ScrapYard Armory

JTP: New Avalon is the second in a new series of PDF only releases by Catalyst Game Labs.  This product is affordable and jam packed.  For those who already know and love the Chaos Campaign system, this is an invaluable tool to add to your collection.  Not a fan of the Jihad?  There is still some value to it when it comes to the planetary assault maps and terrain descriptions.  You can use this PDF to fight campaigns from any era including the prominent Federated Commonwealth Civil War.  If you are still not convinced skip it for now and wait for a Succession War era release if there is one in the future.  I’m hoping for one myself.

If you are on the fence here is my rundown on this newest release.  I also have a review of JTP: Luthien.

Opening Fiction

A great piece of work that demonstrates the desperate plight of the Inner Sphere forces trying to repel the Word of Blake.  Even when you have the home field advantage the battle doesn’t get any easier.  Sometimes you have to pull out all the stops and get down and dirty to get the job done. Here we are introduced to Sparky 2.0 who we will see more of later.

Great short fiction to open up this PDF, worthy of what I have read in the Battlecorps Anthologies.

Atlas

The atlas section follows the formula laid out by JTP: Luthien.  A brief history writeup is included alongside a large mapsheet table.  The FedCom civil war is touched upon as a major contributor of damage to the city prior to the Blakist invasion.  Perhaps the robes aren’t completely to blame for the sorry state of the FedSuns capital?  Regardless, I’m sure they will be blamed for it all anyways.

Great section for those of us who are either avid roleplayers or perfectionists.  You have all the details you need terrain wise to make an authentic New Avalon campaign during the Jihad or ANY other era.

Combatants

All coherent forces involved in the New Avalon campaign are detailed briefly including unit logo, commanding officer, average experience, appropriate RATs, force abilities (some of them we have seen before like Overrun and Off-Map movement, some are brand new), and Notes.

The Notes section for each unit consists of a few sentences describing a snippet of a larger story.  This is important because when you read them through from start to finish (the units are described in chronological order of arrival), you get a bigger picture of the whole battle.  There are nuggets buried in these unit descriptions.

Notable Notables

• The name of the game for the FedSuns is merger.  Lots of consolidation going on.
• Finally, somebody had the kahones to throw some nukes at the Word of Blake.

Tracks

While Luthien contained six Warchest tracks, New Avalon contains only five.  After reading through, I wasn’t inspired by the choice of objectives or optional bonuses.  While they did not feature as many of the irregularities I found in Luthien, they tended to be a bit bland and lacking in character.  I’ve definitely read and played better tracks in the Jihad Hot Spots source books.

Regardless, the Aftermath sections continue the process of piecing together the overall story of New Avalon.

Annex

We are treated to custom variants of the Atlas, Griffin, and Grim Reaper.  The Griffin is the highlight of the Annex section.  Combined with the opening fiction and the throwback flavor to the knights errant Succession Wars era, Sparky 2.0 is a fearsome upgrade to the venerable Griffin platform that has character to spare.

The ‘Mechs are followed up by three warship record sheets, using the new Strategic Operations record sheet design.  Included are the Eagle frigate, Essex destroyer, and Riga frigate.

Last But Not Least

A large multi-page planetary assault map of New Avalon rounds out this PDF offering.  Now if only we had rules to use them.  There is always Interstellar Operations.  Keep your fingers crossed.