Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone
Monster Fight Club's Cyberpunk skirmish game, licensed from R. Talsorian Games. Gangs fight over Night City's Combat Zone with no rounds or turns: actions are colour-coded dice, ranges are plastic limiters, and wounded fighters react instead of standing still.
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"My take on this one is coming soon."
What is Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone
Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone is a skirmish miniatures game from Monster Fight Club, made with R. Talsorian Games. It’s the wargame, not the Cyberpunk RED roleplaying game. For RPGs, head to Alone in the Dungeon.
It’s set in Night City in 2045. You run a cyber-enhanced gang, and the Combat Zone is the lawless part of town where gangs fight it out. In the publisher’s words: “you dominate or die.”
The core box pits two gangs against each other: Maelstrom, the chrome-heavy cyborgs, and the Tyger Claws. Monster Fight Club has since added a long list of starter gangs, including Arasaka, Bozos, Danger Gals, Edgerunners, Generation RED, Lawmen, Piranhas, 6th Street, Wild Things and Zoners, plus Trauma Team, drones and vehicles.
There’s also Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Combat Zone, a standalone starter made with CD Projekt RED and based on the Edgerunners anime. It uses full-colour acrylic standees instead of miniatures, and Monster Fight Club says it is “100% Compatible” with Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone, so characters from both can share a table.
Monster Fight Club says the game was a Polygon Recommends 2023 award winner and one of IGN’s top-rated games of 2023.
How it plays
- No rounds, no turns. The box puts it simply: “the game just goes.” Players alternate activating one ready character, who spends their action tokens one at a time.
- Actions come in three colours. Each character has two or three action tokens, each green, yellow or red. Green rolls a d12, yellow a d8 and red a d6, so the colour of an action decides how good it is.
- Everything is an opposed roll. Moving, shooting, climbing, netrunning and melee all work the same way. You roll your action’s die plus your skill. Your opponent answers with any die colour they still have. Higher wins.
- Limiters, not tape measures. Range and movement use colour-coded plastic rulers. A green action moves furthest and reaches furthest, yellow less, red least.
- Wounds turn you red. Each wound flips one of a character’s actions to red. A badly hurt fighter is stuck rolling d6s.
- The [RE]action System. A wounded character with a ready token can react straight away: counterattack, dodge, or use a special ability. Getting shot doesn’t mean standing there.
- Inspire. Instead of activating a character, you can Inspire to refresh your action tokens and get your Gonks (the cheap minions) moving.
- Build a crew, play a scenario. Gangs are bought with Eurobucks, usually 100 to 200 for characters and gear. Games are won on scenario objectives. The hardcover rulebook has over 90 scenarios, split into competitive, narrative, solo and co-op.
How to start
- Read the rules for free. The core rulebook is a free PDF. It checks out like a product but costs $0. The downloads page also has the FAQ and errata, campaign rules, beta vehicle rules, and a big pile of free scenarios.
- Get the core box. Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone is $125 on Monster Fight Club’s store. It has six 32mm Maelstrom and six Tyger Claws miniatures, a terrain set with a plastic shipping container, a 22” × 30” double-sided board, the limiters, 10 [RE]action dice, 150 gang cards, a 44-page rulebook and a scenario booklet.
- Or grab the start bundle. The core box doesn’t include Gonks, even though the rules use them a lot. Board Game Quest’s review flagged this. The Combat Zone Core Game Start Bundle adds a Gonk pack for each gang and was listed at $125, down from $165, when we checked.
- Cheaper way in: Edgerunners. The Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Combat Zone 2-Player Starter is $100. It’s a full standalone game with 24 acrylic standees (Edgerunners against Arasaka), scenery and a board. Its rulebook is free too.
- Add a gang. Most starter gangs are $50 each. The hardcover Core Rulebook and Card Compendium come as a $100 bundle, or the Card Compendium alone for $50.
- Playing alone? There’s an official solo and co-op scenario, Going Psycho, free on the downloads page.
Community & reviews
Monster Fight Club runs organised play with seasonal OP kits, and The Fix tournament rules are a free download. The official Discord is the main place to find players.
Official
Reviews & coverage
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