One of the initial short comings of Target Games excellent futuristic combat game Warzone, was the lack of vehicles. The Mega Corporations all had lots of wonderful troops and weapons but lacked a basic form of transport. The latest offering from Target, the Warzone, Compendium Vol Two: Beasts of War, sets out to change all that and gives us an excellent set of vehicle rules and options, that more than make up for their absence from the main core rules.

In the compendium we find as always full use of colour through out the book {which weighs in at over sixty pages}and the lavish artwork from the talented hands of such artists as Simon Bisley and Paul Bonner. The book itself is split into five separate parts dealing with the main core of the vehicle rules, rules amendments, descriptions of the vehicles, new troop types and finally an armoury section. All are laid out concisely and each page has colour artwork or a photograph of a miniature on it. Also present are several pieces of short fiction, based around the Warzone universe.

The vehicle rules cover almost everything that you could think of from normal wheeled vehicles to flyers and tanks and beyond. The rules themselves are pretty simple in their execution and very easy to learn as you go, with lots of play examples to give you help if you are stuck.

Vehicles are given a similar profile to troops found in the main core rules and the first compendium, and follow that simple to read template of Movement {MV}, Actions {AC}, Wounds {W}, Armour {A} and finally the total cost of the vehicle itself.

A wide variety of Vehicles are available to all the Corporations and to the Dark Legions, but they all fall into one of the following categories, Wheeled vehicles {cars bikes etc.}, Tracked {tanks, half tracks, etc}, Hover {hovertanks), and Flying vehicles {jet packs, aircraft, etc.} and each is either Open {crew exposed to the elements} Closed {speaks for itself} and have an armour rating of Light, Normal, or Heavy, this gives you the full vehicle template and you are even provided with a blank one to design your own.

On to the rules themselves. Everything is covered here in one form or another, from boarding vehicles to ramming and being rammed, and the use of AI {artificial intelligence} in some of the more exotic vehicles. There isn't too much to say here about the core rules, as they are pretty simple and follow the basic rules found in Warzone, with only a few new additions.

Target Games posted an early play test version of these vehicle rules on their Web page late last year, and they where free to down load, it really has paid off for them as the playtest rules where a little confusing and complex in places, but thankfully they have sorted out all the kinks and bugs in the system and we are left with a very playable addition to the game.

As for the vehicles themselves! Well there are ten different types of vehicle covered in the compendium, from all of the different Mega-Corporations and the Dark Legion. Each page as either a photograph of the miniature depicted or a full colour painting of it, and this in its self is a must even if just for use as a painting guide. Most of the vehicles and troops found in this supplement are taken directly from the RPG source books and its now easier to have your characters in the RPG to get involved in mass battles or skirmish actions than ever before. Some of the new vehicles look a little clumsy and in places as if they were rushed out to meet the demand for new stuff {this mainly being the Capital vehicles, especially the Pegasus jet bike} but when painted they still reach the high standards that Target are aiming for. My own personal favourite is the Mishima Dragon Bike, which incidentally is depicted on the Paul Bonner drawn cover as its driver fights against a Mercurian Maculator over the swamps of Venus. It looks as if it has come straight from the pages of a book on Chinese mythology, with the front half resembling a mythical Chinese Dragon, very nice indeed.

The new troop rules cover the inclusion of the Secret Kohorts for Dark Legion, Bauhaus Blitzers , who unlike there fellow troops love to blow up vehicles in fact the bigger the better, Mishima Demon Hunters and Meka {huge combat suits} plus lots of different troops to represent the clans of Her Imperial Serenititys armed forces, giving the Imperial player a larger selection of troops to use rather than the basic four from the Warzone rule book. All this plus lots more troops and new weapons, ammunition, and short stories are to be found gracing the pages of this book. If you play Warzone, I suggest that this is a must buy purchase, you wont regret it. All in all an excellent book.

THE SCORES:

CONTENTS: 8 OUT OF 10

PLAYABILITY 8 OUT OF 10

VALUE FOR MONEY 8 OUT OF 10

LASTABILITY 8 OUT OF 10

PRESENTATION 9 OUT OF 10

OVERALL: 8 OUT OF 10