskaya – Roll: 1 – No Injury
• Yevgeni – Roll: 8 – Psychological Shock
• Yuri – Roll: 17 – Didn’t Make It…
• Artyom – Roll: 12 – Physical Injury (Survival)
• Pavlicheko – Roll: 20, 11 – Total Loss, or Physical Injury (Melee)

Kovskaya was lucky. The wounds would heal quickly, and she’d be back in action for the next skirmish.

Yevgeni physically recovers, but the mental trauma was greater. He loses progress towards his next level, and doesn’t gain experience from this skirmish.

Yuri was far less fortunate. He was killed, but his equipment is salvageable by the team. In the Zone, nothing can be wasted. The team vows revenge!

Artyom suffered a lasting injury. His Survival Stat will be reduced by 1.

Pavlicheko would have been a total loss: Killed and his gear left in the hands of the enemy if not for being rescued off the field. Instead, he is glad to get off with only a physical injury.

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All was not for nothing however. Rolling two dice on the Income Table for winning and recovering 2 supply caches can help the team grow and continue it’s mission.

Resource Rolls: 6 and 18. We’ll take the 18 to gain 90 Resource Units (RU)

Supply Cache Roll 1: 12 – Strange Kit – Gain 1 Item from the opponent’s faction gear list

This is interesting. As we had fought the hated Exanthropes, their technological prowess was a major challenge. The team chooses to gain one of their faction weapons, the Micro-Laser Array, a short ranged burst gun.

Supply Cache Roll 2: 17 – Map Fragments –  Gain +1 Tactics Resource

The team gains an additional Tactics Resource which is used to unlock new abilities and skills for the group. Not bad!

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Time to see what our survivors have learned. Each survivor of the battle has a level they are currently at in experience, plus a number of experience points (XP). When a Raider’s XP is greater than their current level, they spend all their XP to gain a level.

Each Raider except Yevgeni and Yuri gain +1 XP for participating in this skirmish. Yevgeni’s shock resets his current XP to 0, though he keeps his level.

• Colonel Strelov – (Level 4, 2 XP)
• Pavlicheko – Level 4, 1 XP
• Kovskaya – Level 3, 3XP
• Yevgeni – Level 2, 0 XP (PSYCHOLOGICAL SHOCK)
• Yuri – Level 1, 0 XP (KIA)
• Renko –  Level 1, 1 XP
• Artyom – Level 2, 2 XP

With that, we now have multiple Raiders extremely close to levelling up! A winner of a mission gets to allocate up to 4 XP to any of their Raiders in any combination. This means we could spend them all to level up Pavlicheko or Colonel Strelov, or spread the experience around more. We decide we need more experience across the team, and decide to give 1 point to Kovskaya, Renko, Pavlicheko and Artyom.

• Pavlicheko – Level 4, 2 XP
• Kovskaya – Level 3, 4XP (LEVEL UP!)
• Renko –  Level 1, 2 XP (LEVEL UP!)
• Artyom – Level 2, 3 XP (LEVEL UP!)

We now have 3 Raiders reaching a new level. They can now choose to either Train Harder and gain a skill plus one roll on a stat advancement table, or choose Natural Talent to roll twice on the table. Both have advantages and disadvantages

• Kovskaya – Train Harder (Chooses Skill, Rolls: 1 – Gains +1 Speed)
• Renko – Natural Talent (Rolls: 9, +1 Defense) ( Rolls: 6, +1 Ranged)
• Artyom – Natural Talent (Rolls: 8 +1 Defense) (Rolls: 3, +2 Melee)

With all stat increases applied, Kovskaya now selects a new skill. Although she is a team sniper, close quarters combat nearly got her last mission. She decides to increase her skill with secondary weapons to protect herself at close range. She chooses ‘Dual Wield’, which allows firing two pistols at once.

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With each battle, the Team can gain Team Resources to improve its overall state in valuable technical, biological and tactical knowledge. These allow experienced teams to be greater than the sum of their parts, and unlock new possibilities. A winning team may boost any of the three resources of Tech, Bio or Tactics by up to 2 points.

Including the Supply Cache from earlier, the team had 2 Tech, 1 Bio and 2 Tactics resources. We decide we want to increase Tactics from 2 to 4, to unlock a new Doctrine we’ll buy in Step 5 that acts as a general bonus to improve the team.

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Now we can spend all these resources we have. Including our stockpiles, the team currently has 120 RU to spend.

• First, we spend 30 RU to unlock a new Doctrine that requires Tactics 4 to unlock. It is Ambush Mastery, a permanent bonus that grants all Zone Stalkers greater accuracy and lethality when attacking from stealth. Strelov’s Company needs all the help it can get to pick the best fights.
• With 90 RU Remaining, we spend 40 to recruit a new Scout Stalker to replace the deceased Yuri. He is Korolev, and will be given Yuri’s equipment.
• Now we have 50 RU. With the services of Metascribe Tanisi, we need a way to keep her alive in the coming skirmishes. We spend 30 RU to give her a new Auto Carbine and Skirmisher Frame, so that she can defend herself with ranged combat. She also gets Artyom’s Interface Deck, as her Ancient Proficiency makes her the undisputed master of hacking datanodes.
• With 20 RU remaining, we spend 10 to purchase a Mag Pulser and give it to Pavlicheko. Taking Artyom’s Mag Pulser as well, she may now dual wield these compact but powerful pistols to defend herself when enemies are too close to snipe.
• Finally, we save our last 10 RU and equip Artyom with his new prize: the Micro-Laser Array captured from the Exanthropes. With this exotic gun, he can be even deadlier in close quarters firefights.

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With that, Strelov’s Company is ready once more to continue their journey. Having suffered loss but gaining new members, perhaps it is time to embark on a Data Mining mission. Metascribe Tanisi’s expertise could be invaluable in unearthing lost secrets from a nearby DataHub. However, the Morlocks of the Aeon Society jealously guard this DataHub as sacred ground…