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.

Deadzone: Battle for Magnetar City - Scour

We played out our 2nd campaign game last night with Veer-myn once again taking on the Forge Fathers in Scour. This missions sees points gaining for bringing back items to a cache next to your starting area which score 2 VP's per item, in addition no VP's are scored for kills until turn 4. The campaign special rules saw Plague Victims potentially spawning at random on the board at the end of each turn, these would then attack the closest non-Plague model.

We both played the same lists as last week but Mr T remembered to put out all his models this week so the Forge Fathers started a little stronger than last time.

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

1 * Chief Brokkr

3 * Brokkr

2 * Militia

1 * Brakkarim - Hailstorm Cannon

1 * Magma Issilgarim

1 * Forge Guard

1 * Iron Ancestor - Twin Hailstorm & Heavy Hammer

As it all got rather exciting in the middle rounds I forgot to get any pictures but the rats started well by claiming multiple items on the first round due to their superior speed and the Scout moves of the Creepers. Scout allows you to take a free Sprint action after setup, as the Creepers have a Sprint of 3 cubes this means they can move up-to 6 cubes from their starting place by the end of the first turn which is a long way on an 8 by 8 cube board.

The rats did manage to kill some dwarfs on the first turn but as these did not score VP's it wasn't as beneficial as it could have been. There is a balancing act in this mission around to kill and make life harder for your opponent or to leave the models alive and so you can score VP's later on.

At the end of turn 1 we got 2 Plague Victims and one charged into my Master Creep and wounded her. I moved the Night Terror in to help my leader out and a series of bad rolls over a couple of turns saw the Plague Victim take out both the Terror and my leader. The Victim was finally killed at the end of turn 5 by shooting.

The middle stages of the game saw the dwarfs killing multiple rats with the rats taking out the dwarfs as well. Most of this happened before turn 4 so neither side scored any VP's for the slaughter. We also had some more Plague Victims spawning who piled in and helped with the killing.

By turn 5 I only had 1 Creeper and 2 Stalkers left with the Forge Fathers having the powerful Iron Ancestor, Chief Brokkr & Brakkarim left on the table. My rats wisely decided to lay low for the last couple of turns as they had a decent lead in VP's due to the items claimed early on. 

As we completed the fifth turn the Veer-myn had held on for a 15-6 victory, it would have been much closer if VP's for kills had counted.

All the dead rats

Deadzone: Battle for Magnetar City - Patrol

 This week the Deadzone summer global campaign kicked off, The Battle for Magnetar City. The website is being used to set the scene and also collect the results so we can see which faction is winning in each district. Each week a special condition will be available to add to you game, this week it was a scavenger that needed to be captured. The scavenger would be randomly place on the board at the end of Turn 1 and would be worth 4 VP's when captured, as we played at 200 points a total of 20 VP's would be needed to win. We played the Patrol mission which has 4 control points ( 2 * 2 VP's & 2 * 1 VP's).

We'd not played Deadzone for a little while but the rules are so straight forwards it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. Mr T brought his Forge Fathers and I went with the Veer-myn list I intend to take to a competition later in the year.

Whilst checking the lists I noticed that the Forge Fathers decided to play on hard mode by leaving a Militia-dwarf in the box. They went with a reasonably elite force of hard hitters with plenty of melee power in the form of four Brokkr's

1 * Chief Brokkr

3 * Brokkr

2 * Militia - only 1 used

1 * Brakkarim - Hailstorm Cannon

1 * Magma Issilgarim

1 * Forge Guard

1 * Iron Ancestor - Twin Hailstorm & Heavy Hammer

I've discussed my list before but essentially it's got a good amount of anti-armour and fast units, so should do well against slower and more armoured opponents.

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

One thing that hadn't occurred to me before was how full my deployment zone would be with a large force, against an enemy with plentiful indirect fire this could be an issue. I will need to have some practice around setting up to avoid being wiped out on the starting line.

The Forge Fathers of course had no such issues as they only had nine models, the only minor issue is that the Iron Ancestor being size 4 fills a cube on it's own.

My plan in general was to rush up onto the objectives with my cheap Stalkers and then hope to kill off enough FF's to get over the 20 VP's. My my speedy troops I also hoped to be able to pickup the 4 VP's for the scavenger.

As luck would have it the Scavenger popped into existence in a square adjacent to my forces.

He was then promptly hit by an 8-train riding Nightmare and died in one round.

Obligatory 8-train

The rest of the game saw the Veer-myn whittle down the Forge Fathers who having started with a lower model count suffered with each loss. 

The Veer-myn did lose a couple of Stalkers and a Nightmare but mostly they managed to stay alive and keep scoring points on the objectives.

In the end the Veer-myn ran away 25-5 VP's at the end of turn 4 with most of the Forge Fathers being killed they had been reduced to four models left.

Things I took away from this is that the Veer-myn list seems pretty nasty, but it's hard to tell after only one game. I did forget the scout move on the Creepers which would have seem them on objectives on Turn 1, so I need to remember that in the future. The Forge Fathers did suffer a little from low model count so an extra body would have helped, but I'm not sure it would have changed the outcome.