Mutant Chronicles - Warzone Resurrection - That Tricky First Game...

So after experiencing a couple of demo games (and watching a few more) the manager of my FLGS asked if I wanted to give my Dark Legion a proper test run at 1500 points and as a game with some-one who'd actually read the rules more than once seemed like a good idea I accepted. I'll be doing 'proper' intro articles and battle reports later on but I'm currently in that wonderful 'excited about everything' phase of exploring a new system and so there will undoubtedly be several more half-arsed articles with me rambling excitedly about every tiny thing I bloody do...I apologise in advance for those...

He used the Cybertronic force he'd tried for his initial games as he had a fair idea of how it all worked and I basically took one of anything Dark Legion that I had because...I wanted to...

A really, really brief introduction to Mutant Chronicles...

Loyalty to country has been replaced by loyalty to corporations and these massive organisations alternate between making deals with each other, cooperating with one another and betraying each other depending on which of these things makes them the most profit or expands their power in comparison to the others though it was rare for outright conflict to occur. Unfortunately for humanity while expanding throughout the solar system and poking it's noses into places that should really have been left alone the human race inadvertently broke a seal keeping the forces of the Dark Symmetry from the universe. This power has the ability to affect artificial intelligences, raise the dead and generally ticks all the 'these are the bad guys' boxes and subtly at first began to turn the corporations against one another until outright violence occurred that the dark forces were only to willing to exploit...

When things were looking their worst a man of vision appeared with the power to wield the forces of light against those of the darkness and he united the people behind him and having little choice the corporations followed suit lending all their resources to the battle against the Dark Symmetry. Victory was achieved at the cost of their leaders life and an era of (relative) peace and prosperity resulted, rules were introduced in order to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again...

...unfortunately humanity has a short memory and has begun again to make the mistakes of old paving the way for evils return...

Each force has it's own individual flavour based in many cases around a certain archetype of a country though others are somewhat more esoteric in nature.

An even briefer introduction to game-play...

It uses D20's, low rolls are better than high ones as you have a target number to roll under (except when seeing who goes first) and each model has the expected stats relating to it's abilities in the appropriate areas (Close Combat, Ranged Skill, Strength, etc.). Each army also has a number of resource cards that it can 'burn' to gain benefits each turn which range from the fairly mundane (gain an extra shot) to more interesting unit specific ones (throw building at nearby unit...). Unit activation is done alternately (you activate a unit, your opponent activates one, etc) and each model in a unit activates individually though they need to stay within a certain distance of the unit leader (Leadership divided by two, rounding up in inches). Once the unit is activated each model decides what it wishes to do and is free to shoot at different targets from one another and can even shoot something with one guy (or girl) and charge something with another if they are able.

A slightly longer report than the game-play introduction but far to vague to be called a battle report...
The first turn was the usual moving towards each other and was characterised mainly by me deploying my units terribly so I got in my own way, realising that Undead Legionnaires take a while to get where you want them and deciding I need another three Razides....

If you listen carefully you can here the Behemoth saying "who the hell came up with this battle-plan?"

I thought I was doing well at this point as my dead pile was significantly smaller than Martins...

...but I rapidly realised that this game is wonderfully brutal once you get stuck in and I was about to get my arse kicked...which I promptly did...

As we got further into the game I began to lose critical elements of my army far faster than I was putting a dent in my opponents though with the exception of the last two* turns this was due to mistakes I made in a number of important areas. As I mentioned previously, my deployment was terrible. I failed to take into account that the Legionnaires 'Brainless' rule means that they can only take basic actions and their inability to run made getting them out of my Behemoth's way a more complicated exercise than I would have liked and also cost me a round of shooting from them which would have been useful.

*Two turns without Martin failing an armour save or missing a shot was a bit frustrating but I'd lost at that point regardless of dice and the fact that I didn't pass a single heal test was just amusing by this point, lol.

The mechanic for deep-striking (referred to as 'Rapid Deployment') is much rarer in Mutant Chronicles than 40K but is significantly more powerful due to the ability to act freely after arriving.

A moment ago there was an enemy squad here but a combination of flamer templates and charging Praetorian Stalkers made them go away...

The Behemoth wins the 'man of the match' award as he neatly bypassed the Cybertronics Mirrormen's penalties to ranged attacks against them by the wonderfully inventive method of throwing a building at them. This cost me a Resource Card to accomplish but was well worth it.

There was a building at the bottom of this picture...and a lot more Mirrormen in the middle of it...

I learnt a few important things during this game but I invariably learned them about ten minutes after they would have been useful. Firstly I learnt that it's important to remember what passive effects your models generate as Golgotha gives me a bonus of +1 to models within 12"'s movement (which I remembered when it didn't matter but not when it would have been useful) and a +1 bonus to armour within the same range (which I noticed when I only had about three models left...). I also forgot that everything Dark Legion gets Heal (2) which might have saved my Behemoth and that would have been a game-changer.

All in all it was an enjoyable game which I can only foresee becoming more enjoyable as I remember to use the rules I have and actually select units that compliment one another.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.