We were able to get to our first 1500 point army build in a Dropzone Commander game last weekend.
It was great to see all the new units I built up over the last couple of weeks hit the table.
I built a list mainly to try out all the new units but I still thought it could do pretty well.
Thunder Time
- Breach Drill
- Thunderstorm (Commander) + Warlord’s Retinue
- 3 Gun Wagons + Kraken, 2 Cyclones
- 3 sets of Resistance Fighters + Jackson Halftracks + Lifthawk (w/AA)
- 1 set of Resistance Fighters, 1 set of Occupation Veterans + 2 Battle Buses (w/AA) + Kraken
- 1 set of Freeriders + 1 set of Attack ATVs
- J19 Hellhog
I was also excited to have everything fit in one easy to carry box, safely secured in foam.
We played the simple Recon scenario but had an awkward 3 player game and I was sandwiched in between a heavy aircraft-based UCM force and a light infantry Scourge build. Brian was hosting and built a beautiful layout complete with almost a thousand bodies strewn all over the place. It made for a creepy and fantastically thematic burned out cityscape.
initial setup and deployments
I didn’t realize just how focused my UCM friend was on air support until he jumped me in the first round and did everything he could to take out anything with even the slightest hint of anti-air capabilities. It wasn’t until the end of the round that I realized I was in trouble as I had nothing to contend with all his aircraft.
Those poor Gun Wagons fell pretty quick to his gunships as hiding behind the Kraken didn’t do any good against 36″ range on my non-countermeasured wagons. The buses went down quick soon after (along with my set of Occupation Veterans cowering inside). Glad I didn’t spend time painting the Veterans up yet…
With most of my forces committed to the right side dead or useless, I retreated to the Scourge side of things to see if that was any better.
The Scourge were not liking my big Thunderstorm being forced to come out on their side of the map. They were even more disappointed when it leveled a small building filled with their Destroyers in one round. And with that move, I found my calling in this particular map. I would not be able to stand up against the UCM’s air superiority so I would just punish anyone foolish enough to get into small or medium buildings near me.
It worked pretty well as I dropped a group of UCM Praetorians in another building before they could check for intel. Demo builds are something I’m going to need to look into more now.
By round 3, my Drill and Hellhog could finally join the fray.
I thought the Scourge was done with this area and was finally going to get aggressive to push back the UCM so my drill just popped up in their backfield. I ran some Freeriders into the adjacent building and the Attack ATVs started peppering the other buildings with chem grenades to keep people away.
The Scourge decided to start backpedaling though and retreated right on top of me. The time was getting late so we ended up calling the game at the end of the 4th round but the writing was on the wall. My Resistance force couldn’t stop the UCM air command and the Scourge was too afraid to try (and had already lost most of their minimal infantry so would never compete on points). Even though I was able to keep pushing forward with victory points from my various infantry, the UCM was able to keep pace. Another two rounds would have seen the end of my Thunderstorm and then the UCM would just start mopping up the rest of us.
It was a lot of fun and I was glad to try out a lot of new units like the Breach Drill, Fast Mover Hellhog, demolition Thunderstorm, and chem ‘nading Attack ATVs. I’ll go back and revisit my list to figure out what I liked and what I’ll want to trade out for next time.