Winter Invasion 2017 - Day Two

Day two of the Invasion Drop Zone Tournament, and my challenge, to win games four and five, and give me a winning record overall. Piece of cake. Again, as well as gaming, there were lots of chances to chat all things Zone. For instance, I met with Hawk Andrew who will become the companies North American representative in the near future. (All the very best with your exploits Andrew).

Above: A lean green fighting machine.

Above: Guy H, Chris L and a cast of thousands, well 38, at least.

Above: Opportunities to talk to Hawk Dave and the illustrators, the former was working on....

Above: Very, very nice.

Above: The masterpiece master in pieces.

Game Four - Mission: Military Complex - Steve Perry - Scourge

Double pleasure in this game. Firstly, my opponent is Darkops very own Steve Perry, and secondly, he is playing with his beautifully painted Scourge, which went onto win a very deserved best painted award. 

Above: Steve's list. Check out some of the unit names.

Above: Steve asked me to consider deploying my Thunderstorm here. I decided against it.

Above: Strike a pose.

Above: Best painted award. Check.

Military complex has the increased armour to the three central objective holding building. These hold no fear to my army. I needed to wait for Steve to deploy his Destroyers into the central building, and within short order the Typhoons, Mehmeds and Thunderstorm had levelled the structure killing its valuable occupants. 

With the centre of the board open, my Zhukovs and Gunwagons flood the area with AA fire. Steve did his best to remove the threat, but in doing so, left my anti-tank unmolested. Unfortunately for Steve the Scourge couldn't go toe to toe with their enemy and a big difference in the final kill point totals was the result, 831 to 186. 

Above: Centre of the board under Resistance control.

The objective score was much closer, 11 to 9. With three bonus points for kill points gave me a 14 to 6 victory. Thanks to Steve for a very fun game.

Above: Enjoying lunch on day two.

Above: And again.

Game Five - Mission: Take and Extract - Jonathan Brown - Scourge

Jonathan is another of those players that I meet frequently at events and enjoyable games we have. When playing on day one, I had picked up a spot prize a metal UCM New Orleans ship for Drop Fleet for killing a commander. And the spot prize for this round was the first person to destroy a unit in a drop ship. 

Scourge must make use of their speed to interfere with an opponent's plans, so moving quickly and getting places, like one of your opponent's home objective building, is a good thing. However, unfortunately, as Jonathan experienced, pushing a bit too far can lead to trouble. The scariest infantry unit in the game are Eviserators. They had their beady eyes set on a building in my table half containing an objective. The Intruder pilot got a little ahead of himself, and with a unit of my Gunwagons to still deploy onto the table, the Intruder sped 30 inches down the table, but importantly, didn't then hide behind a building. 

Leaving the Eviserators as pedestrians would been a massive result, but they weren't even going to get that inconvenience, the Gunwagons destroyed their target and I rolled a six and the heavies vanished as well. (Jonathan was holding two Take and Extract command cards in his hand! Fate likes to kick a man when he is down).

Jonathan sort bloody vengeance, and his Hunters and transports destroyed all six of my Gunwagons as they tried to bring down the Overseer. However, this had dragged a large proportion of Jonathan's forces over to one flank of the field. This was a problem for the Scourge as they needed to be in the centre on the final turn to contest the focal point. By mid game I had secured my two objectives, Jonathan had one, but before he could find his second, the Typhoons and Thunderstorm brought the building down.

We were playing a little slowly, so unfortunately, just when we got to the start of turn six, James called time on the round and we had to end the game early. Jonathan was very kind with his assessment of how the game would have ended, and with a +1 for victory points, it gave me a 15 to 5 win. Thank you Jonathan for a very enjoyable game.

If you have listened to the recent Orbital Bombardment podcast you will know that Scourge overall did not have a good tournament. Jonathan, and another Scourge player, Amit, chatted with me afterwards, and did make a couple of points about their faction's performance. Firstly, critical locations and focal points, do require the lightly armoured Scourge to put themselves in harms way if they want to secure objective points. And secondly, with the majority of Scourge armies containing an Overseer, the increase in points caused by the very recent FAQ meant that their armies did require a small amount of rejigging. For instance, before the event, one of  Jonathan's skimmer units had to lose it's transport. 

For my own army, I feel the need to make some changes. Gone will be the Freeriders (I never really made much of them during the weekend) and the Mehmeds (I had enough building demo with the Typhoons and Thunderstorm). I didn't find only having a level two command made too much difference to my plans. I finished the event with three wins and two losses, and I was very happy with that.

Above: Final round. Ed, Mike and Joe on tables one, two and three respectively.

Above: In the distance you my pick out Mike collecting his winner's trophy.

I really enjoyed every aspect of the event. It refreshed my love of the game, and special thanks to Hawk Louis who arranged for free tea and coffee at the event (genius). 

Happy wargaming to all those here in.

Alex