Coastal Assault 2017

Sunday bloody Sunday............

No-one likes waking early on a Sunday, especially not me, but it was for a good cause; I got to play Dropzone all day whooo hoo

4 of us departed from the penthouse apartment of OB towers in Orbital Bombarmentonville and descended on Brighton for the third year running.

Just outside of Brighton, we all had a major dilemma. Do we sack off the tournament and head on to the 'Ladyboys of Bangkok' live cabaret show or carry on as planned........

Well lucky for you, we ended up at Dice Saloon and played games.

18 players braved the mild weather to get there and TO Michael Russell even broke a rare smile at the sight of us all.

Ed (PHR), Alex (Allied Resistance), Dan (Scourge) and I (Scourge) said our hellos and found our first opponents.

I won't go too heavily into games, a brief overview and then some stolen pictures from Faceache

GAME 1
Opponent - Emily (Allied Resistance)
Mission - Military Complex (WMD)

For those that don't know what the WMD is, I shall explain. The central objective is a WMD and can only be extracted off your opponents board edge (it also grants 3 vp if done).

This was Emily's first tournament game....ever. She's been playing for quite a while, and is very active within the Dropzone Commander Community Facebook group.
The game was pretty tense up to the middle of turn 5 when I was 2-1 up (extracted 1 objective, Emily held one) I then found 2 including the WMD to be 4-1 up at the end of turn 5, by the end of turn 6 I had won 8-0. That was a massive swing.
We had a great game with lots of killing, and some mad-dog occupation veterans that obliterated a squad of Destroyers in 1 round of combat!

These Destroyers did not get out of there alive!

I had a decent kill point bonus and ended with a 19-1 win.

GAME 2
Opponent - Dan (Scourge)
Mission - Bunker Assault

Dan started his excuses early saying he was tired and blah blah blah. Sleep when you're dead!
We had a really tactical game, where we both tried to capitalise on each others very minor mistakes. Unfortunately for me my 2 main fiendish plans failed; the first through bad luck and then a silly mistake, the second through luck of the dice.

Not from our game, but I certainly spot Dan's Scourge

I'll talk a little about my initial plan for victory. I managed to have the potential to get the jump on Dan's loaded Hunters and Minders. If I on activation for turn 2 I could cause mayhem for him. Of course Dan won activation, I had forced him into activating his Hunters though. His marauder deployed them then came after a Reaper, I elected to reaction fire with 2 - leaving 1 for the Minders in my turn. He shot that last reaper and destroyed it. It was a silly mistake to elect to reaction fire, and also I should have waited until he allocated shots.
Dan was very weary of my Annihilator and a 24" exclusion zone around it was maintained for the majority of the game.
The game ended 8-7 to Dan and he had a very slight kill point advantage and he won 12-8

GAME 3
Opponent - Adam (Shaltari)
Mission - Careful Advance

The return of the Shaltari brick. I know it well, unfortunately for Adam I know how to play against it; having used and abused it for so long.
Adam only had 5 gates. 1 Gaia, 1 Eden, 1 Spirit and 2 Havens (plus a Firedrake if needs be) he also only had 3 squads of infantry (2 Pungari and some First Born). Adam also had a dreaded Panther.
Talking of which, a top tip for all you zoners out there. When looking at an opponents list, spotting a Panther, discussing said unit with opponent, DON'T then proceed to place troop transports in direct line of fire to opponents deployment zone.
YES I did that, and YES it was shot down on turn 1. YES I'm a dick-head.

Not from our game, but it has Adam's Shaltari in....so why not

Luckily on turn 2 I found an Underground Monorail and managed to get to the centre building rather easily. Adam placed his First Borns in the centre building (after surviving 5 hits from Reapers - 5/5 passive saves!) but I overwhelmed him with 4 bases of Destroyers and warriors after finding my home objective. Adam found his too, but he couldn't quite get to one of the critical locations on turn 2 so I got an early advantage. After finding the central objective and extracting it the gap remained as Adam's brick sat on one CL and my Overseer sat on the other. The game ended 9-6 to me and with a minor kill point bonus I won 14-6
Another great game between us (although Adam may not think so).

I came 3rd overall, 6 points behind Dan and George. I had a great time. DzC really is a tremendous tournament game.
Ed came a very respectable 4th and Alex....... I don't think he want's to talk about it.

I really like how the ties were split. Strength of schedule was a great idea. I will be stealing that for Critical Engagement.

A huge thanks to Michael Russell for TOing and to Alex (love you xx) for driving.

Here are some shots of the event (stolen) and the winners (mine).

Winner winner chicken dinner, he's almost happy too

George looks pretty happy with 2nd place, Tim (Coastal Assaults previous champ)

Round 1 commences

Action through round 1

Bethany's Resistance

Tim's Shaltari (won the peoples choice: Best Painted)

Round 2

Ed's Tron PHR

My line up for game 1

Louis' GOLD Robots

Stephens Resistance