Rat Pack Update

No games this week so instead I've got some painting progress to post about. I'm still working on my Strike Teams for the tournament in September and this week added a Tunnel Runner to the Veer-Myn force. This would replace the Night Terror with Spitter in the team, as it's a bit more expensive than the Terror I'd also need to drop one Stalker as well.

This is a great model of what is essentially a rat in a wheel, but unlike the hamster variety this one has guns and slicing blades. This means the Tunnel Runner comes with plenty of fire-power and the ability to more than hold it's own in melee. The armour 2 and 5 HP also mean it's going to be hard to kill off, pretty good value for 33 points. It does have one draw-back in the Vehicle keyword which means it cannot climb terrain. In a game like Deadzone where being able to climb up and down terrain is pretty key that does mean it will have limited movement, so may take some forward planning when setting up.

I enjoyed painting this one up and he's already joined the rest of the pack ready for my next game.

I've also been working my way through the models for Bardsung, which I backed on Kickstarter last year. This is a 1-5 player PvE dungeon crawler, so all the players are on one side against the AI.

I've not looked at the monster stat cards so I'm not entirely sure what all these monsters are but the first bunch are Hobgoblins. So we have a mixture of bow and sword wielding little Hobgoblins and a couple of larger sword wielders.

They also have some really large Hobgoblins and three leaders.

The second set of enemies are Dwarfs, which have a mixture of miners, dual wielders and crossbow Dwarfs.

The Dwarfs have two leaders and a couple of casters and four guard-dwarfs.

The models themselves are good quality board game pieces which wouldn't look out of place in most wargames armies so I may need to think of a way to use them outside of the game as well.

The game comes with lots of miniatures so I have plenty more to work my way through.

Deadzone: Battle for Magnetar City - Breakthrough

In the latest (and last) of our Magnetar City campaign games we played out the Breakthrough scenario. This sees both sides trying to cross the map and get off the other side. Extra VP's are scored for getting off the table before the end of round 5.

In order to mix things up a little I deployed the Marauders to take on the Forge Fathers in the final game of the global campaign. These are the first faction I played when I started Deadzone so I have a soft spot for them, they also have plenty of solid options.

I took a mix of solid shooting options and decent melee, with the speed 2-3 Mawbeasts being useful for covering ground across the table as well as getting into the face of the enemy.

1 * Commando Sergeant

3 * Commando

1 * Commando with Flamer

2 * Commando with HMG

3 * Mawbeast

1 * Gruntbot

2 * Ripper Rainmaker

I haven't got Mr T's exact list but he did drop the very expensive Iron Ancestor to include some extra Brokkr's and a Militia, otherwise I think it was the same as in previous battles. This gave him a few more models and I had one less so the numbers were about even.

We both started off by moving forwards conscious of the bonus 1 VP per model for getting a model off the other side, but also wanting to kill the enemy to both earn VP's and stop them from earning them for exiting the table.

Having played another 2 games in town since this one the details are a little hazy but I don't recall much killing happening in the first turn.

In the second turn a melee broke out on the Marauder right flank that sucked in plenty of Forge Fathers but whilst it raged I couldn't make the most of my Ripper suits shooting. In fact they didn't really do much for most of the game so I don't think I got the points back on them.

On my right the combination of a Mawbeast and the Gruntbot did sterling work and they managed to kill off the Steel Warrior Huscarl and then the Steel Warrior with autocannon. They may even have killed a Militia as well.

The Forge Fathers had started to chew through the Marauders on the right so I decided to start making a run for it instead of trying to fight it out.

My leader did almost make it across the board before he fell to a Brokkr on the last but one turn.

We both ended up with a few models that could make it off on the last turn and as the smoke cleared it had ended 22 VP's each so the game as a draw. So a good fun game to round out the campaign for us both.

Deadzone: Battle for Magnetar City - The Tide is High

For our second game of the bank holiday weekend Mr T joined me again, this time to continue with the current Deadzone campaign. This weeks fight was set in the port district so instead of following the suggested additional rules I went with something home-brew. The Nameless are up to something in the port district which is changing the weather patterns, I suspect this is in order to submerge more of the planet under water.

For this fight the Nameless have activated some infernal device and the water level is rising rapidly so starting at the end of round 2 the sea level rises by one cube and anything on the level that is submerged is counted as being killed. This put's a hard limit on the number of turns the game will last as eventually there will be no safe cubes to be in. It also means the fighting area will be shrinking as the game goes on. I also put out 4 * 1 VP objectives on the lower levels and 2 * 2 VP objectives on the higher levels. 

In order to facilitate the mission I broke out my terrain risers and built for the skies and ended up with a board 8 cubes high, probably the highest I've played with.

Once again I went with the Veer-Myn and deployed the same list as the previous games.

1 * Master Creeper + Smoke Grenade

5 * Stalker

2 * Nightmare

1 * Night Terror with Spitter

2 * Malignus - Heavy Ray Gun

1 * Malignus - Chem Spitter

2 * Creeper

Mr T changed his Forge Fathers up a bit with the Chief Brokrr being dropped and the Steel Warrior Huscarl being brought in.

1 * Steel Warrior Huscarl

1 * Brokkr

2 * Militia

2 * Forge Guard

1 * Brakkarim - Hailstorm Cannon

1 * Magma Issilgarim

1 * Iron Ancestor - Twin Hailstorm Autocannon & Heavy Heat Hammer

Realising that gaining height was going to be crucial in this scenario we both started making the climb early on, but with my greater numbers I was able to jump on the 1 point objectives on the bottom layer and thus start scoring early on.

I was also able to swarm further up the stack as well and having knocked out a a couple of the Forge Fathers early on their scoring opportunities became more limited. They did manage to take out a fair few rats over the course of the game, but only 1 VP models.

As the waters kept rising the space for fighting became more restricted and both sides starting shooting less and fighting more. I did manage to blast a Steel Warrior off a platform and into the water with one of my Creepers, which whilst scoring me no VP's was rather satisfying. 

The game was then becoming really condensed and I'd managed to get both my Nightmare's onto a 2 VP objective and they managed to take out some more of the Forge Fathers. The Nightmare's have Frenzy (2) when armed with twin drills which means they can re-roll 2 dice in melee, this makes them very reliable.

With the waters lapping at their heels both sides had no option but to jump into the small amount of space left and by this time most of the Forge Fathers lay dead so the Veer-Myn took the victory 20 - 6.

Carnevale: Bank Holiday Brawl

To welcome the long bank holiday weekend in style I was joined today my Stu from Cirencester and the very local Mr T for a game Carnevale. We went with a 1v1v1 brawl and the guests got to choose a pre-prepared force of around 80 ducats each.

I went with a Guild force as I'd not played then before led by the Capodecina which was designed to make the most of the Trade keyword.

Mr T went with the solid Harbourmaster and her nautical entourage which had good defence and the excellent Fishermen. 

Stu went with the Strigoi who had the some tough Vampires and a dependable Highborn Servant, the Vampires probably had the scariest damage output of the three groups.

We played a custom scenario with 3 agenda cards each, an immobile objective in the centre of the table and VP's for killing Heroes or Leaders. Any Henchmen who died could come back on the table in the next turn. I also changed the VP's for the objective to 1 VP at the end of each round to encourage a melee in the middle as early as possible.

The first turn saw a few long range shots being taken as all sides moved some troops over onto the central island in order to be in position to contest the objective. The Strigoi and Harbourmaster Guild also completed some jump based agendas to score 2 & 1 VP's respectively. 

At the start of the second turn the Harbourmaster climbed a building near the objective and immediately came under a fierce assault from the Strigoi. She managed to see the round out due to her excellent defence but was severely wounded. 

My Capodecina managed to leap down onto the Noble Strigoi and saw him off in one turn as he has weakened himself by using his Life as Will Points against a Mariner.

In the next turn the giant flying Strzyga killed the Harbourmaster but then itself fell prey to the Capodecina who scaled a wall to make the kill. A Fisherman had done most of the work which the Capodecina was happy to complete and thus gain a VP.

The objective was being contested so no one was able to score any VP's from it but it did do it's job of sucking the combatants into the area around it.

The combat stay pretty intense around the objective and my Guild force managed to complete all 3 Agendas that I had which took me up to 5 VP's with the Strigoi on 4 VP's and the Harbourmaster accruing only a 1 VP. 

So I managed to sneak a win, but it was a close and frantic game which I hope everyone enjoyed.