Playing more Deadzone.

Another day and another opportunity to play games! Today we had another go at Deadzone and tried out some different factions to see how they held up. So how did the Rebs and Plague fair?

Game 1 - Rebs vs Forge Fathers. I had to keep my guys alive and control objectives Will had to get guys off my deployment zone. 

Autocannon Cam! Trading shots with the rebs heavy who likes to surprise  cubes with a burst canon.

Autocanon Cam! My Huscarl and Brokkr try sneaking around the left...

...whilst another goes bat-crap crazy through the centre!

 As it turns out it's pretty useful having really tough dudes when you draw a mission that allows you to gain victory points for every turn you can keep over half your force alive (one of the few ways to actually wrote up victory points during a game). Sadly it had quite a lull period where I managed to suppress so many of Will's important models that it became hard for him to counter my models until I had an opportunity to nab victory.

Game 2 - Plague vs Rebs. I needed to survive and kill Will's men whilst Will had something very similar (not that either of us knew).

Suppressed Cam! This is the view that these models had fro pretty much the whole game...

Though standing up didn't mean he would have any real affect on the game as his shots were useless!

Second game had a similar feel to the first except Will was able to pin down my small models whilst his guns where pretty useless against my 2nd and 1st Gen Plague-dudes (yes, that's a technical term). I managed to win without realising by surviving until turn 5 to get 5 VPs and kill off 7 or 8 guys for another 7 odd points but the game had to end as I had run out of cards, though Will hadn't been far off either.

Observations:
- The suppression rules really frustrate me as they have an horrible ability to kill units that you would struggle to hurt with normal shooting due to the reduction in defence dice you receive, which results in weird swings. For example if you roll two hits when Blazing Away to suppress a cube you can only have the following results: 0 defence rolled = -3 aggression for tripping the roll, 1 defence rolled = -2 aggression for doubling the roll or 2+ defence rolled = no change as you have equalled or beat the roll. It gets worse when you roll just one attacking success as it becomes an all or nothing result as 1 triples 0 in the rules.
- The inclusions of free actions can get confusing as you get them in some situations when you fight but not others and you can't chain free actions caused by the action but you can get lots of the same action from multiple sources.
- It is really important to discuss what counts as cover (this is the rule not a suggestion) as it makes a huge difference and decades of 40k/GW has left me with preconceptions which I need to let go.
- Combat only models feel like they can be at a real disadvantage as if you fluff it you get hit back where as shooting has lots of options and you can pin/suppress combat models by shooting the cube even when you can't see the models in it (a frustrating point).
- The game seems to have quite an odd way of leaving you feeling as though you have little control when your models are being pinned/suppressed and your opponent is making you ditch cards and pulling off Commands that activate your models or allow a guy to shoot again despite that fact they've gone before. Whilst none of these things individually cause an issue it feels as though they come together in odd ways to leave you slightly frustrated at times. This said the missions mean that you most often just need to remember that your opponent has to complete their mission so as long as you can get VPs you have a chance to win.
- Plague have some nice touches with the mutations but you absolutely need dudes with guns to Blaze Away and suppress other models.

Fun games and I'm slowly working my way towards how to tweak parts to make it run smoother or do what I do with 40k and just use the models that allow me to avoid rules I don't like.