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Hey all, I've been thinking a little about the factions of Deadzone, each of these fighting forces have different reasons for fighting, different objectives etc... but what happens when two people turn up to play with the same army?

I've been putting a little thought into this and have came up with a couple of scenarios and rules for battles between the same armies:

Enforcers V Enforcers.

A difficult one since Enforcers are loyal to the council only, but who are the councillors loyal to? In this scenario two conflicting orders have been given, an official order from the council is to eradicate all plague, a separate order has been made without the full councils approval which is to capture a stage 1 plague and bring it back alive for study.

In this scenario armies are set up on both sides of the board, one faction will have a stage 1 in a containment holding the objective of the opposing side is to destroy the stage 1.

If an attack is made on the stage 1 using heavy weapons or grenades its possible to unleash it from the containment holding without killing it at which point it will automatically move and attack the nearest enforcer models.

As soon as the plague stage 1 is released or killed the objective of the player holding it changes, they will be forced to retreat and earn points for every model moved off the board.

Marauders V Marauders.

Marauders are a mercenary faction interested in making money, in this scenario two rival Marauder factions are attempting to control an area of interest.

In this scenario the rules of capture and hold an area come into play, each player makes a mutual decision to place 3 counters X,Y,Z on the board in a fairly central location, then each player writes down the locations and assigns them a point value of 1,2 or 3, the written locations are then folded and handed to the opposing player these will be the reference they use for earning points when holding an area which means the opposing player knows which areas are important to his rival but doesn't know how much they are worth to themselves and must judge the importance depending on how much the opposition defends them.

This scenario comes to an end when the opposing players commander is killed calling and end to the dispute. Points will be calculated including points earned for removing opposition figures.

Rebs V Rebs

Rebel fighters have discovered a very important piece of intel which has lead to a leadership dispute, one side believes the intel should be used to take down the corporation with bad publicity, the other side believes the intel should be sold back to the corporation to earn money for the continuing war between them.

In this scenario a centre point is chosen and a line drawn down the middle of the board, reb factions set up on either side wherever they want but no closer than a square away from the intel counter, the intel counter itself is placed in the middle of the board.

At the beginning of the skirmish the first player to move must make a direct dash for the intel, after picking it up the winner is decided by two conditions either 1. the intel is moved off the board on the players side, or 2. The total eradication of the opposing players army.

This scenario is played out like a game of dreadball or bloodbowl, the intel counter being the ball and each player fighting to control it, if a model carrying the intel is killed, pinned, suppressed or is forced into any action which may force them to drop the intel counter then the counter itself is moved away from them using the random grenade scatter rule.

Plague V Plague

Plague infection is constantly evolving and older variations of the plague may be forced to fight newer versions of the strain to determine which is the strongest more effective version.

This scenario is fairly simple, Kill or be killed with the only objective being to destroy the opposing players force but to make things more interesting to show the total unpredictable nature of the alien mutagen at the end of the third turn each player must draw a random mutation counter and then assign it to an opposing players model, after another 3 turns this is repeated etc.. until the skirmish ends.

Forgefathers Vs Forgefathers

I am assuming that a Forgefather strike force will be comprised of friends and family members, close relatives who can keep an unauthorized trip into a quarantined sector a secret. Forgefathers will probably have a culture which praises members who bring back decent salvage, equipment and natural resources so their reason for going to a Deadzone would be to loot as much as possible but I would also assume that Forgefathers have a society very much like the Norse or Viking's with clan disputes happening all the time.

When Forgefather strike teams meet in a Deadzone there is suddenly an opportunity to settle Clan grievances in honourable combat in addition to looting as much as possible to raise their clans status within society therefore any scenario between them would be a fairly simple smash and grab, points earn't will be based on both casualties and equipment counters carried off the board.

Asterians Vs Asterians.

This one is a tricky one since I have little knowledge on Asterian culture but it would seem that there is a fairly ridged caste system in place with importance being placed on how superior they are and how they try and prove that to their peers, when Asterians meet there is no call for bloodshed but there is an overwhelming need to prove that they are more suited to being in command than their lesser counterpart so a game is agreed upon between the two commanders to find out who is the better hunter and leader.

First of all in this scenario no fatal gun shots must be used between Asterians, they see their lives as too precious to waste so all combat between opponents will be hand to hand, this way they can prove their superiority in close combat.

Secondly, this scenario will involve 8 extra models of a faction other than Asterians, these 8 models will vary in points value depending on their toughness and will be assigned a number 1-8. The purpose of this scenario is to hunt down the remaining survivors in a sector, the commander which makes the most or most important kills is deemed the better leader.

At the start of the hunt a blip counter is placed on the board, this can either be a mutual choice or totally random, this blip represents an unknown enemy figure which will be revealed as soon as their is a line of sight within range of any opponent at which point the figure is determined by a D8 roll, the corresponding model is placed on the board and an remains there until destroyed. The number which was assigned to that model is then given to another one in reserve based on how likely they are to appear so for example you have plague in reserve, 4 stage 3's, a hound, a stage 1, and a Terraton. a stage 2 has just been placed on the board and it's number has been assigned to one of the stage 3's since they are the most likely opponents to appear etc...

As soon as the "prey" has been killed another blip is placed on the board this time in the furthest square away from any Asterian model or determined in another random fashion of your choosing perhaps a location roll which first determines a direction and a second roll which determines distance away from the original location (suggestions or input would be appreciated on this).

Scenario comes to an end when all figures in reserve have been killed and the points for each kill have been calculated. No points will be earn't for Asterian casualties, combat between them will simply be a way of dealing with the opposition to increase the chances of their strike team making more kills.

Pretty basic at the moment, i just wondered what you all think and what kind of variations and special rules could be implemented to make the battles more fair or interesting, comments and critique is welcome since I haven't really started playing that much just yet, I figured i would share this for everybody who was thinking about doing a battle involving the same factions.

I saw this over on the Mantic forums a while back, and it's good stuff.

The only one I would change is the Asterians. In DZ, they mostly use Cyphers (robots) as combat operatives, which, while valuable, are not living per se, so I'd allow them to shoot each other. Of course, actual Asterians (ie. The Commander) would not kill the opposing commander, and order his Cyphers not to, but I think the Cyphers should be allowed to fire on each other.

That said, I do love the idea of a 'hunt' scenario, where you have to compete to kill a third party. That could also work nicely with Mercs; each player picks their favourite Merc, and goes head-to-head to take out some big beastie (a S1, Terraton ect). Repeat for several rounds with various AI targets, and fun should be had by all.

cheers Paradigm for the input, I was unsure about Asterian troop arrangements but having cypher proxy soldiers would make a lot more sense. In that regard incapacitating shots could be used between troops but no actions could be made against a commander.

But seeing as the rules of the hunt would be "Sneakiest and most resourceful" wins, would a commander be able to make leathal attacks against cyphers with no reprisal?

I'd say a commander would be able to take action against a Cypher, and if it was not killed then then any Cypher with LOS to the opposing commander would revert to 'primary function' and retaliate, but only for one activation before their commander regained control.

This allows the commander to take shots of opportunity, but with an associated risk. .

hmm, fairly well balanced and fairly easy to resolve, possibly make it like an overwatch action in which they retaliate automatically and instantly to the threat with every model within range and Los will take a shot, this means an enemy commander will think twice about shooting at a model in a group but will be free to engage cyphers which have wandered off from the main group and there is an opportunity to thin out the opposition. That could lead to some nice tactical play.