Iron Ivan Games - No More Room in Hell review

Hello guys,

today I got my copy of Iron Ivan Games' No more room in hell book. For those that don't know, it is a rulebook that (I copy) "allows you to create a group of characters amidst the end of the living world...and the start of the living-dead world."

Before I start anything, I would like to stat that I have never posted review of the rulebooks before, and I hope I won't mess anything up, regarding the copyrights.

The rulebook is 80 pages long soft-back book, A4 size, which I, guess, is pretty common. The pages are stapled together, so the book won't fall apart as easily as some of the other rulebooks I own. I will dress it in plastic "shirt", just to add to its protection.

To play the game, you'll need D10s (it says at least 20, which means I'd need more, hehe), some colured tokens, a scatter dice and, being a miniatures game, miniatures and some terrain.

I haven't read trough it all yet, but there are two thing that I've learned from start: a) it has some minor typing mistakes, like some parts not being bold that should, I found price for 1 weapon missing on one chart (but you can look it up in other, so there is nothing really wrong with it)...so general little mistakes that appear after someone has printed the book. Nothing too dramatic. The second thing is extensive use of humour. And I love it! Apart from random jokes, they have a funny way of naming phases. So, movement phase becomes Fearful footing and, for example, shooting phase is named "Gruesome gunplay".

Rulebook is somewhat short, as I said, it only has 80 pages, but it covers pretty much everything you'd come up with. It covers:

- Survivors
There are 3 kinds of them, the badass guys, the badass' friends guys and the walking diner types. The first type has the most wounds (called Survive! points, to keep up with the phases namings), can carry the best weapons and the most equipment. The latter, the poorest are there just to provide Zeds with someone else to eat but your hero!

-Weapons and equipment
There are rules for various melee and range weapons and equipment, ranging from pistols, shotguns, heavy machineguns  to rocket launchers, flamethrowers and molotovs. Melee ranges from "throwing starts" (shurikens if you're a ninja!), to brass knuckles and riot shield. Equipment ranges from walkie talkies, radios and such to ballistic armour and "anti bite" armour.

- Zombies
There are MANY varieties of zombies in the book. There are (using mostly my namings to keep it simple :P):
* The (I quote) "slow moving re-animated dead (what us diehards refer to as Romero Zombies, the one true Zombies if you aks me)" - so, ordinary shamblers that die only by destroying the brains.
* The fast zombies (that aren't really zombies, Ragers, or, in this game, Runners) - they move much faster, driven by hunger, but you can kill them as any other human, so they die faster. Like really die, not die-to-live-some-more die.
*The tongue zombie, that uses his tongue to pull poor souls to him. I can imagine myself converting this one right now! Those are such a badass zombies that they're uber rare.
*The fat zombies, whose only purpose is to get close, burst, cover you in their putrescine, efectively putting a spot light on the survivor for any other undead lurkers.
*The loud zombies, who's purpose is to call in more of his friends.
*The strong zombie, being just that - strong. A Hulk, you get the point.
*Crawler! My favorite since I bought Mantic zombies. Not because they'd be particulary interesting or anything, just because I have some, hehe.
*The brains guy. That is a specially smart zombie...hmm...think of him as of a student. Someone who act like he is the smartest guy around, but hes still just a zombie. He has some special rules, making other zombies get smarter and even use weapons.

-Psychology
 As we can all imagine, seeing a walking corpse is bad. Seeing walking corpse of a friend or loved ones, is even worse. The sight of your friend being a meal for the Zeds can get you to jump right in and let 'em have it or run away. Oh, your hero could alternatively wet himself...but that doesn't make him a hero anymore, does it?

-Vehicles
The book covers rules for vehicles, starting vehicles, using vehicles, shooting from vehicles, improving vehicles and so on. You can acutally use the book to play Mad Max games with leaving zombie part out.

-Campaign
My favorite part. It has various scenarios, tips and tables for story telling, limited ammo, limited food, limited nerves and so on. Campaign is written with 2 players versus zombies in mind, but you can just as well play alone.

I must say I am really happy I got this. Sure the book with its 80 pages doesn't cover all the thing that, for example, Two hour wargames' ATZ trilogy with around 300 does, but it still has pretty much everything. The positive side oh being shorter is price, I've got mine a bit cheaper from Maelstrom games store. Not that I am paid to advertise or anything, but they send the book with free shipping anywhere on the globe.

_____
Now that I got the rules, you can definately expect a post about getting all those various zombie types, by either conversion or buying particular models. And I will play some games shortly, to learn the rules. I will post one or two report in few days. If nothing else, so someone can check If I understand the rules correctly, hehe. And, last but not least, I can work with preparations for my campaign!

Hope you found informations helpful,
Mathyoo