Guest Review: Coastal Assault

One of the bonuses of being a circus of four bloggers is that normally at least one of us can get to a Dropzone Commander event anywhere across the country! Unfortunately our intel somewhat let us down this time, and it turned out that we were either indisposed, at a different tournament, or on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

With Coastal Assault storming towards us like a surprise tsunami, what we needed was an elite agent to infiltrate and document the events that transpired. Enter our first ever OBFR Agent (OB False Recon), Michael Russell! As the organiser of the event he seemed the perfect fit to report on his tournament, so without further ado, I hand you over to Micky R;

When today started I must admit I was enjoying the blissful ignorance of what lay in store for me, and there was nothing really out of the ordinary until that fateful lunchtime when my phone popped up with a message from everyone’s favourite Orbital Bombardment Scourge host, Dan Cates. What could possibly cause those who occupy the lofty heights of Dropzone blogging to cast their gaze upon such a lowly Talon as I? If you haven’t worked that bit out already you might want to take a moment to think about what you’re reading.

So yes, I’ve been asked to write a post about my recent tournament; Coastal Assault. More excitingly Dan has retained editing rights... Hmm. Hopefully this report will just be covered in more Jelly propaganda after he’s finished with it... [Dan; I've just added some pictures of darling Scourge holiday spots, that the nasty cattle are depriving us of! #hostsb4humans]

Firstly however, who am I? Well, I’m Michael, PHR-toting Talon of Sussex Extraordinaire (more commonly known as Ravanar on the forums)! With two weeks to go before Invasion and an indeterminate amount of time before Dropfleet lands, I organised a tournament at Dice Saloon in Brighton for 16 players. Running a tournament is always one of those unique learning experiences, where you mostly forget the lesson learned the year before of not leaving everything to the last minute, and leave everything until the last minute.

This time however I learnt something new; make sure you have a spot player / odd man / ringer to hand. That’s right, I had the unfortunate pleasure of both running and playing in the tournament at the same time! Given the commitments required by both tasks on the day, all eight tables were set up the night before the tourney. I had made some overindulgent purchases from Dark Ops in the weeks running up to the tourney and using these buildings, some Blotz structures and donations from a few of the local players, we had our theatres of war. I also included some lesser-spotted trees on a couple of tables for some variation from the standard.

Coastal Assault was set up to be three rounds long, played over the course of one day. As a standard 1500 point tournament I needed to apply no comps, although the release of Reconquest Phase 2 did provide some new flavours to our beloved, existing forces. For my part I had taken a list using units exclusively from the core rulebook,which when using PHR is a bold set these days it seems. That said, the only thing I felt the absence of throughout the day was my Nemesis.

Game 1: Military Complex 

Would you deprive an adorable
Scourge a paradise like this?

The first round was the staple objective grab, Military Complex. The pairings were randomised with myself being drawn against one of the Brighton locals, Aron and his Scourge. Aron had opted for a large squad of nine drive-on Hunters to maximise the bonuses from his Overseer. His list also boasted an Oppressor, and had some token infantry and Destroyers backed up by Minders and Monitors. Being faced with a list capable of mighty feats of demolition was daunting to say the least, but getting a lucky break by downing the Destroyer transport (and killing everyone on board when it crashed) made me feel a bit more confident about the mess. 

A bit of back and forth play followed between my Ares and the Hunters which eventually lead to my taking the lead. A last turn gambit from the Overseer changed that unfortunately when my Triton carrying the remaining objective was gunned down, leaving the objective unsecured on the table. Aron, being ever the opportunist, swept in with his remaining Hunters which had been proceeding up the board and took possession, leaving the final score at 11-9 to me after kill points were added (which I’ll admit, after losing about 1000 points of models I wasn’t coming ahead on)

Game 2: Surging Strike 

After a brief lunch (the venue sold food, so eating whilst playing was an option) and some frantic inputting on the laptop we were ready for round 2. I was paired against Paul Brook and his Phoneix lead, tank heavy UCM. For the first few turns my Janus and Sirens stormed up the right flank, followed by my Immortals, and some Ares and Phobos. Paul had opted to mostly focus on the left flank, so save for a token defence from a unit of Katanas those forces had little to do for the early parts of the game. An early drawing of Black project saw the Phoenix cavalierly jumping from building to building in a successful effort to avoid my AA, while it got into position for the final push onto my home focal point. Paul's Sabres being of a bolder state of mind pushed forward and engaged my walkers in a stand up fight, which didn’t go too well for them to start with... One Sabre however appeared to be made of solid diamond, and took the combined fire of two Ares, an Odin and a Zeus for three turns before succumbing to the inevitable! The latter stages of the game were the usual frantic scrambles to secure points, deny them to the opposing force and curse bad dice rolls. When the dust settled I was controlling three points and contesting one, with Paul contesting three and controlling two which equalled out to a draw.

These Humans, invading and ruining our illustrious cities.
#hostsb4humans

Game 3: Careful Advance
The final game was one of the newer scenarios from Reconquest Phase 2 and my first time playing it against Marco and his UCM. With two Critical Points and three Objectives in play I opted for a more aggressive play and surged forwards to capture the points early on with my walkers, while my Sirens stormed towards the central objective. Marco opted for a slower play which cost him in this scenario, and allowed me to take an early lead before pushing the Critical Points in the latter turns. After finding my home objective the APC carrying it was annihilated in spectacular style by the only competent shot from Marco's Kodiak, leaving the objective in the crater tantalisingly close to my deployment zone. My Sirens, after finding the central objective, swooped in to retrieve the fallen prize only to have their dropship shot out from under them by Marco's relentlessly advancing Rapiers (which avoided being Weapon Hacked through a cheeky Espionage)! This meant frustratingly I was only able to hold both objectives rather than extracting them. This was enough to keep me ahead though, and after killpoints were added the final score was 15-5 in my favour. 

After a hard days gaming came the award ceremony. The podium was;

1. Tim Jones - Scourge 
2. Dave Clark - Shaltari 
3. Adam Cox - PHR. 

All factions were represented, with Scourge being the most numerous with five players and Shaltari the least with only one. With regards to any major changes to lists following the new book, the most noticeable was the increased number of Scourge tanks present due to the presence of the Overseer. The new scenarios and Critical Locations added some much needed variety to the games available and I’ll be eager to include them in the future at my next event. 

Visit Parasite Palms, our hosts will make you feel right at home

In parting then, after three rounds of gaming, organising and being collared for a blog post of all things (incidentally my first ever), I’m eager for a moment to catch my breath before deciding what to bring to Invasion; I think I’ll be looking at the older units more fondly and trying them out. While it hasn't necessarily caused the largest of impacts, I’m happy with what Reconquest Phase 2 has brought to the gaming table for organising events (although the boundaries on the kill point bonuses changing caught a few people by surprise). Thanks for reading, and I hope to see as many of you as I can at Invasion!