12th October - 10th Dropzone Commander vs The Wife

The Wife finished off her first wave of Dropzone Commander so we celebrated by having a large skirmish sized game, we've got the models to stretch out to a decent sized clash game but as it was our first game using commanders and therefore the cards we decided we'd stick to a smaller game this time (that and we need to grab a few extra building packs or some 4Ground buildings if I can stretch the wallet).

We played a search for intel scenario with all of the buildings in the two centre quarters of the game mat. I won the first initiative phase but opt'd to let The Wife go first. She began by activating one of her warrior battle groups and bringing out all of her Gaia and two Edens. Her Havens quickly came out of the Gaia and while one headed toward the centre buildings the other teleported one of her three units of Braves into the corner building. I responded by bring on my Slayers dropping them down and sending them out in order to begin bringing down some of the buildings on that side of the table. The next few activations had both of us bringing out the remainder of our forces and the turn finished with my Warrior group, the Marauder heading up to the centre of the table disgorging my two Invaders who streamed toward two buildings one of them making it to the doorways of the one in the corner which the Warriors stormed into. The other while falling short of the building found a secret tunnel allowing the Warriors aboard to make it to their target building after all.

The second turn saw two Underground Monorails unearthed beneath two of the buildings currently being searched by both forces.

The Wife won initiative and began by shooting at the large building in the centre of the map, but my Warriors managed to dodge the falling masonry without any hassles. I decided my answer to that was to activate my Slayers and their Marauder taking a huge chunk out of it's stability and making the Shaltari Braves decided not to make us of the facilities and hold their ground. My Hunter's then moved up and took a shot at her Kukri but failed to do any damage. Her Commander decided the centre needed re-enforcing and sent his Coyote porting between the Gaia and the centre Eden gate. My Reavers decided to risk the return fire and flew around the corner opening fire on the Kukri, but with their energy shields working overtime only one of the tanks succumbed to the plasma fueled onslaught. Their return fire while successful only grazed one of the Scourge attack craft. Meanwhile the Scourge soldiers took the monorail to their next building. The unfortunate ones in the centre found a booby trap but again avoided casualties and loaded up into Invader so they could move in relative safety to their next objective. Finally the rest of The Wife's Braves beamed into two more buildings, which was going to give her quite the lead.

More Monorails were discovered. I opened the turn with my Hunters who's fire against the Kukri once again proved to be easily defend against. Of course I'd forgotten about a certain Coyote who poked his head around the corner and proceeded to decimate the Hunter's in return. The Reavers split their fire between the Shaltari commander and anti air skimmers but only managed to take out one of the Kukris. The remaining one opened fire and took out the already damaged Reaver. I sent my Slayer out to open fire on the Birdeaters who were slowing my advance on that flank, the plasma stream took out one of the Shaltari vehicles and the other was barely saved by it's shields though whether you'd call the smoking vehicle safe to operate was open to interpretation. The Wife then made her first big mistake of the game which I had to capitalize on moving her Gaia up toward the centre of the table (I did ask her if she was sure that's what she wanted to do and her reasoning made sense but she'd forgotten about the Reaper's just around the corner). Sensing a juicy target the Reaper's streamed around the corner opening fire and the massive Shaltari gate was down limiting The Wife's ability to move.

The third and what would be the final turn had me win initiative and press my advantage with the Reaper's turning the corner and bringing down one of The Wife's two Edens. She conceded the game at that point though she did insist on one last salvo from her Tomahawks bringing down one on the previously damaged buildings.

It was a really good game once again and the commander cards definitely add an nice element to it. I also managed to introduce The Brother to Infinity over the weekend playing the Ice-storm box set from start to finish. I've got a few pictures from the last game so I'll sort out a small update over the next few days.