The Deadzone Proxy Project, Part IV


On 12 May I played a pair of games of Deadzone with Takatori-San. Takatori-San brought his trusty Marauders for both games, but fell short against my Forge Fathers first, and then my Enforcers second. Both games were played at 150 points. In the first game my missile launcher carrying Forge Guard took out his Hulk, and we were then able to dominate the objectives in the middle. Without his Hulk the rest of his Marauders had no answer for Forge Father armor, and we were able to push up to the objective and drive the Marauders back. The Forge Guard performed very well, soaking up a lot of enemy fire and showing tremendous resilience. The fact that they can only sustain one wound before dying is a bit of a worry, however, making them vulnerable to big damage spikes that can kill them before their life-support systems kick in.

My Forge Fathers swing into action.

In the second game I swapped to my Enforcers while Takatori-San swapped out the Hulk for a Marauder Rainmaker. The second game was closer because we both played cagily, taking whole turns to stay out of sight and waiting for the other to make a mistake. Takatori-San made big power plays at the start of the game trying to kill my squad leader and sniper and throwing everything he had - all of his command dice and all his ammo counters - to achieve that objective. Luckily for me the dice fell my way, and both my squad leader and sniper survived. If Takatori-San had pulled that off he would have raced off to a massive early lead. As it happened, though, I was able to tuck my wounded soldiers safely out of sight, and began methodically cycling through his sniper, his suicide dog bomber, and his grunts in that order. The Rainmaker was able to destroy my commander in hiding via an indirect missile strike, reducing my command dice. His commander also proved to be a real nuisance with his command ability to steal my command dice. I found myself choosing poor command dice to deny him any useful abilities to steal. My Enforcers kept up the pressure, though, and we were able to whittle his forces down. Soon all that was left was the Rainmaker and his commander, and they were unable to keep my guys from seizing the objectives and securing the win.

Takatori-San's Marauders.

I was pleased at the performance of both my strike teams. The only amendment I'm considering is changing my Forge Father commander. While the healing ability is insanely good, it is a retroactive ability which will not help my Forge Guard if they get killed in one shot. I'm also still concerned with the lack of armor penetration in my Enforcer squad, but at least it makes me play more tactically and go for objectives rather than defaulting to a "kill everything" mindset. I've finally completed painting my Forge Father force, and will hopefully complete a couple more strike teams by the time the next update rolls around.

Tsuyoshi-San's Enforcers, in action here on 28 April.

I enjoy playing against Takatori-San because I don't have to worry about being nice. We've played each other enough times that we can go at each other as hard as possible with the toughest lists we can both muster. I don't know if Deadzone has much of a future here in Japan, however. Despite the promotional pushes in Nishi-Tokorozawa by Koizumi-San and Tsuneda-San the only new players to the game are Miopin, Hitoshi-San and Tsuyoshi-San, and their support is pretty much a blanket one not tied specifically to the game itself, but rather to the shop in general. I would like to support the game more by generating campaigns and special events in JIGG circles, but I think I might have overdone analog gaming in May and burnt myself out. If the game dies, it dies. My attention is turning to other things for now, and while I'm wise enough now to know that these goodbyes are never forever, I am content to let the hobby go for the short term.

Next: TBC

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