For the small amount of effort you will need to tweak this game to your liking it's well worth the investment as a fairly solid and enjoyable rules set.

Seems to lack photocopyable pages for the markers and template you will require however.

The rules are intuitive and well laid out. The detailed rules and instructions for creating your own factions and units were a strong selling point for me. You can create your own universe.

The excellent reviews alongside this one all touch on important aspects of this great game; mechanics, scale, depth of play, cinematic excitement and they are right. Gruntz checks all the boxes for great Sci-fi game-play and that's what I was anticipating having followed the development of the rules via the Gruntz Yahoo Group.

But the unexpected thing that really struck me about this game when I received my copy of V.1.0 was the accessibility and organisation of the book. Not just another pretty face; Gruntz delivers an easy, structured read well suited to the both the first time gamer unfamiliar with basic terms and the experienced Grognard looking for something shiny and new.

The Unit Builders are brilliant. Many of us have seen this done before, but rarely with both such depth and simplicity. ANY model or figure by any manufacturer -or- any concept for a troop-type or heinous alien can easily be incorporated into YOUR games. And importantly the builders give you a point total allowing you to bring these new units into scenarios or competitive club play.

The magic of Gruntz is in the Unit Profile Cards. Your .pdf copy comes with example cards, blank templates and even a spread-sheet for quickly building new units (you don't need a spread-sheet to build units, it's fun and easy). In-game all the information a player needs is right on the cards. An editable .pdf multi-card template will soon be available for download but is not quite ready at the time of this review.

When it comes to requirements for special equipment Gruntz has few demands: A) You are going to want 6 to 8 coloured pairs of six-sided dice. I use little ones. B) Card-protectors, as for baseball cards or collectible card games will be indispensable. C) A set of fine-tip erasable markers to track changes to each unit's profile during play. That's it, that's all. Aside from your 15mm minis, that's all you are going to need.

I'll wrap up by pointing out that Gruntz is the product of a community of gamers, lead by Robin Fitton. This is a game for gamers, by gamers. But Gruntz also has the support of the dynamic 15mm Sci-fi manufacturing community as well.

This is definitely a good time to get involved in the renaissance of 15mm Sci-fi gaming.

An elegantly simple game system that you can make as complicated as you wish.

I'm a 'grab a unit of Gruntz and move it as a group' kind of player; but, if you prefer to move each Grunt individually calculating each line of sight (incoming and out going) before moving to you end position, then you can do this too.

Squad coherancy is flexible enough to do this without ending up with individual squads scattered to the four winds.

So, you can make game play a fast and smooth, or complicated and tactical as you like.

The vehicle rules are straight forward, making them tough, but by no means invincible.

If infanty airbourne assaults, foot slogging or armoured spearheads are your bag, this is a one size fits all system.

BUY IT!

I was really impressed with this set of rules - complex enough to provide a challenge for gamers with a simplicity that allowed fast & fun games.

The balance of the rules & use of stat cards makes quick reference during a game easy & straight forward. We've played a couple of games down at my local club & on both occasions we've played through with little argument over rules as the diagrams in the rules are well laid out & easy to follow.

I can't wait to try some of the scenarios in the back of the book & I'm looking at using the builders to create my own force - I like the fact that I can use any figures I like to create a force.

Gruntz is quick & easy to get in to but has a depth that will keep you playing for a long time.

15mm Science Fiction seems to be enjoying a bit of a resurgence these days, with miniature companies like Ground Zero Games, Critical Mass and Khurasan leading the way. This is nice to see because in many ways 15mm is the perfect scale for Sci-fi gaming. Gruntz enthusiastically embraces this resurgence; being a set of rules entirely dedicated to 15mm Sci-fi gaming.

Just for the record, I do know the author of these rules, but aside from giving some feedback on a very early version of the game I haven't had any part in the game's writing or development. Also the copy of the rules I own has been bought and paid for by myself because what I had seen in the earlier draft I liked. Having got the finished rules I still like it.

The document itself is 88 pages and looks extremely good. It is full colour throughout, attractively laid out and packed with many images; mainly of the author's own beautifully painted collection of miniatures. One downside of all this eye-candy is that printing out such a graphic heavy PDF is going to be hard on your home printer. However it almost begs to be in hard copy and doing it through something like Lulu or the like would give you a very nice looking book indeed. The PDF itself is not bookmarked, but the contents page does provide clickable links to the various chapters for ease of navigation.

The rules mechanics are simple and straightforward, with a definite 'cinematic' feel. The game uses six-sided dice, with most actions being resolved with a 2D6 roll, the result of which is added to the relevant unit's stat and then compared to a target number (usually another unit's stat) to determine success or failure. The game makes use of counters to keep track of a unit's condition so book keeping is minimal. Dice or gaming tokens can be used to track these states, but it would have been cool if a printable counter sheet had been provided with rules.

The game is organised around squads of infantry (the eponymous 'Gruntz' of the title) and looks like it works best as a platoon level game. Aside from the squads of gruntz, forces also include individual 'hero' type figures and specialists as well as heavy weapons and vehicles; which range from the ubiquitous tanks and APCs, to flyers and mecha.

The stats for all units in the game are listed on their individual unit cards (about the size of a MTG card) that contains all their relevant game information, so there are no charts to refer to and minimal 'book-flipping'.

In addition to all the basic stuff you would expect (moving, shooting, assaults etc. etc.) the PDF also includes rules for electronic warfare, a points system for unit building and several scenarios. There is also background setting material included, but this is entirely optional and the game can be used with any setting.

Also bundled in with the rules are a set of blank unit cards (which don't look like they will be too much of an 'ink hog' to print out) as well as a set of pre-generated cards for various modles from Critical Mass miniatures line. There is also a unit builder spreadsheet included. One thing to note however is that this spreadsheet is in .xlsx format. This wasn't a problem to open in OpenOffice, but might cause some issues for those using older versions of Excel.

All in all this seems like a fast, fun, light, wargame written with a real love of 15mm miniatures. It is a very nice looking document that gives you all you need to play and for the price is excellent value for money.