" Keep in mind that for the most part, a group of hunters has to get very lucky to take out a werewolf- so just throwing Garou at your players willy-nilly will result in some pissed off dead characters (which could work out, if you play Wraith). "

      Title: The Moonstruck from White Wolf

      Format: Enemy Sourcebook for Hunter: the Reckoning

      Reviewing Monkey: Chimpan-A

      The Hype: You know what Hunters are. They're the crazy mo-fo humans who decided it was their job to go up against all the supernatural baddies out there. Ghosts, Vamps, even little faeries… you name it they hunt it. Unfortunately, they don't really know what they're doing. This book is supposed to help out with that by taking a certain type of foe, and giving you the goods on 'em. Moonstruck takes you into the world of Werewolves and other shifters. Will you actually be able to hunt a werewolf after reading this book or will you fall like oh so many before you? Read on, fellow monkeys, and find out.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Story and Drama: This book is a really great collection of short stories. The format of the book (more on that in a second), consists of a few stories pitting Hunters against Werewolves. The stories are in a journal format generally, and are written quite nicely. You'll find some great drama herein, especially in the first story which does a fair job of setting up suspense and fear. The Hunter Metaplot is served a little bit as there is one event which affects the overall scene. Otherwise, this book doesn't really advance the world of Hunter any. 3.5 out of 5

      Layout and Presentation: Well, as mentioned before the book is actually a collection of short stories. To get more specific, it's three stories, each in two parts. You get the first part of each story, then the conclusion. This is pretty standard for the enemy books. The very last chapter is storyteller information, and is therefore going to be the one that you'll be flipping to most often. The rest of the chapters, once read, will be nothing more than a good read when you're bored, rather than an information source. The trouble with this is that you will have to search through the one storyteller chapter for the information that you do want from the book. It's only one chapter, so it's not that big a deal though. The artwork is great, with a few exceptions. Very much in the vein of Werewolf art (Ron Spencer's work I particularly like). 4 out of 5

      Playability: Well, if you're a storyteller running a game for a group of Hunters, there's some useable stuff in here. Keep in mind that for the most part, a group of hunters has to get very lucky to take out a werewolf- so just throwing Garou at your players willy-nilly will result in some pissed off dead characters (which could work out, if you play Wraith). The rules are useable and work fine…just don't go bug nuts on the shifter action. 4.5 out of 5

      Desired Content: This book has a lot of cool stuff in it, as far as stories go. In the end though, I found that this book taught me more about how Werewolves look at Hunters than vice versa. In truth, it feels a lot like I learned more from Little Red Riding Hood than I did in this book. At least as far as hunting wolves goes. The problem stems from looking at this through a very small scope. You see the experience through a few hunters' eyes. You're supposed to extrapolate the experience to all hunters, but they're really a bit too specific. You also don't get enough information about the Wolves themselves and what they can do. Now theoretically, they're covered further in other books- but that's not the point. The point is that you (also theoretically) bought this book, and it's not really delivering the goods. That's unacceptable. 2.5 out of 5

      The Verdict:

This is a great collection of short stories, but not really a great collection of information about werewolves to be used by hunters. Hunters are supposed to be in the dark about the supernatural forces in the world and that makes books like these a bit silly in practice. What you end up getting is information on how a few chanced encounters turned out, and then a few powers for the storyteller to use. Not worth it, in the end.

      The Good: Great short stories

      The Bad: Not a whole lot of game information

      The Overall Ugly: Hmm… I wonder if Baby Bonnie Hood is imbued…

      What it's Worth: A buy on the discount rack.