Mantic Comes Through Again.

I went to a local Deadzone tournament today and I think I'm a fan of the game. I like the way the turns work with the players taking turns activating a model at a time. It keeps a first turn alpha strike from essentially ending the game before the other player even gets to play. I also am a fan of the command dice which throw a little curve into the game and add a slight bit more to the plate than standard turn by turn action.

What I think I really like is that the game has a feel similar to Mordheim, which was, by far, my favorite GW game. My entire strike force at 150 points consisted of six models. My last opponent only had five in his strike force. All in all, the game's a winner.

As it was, the forces of the Star Leaue, (know in common circles as the Forge Fathers) stood at:
Steel Warrior Huscarl
3 Steel Warrots
Storm Rage Veterans with a  missile launcher
Storm Rage Veterans with a flamer

Game one saw the good Space Drawfs get shellacked 16-0 by a Rebel force. I hadn't played a game yet, so I learned some harsh lessons in that first beating. 1) Teraton's suck. They can teleport into combat and mess you right up. Two of them mess you up even worse. 2) Command dice are vital. re-rolling the ones you KNOW you will not use is also vital. 3) Space drarves shoot better than they fight. Really. 4) Movement and managing it is important as well. 5) Lots of terrain is key. This game changes dramatically if he doesn't have enough cover to get to me without having to run across an open board.

Game two saw the Forge Fathers square off against the Enforcers of the Council of Seven. I improved to a 9-16 loss, but again learned some valuable lessons. 1) Elevation makes a difference. 2) Use of cover makes a bigger difference. 3) Objective are important, but eliminating the other side's ability to do damage is more important. I nabbed the major objective, but I left myself in position to get shot off the table getting it.

Game three was against the space rats, AKA Veer-myn. I put the last games lesson to good use and set up fire lanes completely covering my opponent's objective, which was a great plan. However, he used his big nasty HTH beasts to jump my closest models to that objective. Fortunate dice rolls not only allowed me to survive that rush, but to take out the two big nasties as well. He nabbed the VP for the objective by nabbing it and getting it off the table, but I won the VPs by wiping out the rest of his strike force while only taking one casualty. Final score was 18-9.

Game four was against an apparently renegade faction of Forge Fathers. I mean, clearly the RED ones are the good guys and the BLUE ones are the bad guys. This game was quick and bloody. We essentially traded off killing models. Fortunately I had six models to his five. The game literally came down to one model from each side that was already wounded. I happened to go first and killed his last model before he got mine. Final score was 15-12.

If you've ready anything on this blog before, you know that painted armies  (strike teams) are important to me. I won't begrudge unpainted models a a small shop tournament, but it was nice to play my last two games against armies that looked to be fully painted, though the Veer-myn player insisted he had more work to do. For that matter, my six models need some touching up as well.

While I'm not sure I'd want paint and such to be such a major factor as it is at big GT's, I'd like to see having a fully painted force factor in a little bit. Then again, I started miniature tournaments when fully painted was required to enter.