Deadzone!!

After pledging a rather large amount on Mantic's Deadzone kickstarter (Assault team pledge plus add ons) I received my 1st wave shipment in a rather large box and gleefully unpacked it. It then sat in that state whilst I whittled down my various on the go projects and jockeyed to fit in hobby around work and family. Now finally with my Stargrunt platoon finished and my WW2 germans merely waiting for me to paint and glue in the guns a string of rather rainy weather hit, what else was there for me to do but pull out my remaining unglued Dreadball and Deadzone models and get them together in preparation for my next painting project (before my Wrath of Kings, wave 2 Deadzone and various other kickstarters begin flowing in).

Once they were glued it seemed a shame not to take them for a spin. Got the 1st game in last Friday (7/3) against my youngest. She picked the Rebels as her faction and due to her mother (my wife) wanting to play plague (who I'd had my eyes on from the start of the campaign) I opted to take the Marauders (although I'm hoping for a Veer-myn faction in the rumored later this year Deadzone 2 kickstarter campaign). It was a good game although it ended in a whitewash for my poor daughter with me killing almost her entire team without taking a single casualty. It was a good learning curve for both of us in regards to how the game plays and she's already got some ideas for how to beat me next time. As it was the 1st game I've played apart from a run through or two of the beta rules I didn't get any photos of the game itself but managed to remember to take one of the actual board. I have instantly fallen in love with the battlezone scenery from Mantic as well. It took me maybe 20 mins to remove it from the sprues and setup the board.

This morning saw myself and the wife pair off. Marauders vs Plague. One of the things I'd learnt from the 1st game is that more terrain/cover squares the better, so a few more bits from the sprues resulted in this setup.

We drew a opposing ends setup with her beginning the game. I had drawn a Kill mission, Wipe them all out. No worries right. Her first activation saw her stage 2 rushing forward (thanks to the Overactive Metabolism mutation she assigned to it before the game) and her stage 3as being swept along in it's wake. Having the stage 2 appear in front of me like that although I couldn't manage a clear shot was too tempting a target for me so I burnt 3 commandos' activation trying to take it down and rolling a succession of utter utter garbage not even managing to hit him once. I moved a few other troops on the flank and passed back the round. She ran a her dogs and remaining stage 3 forward a little and the stage 1 sideways into more cover. I finished up the turn moving a few more troops into positions.










The next couple of turns passed in a blur of combat action. Her Stage 2 rushing over to my side and tearing one of my Mawbeasts apart. My other dog streaming around the back end of her team and managing to tear 2 stage 3s apart(thanks to 2 of the 3 majorly success die rolls I managed this game{nothing compared to her string of 4 to 5+ success survival rolls}) before getting bogged down with the two remaining ones on the ground. One of her troopers popping up to the second level of terrain and lobbing a grenade down on my troops pinning one and managing to soak two turns of multiple gunfire before I gave up and risked a melee to put her down. It was around this stage she played her hand and ran both her hellhounds off the board at my deployment area. Ah ha!! An infiltrate mission, and with her stage 2 about to run off the board as well I had only once choice. Her only non-success survival role for the game (ie not one single success in her die pool) and I managed to get her not only pinned, but suppressed. Bring on the..... ffs 3 consecutive misses by my troops, well done boys, well done indeed. Not to worry her entire activation next turn will be to get back to pinned I figured got another turn up my sleeve.

Next turn. She has initiative. As I thought the Stage 2 "Get's Mean" and removes his suppression marker. But she has a plan, step 2 is to activate her Stage 1 who lets loose a loud roar over the battlezone which inspires the Stage 2 to new heights of action "Getting Mean" again (a short action now he's not pinned) and with a move card played on him he's off the board ><. Now I'm not sure of the VPs for her models at the moment but I'm pretty sure I now need to kill the stage 1 to get the win. I manage to kill off her remaining Stage 3s in my activation and get my "Rainmaker" ripper suit troop up to the top of the tower ready to start raining hell down on the Stage 1. But in my last and best roll of the game one of my standard commandos has a clear shot at the giant beast and manages a massive 8 successes to her 1. Really tough ability and armour taken into account and he still manages a kill shot, giving me the VP for the kill and enough for the game.

Final total 4pts for her and 8pts for me. Great game and I'm looking forward to getting some paint on the minis before too much time has elapsed.










Also there's a few kickstarters running at the moment I feel are worth checking out.

Dreadball Extreme - Mantic's underground illegal version of Dreadball
Counterblast - Pulp SciFi minis and rules
Guild Ball - An quasi-historical fantasy skirmish game built around soccer
World of Twilight: Travels through Anyaral - An alternate fantasy world with some really unique miniatures
Across the Dead Earth - Post-apocalyptic gang based skirmish game set in the UK
Bio Syndrome - A multi period set of rules based around battling zombies. The rules themselves are already available as a free download, but the author is seeking to polish them