The humor and wildly spiky tongue in cheek take on "Grimdark" Scifi is really good. The rules themself are pretty uninteresting to me personally. Everything from the dice mechanics, armor is just hit points system, and enemies having some truly bizarre and limited random combat actions just does not make me want to ever play or run the game. Oh and the entire pages with one quote are very meh. Art is excellent and really great at conveying the games tone.

But. I got the game in a sale so I do not regret the purchase.

I will say for no particular reason I am not a fan of the Index Card RPG system either BUT I really think this game could have been my perfect merger of the two. Index Card plus VDS setting and some specific mechanics would have been very neat.

While it is not the game for me, I can see it appealing to Index Card RPG fans who should check it out.

having only run a few sessions my experience on the table is limited but totally positive. the system is both thematic and elegant, something that is a huge benefit to my group having only about 2-3hrs a session.

mecha role playing games almost always get buried in minutia and irrelevant details that are fine, great even, in a skirmish wargame. TMH doesnt sweat the little stuff but still feels complete and even robust in character options and solid gameplay mechanics.

i will say for my own mini campaign im running for a planned 6-10 sessions i have done some "hacking" of the game changing some rules a little and some a lot, and the core game mechanics are showing how fantastic and adaptable they are. its the most fun i have had running a game in a long time.

personally i didnt even have a single experience much less an interest in "The Black Hack" style of games before this one either, but its brought them into my sights for sure

this is easily one the best expansions for a table top game ive ever owned. and i say that not too lightly as ive been playing games since the mid 90's now through all sorts of systems and genres going through hundreds (thousands?) of corebooks, splatbooks, adventure logs, etc

The Mission Manual, as the title suggests, has a huge host of excellent pre-made missions that are created to be immediatly accessable AND customizable as needed. you can play them as teh basis of your adventures or plug them in to an ongoing story as you see fit. and the book contains new player options as well as GM material. the player options are substatantial and quite interesting not feeling over or underpowered from the corebook (with only the Pariah Pilot feeling a little "hmmm not sure about this one") and the GM material is equally excellent and useful.

the art is equally enjoyable in a minimalist but stylish sense thats never feels like its wasting space. the setting material is interesting and useful as well, while avoiding the awful "im just reading someones fan fiction" that too many RPG games dive into.

Not only is this my favorite of the CaH Setting Books but is by and far the most well realized and fleshed out. It has very detailed characters that are actually fun to read about.

This isnt just a great sourcebook for CaH but just a great read and filled with fun ideas.