Warzone Resurrection - A Battle Report

My first full game of Mutant Chronicles was less than successful due to a combination of a somewhat unfocused list (I wanted to use a bit of everything), poor rules knowledge and the fact that apparently my dice hate me...

...this time would be different...I hoped...

The Immortal                 Vs.                    Golgotha

My opponent was one of the managers at my FLGS Titan Games and he used the same faction as had successfully kicked the crap out of me with last game (Cybertronic) though had decided to give a more elite sort of list a go and had also included a unit of three Scorpions which worried me a bit...anything that awesome looking was bound to kick ass...

I, on the other hand decided to choose something more horde like as discussed in this blog post here. My final list decision was this...and also involves my first mistake...

Dark Legion
Golgotha   (175)
Undead Legionnaires x12 (120), Necromutant Squad Commander (+20), HMG x4 (+32)   (172)
Undead Legionnaires x12 (120), Necromutant Squad Commander (+20), HMG x4 (+32)   (172)
Undead Legionnaires x11 (110), Necromutant Squad Commander (+20), HMG x4 (+32)   (162)
Undead Legionnaires x11 (110), Necromutant Squad Commander (+20), HMG x4 (+32)   (162)
Razides x3   (225)
Praetorian Behemoth (320)

Total   (1388)

Mistake No.1 - Apparently I can't add up worth a damn...On the bright side it means that next time I can take two units of two Razides rather than one unit of three, max out the last two Undead Legionnaire Squads and give Golgotha a 15 point Dark Symmetry Psychic Power which will bring the list to 1498.

I had to do a bit of proxying in order to get four units of Legionnaires for testing which is why one unit looks suspiciously like the one from Titan Games cabinet and another bears a startling resemblance to the female zombies from my 'Asylum' themed Nicodem Malifaux Crew. Any Legionnaire with a red token next to him (or her) is armed with a Valcheck HMG just so my opponent had a clear idea of where they were...

Talking of my opponent...he used the following...

Cybertronic
The Immortal   (285)
Everassur (180)
Dr Diana Clone (110)
5 Armoured Chasseurs (125), 1 Rapid Blaster (+20)   (145)
5 Armoured Chasseurs (125), 2 Rapid Blaster (+40)   (165)
6 Mirrormen   (132)
3 Enhanced Machinators (150), HMG (+25)   (175)
3 Scorpions   (285)

Total   (1477)

With our forces decided we figured we best move onto the bit where we try to brutally murder each other...

We selected the 'Standard' Offensive Organisation Chart (OOC) and as we are both still learning the game we just rolled a priority mission and didn't worry about a secondary one or any corporate agendas. I deployed first and went first using the 'Battleline' deployment type. Due to the size of the table one of us had to deploy a bit further forward...just in case you thought I was cheating.

Deployment.
Having learned from my deployment mistake in my previous game I made sure that none of my units got in each others way, that Golgotha was in range of the units I needed to move quickly for the +1 Movement Value Modifier and that the Praetorian Behemoth had a clear path towards the enemy...

The aforementioned enemy...Cybertronic. The Scorpions were kept off the table in order to be deployed via the 'Rapid Deployment' rules and everything else was deployed to give it the best fire lanes possible towards my poor innocent Dark Legion...

Turn 1
We shuffled towards each other a bit and there was some minor exchange of fire resulting in some thinning out of the units that were foolish enough to stick there heads out first...

With my arch nemeses the 'Mirrormen' advancing behind cover with pretty much every 'you can't hit me power' at their disposal up and running...which is why they're currently depressingly at full strength...

Turn 2
I decide to commit the Praetorian Behemoth early as given the quantity and quality of Cybertronics fire-power I expected him to take a lot of weapons fire early on...especially after last weeks 'throw a building at the Mirrormen' incident...and it would be a shame for 320 points of my army to die without doing something...

Interlude 1 - Basics of Shooting
In Warzone, ranged attacks utilise the RS stat. Pre-measuring is fine in this system so you'll first check the range to the target. Then you select your weapon (some models have more than one option) and then you roll a D20 with which you need to roll equal to or below your RS value. Things such as cover, various special abilities, taking an aim action, etc. can modify this value up or down. A roll of a 1 is always successful (as well as preventing your target from using the 'Heal' ability) and a roll of 20 is always a failure (and also ends your models activation). Once you've hit your target it then gets to make an armour save (this is the 'A' value on your list of stats) and this value is reduced by one for each point of Strength that the weapon has over ten or conversely is increased by one for each point under ten. Some particularly tough or heavily armed units have a 2nd value in brackets which is the minimum value that their armour can be reduced to. This is roughly equivalent to an invulnerable save in 40K for those of you who are familiar with that system.

If your lucky enough to have a weapon with Str 18, 19, or 20 it will do Critical Force/Critical Damage which causes 2. 3 or 4 points of Wound or Structure Damage as appropriate. This will also stack with and Critical Force/Critical damage that the weapon may have 'built-in'.

Lets get on with some of that then...

After killing a couple of models with his Decimator Handcannon a unit of Armoured Chasseurs decides to counter the threat and hit him with everything they have. When the dust clears he has a single wound left...

I then move my own unit up in order to try to torrent the Chasseurs out of existence...

Which they promptly do...much to mine and the Behemoths relief...unfortunately the one thing Cybertronic isn't short of is long range fire-power...The mighty behemoth then suffers the ignominy of being finished off by a tiny little dart from the Dr Diana Clone, lol.

A unit of Undead Legionnaires then kills a Mirrorman...this makes me far happier than the death of a single model really should do.....

There then follows a significant amount of tit for tat shooting which by virtue of throwing as many bullets as possible at the enemy goes in my favour.

The dead piles have big X's over them...just ignore those bits of the table...

By the end of turn two our respective dead piles look like this...

Though I'm a bit irritated by the death of the Praetorian Behemoth, I can't really complain about how everything is currently going. However I'd forgotten about a certain unit of Cybertronic Scorpions that had been waiting for the perfect moment to strike...

Turn 3
Did some-one mention Scorpions?

Interlude 2 - Rapid Deployment.
Any squad with the 'Rapid Deployment' Special Skill does not need to be deployed as normal. During the course of any game turn you can choose to activate the squad. An unoccupied point in open terrain is selected (though Cybertronics Scorpions can actually appear right on top of a unit if they wish but this isn't the norm). Then roll a D20 using the squad leaders leadership halved and if the roll is successful then the unit commander is placed on the nominated point and any other squad members are deployed within 3". An unmodified 20 on this roll means something goes terribly, terribly wrong and the unit is removed as a casualty but conversely a roll of a 1 means the unit doesn't use up an action point to arrive. If the test is failed then the unit scatters the same way as an explosion would. Should this scatter send the unit into impassable terrain, off the board or onto another model then there's a scary mishap table to roll on...

The Scorpions arrive and I foolishly say in a derisive tone "How much damage are they going to do..." I then find out that by the simple method of utilising two Resource Cards then get an ability called 'Avalanche' which allows them to use both their ranged weapons in a single activation. Also unlike with 'Deep Striking' in 40K a unit arriving by 'Rapid Deployment' can assault in the turn it arrives if it has the actions available...

The dead pile has a big X over it...just ignore that bit of the table...

A ridiculous amount of attacks later and Golgotha is down to a single wound and there are several noticeable holes in my wall of Undead and I lose my entire unit of Razides. In a single turn the Scorpions kill more than there own points value in Dark Legion and then some...

Let's make sure they don't do that again...

Due to the 'Brainless' rule, Undead Legionnaires can only take 'Basic' actions and aren't allowed to use any Special Squad Actions. Fortunately as long as they have a Necromutant Squad Commander they do gain access to a single Special Action called Swarm...

I could probably have just killed the Scorpion by sheer weight of attacks (the process for close combat is pretty damn close to the process for shooting and is dead simple) but I wanted to give Special Squad Actions a go....

Interlude 3 - Swarm
For 'Swarm' to work I need to have at least three models engaged with the target. I then get a single attack with the CC (Close Combat) value of a participating member of the squad (the highest one) with a bonus of +6. All the RoA's (Rates of Attack) of the models involved are added to the lowest Strength (St) value and the attack now defaults to the type 'Piercing'. As an additional bonus, for every three models participating in the 'swarm' I get Critical Force +1 and AVV +1 (bonus's to number of wounds caused or to vehicle armour respectively).

In the above situation my attack would be at a CC of 19 (The Necromutants CC of 13 (being the highest) plus a bonus of 6) and be at a strength 17 (The lowest strength and weapon strength being the Undead Legionnaires 10 plus an additional 7 for the Necromutants RoA of 2 added to 5 lots of Legionnaires RoA's of 5) and at Critical Force +2 and AVV +2 due to the six members involved.

CC 19, St 17 with Critical Force 2 is pretty good for a bunch of zombies...

Through a combination of torrents of fire and 'Swarm' attacks I kill the Scorpions with just one attack to spare...

...and the dead piles are beginning to look similar in size...

...of course my dead pile is mainly full of expendable cannon fodder...though those Razides and the Behemoth are notable exceptions...

Turn 4
The Immortal finds himself a nice vantage point in some cover and sees what he can do to turn the tide of battle...

It doesn't go particularly well...apparently 'The Immortal' is just a figure of speech...

One of Dr Diana's clones goes to see what's keeping the boss...it doesn't end particularly well either...but it's not like Cybertronic is particularly short of Dr Diana's either...

After failing to make a single Heal roll up to this point I get three all at the same time...

At this point with only two Mirromen left to face four squads of Undead Legionnaires with the majority of their Special Weapons still in play the Cybertronic Corporation decided to surrender...

Not much in the way of toys for Golgotha to play with but she'll just have to make do I suppose...

Well I think that'll do for the first full Battle Report. More reports and some more intro articles to follow as well as some in depth articles on particular units.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.