Deadzone Battle Report

Prodigal here.

Having recently finished painting my terrain, plague, and six of ten enforcers, I finally had enough ready to do a proper photo accompanied battle report for Deadzone.  The game was played at 100 points, which I haven't done before, since Deadzone is normally played at 70.  There is official support for games at 100 points now, and I was curious to see how it played out.  Honestly I think for at least the starter set factions, this was a blast!  This will be pretty informal, without detailed turn-by-turn breakdowns; I'll show highlights of the game and give a sense of the overall progression of events and the outcome.


Setup:

In Deadzone, the game is over if either player achieves 10 victory points.

Plague secretly drew the "Killing Frenzy" mission, meaning that they are out to take down my whole team, with kill points of 1, 2, or 3 depending on the cost of the unit killed.

Enforcers secretly drew "Zulu", which was a split mission where controlling the three objectives and killing the Plague leader and specialist models as secondary goals.

The forces deployed in opposite corners of the board.  The Plague immediately made a rush for the middle of the board to deny the center objective and take to the higher ground of the tower.

The Enforcers sniper and heavy weapon take to the high ground to lay down suppression fire and take out high priority targets.  The sniper immediately bursts the head of the Plague HMG, denying them a critical unit for suppression fire, and scoring the Enforcers a point for killing a specialist.

 Bad luck for the Plague continued as one of the Stage 2a's failed his rampage check and barreled straight into the closest trooper, killing him outright.  Fortunately it was too stupid to pick the wiser target of the Plague General!

An Enforcer takes advantage of the suppression fire from the burst laser and charges a suppressed plague trooper, smashing him with the butt of his gun.  His luck would run out there.

The Plague trooper who was pinned in the next square rallies and in a sick twist, randomly mutates razor claws, giving him a nasty armor piercing close combat attack.  Distracted by his brutal execution of the other Plague trooper, the Enforcer is caught off guard by the attack and is ripped to shreds.  The first Enforcer has fallen.

 Meanwhile a Plague dog rushes over a barrier and attempts to maul an Enforcer, but the attack fails, and due to a "weakness" mutation drawn at the start of the game, the Enforcer is able to put the dog down quickly.

Meanwhile in the far corner of the map, the Assault Enforcer has rushed ahead to scout the further objective marker.  Thinking he is safe from the slow moving Stage 1a who was just too far away to assault him, he is rudely surprised when the Plague use a battle card to take an extra free move action, closing the distance.  The Stage 1a tears him in half.  The Enforcers are starting to fall.

Desperate to slow the waves of Plague bearing down on their position, the Heavy lays down a suppression fire on a Stage 2a hoping to set him up for an easy kill by the Enforcers captain, but scores such a high roll that rather than suppressing the beast he kills it outright, ripping him apart in a hail of laser bursts!

The Stage 2a having been dealt with, the Enforcer captain advances, taking a clear and deadly shot on the razor-clawed trooper.

 Having despatched the Plague dog, the other Enforcer advances to another objective square to discover the primary objective (5 points for controlling it!) and catches a Plague trooper wide open.  He take a clear shot, killing him, thus securing the objective.

 The sniper moves to a more forward position to get a bead on the Stage 1a who was camping on the far objective, hoping to take a clean shot at him, but before he can, a Stage 2a rushes forward and discovers his position, killing him with no effort.  With only 3 Enforcers left, it will be difficult for them to cover the objectives needed to win at this point, particularly with the Stage 1a denying one.

 The Enforcer captain sets his sights on the Plague general, and uses his Dominator rifle to suppress his target, and then charges the prone general, impaling him with his wrist blade.

 Another Stage 2a was right behind the general, though, and charges the captain, inflicting a wound and putting the Enforcers in a very precarious position.  A plague dog advances to deny the center objective.

 Through several rounds of intense combat, the captain eventually falls, giving the Plague enough points to declare victory!  The remaining two Enforcers fall back.  The Plague control this zone, and reinforcements will need to be brought in to enact the containment protocol.

So, that's my first Deadzone battle report, I hope it gives you some idea of how the game feels to play! It is very cinematic and tactical, and there were many times where a well timed battle card turned the tide of battle.  I played as the doomed enforcers and my friend as the Plague.  We laughed about how his one Stage 2a started off the game rampaging and killing his own troops, but proved unstoppable and eventually won the game for him!

My critical mistakes were letting my assault Enforcer get too far out on his own, and to not respect the Stage 1a, thinking that he could be outrun.  If you are unlucky enough to face that thing in combat you WILL be killed outright.  Avoid.  My other mistake was letting my sniper get in range of the plague.  He is so deadly and has a range that exceeds the entire map.  There is no reason to get him anywhere near where he can be attacked.

My favorite moment was where my blue Enforcer executed a suppressed Plague trooper, only to be turned on by another Plague, who then *grew claws* and then destroyed him.  We couldn't believe it when that happened.

I'll try to post some more reports down the road, cheers!

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