Stop Humping The Laser

Last weekend I got a chance to use my Laser again in another Dropzone Commander game.  This time it was with some friends in a three-army free-for-all.

We were playing a variant of one of the actual Orbital Defense Laser scenarios but replaced the objective markers with a bunch of Intel objectives in the center ring of buildings.  This scenario is pretty great as infantry can get into and control the Laser and turn it on the surrounding buildings, reducing them to complete destruction.

It was 1,000 pts per player and I had already decided on trying an unorthodox list with no air support. Resistance is probably the only faction that can try this out so I went ahead and filled my like with hovercrafts.

My laser got to take center stage in this battle.  All three of us formed a complicated equilateral triangle within a square to try to space out evenly.  The UCM force slowly peeked out from it’s corner to spy the big focal point laser in the middle.

By round two, everyone had pretty much swept their nearest buildings so when my drill was able to enter the game, I had two choices, send my bikers into the focal point laser (soon to be overrun with crazy Scourge Destroyers) or work on other intel objectives.  I opted for the latter as I was getting severely choked up trying to get my hovercrafts out of the starting area.

I’m able to finally maneuver my massive command hovercraft around and into an open firing lane so I unleash my little red technicals and open fire on some Scourge tanks.  I wasn’t paying attention and the Scourge player played a brutal global effect that allowed his tanks to only be hit on a 6 so it took awhile to chew through all his armor.

Compounding things were these little jackasses.  If they got near my hovercraft, they could easily shred it to bits.

So my rocket technical retinue wipe them down to a manageable number.

Meanwhile, the Scourge player has full control of the laser and his monkey Destroyers see the perfect target: a weak, small building filled with half my army’s troops.  This won’t end well.

The laser vaporizes all the buildings in its path (now marked with dice to indicate the rubble areas.  Gone in the wave of destruction are 4 stands of my main infantry. As bad as that was, we did hit on the fact that had those monkeys swung the laser around and aimed at the buildings surrounding my command hovercraft, it was close enough to a building that, when it likely blew up, it would crush my hovercraft too (on a 2+).  This happens to any vehicle that is within an inch of a collapsing  building and since the hovercraft is so large, it is all but impossible not be near another building.  My friend felt pity for my POS command unit that sucks at getting out of these tight building configurations and now can die so easily to building demo.  So he opted to wipe out my infantry instead.

Those bastards had to go so I sent my remaining infantry, elite Occupation Veterans, into to take them down.  Their battle bus actually hung around and used the anti-air mounts to harass and take down some of his fliers.

Those monkey boys turn the laser’s attention to the UCM players forces and wipe out a few more buildings (and nearby tanks).  The ensuing close-quarters combat between my 3 stands of Occupation Vets and his 2 stands of Destroyers ends with both of us losing a stand.  I’m still doing well and could likely win out the day but not before he’d get to fire the laser again in round 6.

It was getting pretty late so I ended up having to bail before the end of round 5.  I was basically out of the race at that point as I was last in VPs and didn’t have any good prospects of picking up any more.  The UCM player had stayed out of most of the fighting so was able to pick up enough points to call the game early in Round 6 after some great intel objective rolls.  The Scourge player was in contention to win until that moment.

All-in-All, it was a great and fun match.  I really like the laser scenarios they have in the Phase 1 book and would like to try it again with a more balanced army and probably as a regular one-on-one battle.