Deadzone: UK Championship Preperation

On September 10/11th I will be in Nottingham at Mantic HQ to attend the UK Deadzone Championship. With places for up to 40 people this promises to be the largest ever Deadzone competition, so hopefully they manage to sell lots of tickets.

The event consists of eight games across two days with five games being played on the Saturday. Each player needs to bring two 200 point lists. Those lists could differ by as little as one model so in fact you could play essentially the same list for all eight games. I decided that I would take my Veer-myn and the GCPS as I like the paint job I did on both armies. I'm also please with the mortar and Riot Trooper conversions I did on the GCPS. Unfortunately as they are not Mantic the GCPS cannot be entered into the best painted competition, but the Veer-myn can.

In preparation for this Mr T and myself have taken a break from Carnevale and he's played some Deadzone games with me. So far we've managed one game for each of my lists and we have one final game planned for next Friday, plenty of practice!

For the Veer-myn I've gone with the following list:

1 * Master Creeper

4 * Stalker

2 * Nightmare

2 * Malignus with Heavy Ray Gun

1 * Malignus with Chem Spitter

2 * Creeper

1 * Tunnel Runner

13 Models, 18 VP's

Of the two lists I'm taking I think this is the stronger one with a good balance between shooting and melee and also plenty of Armour Piercing for taking down tough opponents. The fact that the majority of the list is move 2-3 (can move 2 or sprint 3 cubes on a 8 * 8 mat) means they should be able to grab objectives early and get scoring in turn 1. 

Early scoreboard pressure could make people panic a little and over-extend into a position they don't want to be in. Veer-myn are I think one of the stronger factions in the game so I expect them to be well represented in the tournament.

They don't tend to hand around on the table though and this game proved a bloody affair but my ability to score early on meant that I got ahead and Mr T couldn't quite catch up by the end of turn 5.

The GCPS list is:

1 * Ranger Lieutenant

5 * Corporation Veteran

1 * Corporation Veteran with Flamer

2 * Corporation Veteran with Thermal Rifle & Ammo

1 * Corporation Veteran with Sniper Rifle & AP ammo

2 * Riot Trooper

1 * Mortar Team

13 Models, 20 VP's

This list also has a decent number of bodies but is much more tilted towards ranged attacks than the rats. It has lots of units with 5+ for shooting & fighting but the basic Veteran has a WoF (1) weapon which allows 1 re-roll when shooting for a bit more reliability. For taking down armoured units it relies on the Thermal Rifles doing the job but the Flamer with it's It Burns! rule has the chance to make any unit miss an activation. The mortar and sniper with their long ranges offer some board control early on and the Lt can drop in anywhere on the board during T1 if I fancy risking her to grab an objective.

During the game I paired up each Riot Trooper with a Thermal Rifle Veteran as the  Trooper gives +1 armour to models in the same cube. This gave two hunter teams who are capable in melee as well as against armour, this could be the way to go in the competition.

In the game I again managed to get onto the objectives first but the Forge Fathers inflicted the greater early casualties. They made the most of their 4+ saves to weather some heavy firing from my troops.

The luck did however start to turn and I managed to build a healthy lead after a couple of turns via the objectives and taking out a few of Mr T's high value models. By the end of Turn 3 I had the 20 VP's required for victory.

So far it's been a good pre-season and I feel somewhat prepared for my first competition. Having not been to one before I'm not really sure of what to expect but it *should* be fun. The vibe from the Deadzone Facebook group is very friendly and relaxed so I'm sure it should be 8 good games across the weekend. I also know the two of the people who wrote the rules are playing so we shouldn't have much in the way of arguments over how things work. Though in fairness the beauty of DZ is that it's very light on the rules so you can play the game rather than the rules.