Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars has a strong set of rules from Necromunda co-creator Andy Chambers, plus loads of character

Skirmish wargaming – traditional miniature wargaming with a smaller footprint and fewer minis – is having a moment. There used to be only a few flavors available, but a new crop of games suddenly gives off all kinds of different energies. Grimly dark Necromundefuturistic Infinityand tough Malifaux are of course all still there. Their action remains cruel and their rules are quite complex. Meanwhile newcomers Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone And Fallout: Factions are becoming increasingly common thanks to dynamic sculptures, bright colors and, most importantly, much simpler rules. There is also Star Wars: Shatterpoint And Halo: Flash pointmore refined games that are clearly built for lively, competitive play.

Now comes Free League Publishing Mutant Year Zero: Zone Warslaunched today with a new Core set. It feels like this one provides some much-needed comic relief.

First launched as Mutant in 1984, a lot has changed in the Swedish role-playing universe over the years. Funcoms Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden refocused the franchise on the craziest characters, human-and-animal hybrids with bizarre special abilities. It also helped that one of the main characters looks like an armored Howard the Duck. All the while, Free League has been working diligently in the background to maintain this goal the modern version of the TTRPG in circulation around the world.

Zone wars cleverly puts our duck friend back on the cover, and this time he’s at the center of a powerful gang of Stalkers, mutated soldiers who enter the dangerous, irradiated Zone to search for artifacts. It’s a simple premise that opens the door to smart, scenario-based gameplay and the possibilities for linked campaigns.

The most surprising part is the completeness of this starter set, which includes a few short decks of unit and skill cards, a bunch of cardboard terrains, pieces and custom dice, as well as pre-assembled and pre-shaded monochrome miniatures. Setting it up took me all of 20 minutes, and about 30 minutes later I had already broken most of the mechanisms. That’s because the rules in the manual were put together by Andy Chambers, co-creator of the original Necromunde (1995), and they are rock solid and easy to understand.

The gameplay is nuanced and engaging, but never tedious. Zone wars has just enough complexity to keep you on your toes. For example, you need to keep track of what your thumbnails are looking at. Jumping straight into a melee isn’t always the best move, even if your team has the advantage in numbers. Meanwhile, it can be difficult to level a kill shot if you keep your distance. That’s because these little buggers are all quite springy!

Deal enough damage to a given character, and they will be destroyed. After turning them on their side, the only available action you can take during their turn is recovery. But to recover you need a special item or a friend nearby who can help you. The recovery process involves rolling a number of dice, combining the attributes of the rescuer and the rescued, and then adding up the results. If successful, the broken character jumps up with full health, but ends up bloodied. When they go down again they are definitely out of action for that particular match, but unlike other more hardcore offerings no actual character death ever happens.

The result is a light-hearted tactical game Whac-a-Mole, filled with endearing critters with charming qualities that suffer devastating blows. But when they go down in a shower of bullets and feathers, they invariably spring heroically back to their fins, their makeshift guns flashing. I don’t know of any other game where a moose man can run antlers first against a bug man to score the winning point.

The best part is that even in a linked campaign with multiple missions – of the type offered in the game’s first expansion – Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars – Robots and Psionics – death is not really a problem. Even if your favorite character goes down for the second time in the heat of battle, they will absolutely come back for the next game. Because if there’s one thing funnier than dominating Howard the Duck from a distance with a scavenged laser rifle, it’s doing it again… and again… and again over the course of a multi-session campaign.

Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars Core Set And Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars – Robots and Psionics are available now. The products were reviewed using a retail copy from Free League Publishing. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.