Advanced Fighting Fantasy takes an unusual path — dungeons first, cities second, the wilderness last. They’re covered in Allansia (1994), which came out after a gap of several years. Coming at the end of Fighting Fantasy’s initial lifespan, this book was printed in smallish quantities and is pretty hard to come by these days (forget it if you’re in the States, honestly).

For all the difficulty I had tracking this one down, the series definitely peaked with Blacksand. Most of the rules are arranged around mass combat. You know how much I love that, and since the hand-to-hand combat system here is already kind of tedious, well. It’s better than Battlesystem, at least. The included scenario is pretty good, even ending as it does, you guessed it, with a big battle.

The methods for generating wilderness locations are handy, though the actual details on Allansia are frustratingly brief. What isn’t frustrating at all is the bevy of new John Sibbick artwork. Never mad about that.