Hell on Earth Reloaded - Companion - A Review

This is a new book released in 2015 that expands Hell on Earth Reloaded.

That's not my favorite cover but let's just move on past that

The first half of the book is player material:

• New edges
• New hindrances
• New gear
• More vehicle options and some additional rules for vehicle combat
• Info on Cyborgs
• Info on Librarians
• Info on Witches

It's all good stuff and useful. The Cyborg info is pretty thorough and brings the game up to where it was in the original version as far as player options. The librarian info expands on what could be done before, and the option to play a witch is new to the setting. We have a really nice mix of options here and we are moving forward again, adding new things to the game instead of catching up to where we were 13 years ago.

The second half of the book is all GM territory. 

• Adventure Generator - this is a set of random tables,notes, and details for coming up wit hstuff on the fly. Even used as a list of ideas or adventure seeds there is a lot of material here, about 20 pages of material that is totally useable in-game. It's a very handy tool for running on the fly.
• Settlement Generator  - a system for detailing and codifying what a settlement has or does not have, similar to the town stats in a d20 game.
• Monsters - more opponents with full stats for the game. 
• Relics - special unique gear with some unusual ability like the bones of Famine's horse or Cole Ballard's badge. Deadlands has things like this and they do still fit in the HOE world. 

All of the GM stuff is useful but I wouldn't call any of it essential. A lot of savage world campaigns feature an adventure generator so it's not a surprise to see it here and I have no problems with the quality but if you don;t use it the rest of this section gets a little thin. A lot of the monster section is stuff tied to the player half of the book like various types of cyborgs, librarians,and witches which is good but again not truly essential. 

Because you can't do this in Deadlands

So, is it worth getting? Well, if you're playing in a HOE Reloaded campaign, sure. Especially if you're interested in the character types listed above or if you're planning on spending a lot of time fighting from the driver's seat of a muscle car ... or the hood of a muscle car. It's a no-brainer there. 

If you're running a game, well, it's not as automatic but it's good material and it's a really good idea if any of your players are going to be picking it up. We all know how those cyborg players are...