So, with most of the KS orders delivered and the game now available for retail, I figured it was time for a thread for the gameplay aspect of Deadzone. We've heard a lot about the models, the scenery and the concept, but I've not seen all that much discussion of the game itself. Now people have got the models, I'm sure the eager and intrepid among you will have already dived head-first into the game, so I thought it was time for a thread like this.

So this is the place to come for any observations, experiences, thoughts and comments of the tabletop aspect of Deadzone. General gameplay, faction discussion and ideas for changes, anything is welcome here.

After getting a couple of games in, here are the things that stand out:

Open Ground= Dead- In the last game I played, half the Rebs were blown away in a couple of turns thanks to being in the open. Low armour units really do need to hug cover to survive. With 6 dice from aim+clear shot, you're going down if not in cover.

To blaze or not to blaze? This is something I'm wondering about a lot, if going for suppressing fire rather than outright damage is a better options. I think that in the early part of the game, being able to pin and suppressing enemy units can give you a massive advantage, giving you more time to move into position, but once you have a good spot (hopefully elevated and in cover) then shooting to kill is probably a better option. After you've got a position, taking the time to aim and fire can lead to a lot of quick kills. Any thoughts/preferences, anyone?

Similarly, I'm not sure whether it's better to go for supporting a blaze away action or to take a separate shot. If you're supporting a weapon with a higher ROF/AP, then I imagine it's better to support, but with standard weapons, I'm leaning towards taking 2 separate actions, as if the first one succeeds you can go for another target.

I'm looking forward to trying out mercs, seeing if they add anything to the teams, but at the moment, I almost feel the more models you can cram in, the better. Every loss seems to really hurt, especially for low-model count teams like enforcers, so I'm not sure ploughing points into mercs or expensive leaders/specialists is the way to go.

So, let the discussion commence...

Blaze away is the only way to slow down the melee baddies. If you were to walk down a street and people were shooting at you, you would probably die pretty quick. With cover, it will stop a good percentage of shots coming in. Don't get caught with your pants down in the open. I have only played 2 games as Enforcers against the plague and you don't want stage 2's or 3's getting into melee with you. It took me one game to realize this and the 2nd game he had the card that doesn't reduce the aggression when he needed it both times.

My tactic tends to be, shoot to kill if they are out of cover, or you can get a fully clear shot, blaze away otherwise. Getting a kill of opportunity is generally too valuable to not risk it most of the time, but shooting someone in cover even with a high AP weapon is not generally favorable, even with enforcers. So I'd rather blaze away, then move around to a clear shot.

The games I've played, Blaze Away has been immensely useful... However, I play Enforcers, and we tend to get 4 dice on the Blaze minimum. I've seen the normal troops for Plague and Orx tend to botch their Blazes against me, even when they were throwing massive amounts of dice at me.

I'm a little sore that it seems the big commander guy can't really be used in normal games. He's too expensive, there isn't access to squishy infantry in the Enforcers in order to use even half of his 8 orders. Besides, all of the commanders I've seen tend to stand back and yell at their troops to get angry. Seems to be a good use on the right models.

Board control is going to be an extremely important skill. I won a game against Marauders earlier almost entirely because I was able to flank him in his own deployment zone - What damage he did do was when I tried to move up to him, and wasn't nearly enough with a mission based around capturing points.

On that note, I'm assuming that if you control a point, you can take the marker - Similar in the manner that shows in the rulebook, you put the marker by your mission card to track points, and only one player can get the bonus / can get the bonus only once. Is that accurate? We weren't sure during the game.

Yeah, with a little more playtesting, I've noticed a few more things.

As mentioned above, Enforcers are lethal on the blaze. I managed to pin most of an Orx army for most of the game with some good rolls. The Burst laser is even better at this, the long range and higher number of dice really helps. What non-troopers are people going with for the enforcers? Yesterday I played a 70 pointer with 2 strikes, 2 assaults, Sniper, Burst Laser and Sarge and it worked pretty well.

The Rebs seem pretty good blazing as well, with a lot of very cheap (if squishy) ability to spam blazeaway. Humans and Yndij work well together,at 10 points for the pair, and the Human to sit back and cover the Agile Yndij.

The Soark is good for pinning/blasting guys, although he can't do any damage, and with Agile the Yndij can keep up pace towards objectives while still shooting. I'm preferring the Desolator to the Onslaught Cannon, though, as otherwise they are lacking a long-range point fire punch. The AP3 is very nice against Rippers and 2nd/1st Gens.

I agree the Peacekeeper Captain is too expensive, Every loss hurts in DZ, and you kind of need as many models on the board as possible. If you draw a capture mission and you're lacking guys, you're in trouble.

I've also noted that units with 'fast' or 'agile' are great, especially around terrain. Being able to climb/sprint then move or shoot is a great ability, as you can get into position much faster than otherwise without sacrificing firepower. Yndij and Plague 3As are great at this.

Anyone having any luck with Mercs? I tried Wrath yesterday and regret it, some bad rolls on the Own Agenda table meant he ended up doing quite a bit of damage to my own guys.

Haven't tried any mercs yet, but I'm excited to give Nastanza a shot. Do all mercs have Own Agenda, or only ones with it specified on the sheet?

My lists have been three basic Enforcers, the Sarge, a Burst Laser and a Sniper, and in that game the Enforcers were total champs, while the Sniper and BL got taken out pretty early on trying to get into position. I keep forgetting they have Dedicated Weapons. I managed to run one of my Enforcers down the field to suppress from the opposite corner, and that's the guy that killed the Goblin sniper and the Orx sarge as well.

I tried using the Captain along with a rocket guy, a derp Enforcer, an an Engineer with two drones to try and make up for the lack of bodies on the field. The Rocket guy got pinned all game, but was the only person to put any wounds on anything (managed to tag the big Plague general) while the Engineer dropped his drones mid-field and spend the rest of the game suppressing half the zombies on the field. the derp got eaten by a puppy, and the Captain got double-teamed by an Acid Teeth dog and a second-tier Infected. Was not a good game for the Enforcers.

I was earlier thinking that the Burst Laser wouldn't be useful as everyone has such good suppression ability, but I'll give it another shot. The sniper needs a good nest as well, but I figured that the derps would keep everyone's head down while the Sniper was picking off people for realsies.

I must admit I do like the Burst+sniper combo, seems to work quite well as you can pin the threats while point-firing at the weaker targets. I'm not sure how effective it is to try shooting at armour 2 targets, especially if they have Tough as well, but for those, pinning is probably a better option. I managed to keep a mauler pinning for most of the game yesterday using the Burst Laser, and while he didn't do much out, it meant the rest of my team were able to shoot at the Orx troopers without worrying about the Melee powerhouse they brought.

What I've noticed with the Enforcers is that they are pretty al-or-nothing. Either you'll entirely absorb all damage on a 3D8 survive 4+ test, as the enemy will have to get at least 3 more successes than you to even injure, but a series of bad rolls can lead to a lot of point going away fast. Similarly, AP2/3 weapons make a real mess of them, the Desolater and HEW Beamer on the rainmaker both claimed a couple.

I don't think all mercs have own agenda, but I'd advise against taking the ones that do. Wrath has amazing stats (mostly 3+) and some cool guns, but when he's working for the enemy 25% of the time, I'm not convinced it's worth the risk.

My local club has picked up DZ (one of the guys put way too much cash into the Kickstarter from what I hear) and I am looking forward to getting some games in with it in the new year.

I mainly like the look of the enforcers, are they difficult to play?

I don't mind the rebs, but there is a guy at the club already playing them so I don't want to double up really.

Not keen on the plague (strange as I play chaos marines so should be a fan of giant mutated monsters!) or the orx really.

Does anyone know if a forge father or veermyn faction are due to come out?

The Forge Fathers and an Elf faction is slated to come out and they were funded by the KS, so work is being done on them. They hinted Veer-Myn would be coming at a later date during the KS, but I don't think they have officially started working on anything yet.

 rohansoldier wrote:
My local club has picked up DZ (one of the guys put way too much cash into the Kickstarter from what I hear) and I am looking forward to getting some games in with it in the new year.

I mainly like the look of the enforcers, are they difficult to play?

The enforcers will probably have the lowest model count of any team, a 70 point team with fairly minimal upgrades is still around 6 models. Every one is very mobile with Jump Packs and the basic guns are probably the best in the game with regards to pinning the enemy forces. Enforcers rely on pinning the enemy until they can get into good position/can grab objectives, and are pretty good at keeping stuff pinned/suppressed with Heavy Rifles and Burst Lasers. The sniper and Missile launcher are good direct damage weapons,

They're also very tough, armour 2 at minimum (The same as Ripper suits, to give you an idea of relative durability), so you'll be keeping them around a while. They play like SM should in 40k, excelling at mobility, force control and localised strikes, each one very powerful, but always outnumbered and requiring good use of target priority and using the right tool for the job.

They are fairly forgiving thanks to the toughness, but watch out for high-AP weapons like the Desolator and enemy snipers. They're also going to lose in CC to specialists unless they are assault enforcers.

In the next wave, they're getting more special weapons, a medic and some defensive units which could end up varying the style quite a bit.

 squall018 wrote:
The Forge Fathers and an Elf faction is slated to come out and they were funded by the KS, so work is being done on them. They hinted Veer-Myn would be coming at a later date during the KS, but I don't think they have officially started working on anything yet.

I think we have confirmation of that as there is no current running or even hinted at Mantic Kickstarter for them!

 Alpharius wrote:

 squall018 wrote:
The Forge Fathers and an Elf faction is slated to come out and they were funded by the KS, so work is being done on them. They hinted Veer-Myn would be coming at a later date during the KS, but I don't think they have officially started working on anything yet.

I think we have confirmation of that as there is no current running or even hinted at Mantic Kickstarter for them!

I almost think they will be part of the Warpath KS. If they come out with models for the warpath army, all they would have to do is throw in some Deadzone cards and BAM!!! New Deadzone faction. We'll see if that happens, but I think it seems like a decent idea and I know I'm no smarter than Ronnie or any of those guys running the place.

My impression is that the Enforcers are one of the least forgiving forces? You haven't got the numbers, so any mistake in set-up means you get punished badly.

 Alpharius wrote:

 squall018 wrote:
The Forge Fathers and an Elf faction is slated to come out and they were funded by the KS, so work is being done on them. They hinted Veer-Myn would be coming at a later date during the KS, but I don't think they have officially started working on anything yet.

I think we have confirmation of that as there is no current running or even hinted at Mantic Kickstarter for them!

Believe they are going to be in a future expansion? I'd have thought it would have been more likely in a new 'season', similar to Dreadball, rather than being a new KS for them.

At this point, given how Mantic has been working, they will almost certainly be tied to some Kickstarter somewhere, at some time.

As squall018 noted, "Deadzone" expansions are now brain-dead simple for Mantic to foist upon every KS campaign now as 'stretch goals'!

 Pacific wrote:
My impression is that the Enforcers are one of the least forgiving forces? You haven't got the numbers, so any mistake in set-up means you get punished badly.

Fair point. However, what I have experienced is that, as say, Rebs, you leave a trooper in the open by accident, or get caught with your metaphorical pants down out of cover (by a distract card or command ability 'pause'), the trooper's as good as dead barring miracle rolls. With an enforcer, you can make these mistakes, and while it will still hurt, you're not losing models as fast. thanks to the combo of Armour 2 and a 4+ survive stat.

On an unrelated note, here's a combo that I saw over on the Mantic forums and decided to try: Running a Terraton in concert with a Soark or a couple of humans/yndij and survey drones, the theory being that you pin/suppress the enemy, for the bonus in the ensuing fight. It works pretty well if you need to take something out, and if you're desperate for the bonus and the others can't suppress them, the Terraton has the GL and flamer as well.

What also works well is using the Terraton's teleport ability to move across levels pretty easily. Being able to move up/down without needing walls allows you to stick to the ground (where there's more cover) and then teleport up for an attack.

 squall018 wrote:

I almost think they will be part of the Warpath KS. If they come out with models for the warpath army, all they would have to do is throw in some Deadzone cards and BAM!!! New Deadzone faction. We'll see if that happens, but I think it seems like a decent idea and I know I'm no smarter than Ronnie or any of those guys running the place.

That's what they did for Mars Attacks!, so it seems to be a given.

So, a little more playtesting has revealed that Recon N32 is great. 1 point less than a sniper, gets 2+ when he 'aims' (Holo sights), has scout, and a 3+ survive stat. You lost AP1 and 1 point of armour compared to the sniper, but have far more freedom in deploying (3 rows rather than one) and can, if need be, move and fire, If you stay still and aim, you get 5d8 anyway, just like the sniper. I imagine I'll be including him in most Enforcer lists now, he's a steal at 12 points.

N32 is awesome, I wish he was a standard Enforcer unit type. He doesn't have the punch or power level of Helfather/Nastanza/Oberan/Blaine/etc, but he's got a nice toolkit. Remember that he can't blaze away at all, and Agile means he can really clear some ground. He's only got armor 1, but a ridiculously good survive 3+

I think Recon N32, Dr. Simmonds, maybe the survivor, could all stand to be "normal" additions. I realize that there is no penalty to taking Recon or the Doc in a once-off game, but the rep cost in a campaign makes it prohibitively expensive to bring these models that really seem in line with other leaders and specialists. Freya almost makes this list, but her stranded ability might be game-changey enough to keep her out of the running.

 GrimDork wrote:
N32 is awesome, I wish he was a standard Enforcer unit type. He doesn't have the punch or power level of Helfather/Nastanza/Oberan/Blaine/etc, but he's got a nice toolkit. Remember that he can't blaze away at all, and Agile means he can really clear some ground. He's only got armor 1, but a ridiculously good survive 3+

I think Recon N32, Dr. Simmonds, maybe the survivor, could all stand to be "normal" additions. I realize that there is no penalty to taking Recon or the Doc in a once-off game, but the rep cost in a campaign makes it prohibitively expensive to bring these models that really seem in line with other leaders and specialists. Freya almost makes this list, but her stranded ability might be game-changey enough to keep her out of the running.

I was a little surprised that such a hefty penalty was given to bring in mercs for a campaign. I understand that Mantic would want a Rebs player to actually play Rebs, and not "Rebs, plus these folks they hired/found along the way." I get that. However, it seems -2 REP per merc purchased per game would add up fast over the course of a campaign, and they only be viable toward the end where most players have already built up their force with the upgrades they like.

Thought it was -3 rep actually. It's possible they may be worth it, or will get houseruled.

Yeah, it's -3, but for a one-off game (I haven't got enough interest in my area to start a campaign yet, demoing it to the group later)to try to get some interest) Mercs are mostly awesome. I don't think the lack of blaze away on N-32 really hurts at all, to be honest, as if there's one thing Enforcers always have a lot of, it's that.

I agree with GD that, even if not N-32 himself, a recon enforcer unit as a trooper would add a lot to the dynamic of the army. Something like this would be fun to have:
Sh4+ F5+ Sv4+ A1 Cmd 1-1

Abilities: Agile
Weapons: Pistol, rifle (single-shot R6)

for around 9-11 points.

I'll be opening a thread soon for some DZ house rules I'm working on, so if anyone has any ideas then look out for that. I'm particularly interested in adding Corporation troopers as a faction, to represent the initial fightback against a Contagion before the Enforcers show up. I've got a few ideas that should help separate them from human rebs and make then significantly different to play.

Don't need aim as an ability anyone can do that. Sounds pretty reasonable (especially the reduction to survive 4+). I'm not positive giving him 5 fight is in line with the way enforcers operate, but its hardly game breaking either. Probably helps him fill a gap.

I think I'll use Recon Unit anyway, simply because the model is so awesome. Probably my favourite out of the entire kickstarter.

He can be a reasonable proxy for a sergeant model, I think.

Scratching my head a bit at the moment and wondering why there aren't any standard Steel Warriors in the WIP FF list? You've either got the option of the mega-expensive forge guard, or Brokkr.

Also kind of amusing considering the concept - the plague outbreak is so deadly that the Corporation will knock a whole planet off the map for it, and close the system down. But, the Forge Fathers just head there with their shorts on as though their heading out for a day on the beech?!

 Pacific wrote:


Also kind of amusing considering the concept - the plague outbreak is so deadly that the Corporation will knock a whole planet off the map for it, and close the system down. But, the Forge Fathers just head there with their shorts on as though their heading out for a day on the beech?!

The Forge Fathers are the honey badgers of the Deadzone. They just don't give a feth.

I needed that laugh thanks cap'n.

Recon does look awesome.

I think the forge guard Brokkr dynamic is to be looked at as miners/salvage operators and their elite guards. Steel warriors are military grunts. We don't see any orx grunts or corporation marines running around, just the more elite/specialist forces.

I realize 3rd gens and human rebs are kind of grunt-ish but most factions are pulling from their elite/irregular troops for deadzone activity.

Orx are immune to the plague... are forge fathers?

 GrimDork wrote:
Don't need aim as an ability anyone can do that. Sounds pretty reasonable (especially the reduction to survive 4+). I'm not positive giving him 5 fight is in line with the way enforcers operate, but its hardly game breaking either. Probably helps him fill a gap.

Yeah, you're right. I think I meant giving him holo-sights, but on reflection that might be a bit much. Not sure, I might have a bit of a playtest with and without.

The F5 was an attempt to give the Enforcers another CC option apart from the assaults. This guy is kind of a middle ground between Strikes and Assaults, not as good at Blazing or tanking that strikes, and not as good in CC as assaults, but can do both roles. To survive in a Deadzone for weeks before the main force arrives, you need to be quite good in both areas.

Re: lack of armour on some units, that's something I'm playing with for my house rules Corporation grunts. They aren't wearing the fully enclosed armour, so I'm thinking of putting in a rule where, if killed by a 2nd or 1st Gen, they are replaced by a weak infected model (stats slightly worse than a 3A) under control of the plague player, and balancing this obvious advantage by giving them Corp player a VP for every infected model killed. Again, I'm not sure on balanace but this is just a preliminary idea.

You can buy them holo sights in campaigns, I don't think any non-mercenary units get sights so probably best to leave them off. Keeps him a lower cost option as well. Agile+rifle will get you an extra dice from elevation usually anyway, if you pick your targets with that in mind.

I can buy the 5+ fight, I mean look at the model, he obviously favors that knife!

Quick question: It says that if you move into an opponent's cube for any reason you start a fight. Does this mean that my fast models can double sprint into opponent's squares (moving 4) to start a fight?

 pretre wrote:
Quick question: It says that if you move into an opponent's cube for any reason you start a fight. Does this mean that my fast models can double sprint into opponent's squares (moving 4) to start a fight?

You can only take an action once per turn, so no double-sprint. However, you can move+sprint or vice versa for 3 cubes, which is still alarmingly nasty, especially for shooty models with weak CC units. I'm learning quickly that fast units are nasty, nasty opponents. Plague as an army are very speedy, with fast on the dogs and S3s, and potentially gaining it on the S2s if they get injured.

Aha. That is really helpful. I am still learning. I feel bad for beating up on my kid with my double sprint dogs then.

And god, Really Tough is good. My S1 just ate people up.

Yeah, the S1 is nasty if it hits you, and can take a hell of a lot of punishment. I've actually found it more beneficial to ignore it and kill the other guys rather than fishing for 8s with your big guns.

In my last game I spent 3 rounds firing a Desolator at the S1, before shifting targets and dropping 2 3As in 2 turns. I only eventually bagged the S1 as the last model standing, and even then it took a Sniper, Desolator and 2 cards, as well as a Clear Shot bonus and 3 exploding 8s to bring it down. It can be just as effective as a fire magnet to protect the squishier guys if you can make your opponent focus on it. Ignore the dogs and stage 2s at your peril, both hurt a lot.

Plague are very good with the infiltrate mission as well. The dogs and 3s are great just dashing across the board, and the 3s can even sprint and fire to keep the enemy pinned and still clear the board in 4 activations.

There's the one mutation that does it too! And don't forget about the move card for a 4 cube mad dash, get's scary!

 CptJake wrote:

 Pacific wrote:


Also kind of amusing considering the concept - the plague outbreak is so deadly that the Corporation will knock a whole planet off the map for it, and close the system down. But, the Forge Fathers just head there with their shorts on as though their heading out for a day on the beech?!

The Forge Fathers are the honey badgers of the Deadzone. They just don't give a feth.

Haha yeah that must be it.

Really, can't understand why the FF list has taken that direction. I can understand it from a miniature perspective (maybe they don't want to update the Steel Warrior kit yet, or the Brokkr/Forge Guard are too much of a departure in terms of style/scale from the FF we have so far) but a small concession for those us who have FF miniatures would have been nice..

Will wait to see what the FF set looks like (I mean.. I might be proven wrong, and a bunch of Troll Slayers with guns might turn out better conceptually than I'm imagining so far), but otherwise will probably end up using the Enforcer list as 'counts as' and using Forge Father miniatures.

I've played a surprisingly large number of deadzone games now, maybe 10, which is loads for me in such a short time

Ive played the 4 sides now and had some observations.

1. Playing the Rebs is really stressful, I think this is mostly due to their missions, I usually run 8 models in my rebs, which makes infiltrate and scour missions really difficult. If I field more models, I don't have the power for the kill missions.

I usually have: Commander, Grogan with desolator, Teraton, Sorak/yindij, a zee and 3 humans.

2. Enforcers feel the opposite, sure I only get 6 guys most of the time but I feel comfortable with that many.
I usually run a sergeant, assault enforcer, sniper/missile, 2 normal enforcers then either a 3rd normal one or a burst laser.

3. Dogs and mawbeasts are terrifying. Sure, easy to shoot, but you need to see them first.

4. Don't underestimate pistols. I nearly lost a rebs game I had because I didn't want to move my commander in an infiltrate mission. 3 squares is actually a decent distance mid game when mobile.. Plus losing 1 dice for long range isn't horrible if you are higher up.

5. There's no downside I can see for blazing away at long range. Nothing to stop you doing it either that I could see.

6. Marauders are awesome. 4+ save at 5 points is a steal. Blaze away at your opponent then release the hounds!

7. Rebs seem to get loads of steadfast, enforcers get loads of courage cards. These are near essential, don't chuck them away.

8. Be wary of the sneaky move card being played on Gen 1s, teratons and the like.

9. Frag grenades are bad at killing, unless throwing them off a roof, but great for pinning.

10. I wanted a 10 but ran out of obvious things to say. It may help newbies to the game though.

That's a nice summary and some helpful observations, Compel. The only thing I'm not sure I agree with is the idea that the rebs are particularly difficult to play. If you want a faster team, then consider, adding in a couple more Yndij, with Agile they've got a potential 3 cubes move, or 2 and a blazeaway, so I tend to use them up ahead of the main squad to cover the slower models. I've also found that with the Terraton, you can get a lot of milage out of the 'teleport' move, as being able to potentially go 2 cubes up in the same move as 2 across can get you into some very neat positions. Not much in the game can attack from below if you're more than 1 square back from the edge or if there is no wall, so launching a surprise Terraton attack at a model on a walkway or similar can be great.

I agree that any card that affects aggression should be kept, it's very helpful to prevent your high-power models being pinned or suppressed. Playing one on a Grogan so he could shoot with the Desolator practically saved me my last game.

Blazing at long range can be great in the early stages, as preventing the enemy moving in the first few rounds can give you more time to get into position or get a headstart on objectives.

Aren't teratons size 3 so can't go onto walkways? Best you could do is fire the flamer or launcher at someone up there. Walkways are my favourite places to hide from big gribblies

Excellent gameplay discussion, I envy you for having played already. Looking forward to seeing ow well it's balanced - and how well/rapidly Quirkworthy pushes out balance tweaks to adjust any glaring imbalances.

I eagerly await more proper gameplay observations. I got 3 teams assembled but my would-be opponent has been sick all through the holidays, so no game :(

 Compel wrote:
Aren't teratons size 3 so can't go onto walkways? Best you could do is fire the flamer or launcher at someone up there. Walkways are my favourite places to hide from big gribblies

Fair point. For some of my games I've used whole tiles suspended between 2 buildings, so that's what I was referring to. You're right, though, that walkways proper are a good place to hide.

Until someone manages to get a grenade to land on the walkway and blows you off of it

 GrimDork wrote:
Until someone manages to get a grenade to land on the walkway and blows you off of it

Well, aren't YOU just a cheery fellow.

How can you NOT be when there are grenades involved

So I finally found someone to try the game with me. We played Orx vs Rebs and here are my early observations:

1) A sniper's +2 dice will murder anything much more reliably than expensive heavy weapons; both my Hulk and the Guntrack were completely ineffective while one goblin sniper racked up 3 kills including one-shotting a Teraton

2) When in doubt, Blaze Away; suppression is amazing and takes a model out for a turn and a half at least

3) Save your frag/blast for blowing enemies off roofs and objectives, it's hilarious

4) Play your mission! My dice we terrible and my list was terrible (made before I had even read the rules) but I scored a convincing victory because I went for the objectives I needed while my opponent got caught up in trying to kill stuff for no real reason

5) Pay attention to your battle cards, they make all the difference; 20 cards might not seem like a lot but games are short, so don't be afraid to burn through them



Apart from that I must say it's been a long time since I've been so impressed with a rules system. Probably not since Monsterpocalypse, and that was released in 2008.

I find it quite difficult playing to my mission a lot of the time and, surprisingly, its not because I go all 'kill stuff' its more because my brain is dumb.

Like I think I mentioned before, in my last game I immediately dismissed my rebs commander moving, therefore almost screwing up an infiltrate mission because my brain went 'nope, must shoot rifle' where it was emitrely feasible throughout the game to move my Grogan and boss along walkways to infiltrate off the board, especially after the 2nd Gen was killed.

Also, I need to condition my brain into working out that victory declaration is immediate, particularly for the capture/control games, I've screwed up in a few enforcer games now by waiting too long instead of sprinting onto the objective and theoretically winning in the first activation of a round, before enemy guys can move into the capture area

Some more interesting observations, guys, and II agree with Blackfang that the ruleset is hugely impressive. It took only a few turns before a stalwart 40ker was converted to DeadZone. The fact you can get a whole team and more for less than one box of 40k figs also helps. I just need one more player in and I can get a campaign up and running.

I learned the real value of clear shots in a game the other day, with a Reb human bagging 2 2nd Gens, both 1 move from the board edge in an infiltrate mission, with point-blank clear shots. The first was lucky, the second was nothing short of a miracle (8 potential damage from 6 dice, 3 failed survivals). So yeah, if you have a clear shot, take it. With such small teams, even killing a couple of models can swing the game one way or another.

Not really an observation, but how have people been finding the Terraton? I was initially put off by the high cost, but since I've started using it, it's racked up quite the kill count, including 4 kills in one game the other day. I've found that teleport+move card makes it deceptvely fast at getting into CC, and that the AP2 can more than handle anything up to a 1st Gen.

Also, a query: for 'control' missions, can you call victory as soon as you have the objective? If so, I've been playing it wrong, as I assumed you had to wait until the game timed out and be holding it then.

I'd be lost without my Rebs teraton, she's the only thing that I find can really make my opponent second guess themselves and ponder a bit before barrelling into close combat.

But yeah, you can declare victory (legitimately) as the conditions on the card add up to 10. In other words, be very wary of enforcers loitering around objectives, half their missions are based on them.

I still haven't played anything beyond tinkering with the alpha/beta rules myself and a single game with the rulebook and beta plague/enforcer cards, so Its great to hear you guys are having fun with it!

Right now the thing I'm most interested in discovering is how much of a game changer multi-mat system is going to be. Bump the size of the game up to that of Infinity and simlar, but field between 5-10 models a mat. It's going to fall at an interesting middle ground between skirmish and wargames at this point. Something like 20-40 guys on a side, moving individually in team-sized bursts. Things like the guntrack, heavy mortar, and crazy snipers like Nastanza will come (even more) into their own. Keeping dense terrain will still be of paramount importance. I'm just curious if such a size of game will play fast enough.

If I get to use 20 enforcers or upwards of double that in other models, I'm not entirely sure I'll even need warpath to scratch the bigger battles itch, the only thing we'll be missing is proper tanks.

Is anyone else as excited at the prospects and potential of multimat? Or are you guys more on the track that it'll be too bloated and or slow at that size?

It might be a bit slow, but I reckon it will be worth it. Range will actually matter, positioning will be more important, and the whole gameplay will be completely different.

I'll be interested to see if they scale up things like VP requirements, deck sizes and stuff like that, otherwise it may end up a bit self-limiting.

I plan on 6 mats, about $400 of terrain and 6 player games of insanity!!!

Yeah, that's the part we need Jake for or we could probably be experimenting with it now. Well, some industrious folk could be experimenting now but I usually wait for the official response to land before I work on ideas

Once I have everything (and I will), I'll get to work on it.

Ive done a couple of 'joined' games with 2 mats and 4 forces in teamsand it didn't really do much. Most of the time you were just focussed on the guy opposite you. I think there was 1 cross table sniper shot and that was that.

You definitely would need more cards, or some other way to track time in proper multimat games though.

All that stuff will be in the Compendium, right?

Played a half dozen games with buddies, we have 1 Enforcer, 1 Reb, 1 Plague, and 2 Marauders in our group.

The Marauder players (being one of them) are keen to try out a list:

1x Rainmaker
1x Ripper Suit
3x Chainsaw Dogs (no Bomb)
3x Goblin Snipers

Based on what we've seen, this sounds hilarious because it's bringing tons of what everyone is hating us for right now. Overall, Marauders seem very flexible and made for a more tactical experience.

Enforcer player has had a lot of success, and he loves that he can hunker down and defend. Lack of AP in the army is sometimes an issue.

Rebs are doing well, but find that they need to be more careful than the other factions to bring a well-rounded force.

Finally, our Plague guy has found his sweet spot after a few missteps. The Stage 3 Grenade Launcher and Mortar Crew selections are crazy good, and their CC crew (being Plague Worms and Plague Tetraton) are absolute monsters. He has single-handedly started a discussion on if Frag is "balanced" as it currently stands. I want to play a few more games before I really make a determination, but it does feel stupid easy to pin someone down.

We're looking forward to Wave 2 and starting a campaign!

You have too many specialists. Only the melee ripper is a leader now, the rainmaker is a specialist. That does look like the annoying parts though.. would be interesting to see how those elements work together without the others.

I'd say switch the ripper for a cheap leader, add in a regular grunt with the points saved and wreck face. I assume gobbo snipers are good?

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I'd say switch the ripper for a cheap leader, add in a regular grunt with the points saved and wreck face. I assume gobbo snipers are good?

Whoops, ha, you're right. I'll have to change it up. Definitely have to cram in Ork-poleon or a Grunt in there to set up Blaze Aways.

Gobbo Snipers are straight-up mother slumpers, and are cheap as dirt.

Yeah, snipers of any kind are worth their weight in gold, negating most basic armour and getting bonus dice just for shooting. Enforcer Sniper is the best, but the gobbos are cheap and very hard to get a clear shot at because they are so easy to hide, being 1/3 of the size of the rest of the models.

Goblin sniper is a bit worse overall, and way easier to kill, but they also cost just over half the points too. In order to get an enforcer sniper you have to spend at least 23 points (considering most basic enforcer troop to unlock) and you can get 2 goblin snipers for 24 along with a pair of very capable commandos.

The enforcer sniper makes a decent leader backup/alternative too.

Oh and don't forget Nastanza, she packs a ridiculously long ranged weapon and a stealth cloak in addition to having the best shooting stat of snipers.

I wouldn't play a mercenary though unless both of us were fielding one.

Fair point regarding mercsin campaigns, but in one-off games there's no real drawback.

I can see Nastanza coming into her own in multi-mat games with her phenomenally high range. Get her in a high position and she's basically got 2-grid kill box around her and very little threat from incoming fire if in good cover.

This is a play I made today, I wanna run it by you guys to check if it's really legal:

Mawbeast takes a Sprint action (short because it's a Fast model) to move 2 into an enemy cube, gets free Fight. Kills opponent with enough successes to get a free Move action. All this was 1 short action. Takes another Move for its second short action (the free Move for winning a fight does not count towards the limit on duplicate actions) to enter another occupied cube, gets another free Fight action and murders that sucker, too. It stopped there, but in theory as long as it kept beating the targets twice over to get free Moves, one model could sweep the entire board in one activation?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
This is a play I made today, I wanna run it by you guys to check if it's really legal:

Mawbeast takes a Sprint action (short because it's a Fast model) to move 2 into an enemy cube, gets free Fight. Kills opponent with enough successes to get a free Move action. All this was 1 short action. Takes another Move for its second short action (the free Move for winning a fight does not count towards the limit on duplicate actions) to enter another occupied cube, gets another free Fight action and murders that sucker, too. It stopped there, but in theory as long as it kept beating the targets twice over to get free Moves, one model could sweep the entire board in one activation?

I think this is legal, as it goes:
Short Action (sprint) > Free action (fight) > Free action (move) >Short Action (move) > Free Action (fight) > Free Action (move). The only stipulation on free actions is that they can't directly trigger another of the same type, which none of the above do. So yeah, I think you're good to go with that. Hence why it's always worth leaving a couple of cubes between model near enemy CC units to create a 'fire break' and prevent losing multiple models to CC chains.

I think you're close but not entirely there.

The Fight is part of the Move/Sprint Action and isn't a separate Action. The same concept as in Dreadball, where a striker can Run as part of a Throw Action, but isn't actually a separate Run Action.

So it is possible to chain a bunch BUT you end up having to have a few rubbish rolls in between so you actually have to have a free Fight Action from NOT killing an opponent, before you can get your second free Move Action.

I've recently learned that an opponent is not obligated to do their Free Fight Action either, or even act at all in their entire Round in case they don't think they can even Break Away decently.

Looking at the FAQ and FAQ thread on the blog, looks like you can indeed daisy chain alternating free Moves and free Fights.

Today we also restarted the game twice because the Guntrack Mortar killed half the enemy force on my first activation. Twice.

 Compel wrote:
I think you're close but not entirely there.


So it is possible to chain a bunch BUT you end up having to have a few rubbish rolls in between so you actually have to have a free Fight Action from NOT killing an opponent, before you can get your second free Move Action.

I see what you mean if it was a move action that caused the fight, but for a sprint you'd be ok to take the free move from doubling, move again and then fight. You would then need to fight again (ie. enemies are still in the cube) before you could get a free move.

I've recently learned that an opponent is not obligated to do their Free Fight Action either, or even act at all in their entire Round in case they don't think they can even Break Away decently.

Interesting. I can actually see that being quite useful in some cases, potentially tying up an enemy model for longer without risking yourself.

It was more the: "as long as it kept beating the targets twice over to get free Moves, one model could sweep the entire board in one activation?"

That I was saying was close. But not quite right.

The rulebook has been errated to clarify things, this is separate from the faq.

Page 22, Free Actions section, 1st para, 5th line, sentence finishing “…action of the same type”: add “for the same model” to the end of the sentence so that the sentence reads” A free action cannot trigger another free action of the same type for the same model.”
Page 22, the sentence after the one above: Add to the end “unless it has been earned by a different model”. The sentence will now read: ” If the result says that a second free action of the same type is earned then ignore that part of the result unless it has been earned by a different model.”
Page 28, right col, 2nd para, 2nd line: delete “for free”. The sentence will then read “…same cube as an enemy model then it will Fight as part of that action.”

So, that does limit the chain a bit.

Bit tired to follow along too closely with free vs not free actions, but I feel this is a 'hidden' strength of any melee knockback weapon as well. If you can double your opponent's fight without killing them, you can push then follow repeatedly, crossing the board even if they were smart and set up their checkers pieces to deny multiple jumps.

Unless the rules changy bit quashes that. Bit out of it today to really follow along =/

 GrimDork wrote:
Bit tired to follow along too closely with free vs not free actions, but I feel this is a 'hidden' strength of any melee knockback weapon as well. If you can double your opponent's fight without killing them, you can push then follow repeatedly, crossing the board even if they were smart and set up their checkers pieces to deny multiple jumps.

Unless the rules changy bit quashes that. Bit out of it today to really follow along =/

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. I might have to give that a go next time I break out the Mauler suit.

Yeah the mauler is probably best suited to it. Someone else can too, but I think the mauler does it best.

Re command. Why is the stat split into two numbers (i.e., 1-1) rather than just the total? I can't seem to find a reference to anything other than the command total in the rules...

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Re command. Why is the stat split into two numbers (i.e., 1-1) rather than just the total? I can't seem to find a reference to anything other than the command total in the rules...

Check the End of Round section on pg 21, specifically point 2. The 2 numbers determine how many new battle cards you draw at the end of the round and how many of those you can keep in your hand.

The two numbers also have to do with the psychic special ability. One or the other is a model's defense against attacks. It's a useful stat for working in future rules as well.

 GrimDork wrote:
Yeah the mauler is probably best suited to it. Someone else can too, but I think the mauler does it best.

I think the Plague Terraton is the only other one that can do it, but I don't own one of them yet.

 larva_uk wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Re command. Why is the stat split into two numbers (i.e., 1-1) rather than just the total? I can't seem to find a reference to anything other than the command total in the rules...

Check the End of Round section on pg 21, specifically point 2. The 2 numbers determine how many new battle cards you draw at the end of the round and how many of those you can keep in your hand.

Well, that was pretty obvious-- I'm a little ashamed I missed it. Thanks.

Don't worry, it's very easy to miss. It took me about 4 games before I realised it.

So I played a game against an adult last night and it was a blast. I got destroyed.

Something I never realized:
Supporting fire for Blaze Away does not need to be in the same square as you! Holy crud.

WUT. Elaborate? My rulebook is a pdf and what with this screaming kid there's no hope of finding that.

 GrimDork wrote:
WUT. Elaborate? My rulebook is a pdf and what with this screaming kid there's no hope of finding that.

So when you fire Blaze Away, you get +1 dice per supporting model.

I always thought that meant unactivated model in your cube that could also blaze away. It doesn't. It is unactivated model that could blaze away at that same cube. So if you have 5 dudes who all have area LOS to one spot, you can activate one to blaze away and then support with the other 4 to get +4 dice.

"Supporting Models
*A friendly model may support a Blaze Away action if
it has not yet activated and it could have made a Blaze
Away action of its own against the same target. A model
that supports is marked as activated and does count
towards the maximum number of models a player can
activate in his Turn."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Long story short, my horde of marauder commandos could have been a lot more effective if they weren't piled up in a square and could have spread out and then all blazed away for one activation.

Yeah holy crap. That's kind of huge, and I was totally reading it the same way. That makes those hordes of human rebs a bit more appealing if you can distribute them around and not pile them up to get fragged to death.

Ok, that's both interesting and possibly awesome. I'll have to try out a setup, probably with rebs, that makes use of this. The Onslaught Cannon suddenly looks more useable if my 4 point humans can add dice without having to stand next to it.

Also, with Orx there could be a trick here, cheap 5 point Commandos lending fire to a Rainmaker to take advantage of it's multitude of high-ROF weapons.

Yeah, I totally did not realize you could do that from anywhere in los. Awesome.

Yeah, makes horde squads crazy good.

I'm almost thinking I need to try this list with a few proxies:

Rebs
Commander
2x Zees scavengers
2 Onslaught Cannon Grogan
7Humans

Hide the Zees, suppress the crap out of everything and then dash in with the Zees. It would be terrible, but oh-so-much fun!

That looks kind of entertaining.

The only problem is that you can only really suppress two targets a round. More if you can get some commands off.

Fair point, You would be stuck with only 1 mega-activation per turn, but on the other hand, 1 6-dice attack is pretty much a certain Suppressed result, especially if the enemy are in cover, and there's a good chance to do a little damage given the amount of dice.

I figured it had to be the same cube as well...

That is potentially very, very cool. Though I imagine that it's pretty well balanced as well, since it still counts as an Activation, for a turn. - So, 6 dudes max contributing to one uber blaze away? That can still only do a max of 3 potential damage.

Something to keep in mind though.

Oh, it is capped at -3. Damn. We did that wrong.

Another clever thing, it is really useful to seize the initiative if you have more models than your opponent. Example:
- My opponent had 5 enforcers and 4 command total
- I had like 10 guys and 5 command total

He would always finish first so would always get the initiative. If you do the blaze away trick and activate like 8 at once, you would finish first and then get the initiative.

@Pretre, sneaky!

Don't forget ammo for the grogan is cheap too, in case you want to run your humans around for something. Might get a lucky clear shot or whatever. The snag is when you're doing suppression antics and need to actually kill stuff =/

True. Killing is the downside of my plan. Although a Reb commander with sniper rfile would help the reb version. A rainmaker/goblin sniper works well in the Marauder version.

 pretre wrote:
. If you do the blaze away trick and activate like 8 at once, you would finish first and then get the initiative.

Doesn't supporting count towards your maximum number of activations? So you could only do up to the command limit. If not, then that's a good plan.

Also, 3 potential damage is not going to hurt anything with amazing armour, but on the other hand can still kill armour 1 models, which includes humans, Yndij, Stage 3s (both kinds), Commandos, snipers, mawbeasts and a bunch of other stuff. Tripling with 5-7 dice is not too hard, I imagine, so there's still a lot of potential.

Also, with that many guns, you could always just pull off some massed point-fire and have a decent chance to get lucky and do some damage.

With the command stat they could have just had one value, IMO.

Then just say "half of cmd value rounded up/down for the first and second values.

 Paradigm wrote:

 pretre wrote:
. If you do the blaze away trick and activate like 8 at once, you would finish first and then get the initiative.

Doesn't supporting count towards your maximum number of activations? So you could only do up to the command limit. If not, then that's a good plan.

Supporting has a specific exemption to your command limit.

Also, 3 potential damage is not going to hurt anything with amazing armour, but on the other hand can still kill armour 1 models, which includes humans, Yndij, Stage 3s (both kinds), Commandos, snipers, mawbeasts and a bunch of other stuff. Tripling with 5-7 dice is not too hard, I imagine, so there's still a lot of potential.

Also, with that many guns, you could always just pull off some massed point-fire and have a decent chance to get lucky and do some damage.

Yeah. Can you use weak point and head shot on Blaze Away? Throw some AP in there?

From the rule:
" A model that supports is marked as activated and does count
towards the maximum number of models a player can
activate in his Turn"

So it does count towards the limit, unless there's something else I'm missing.

I don't have a deck on me, but I'm pretty sure Headshot can only be used on an actually 'shoot' action, but I think Weak Spot can be applied to anything that can potentially cause damage.

Where did I get the NOT that I saw there.

Dammit. Nevermind then.

That's one of my biggest questions still too. Like the pka captains dominator rifle. Its got ap1 *and* firestorm. Do we apply the ap1 to potential ba damage? Same with the plague mortar and its ap1 and frag. I assume that the ap affects the damage but I haven't read those sections recently.

I would imagine that it does.

Yeah, I'd assume it applies to anything done by the weapon that causes damage.

Other problem of scattering your units between different squares (but near each other) is that it allows an opposing CC specialist to play 'Draughts' (is it Checkers in the US?) and hop between units, one after the other, along the battle line if it gets some good rolls.

After a couple more games and having tried all factions, I'd say there are definitely some things out of whack that need to be polished.

Massive Frag is one of them. The Guntrack Mortar can and will regularly end the game on turn 1. This is atrociously bad game design and I don't know how it got through playtesting.

The other one is the major disparity between the effectiveness of high-power direct fire weapons in contrast to heavy suppression weapons.

I can honestly say that every single missile launcher, H.E.W. or similar gun I've tried has been nothing but a waste of points and I have not scored a single kill with any of them ever. High AP is massively, massively overpriced compared to Sniper and Firestorm and will be forever useless unless the upcoming mechs have Armour 5 or something.

The gun track mortar is unbelievable! Round one -three kills and one pinned, round two- two more kills!
Yep, very powerful and game changing. How can it be changed? Decrease accuracy? What if it always scattered? But by one scatter if a hit, three if a miss?

I'm surprised you've found AP overpriced, Blackfang, as I've found it essential to pack at least one AP2+ weapon where possible, either melee and CC. The Desolator, Missile Launcher and the HEW beamer on the Rainmaker are some of the weapons I've found most useful, especially when stopping the likes of Stage 1s, Rippers suits and anything the Enforcers have.

 Paradigm wrote:
I'm surprised you've found AP overpriced, Blackfang, as I've found it essential to pack at least one AP2+ weapon where possible, either melee and CC. The Desolator, Missile Launcher and the HEW beamer on the Rainmaker are some of the weapons I've found most useful, especially when stopping the likes of Stage 1s, Rippers suits and anything the Enforcers have.

It's 3 shoot dice vs. 4 survive dice (everyone knows to hug cover by now). Winning by 1 or even 2 points is often meaningless on anything you want to shoot with a HEW anyway because of Tough (Jake is currently working out how to nerf Tough). So you usually need to beat survive by 2-3 while rolling less dice and usually needing the same result to score.

Your absolutely best bet at taking out heavy targets is playing a +1AP card on the Guntrack Mortar and enjoy murdering everything in the target cube with 5 damage dice on 4+ even on a miss and scattering and pinning everything else in a 3x3 block. For a point cheaper than the HEW and the option of firing without even area LOS.

Last night's game was another confirmation of the above. This time my opponent tried the Enforcers and he was seriously pissed about the missile launcher who, again, did nothing all game long.

Apart from that, we're slowly figuring out the factions. It was somewhat of a surprise to find out how poor the Enforcers were in melee as we all just kinda assumed they were like Space Marines, good at everything. Nope. Their playstyle seems to be to get up as high as possible and jump from roof to roof, avoiding melee, while keeping the enemy suppressed until you can drop down on all your objectives at once, or snipe whomever you need to snipe.

It does seem strange that you can't "aim" with the missile launcher because it's deliberate.

The experimental rules on qwirkworthy sort out some of the uselessness of high ap weapons against tough and very tough things but it's still hard to get that hit.

Yeah, they could have done with giving them Marksman at least.

No move order into move card into elevated clear shot? I'd say xp but not everyone rocks campaign mode and then we get into the whole costs too much debate.

So what do you guys do about fast plague lists? I played something like this tonight:
Stage 1A
Stage 3A General
Stage 2A
Stage 2A
6 Hellhounds

It just gets across the board fast (using command actions and move/sprint with dogs) and ties you up.

6 dice on stage 2's in hand to hand seems really good.

I guess I'd try to get up high and take out the 2 models with Command stats for the auto-win. But yeah, 2As and dogs are brutal.

I did feth up and not do Rampage on my 2As which wuold have made some difference. I hid my general behind LOS and the 1A is just really hard to kill

Other ideas include taking out the dogs and pinning everything everywhere with a massive frag, then climb up on some half-tiles and deal with the 2As somehow while making funny faces at the impotent 1A. Admittedly, one 2A ate three Enforcers in two turns just the other day...

Yeah, keep in mind with Rampage that on a 1-2 they will attack their buddies.

Who gets Massive Frag?

Marauders (and Plague with the mortar, but that's not nearly as survivable as the Guntrack)

The Rebs' TK weapons team can do in a pinch too.

Aha, thanks for that.

Marauders and Plague get Massive frag as well as a good amount of normal Frag (though I'll ignore the mirror match for now). Rebs have access to some Frag and Shockwave. Enforcers are low on Frag options (basically the Fusion Gun) but are excellent in terms of suppression and have access to sentry guns to keep things at bay.

With the above force, you basically have hope the first turn doesn't screw you over. Good use of height and proper suppression set-up will make things tough for you. It will be even worse if you aren't the first activation (because you will be nicely bunched up for Blaze Away and Frag.

Now, the upside of course is that you start off with most everything Enraged so that affords a bit of protection against initial suppression attempts. But a few good Blaze Away actions and or Frag/Massive Frag can ruin your day.

I'd say Marauders will likely be the toughest ones to pull this against. They may even get terribly lucky and take out the hidden General in turn one unless you can find some overhanging cover that blocks LOS from above and the front (pray you have it to set up in if you don't get turn one. That said, the mortar can be gotten under as its minimum range is 5 cubes (and it was recently FAQ'd over at QuirkWorthy that Vehicle/CSW Indirect weapons can only use the Throw option) but if you don't get first turn, being that bunched up could hurt a hell of a lot. A guntrack mortar and a Rainmaker will just flat out ruin your day given half the chance.

Against Rebs you need to worry more about him have access to the numbers needed to suppress you heavily. A load of human troops, some spotter drones and a few good support weapons will basically just freeze you in your tracks. This will give them time to improve their position and start picking you off while keeping your head down.

Out of all the factions, Enforcers would probably have the toughest time with this. But with their good manoeuvrability and access to good suppression, even they could pull it off with some canny play.

Basically this list relies on having a good deployment zone, approaches that aren't too circuitous and praying your opponent doesn't get the first turn (and/or that they don't have less activations than you).

Personally, although 2A's and doggies are brutal (saw a 2A skip merrily through some Reb back lines a couple days back as if it were nothing), I don't know how I would feel about having zero suppression ability in a list (the General doesn't count because it is getting assassinated the second it pops out). Even popping a grenade launcher in there or something would give you the ability to keep folk's heads down and increase your chances of getting in there.

And once thinned out, watch out for a counter-assault. If they have you pinned and you are lined up nicely, the enemy could potentially have their own little game of checkers. So be on the look out for Teraton, Mauler Suits and Maw Beasts (and Mawbeast Bombers for that matter).

I think it would be a fun list to try in one-off games, but is probably too limited to go for in Campaigns since a list like this will take some pretty high casualties even when it does well (6+ survive and no armour makes the Hellhounds fairly killable).

The activations thing was a big deal too. I had 6 (Stage 1) vs 4 (Reb Commander). I'll suggest the TK for him.

In a campaign, keep in mind that I have 70 more points of dudes for other lists. I have a mix of stuff and just bought a mortar on your guys suggestion.

Oh definitely, the other 70 points helps, but at the very least, a lot of those Hellhounds will be dying in a list where they can't rely on friendly suppression fire to keep them out of trouble. They may only be a few points a piece, but those casualties will add up when fielded like this. I don't think you'd be able to run this list more than once in a campaign without having to dump most of your rep gained back in to rebuilding it. And on the other side of the field, it makes for a very good time to focus on taking out things like the 1A because you wont be contenting with immediate threats by firepower from the other side of the field. Usually the 1A gets away because it isn't an immediate threat that needs to be stopped. So other things that can effect the game early on in a firefight will eat more aggression. But if the rest of the team is lined up and suppressing things that need to be suppressed, then the 1A is a nice, juicy target that will also injure you battleplan with the 2A's.

It is also worth pointing out that by fielding a list with no shooting to speak of you allow the enemy to do something they'd normally not do. Bunch up in a handful of cubes. Normally, because of the threat of a good Blaze Away, people aren't going to want to be sitting together too often. But when you don't have to worry about that, bunch up in good firing positions and have at 'er. And this leads to the second problem. Normally melee folks can use these spread out lines to their advantage. No bonuses to Survive from friendlies and with enough of a dice lead doubling becomes fairly easy in order to pick up free actions (which leads to the checkers massacre).

But now the enemy can castle together for better defence against melee. This will also reduce the chance for melee chaining as well since with a loaded square you can only get an extra free attack out of the deal so long as folks are still in there. And since Free Actions can't spring from the same Free Action that spawned them, you wont be getting more than two kills at best (and with the extra defence of friends in the square, likely not even that).

And Hellhounds seem mostly useful for ganging up on lone stragglers. Because you don't have much semblance of battlefield control, those wont be so easy to find since the enemy has no compunction to split up.

Not saying it can't work, but by focusing on assault to the exclusion of worthwhile shooting, you end up making assault easier to defend against and harder to set up lopsided conditions in your favour. Without the fear from Blaze Away and Frag there is nothing stopping the enemy from bunching up for maximum protection against assault.

I think the list could definitely use something to punish that. Considering Plague have access to Massive Frag, you may think of popping that in the list.

Not near my books right now but finding some room for a Mortar or a Boomstick or two might be an effective way of instituting a Catch 22 so that bunching up in a good firing position isn't the easiest way to handle you. In my mind, not having any ranged field control in DZ makes things an uphill battle. It also gives you a chance to get the enemy pinned which assault units love.

Another question from someone who has yet to play the game (me): The only reference I can see in the rules for Indirect weapons is hidden in the text for Throw Grenade. This means that the Plague grenade launcher and mortar and the Marauder Guntrack are treated as long range grenades, right?

@Ronin_Ex: Those are all great suggestions for dealing with it! Thank you.

The rules for Indirect, CSW and Vehicles weren't printed directly in the rules. They are over on Quirkworthy, here.

Youch!

Will they be included in that Wave 2 book thingamabob?

Thank you for that!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And anyone know how much a physical compendium will be? Or if it comes with strike team?

It's free if you spent more than $300 total, the hardback limited version of it is $40.

Moved to the approp thread.

I wouldn't assume anything with Mantic, especially on a project of this size.

I'm PM them and make sure, and then add a comment in again when you pay for your 2nd survey stuff.

I am ridiculously happy to see how much strategy and list of optional tactics each force has.

I have yet to play, but for anyone who has: Have you encountered any issues with using a campaign force in a pickup game (So still 70 pts, but some units might have veteran dice or abilities or such, vs someone with a straight unadulterated 70pt list)?

Keep in mind that veteran dice, etc make the model cost more so it all works out.

I was wondering if using a particular base model and upgrading it through the experience system would be a fair and balanced way to generate your own special units. Like say you've got some of those vanguard from sedition wars and you don't feel they're as weak as human rebs, or as strong as enforcers, so you get them a stat point or two and maybe an ability. The points are taken care of, and it isn't going to generate a list outside of what rebs could have with experience (although it is kind of min-max-ish if you just pick anything).

Probably abusable, but without Jake's point cost formula, it might be a reasonable stand-in for home games?

It probably wouldn't be bad at all. A Human Reb with an extra ability and 1 or two vet dice might be a good way to do it.

I like that idea a lot, GD. So long as everyone took the same attitude to it (not WAAC min-maxing) then it could be a great way to add some character to the force. I've got a game scheduled this weekend, I may give that a try if the opponent is up for it too.

Would be obliged to hear your results as I wont be able to try it in game myself for some time. I Wonder if being able to hand pick your upgrades will make the upgrade cost and lower number of units viable. Or if it'll even bee too much. I can only speculate but you guys have experience gathering potential

I'll see if I can give it a go, as it's going to be a while before I can get a campaign proper off the ground. This might be a way to mix things up in the mean time.

If I do give it a shot, I'll put up results on here.

Excellent. I wonder if a marksman human with +1 shoot stat at 7 points would be viable, or just junky. (+2 ability +1 stat right?) It's the same cost as the goblin sniper although it's a tad tougher and can move + shoot. If it is viable, marauder commandos would probably make a good platform for it.

Whoops my bad, rebel humans already have 5+ shoot, so just marksman.

Definitely some good abilities to choose from. I kind of assume only the first tier will be viable, rank 5+ models will cost at least 5 more points, before adding on 4 more for their second tier ability. But you can choose from brawler, ap1 fight, knockback fight, tactician... There are a couple more like medic engineer and discipline too. Actually maybe that was all of them.

Tactician added to the enforcer sniper might be pretty awesome, and I think the Yndij may benefit from ap1 and or brawler, although then he's enforcer points so it's kind of hard to say.

Ok, I'm sure this is addressed somewhere but I can't find it: Is there any practical difference between rare and specialists in list building?

The reason I ask is the following list looks like fun to me. I'm just afraid that I can't actually use it due to 2 identical rares.
2 yindij sgt.
4 yindij troopers
2 tk-zero weapon teams

Unique is only one. Rare is like specialist but it isn't specialist. I would think you don't count rares for kill specialist VP missions,but other tthan the name they should be identical.

That is basically it, they are specialists who don't give extra VP for most folks. So if you are playing a faction that often gets specialist-kill objectives, using rares is a great VP denial technique.

I'm pretty sure Rares = Specialist and Unique = Leader for the purposes of calculating VPs. Can't remember where I've seen it, though.

Nope, never seen any hint of that. Closest thing to that was the Rebs Commander was mislabeled as a Specialist, when she was a leader, obviously.

GrimDork wrote:Unique is only one. Rare is like specialist but it isn't specialist. I would think you don't count rares for kill specialist VP missions,but other tthan the name they should be identical.

Ronin_eX wrote:That is basically it, they are specialists who don't give extra VP for most folks. So if you are playing a faction that often gets specialist-kill objectives, using rares is a great VP denial technique.

lord_blackfang wrote:I'm pretty sure Rares = Specialist and Unique = Leader for the purposes of calculating VPs. Can't remember where I've seen it, though.

That's ... odd, I'd expect the rares to be slightly more limited than specialists. Unless there are campaign rules were it makes a difference (haven't really looked at those).

As to VP denial shenanigans Lord Blackfang is correct. On page 40 (42 in the pdf) under the explanation of the Kill Commander, trooper, specialist or Leader goals:

For purposes of this goal, Rare models are counted as Specialists and Unique models are counted as Leaders.

I don't play, but I think the box set looks enticing. Anybody care to give me a light summary of how it all shakes out? I come from a pretty GW centric experience. Mordheim is the only skirmish game I'm familiar with.

 Thokt wrote:
I don't play, but I think the box set looks enticing. Anybody care to give me a light summary of how it all shakes out? I come from a pretty GW centric experience. Mordheim is the only skirmish game I'm familiar with.

It is I go / You go gameplay with a pretty simple rules that have interesting interactions. Squads are very small (70 points with models running from 3-22 points each) and play is fast and fun.

To the larger group, How do you deal with killing 'Very Tough' models?

Killing 'very Tough'? The only time I've ever faced one, it was a plague S1 and it was a case of killing everything else first for VP denial (it was an infiltrate game) and then just hit it with everything I had, which was an Yndij, Grogan, human and sniper. It went down, but I'd never rely on those good rolls. I think the best option may be to just pin it as much as possible

The issue is that a S1 is so key to my plague list, I'm trying to help my buddy out. 6 activations is really nice and the 6 command dice, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen one go down, but we don't field Plague much around here. The G1 can generally just be avoided, I imagine the Plague Teraton is more of a problem with its Teleport, but there's always half tiles...

As I say, I think pinning is the only real way to deal with S1s directly, but that doesn't help against the leadership abilities.The only thing you can do is use it's massive cost to your advantage by taking out the few cheaper models. Slow means it's not getting into CC soon, giving you time to deal with the other stuff without having to worry about the S1.

Other than that, there's not much I can suggest.

Good to know. Those suckers are hardy. I need to convince my buddy to take a Reb Teraton.

I have to say, I'd love to see a S1 go in a knockdown fight with a Terraton, it would be pretty damn destructive. I've yet to make that happen, but having seen the brutal, brutal things a Terraton does to anything I've ever sent it up against, I'm going to do my utmost to make that happen in my next game Vs plague.

Also, your buddy should not need too much convincing to take a Terraton, they are just soooo awesome.

Do you guys keep up with Quirkworthy? A few updates ago Jake put up an experimental high-ap transforms into irresistible rule. This might help? Otherwise, it seems like units with a high volume of dice and at least ap1 would be best, so proper snipers, maybe even proper snipers with veteran dice (in campaigns obvs).

I recently started reading it, so haven't seen any of the older stuff.

 pretre wrote:
Good to know. Those suckers are hardy. I need to convince my buddy to take a Reb Teraton.

How does he even fill his points up if he's not bringing the Teraton? That guy is amazing, he comes with a frag grenade, he teleports and he messes up anything short of a G1 or Plague Teraton in melee. I've seen one checkerboard half a strike team in one turn. His huge downside, like all big toys, is that he gets suppressed just as easily as everything else. So save up those Steadfast and Courage cards.

For anyone that doesn't check Jake Thornton's (guy who wrote the DZ rules, if you didn't know) blog Quirkworthy, here are the most recent rule updates/musings:

100 point escalated games and campaigns
Blaze away vs constructs
Experimental AP/irresistible rule

Hope that helps if anyone was missing out. There's also a living faq where folks will ask questions and Jake will knock them out, and update the faq/errata as necessary.

While I'm on it, anyone have thoughts about the increased game size?

I'm certainly eager to try the 100 point game, mainly to get things like the Peacekeeper Captain in games without gutting my list. It may end up a little cramped on a 2x2 board, but I'd have to try it a few times to see if this is the case.

Regarding the Excessive Force rules (if AP is 2x armour and at least 3, counts as irresistable), I'm not sure. It does make the big'uns a little easier to bring down, but I can see things like +1AP being played on a Desolator to get through a S1 armour, but because it's AP4 then you're ignoring all armour and tough, which mean you only need 2 damage to kill it in one. That may be a little overdone, I think.

Yeah, that's my concern slightly as well,

On the other hand, a Grogan is still only 5+ shooting, whereas a a Stage 1 is 4+ save. So even then, you're still talking about needing to stack a lot of dice together, plus a headshot card. And also assume that the Stage 1 doesn't have a survive card.

I agree that it seems a little OtT strong, but it also seems like it would be tricky to elegantly meet halfway.

 GrimDork wrote:
I agree that it seems a little OtT strong, but it also seems like it would be tricky to elegantly meet halfway.

Tough eats 3 points of AP, Really Tough eats 5. Done.

Ml strips gen2 and hews strip gen1... easier than I thought. Should see what Jake thinks over on quirkworthy, might be something to look into.

Well, I had the best game ever tonight, down to the cinematic ending. Enforces outnumbered and pinned down with S2s barreling towards them... the sniper suddenly has an epiphany. The +2 shoot bonus is an ability of the model, not his rifle. He stands up and puts a pistol round right between a S2's eyes. This makes room for his buddy to make a run for the last objective. Victory!

Yup, it's a pretty handy trick. It's something worth keeping in mind for the Rebs Commander too, as it lets her actually take part in Infiltrate missions and not be a complete lead weight.

Haha, that sounds absolutely awesome as an ending. I've had something similar myself (although maybe not as sudden) with a S2 1 square from the edge, and a Rebs human in the next square. One aim+shoot later, along with 4 8s, the S2 disappears in a cloud of laser fire. And the next turn, he does it to another one! See, GW, this is how you do cinematic!

On a more serious note, the thing about marksman/sniper being on the model is always handy to remember, as it means that even when moving, an Enforcer sniper can still put out a pistol shot 6 cubes with 4 dice, and the Rebs commander with 3. Comes in handy in infiltrate missions, where you need to keep moving.

Good reason to give sniper ap ammo too

Game reminds me even more of xcom now

Is that a good or a bad thing, GD? I still haven't played yet.

The most recent xcom is really high on my list of favorite games. The turn sequence , overwatch, death in the open, and so on feel similar. I haven't played dz past the one proxy game, but it reminds me a lot of xcom.

You're pretty much on the money, though. It is very xcom-ey. The Plague stage 2s, incidentally give me the same reaction as crysalids, especially when they gain fast.

*shudder those things are terrifying when they first show up.

I'm just glad there's no equivalent to the sectoid commander

Yet...

You know, I think you're onto something there.

Who's up for a XCOM conversion?

Meep!

Hopefully the walkers aren't as brutal as sectopods... those are nasty.

Has anyone tried the second wave mercs/heroes? I like the third simplified version of Byarg or w/e his name is... deep strikes in with a bang and then normal instead of cool, but potentially confusing, jump pack rules.

Haven't tried them yet but they look at least decent for the most part (except the Rebs scout, who could easily cost half as much as he does) and add something new to gameplay, unlike most of the old ones.

Over n the mantic forums there is already a dead zone/xcom thread I believe. Not sure how far along it is.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well, I had the best game ever tonight, down to the cinematic ending. Enforces outnumbered and pinned down with S2s barreling towards them... the sniper suddenly has an epiphany. The +2 shoot bonus is an ability of the model, not his rifle. He stands up and puts a pistol round right between a S2's eyes. This makes room for his buddy to make a run for the last objective. Victory!

Yeah, my eyes were opened to the awesomeness of Enforcer snipers this weekend. On a lark, in our campaign, I decided to leave the Captain at home (yeah, I'm trying to use enforcers with as few proxies as possible while I wait for wave two) and went for a dual-sniper list with no actual leaders (2-1 isn't too shabby all told). They ended up using the pistols quite a bit throughout the game, though the slow nature of my card economy made things a lot tougher (3-3 spoiled me damn it!).

It was going quite nicely until I got a bit cocky and didn't prioritize pinning the Teraton. It ended up lancing through my lines (I was doing quite well up to that point, a few kills and had most of the Rebs pinned down) taking out a trooper and the two snipers (ugh). I had more than enough saved up for rez attempts, of course. But when you roll a 6, 1 and a 1 for mishaps rolls... yeah. Only one sniper made it out alive and I was down 9 rep (should have cut my losses and not attempted to rez the trooper since I have enough waiting in my queue).

Unfortunately, the other sniper will probably be staying home the next few games until I can afford a Sergeant (which I probably should have started with, even if the Captain has given me excellent results thus far).

But the Sniper is worth its weight in gold if well supported. +2 to shoot makes it a whirlwind of death. Give it a good, high shooting position and its pistol will make things hurt. Now that mine is sporting a veteran die, I can't wait to pull it out again. A possible 7D attack before adding cards in. Should make for a nice play with a Move card (unless you luck in to a good position, the pray you drew Headshot and pick something good for death). Though, that said, I don't think I'll be grabbing much else for this sniper in terms of stat boosts and the like. Enforcer lists are fairly tight and experience bloat can really hurt them. Kind of sad that so far I have only either rolled results that killed my guys are smooth operations when rezzing things. A few choice injuries here and there would make my life easier when filling lists out.

Talk of all of these pistol shenanigans further reinforces how awesome the enforcer sniper is in my mind. I like to think that the thermal rifle enforcer has some of the same utility, no sniper rule of course, but the mobile aim-able ap3 (plus it burns!) seems like a good thing.

Hey, if I could, my army would be just one half snipers, one half burst lasers.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Hey, if I could, my army would be just one half snipers, one half burst lasers.

Just need a srg in there so you can do a cheeky, command move, move card shoot with the sniper.

Many a stage 1 and 2 have been outflanked and nailed by this combo.

Okay, I see that I may have been doing the turn sequence wrong. So my 2-2 commander would move 4 models in a turn? "In a single Turn you may act with a maximum number of models equal to your Commander’s command total." I read that as round.

We were playing that I move a model, pass, you move a model, pass, until you hit your command limit and then the round was over.

This appears to be wrong (someone chirp in here to help me out). How I read it now:
I get the initiative. I have a 2-2 commander, I activate 4 dudes. I pass the initiative. You have a 3-2. You activate 5 dudes. You pass the initiative. I activate 4 more and run out of dudes. I pass the initiative. You activate the rest of your dudes, round ends.

Sound right?

 pretre wrote:
Okay, I see that I may have been doing the turn sequence wrong. So my 2-2 commander would move 4 models in a turn? "In a single Turn you may act with a maximum number of models equal to your Commander’s command total." I read that as round.

We were playing that I move a model, pass, you move a model, pass, until you hit your command limit and then the round was over.

This appears to be wrong (someone chirp in here to help me out). How I read it now:
I get the initiative. I have a 2-2 commander, I activate 4 dudes. I pass the initiative. You have a 3-2. You activate 5 dudes. You pass the initiative. I activate 4 more and run out of dudes. I pass the initiative. You activate the rest of your dudes, round ends.

Sound right?

Yep, that's is, which is why having a good command total is so significant, as you can really get the drop on your opponent by stacking multiple moves/shots in a row. The higher your command total, the more combos you can set up.

Thanks, Para. Now I feel silly. We've played probably 5-10 games my way. lol

Each game has been a litany of 'what are we doing wrong now'.

I wouldn't sweat it, to be honest. It took me about three weeks to work out that you had to play one card per round, not per turn, as well as the proper system for drawing cards and that you could capture objectives at any turn, not just the end of the game.

Yeah, there's always a lot of little bits to get into. I really love this game.

Sounds like I've been doing pretty well, comparatively

I hope the sorry excuse we have for a plowing service here clears the streets by Saturday so I can get a game of Code 13 in!

 Paradigm wrote:
I wouldn't sweat it, to be honest. It took me about three weeks to work out that you had to play one card per round, not per turn

Well I just learned something new...

 darkPrince010 wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
I wouldn't sweat it, to be honest. It took me about three weeks to work out that you had to play one card per round, not per turn

Well I just learned something new...

You may have done, but maybe not. Basically, it's one per whatever the longer one is (I still don't remember which is which), so what I wrote may be entirely wrong.

A round is the activation of all the models on a side.
A turn is the activation of models equal to your command value.

A round is made up of turns.

Yeah, so it is one card played/discarded per round.

At least. Unless you're trying to burn out your hand to be the guy with the most VPs. Seems like a legitimate way to win when either or both players may have trouble hitting 10, or 13 in the code 13 scraps.

That is true, I was just referring to the minimum you needed to play; for my first few games I was playing it 1 per turn and drawing a new card for every one I played. Needless to say, the games were over far faster.

Burning through once you have a good lead is a nice plan. On a similar note, what do people think about buying extra cards for your deck with leftover points? On one hand, you have longer to achieve your goals before timeout, and can be a little less conservative with cards, but on the other you can end up with too many cards to force an early close once you get a lead.

I think if you build your force in such a way that you don't think you'll be able to or trying to force an early end, extra cards may help you get that one special card you need to pull something out of the fire... It would be kind of a per-faction decision, some may be better at predicting such a thing than others.

I hadn't thought of intentionally depleting my deck to end the game, nice one!

So far we've found that games are short enough that there's no real need to be conservative with cards. We only came close to depleting a deck once, when the Enforcer player used a card on every single model activation.

Something I always forget is to track the VPs in Survive missions...I forget you get them per round. This did coincidentally lead me to deliberately start rattling through cards in my last game to force a draw wh things went wrong...only to realise at the end I had completely forget to track my Survival objective.

As someone who mainly uses Plague, I'm just wondering what people think of the Stage 1A? I ask as I get the impression that 3A Generals are more popular, presumably due to the 1A's cost and lack of speed. I think he can make a useful deterrent, creating a "danger zone" as no one wants to get within arm's reach. I'd say he can definitely have a psychological impact. And let's not forget, the times he actually gets into melee, you're glad you be brought him.

1A's are hilariously hard to kill as well.

The thing that we do for our games re: Survive is that we always track it in the open regardless of mission. Just like we always put dead dudes next to our upside down mission card, etc.

 Fezman wrote:

As someone who mainly uses Plague, I'm just wondering what people think of the Stage 1A? I ask as I get the impression that 3A Generals are more popular, presumably due to the 1A's cost and lack of speed. I think he can make a useful deterrent, creating a "danger zone" as no one wants to get within arm's reach. I'd say he can definitely have a psychological impact. And let's not forget, the times he actually gets into melee, you're glad you be brought him.

Both 1A and the general have their uses. The General is dirt cheap as leaders go, allowing you to conceivably pack 3 S2s (a nasty combo), while still getting decent command stats so they aren't slow. He's also easier to hide, but is far squishier.

On the other hand, the S1 can reliably tank most weapons in the game (with Really Tough he essentially has 2 armour that nothing can negate at the moment), and while he is slow it's a guaranteed kill against anything not a Terraton, Peacekeeper Captain or Mauler Ripper. Plague also get plenty of Move cards so he can be surprisingly speedy. He also has amazing command stats, giving you more control over your cards.

In Code 13 games, S1 all the way, in 70-pointers it's whether he's worth a General and a S2 or not.

 Paradigm wrote:
On the other hand, the S1 can reliably tank most weapons in the game (with Really Tough he essentially has 2 armour that nothing can negate at the moment),

Helfather has Irresistible.

Ah, I've not seen Helfather's stats yet. Still, I wouldn't discount the S1 based on one model. If we see more 'irresistible' weapons going forward, it may be better going with hordes, but then the same could be said of any army. As it is, the S1 is pretty much the most durable thing in the game.

@pretre, I like that idea... everyone tracks all of the obvious objectives all the time, that way you can play without risk of forgetting something, while giving nothing away to eachother in terms of the secret mission. Smart.

 Paradigm wrote:
As it is, the S1 is pretty much the most durable thing in the game.

As one of the coolest models in the gaming world at the moment, damn well should be!

The rule of cool is strong with this one.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
As it is, the S1 is pretty much the most durable thing in the game.

As one of the coolest models in the gaming world at the moment, damn well should be!

Agreed. You'd have to give me a very long list of reasons and several research paper's worth of evidence to convince me to take that model out of my list.

Cant wait to paint that one! May be the first that I tackle.

 Paradigm wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
As it is, the S1 is pretty much the most durable thing in the game.

As one of the coolest models in the gaming world at the moment, damn well should be!

Agreed. You'd have to give me a very long list of reasons and several research paper's worth of evidence to convince me to take that model out of my list.

I begrudgingly did this on the weekend. Ended up with the general, 2stage 3s, the grenade launcher guy, 3dogs and 3 stage 2s.

As much as I love my stage 1, after the amount of pain those 3 stage 2s put out it'll be hard to go back to him for 70pt games.

Did anyone miss the angry mob rule for plague when they first read through the book? Helps the dogs not get blaze away killed the first turn.

I think 3 S2s is a very neat combo, it has to be said, and their damage output is phenomenal if/when you can get them into CC. The S1 really fills an entirely different role in the army.

The 2s are for fast and brutal combat monsters, the 1 gives you the near-invulnerability to just walk up the board, taking shots from all but the biggest guns with impunity (Keep a few Survive cards handy for the times he does get targeted with a big gun) and gives you great area control. If you can keep a move card on-hand, no one is going to want to go within 2 cubes of him, so he's great for objective denial and blocking routes.

In a Code 13 game (Can't wait to get one in), I'd almost be tempted to run with the S1 AND 3 2s, and fill out the rest of the points with grunts/dogs (I think it's doable pretty easily), You could set up a nice 1-2 punch with the fast and slower elements and use the grunts to keep their heads down a little. It might not be the most effective but it would sure be fun.

On an entirely unrelated note, I'd like to mention the Enforcer's Discipline rule that allows you to +/-1 aggression when Getting Mean. Has anyone considered this lets you essentially 'pin' yourself? It's only going to be very situationally useful, but with Armour 2 BA damage doesn't really bother Enforcers, and pinning yourself in cover might be a good way to get a nice bonus on survive dice against point fire (I'm pretty sure 'pinned' gives +1 survive against Shoot, doesn't it?). Is this legal/useful at all?

Yes, it is very useful. We were talking about this recently after a game. being able to get the +1 is pretty darn handy.

Hi guys, sorry if this has come up already but I don't really have time to read 7 pages (absolutely no offence intended, I just really dont have the time ) and I didn't think it was worth starting a new thread...

Can Deadzone be played on a non-squared board? I really want to give this game a go but don't have the time to build its own board. (I only have the rulebook coming so far and for now at least intend to use redundant 40k models/armies!)

Thanks guys!

 Emperors_Champion wrote:
Hi guys, sorry if this has come up already but I don't really have time to read 7 pages (absolutely no offence intended, I just really dont have the time ) and I didn't think it was worth starting a new thread...

Can Deadzone be played on a non-squared board? I really want to give this game a go but don't have the time to build its own board. (I only have the rulebook coming so far and for now at least intend to use redundant 40k models/armies!)

Thanks guys!

All the rules refer to cubes for distance but you could just replace the reference to cubes with 3",

The problem you might have is with cover cubes. Check out the demo mission on the mantic site just draw out a 4x4 board on paper and use paper "walls", once you've had a go, flip your paper and try again without the cubes see how you find it.

What I'm planning on doing is building a board for mars attacks/deadzone and putting visual queues for where the 3" cubes start etc. E.g around the edge of the board mark the 3", if ive got pavement or a road use a long crack or change in paving to show the difference in cubes.

The 3" grid is preeety important but you might get away with converting everything to inches instead of relying on cubes... more work though..

Ok thanks guys! I guess i just need to try it out!

Just be aware that measuring ranges in inches would be very, very different than counting cubes. A distance of one cube on a DZ mat could be anywhere from a fraction of an inch (if two models are right up against the line between cubes) to almost 13 inches (if they were in opposite cornersof diagonally-adjacent cubes).

Yeah its far from perfect to convert to inches.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Just be aware that measuring ranges in inches would be very, very different than counting cubes. A distance of one cube on a DZ mat could be anywhere from a fraction of an inch (if two models are right up against the line between cubes) to almost 13 inches (if they were in opposite cornersof diagonally-adjacent cubes).

9, not 13. Otherwise, yup.

 Bolognesus wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Just be aware that measuring ranges in inches would be very, very different than counting cubes. A distance of one cube on a DZ mat could be anywhere from a fraction of an inch (if two models are right up against the line between cubes) to almost 13 inches (if they were in opposite cornersof diagonally-adjacent cubes).

9, not 13. Otherwise, yup.

Oops. That's why I teach English.

Yeh that could get kind of tricky. Well if I like the rule set and can find willing opponents then I'll just have to make time to make a board. Thanks guys.

All I would say is that I advise you to give the cube system at least one try before dismissing it. I was initially apprehensive myself, but having now used it a lot, I can safely say I vastly prefer it to the measuring alternative system. Here's why:

- It really doesn't limit your movement or anything. With a 3x3x3 cube, there's plenty of place to go, and as you treat it as 3D space, it saves the need for any complicated moves about going up/down levels.

- It really does speed things up, and you'll never get arguments over "oh, it's 0.0003 inches out of range" or anything.

- It just generally smooths over a lot of things. Objective areas, weapon ranges and effects are all so streamlined.

I won't say don't use measuring if you prefer that, but I really would advocate giving it a go at least once with the cubes.

Back on the normal track, had my shortest game ever last night. I was playing Rebel Horde against Enforcers (3 Shields, 1 Assault, 1 Sgt, 1 Fusion). He got an objective mission and pulled it off turn 3. Yikes. I got 1 VP for Intel, He got 14.

Ouch, sounds harsh. I've not played enough with Enforcers to know precisely how easy the objective missions are, but it did strike me as a little easy. Does it happen often, or were you just particularly unlucky?

I imagine a lot of it depends on where the objectives are, as if they're in good cover or easy to reach from one side I can see them being far easier, whereas if they end up in the open then it'll be harder.

I imagine if your 'control' objective ends up being the one nearest your deployment zone, you could have an easy time of it.

Although... Keeping in mind that 50% of Enforcer missions are Objective based, it should be possible, in theory, to defend the one closest to your deployment zone.

In theory...

So his mission card was like this:

- Kill Specialist - 1pt
- Capture Y - 2 Pts
- Control Z - 5 pts
- Capture X - 2pts

The cool bit about objectives in DZ vs say 40k is that they are immediate, so if at any time he is on Y, Z, X, he has 9 total points. If I push him off one, he drops that many until he controls it again.

In our game, he picked up intel early (as did I) which was funny because it was the first game where intel came up. Then he managed to position well and get folks on all three. I was trying to outrange him since he had all short range weapons and was still positioning when he flipped his card. Totally outplayed me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
I imagine if your 'control' objective ends up being the one nearest your deployment zone, you could have an easy time of it.

Although... Keeping in mind that 50% of Enforcer missions are Objective based, it should be possible, in theory, to defend the one closest to your deployment zone.

In theory...

He had a really good plan too. Shield enforcers have shotguns, so he could literally push me off objectives with them.

 pretre wrote:
Back on the normal track, had my shortest game ever last night.

...

turn 3..

Ah, haven't faced the Guntrack Mortar yet, huh

I find Enforcer objective missions pretty hard to pull off. They're typically vastly outnumbered and the VP requirements mean that in practice you need to be standing on all 3 objectives at once, so that's 3 Enforcers running on ahead, risking getting tackled by a Teraton or S2, and not using heavy weapons. This leaves them with little firepower to actually clear a 3x3x3 cube of enemies around every objective (and you really have to do it all at once and take them all simultaneously, if you go in piecemeal you will lose).

I think that's why his opponent was wise to bring the defenders.

I have not faced a guntrack mortar yet.

I guess the benefit for Enforcers is that unless you are a dedicated fighter, mawbeast,Teraton or S2, you don't really want to run in on them. And if you don't know they have objectives as their mission you're just feeding them VP to do so.

Part of it was a list mismatch for me against his mission. If I had a teraton, it would have been a different story.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GrimDork wrote:
I think that's why his opponent was wise to bring the defenders.

Yeah, knockback was really clever.

Also, from a hand-to-hand standpoint he had a sgt and assault enforcer, so I definitely didn't have anything to get in there and take him down.

Hilarious moment from a game last week, btw. Teraton gets pinned and suppressed by combinations of blaze away and frag. Sgt jumps him. 5 dice vs 1. Ouch.

@Paradigm, thanks mate for the points on the cube system, it really does sounds like they've come up with a decent rules set. I'm not particularly against the cube system, I'll certainly try it, it's more of a case of me not having a marked up board and was hoping to use an existing board. Just been a tad lazy I guess! I also want to get people playing at my local club and I think the idea of needing a specific board might discourage people a little. Anyway I try not to sidetrack the thread any further, thanks guys!

Well... If you buy the boxed set of the game I think most or all of them come with the sexy rubber play mats. Already gridded up into 64 3x3" squares.

Ahem, forgot about the original question. You could always get a 2x2' anything, cut out from a cardboard box the right size. Spray it down and take another long bit of box or yard stick kind of thing and mark out the grid. Take all of 20 minutes work, and get the Idea across pretty well

Having finally had a chance to try out Code 13, here are a few observations:

- Command totals matter a hell of a lot more. With the extra models around, more cards are needed to buff them, and more activations is similarly more important. I was using the Plague S1 and the Peacekeeper Captain, and as soon as the latter was killed and command fell to a Sniper, the Plague were all over them.

- Everything seems to be far more hectic and fast-paced. There's always a threat from somewhere, and usually multiple threats.

- Missions seem to take longer (as expected) so there's plenty of time to make a comeback from behind, but at the same time Kill missions (which both sides drew) are easier to achieve thanks to having more targets and more big guns. I'd be interested to see how objective games go at 100 points. I imagine they'd be far harder as there's more guys to keep away from the Control area.

Anyone else tried Code 13 yet? Thoughts?

Hey everyone, having a bit of trouble with Rebs currently, got a campaign starting next month and I'll be the only Rebs player... everyone else has written off the faction as underpowered.

I was wondering what everyone thinks of this list for campaign purposes... I was planning in pretty much just doubling it up for the 140 point initial Strike Force, to have a casualty replacement pool.

+++ New Roster (70pts) +++ +++ 0pt Rebs Roster (Strike Team)) +++ Selections: Rebs (Strike Team) Selections: + Leaders + * Rebel Commander + Troopers + * Rebel Human * Rebel Human * Rebel Human * Rebel Human * Rebel Human * Rebel Human * Survey Drone * Survey Drone + Specialists + * Kraaw Warrior * Kraaw Warrior + Rares + * Zee Scavenger * Zee Scavenger * Zee Scavenger * Zee Scavenger
Created with BattleScribe

Basically, swarm tactics. I'm giving up on the two missions that involve killing things and focusing on the six that don't, or at least offer other options like survive, infiltrate and scour.

- Zees for grabbing items and hiding from everything.
- Humans and Drones for mass blaze away at anything that goes after a Zee.
- Commander and Kraaw for actually killing things.

As for tactics:

I figure the high mini count (and odd mini count) will be helpful for survive missions, need to kill a whole 8 minis to deny me that 1 VP per turn, not going to happen.

I plan to plan mass battle card spam and razor focus on objectives, either infiltrate or grabbing crates are good.. might even be able to move kraaw off the board from their starting position in a single turn if stacking command/ card/their ability.

Killing is going to be tough, I plan to just suppress everything I can and have too many targets for opponents to deal with.

At this point I still haven't been able to play a game (broke my toe literally three hours before I was going to play my first game), so any advice would be great.

That's interesting that the missions seem faster paced. And cool


Alright guys, my stuff is finally due to come in on Monday. I'm trying to decide what to paint first to bust out 70pts of plague and enforcers ready to rumble in as short a time as possible.

By the time it all arrives, I should have a defender, assault/sgt, and missile launcher enforcer done. What 3 enforcers could I add to complement those and finish the list?

What kind of 70 point plague lists have you guys been running? 1st gen with 2-3 2nds and whatever fits in terms of dogs and 3rds? Three gee general with a couple of boomsticks, 2gs, 3gs dogs and maybe an hmg to boot? Trying to get a game plan ready for once I get over my "huge pile of plastic" shock.

So I finally got a game of Code 13 in after missing two game nights due to catastrophic weather.

I tried Nastanza for the first time.
Turn 1 she killed a Plague Teraton.
Turn two she killed the Stage 1.
gg

@GD: Great to hear your stuff is inbound, it's about time

For Enforcers, you'd probably be better off with the sniper than the ML from a gaming standpoint (it's hard to get a good No. of dice without cards+clear shot for the ML, and against anything without Armour 2, the sniper is just as likely to kill). However, in general terms I like to run my Enforcer troopers with a 2:1 ratio of Strikes to Assaults. It's always worth having an assault Enforcer or two to deter attacks and to clear out important areas, and when Enraged and with a card they can take on anything short of a S1 or Terraton in combat.

The Sgt is essential, and the Defender is great for objective missions, so maybe Sgt, Defender, Sniper, 2 strikes and 1 assault, with the rest of the points of extra cards or upgrades?

As for Plague, it's a toss-up between the S1 or multiple S2s for me in anything but Code 13. I'd suggest maybe the S1, 1 S2, the HMG, 4-5 grunts and dogs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So I finally got a game of Code 13 in after missing two game nights due to catastrophic weather.

I tried Nastanza for the first time.
Turn 1 she killed a Plague Teraton.
Turn two she killed the Stage 1.
gg

I painted her up the other week, looks like I need to get her on the table ASAP.

wrong thread, please move on

Yeah maybe I'll crack off the ML arms and make him a rifle guy. Gotta repaint anyway.

I think your list is 70 even.

15sgt 13 sniper, 12 defender, 30 strikes and assault.

Ah, I thought the Defender was 10 (I've not yet used one). In that case, it looks like a solid list if I say so myself.

Yeah ought to work. Guess I'll see about getting 3 enforcers done before the box shows instead of 2.

Played 3 games so far, two with plague, one enforcers. I've won every game, and both guys have already played a bunch. For plague I took the following: S1 (duh), 2 S2s, 2 S3s, a S3 with HMG and a dog. 69 pts. Enforcers I took a sergeant with the 5 point holo cloak, 2 snipers and 2 defenders. The S1 is worth his weight in gold, and so are snipers. BLAM!! Headshot.

Hmm, that's interesting were you guys in the middle of a campaign? I don't think the holo cloak is part of standard issue wargear for one off games could just be houseruling it though.

List sounds pretty good, I think I was looking into something like that just today. Give your HMG ammo and it's a square 70pts too.

If we were doing a campaign, it would have been a disaster for them: each game I lost 1-2 models, they lost EVERYTHING.

Ahh hehe. I just had it in my head that you couldn't take anything but normal/ap ammo, frags, and sentry guns (if enforcers) in normal games

Eh, we allow anything there. If its in the book, it's playable. But yeah, a campaign would be horrible for them. I've only successfully finished one mission (beat it when I killed the last model). The other two games were straight up exterminations.

Haha nice, plague represent! And all that. I don't think the extra gear is really OP or anything, just making sure I know the rules.

It never even saw use. Yeah...this game is fantastic! They didn't realize how awesome snipers were. Whoops.

Also, acid spit is amazing!!

Yeah thhe plague mutations are cool beans. I like the claws for turning a 3g or dog into a credible threat, acid breath for scary 3g shock troop, and how frightening the wings can be for 1g or terrorton.

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahh hehe. I just had it in my head that you couldn't take anything but normal/ap ammo, frags, and sentry guns (if enforcers) in normal games

Just for the record, outside of house rules, that is correct.

 Compel wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahh hehe. I just had it in my head that you couldn't take anything but normal/ap ammo, frags, and sentry guns (if enforcers) in normal games

Just for the record, outside of house rules, that is correct.

Sounds good. I'll remember for next time. Like I said though, it never even came into play. Still undefeated regardless!!

Got two games in tonight

First - enforcers vs plague

Srg. - Stage 3 general
Sniper. - 2x Stage2
Burst laser. - Swarm
2 troopers. - Boomstick
1 defender. - 2x stage 3s & 2x dogs

I proxied a defender instead of a trooper in my normal list and they are a tactical goldmine. Knocking a swarm and a stage 2 out of cover for my sniper to take a clean shot.

And then tying up the other stage 2 in combat (stAge 2 couldn't get through the armour 3, I couldn't see in the FAQ what the rule for the shield in Cc is so we went with it giving + 1 vs one opponent in CC) so the enforcers could grab the final objective and win.

The defender is here to stay in my enforcer list that's for sure.

Second Rebs vs Plague
Same plague list as before
Reb commander
Teraton
Grogan with chain gun thing
Sorak
2x yinji
And a drone

This was my first game with the Rebs, and I lost.

I had the popular vote mission and my opponent had the careful carnage mission, game went to turn 4 with the Rebs needing to kill just two more specialist to win the game. And it was all lined up to happen

My Commander had a clear shot on the stage 3 general, played a shot card and only wounded it.
One of my yinji had a clear shot on the injured boomstick and missed, he then charged him and both of us rolled 2 successes
And my teraton falcon punched (teleported) an injured swarm an lost the fight by 1.

My opponent then killed my teraton with a stage 2, played a move card on the swarm then got the swarm to munch my commander (4 cube move of death).

I was a bit let down by the Teraton but this was mostly due to a round from hell. The sorak is great and was blasting plague everywhere it's just a shame you can't do any damage unless you move someone into a wall or off a platform but then he would cost too much.

Some interesting observations there, JR.

The Defender is sounding epic, I can't wait to start trying one out. I just need to work out a conversion (got a few ideas n my head).Knockback seems to be a less random version of Frag,blowing stuff out of cover very well.

Don't be put off the Terraton by that one game, it sounds like a case of bad rolling. They can usually demolish anything short of a Stage 1. Treat the Soark like the Defender in using him to set up shots rather than going for damage. 'Clear shot' on something like a Sniper or Desolator (these are great, by the way) is nothing short of stunning.

hey guys, has anyone tried the solo play deck yet?
i was wondering how it worked.

It isn't out yet so, unfortunately, we can't say anything :( Nexus psi is getting released soon, and wave 2 shipping is in June. I don't think solo play was in the campaign book so it may be somewhat close to the last shipment before we get the solo deck in a pdf.

Played my first games today... the start of a campaign. Rebs are pretty tough to win with if you get a kill mission. I love Kraaw and the Drones/ Human combo can be pretty nice. Yndij are well worth their points simply to get an agile fighter.

Also, the campaign injury rules-as-written are terrible. No resurrect model upgrade = dead model, no chance to roll on a chart or anything.

I'd have lost 8 models from my strike force on the first game if we'd have been using the official rules and would effectively have been out of the campaign before it got started.

It's not a "needs some work" rule, it is totally broken because you're not allowed to buy resurrect model upgrades until after your first battle, when you won't have the rep points to do it if you've lost horribly.

I've not had the chance to play a campaign yet, but maybe they're thinking that if the first game went so disastrously, you'd restart, perhaps?

Or alternatively, ala X-Com, you use your 'beta team' to get going while you rebuild casualties from the first game.

I'm sure the underdog mechanic, combined with the 'replacement' rules should help out loads.

If you draw a 'kill' mission, couldn't you pull together all your unlocked kill-ey units into a strike team? So, say, if your 140 points has 3 Kraaw in it, field 2 of them in the same game, plus your Teraton or Desolator-Grogan.

The thing is if you lose, you don't have the rep to buy replacements.

In my first campaign game I'd have lost about 45 points of minis and only gained one rep with which to buy new ones. Even having a beta team with the other half of your strike force can't replace that kind of attrition rate, you might recover from one bad game, but not two.

We were using house rules for injury thankfully, so I only lost one mini.

As for killy units, my clearances didn't cover it. Picked Commander, Zees, Kraaw. Anything beyond that will need unlocking via clearances and then paying for... and I'll need a couple more Kraaw models, too (kind of a pain that you can't get them separately, they're really good). Onslaught Cannon Grogan is my next clearance pick.

The replacement rules I was meaning was the free newbie-humans you get after you drop down a certain points level. Maybe it's worth jaunting over to Jake Thorntons blog and see what he thinks about it all?

Campaign rules are very harsh. Injury/death is something you need to be very aware of.

I find that you need to take this into account on your strike force build (the 140) before you start.

It also explains the rep negative for mercs. Mercs are there to help out when you can't build a whole force out of your strike team or want someone expendable.

All that being said, Rebs are the biggest finesse list out of all the armies so far. You have to be very careful how you play them.

Just the ability to buy resurrect model upgrades as part of your initial Strike Force would go a long way towards fixing the bulk of the problem, I think.

I'll mention it to Jake at some point, see what he thinks.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Just the ability to buy resurrect model upgrades as part of your initial Strike Force would go a long way towards fixing the bulk of the problem, I think.

I'll mention it to Jake at some point, see what he thinks.

You mean like pay say 21 points out of your 140 for 7 resurrects? that's a really cool idea. You should post it over on quirkworthy (unless you mean you talk to Jake in a more direct manner than that).

edit: I may steal that for our campaign.

Hmm, actually, out of all of the alternates discussed so far, I think I like that the best. I tend to find that the first few games is the least forgiving one, after that things seem to settle down as you start to get a bit more rep under your belt for a rainy day. Being able to dump some starting points in to resurrects would be a great idea (certainly more useful filler than grabbing a load of ammo). It smooths the start out and doesn't do anything to imbalance later play since the resurrects are consumable.

Shouldn't have much of an effect on growth rate but gives you a buffer to be able to grab some unlocked specialists in the first few games. That is definitely a change I can get behind.

I'm trying to come up with an initial Marauder strike team so I've got a rough order of what to paint next... What do you guys think about:
commando captain
commando x5
mawbeast x2
sniper
rainmaker

Captain sits back with the rainmaker and sniper giving them orders, probably one dog stays behind while the rest rush forward to manage objectives. If one dog stays back to guard the boss... should I take 4 commandos and 3 dogs instead? Am I leaving anything essential behind? I don't want to paint the guntracks yet so that's why I haven't brought them.

I thought about bringing the mauler suit as my leader but I wanted to start with the captain instead. I think the Mauler-boss list has potential, but I wondered what you guys thought about the above for general purpose?

That's a decent all purpose list. Just make sure to hide your captain as his only job is to provide command actions.

Yeah, have to research the range on command but I figure the density of terrain I typically use he could be hiding ground level with the snipers and rainmaker elevated and to the sides. I think it reduces the melee punch of the list, but I would leave a dog near him on overwatch so it can rush anyone who tries to get into LOS (hopefully he'll be in a building ).

Well, the great thing about command is that no LOS is required. The lamest version of it (single success) is generally 4 cubes, iirc.

I was going under that assumption, really need to go over the book again my knowledge is lessening. So yeah, hide inside a building with a dog either beside him or in the adjacent alley, and everyone else is on the roof or in nearby towers. Holy hell rains down from on high as the commandos rush any objectives or weak points. Just wonder if I should have three dogs so two can go forward, or keep more commandos.

I think it depends on the mission whether you want more dogs or more commandos. Having a couple extra of both is a good idea.

Yeah sounds about right, I'll have to paint up some spares for everything, I guess I'll do two dogs for my initial list then, and add another as soon as I come back 'round to the marauders.

 pretre wrote:
I think it depends on the mission whether you want more dogs or more commandos. Having a couple extra of both is a good idea.

I find that Scour missions are a lost cause anyway, so more dogs is always better. One Mawbeast ate 3 Enforcers today

I like how the dogs are half-lion and really pretty scary even before you get to the cybernetic chainsaws and potential explosive payloads.

I've had a hilarious couple of learning games. The poor guy teaching me has just had the worst luck. For example, his Marauder Close Combat Suit (I don't know the actual term, it's a big suit with a hammer and a chainsaw or something) was in cover. I, being the fool I am and new at the game, decided to pin him before I shot at him to kill him. So I pinned him. Then my enforcer sniper opened up with 3+2+1 dice (base+sniper+a card I played, is that right?). I got 6 hits. He rolled 6 saves, 3+1+1+1 (base+cover+pin+a card he played). Failed all 6, ones, twos and threes everywhere. This is after the first game we played, where an enforcer trooper did the same thing to the gun-crazy suit (it has like 6 guns and can lose control or something? I dunno, he didn't get to use it) in our first game. This guy just has the worst luck.

His second game was a bunch of commandos, a flamethrower, a bomb dog, normal dog, sniper, commander and choppy suit against my (borrowed) enforcers, and was way more fun than the first game, although his poor luck did take away from it.

To be fair, the enforcer sniper is one of the best models in the game. And first turn snipes are great fun. Hide behind building, jump up using either a command or card (crucial) and do a long action shoot. Pow. Headshot.

Also, ripped suits are gorgeous, but as far as raw damage goes, you have to fear the chainmaw dogs. Their bark is far more friendly than their bite.

Yeah, move cards are great with the Enforcer Sniper. - But remember, you can't use a Headshot card in the same turn you use it.

I just meant the opponent's head would pop. Lol