Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Dark Age tourney report (by Maurice)



On the 28th, our friend Aaron ran a Dark Age tournament at Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie. I'll talk a bit about the game,  my force and the actual games at the tournament below.

DARK AGE

Dark Age is a brutal skirmish game from CMON set on a planet abandoned by a collapsing interstellar human civilization,  leaving their descendants to deal with aliens, robots,  cannibals,  monsters and all sorts of other man-made and natural horrors. It's a fun place!

The game has been around for quite some time, and now has a huge range of available troops and forces.  There are a ton of viable strategies and it's extremely quick and deadly.

THE EVENT

We used small forces for this event and had 9 players (+ the TO punching bag force) show up.

I took a small team affiliated with St. Luke. The main human culture on the planet follows a group of Saints who represent the people's interests in a tense standoff with the ruling Prevailer Council thugs. Luke's forces tend to be well equipped (shotguns and smoke grenades!) and armored, but very expensive and fragile if the dice turn on them.

I had Zuriel, Luke's armorer, and hybrid medic & shot gun-toting bad ass; an Arsenal with a shotgun and grenade launcher; a Stinger with a spear; two militia members ; and two members of the Flock. The battle plan was to use the last four to screen the first three and let them use their template weapons and powerful spear attacks to clean up the stuff the grunts were engaging.

THE GAMES

Round one I faced off against some Brood, hideous mutants that regenerate, even when set on fire. The first scenario was just scored on kill points, so I was glad my opponent had invested a lot in speed over power (gazelle,  2 lashers and 2 broodhounds). After a couple rounds of cautious positioning, a broodhound charged in and started the melee. I was able to take out both hounds and the gazelle at the cost of my militia and flock, but the stinger eventually fell as well. The critical moment came when the Arsenal lined  up a lasher and his gun malfunctioned, leaving him dying on the ground. However, I was able to get Zuriel to him in time to resuscitate him and the two of them combined to take out the lashers in a very close affair.



In round two, I was paired against our local Dark Age guru Marc and his Skarrd horde of 2 - hit point maniacs (think Firefly reavers). We had to control a series of points across the board. I lost this during deployment as I sent two of my grunts off to tie down a couple of his figs across the board,  leaving my pricey damage dealers under supported against his main force. A couple of unlucky armor rolls later and I was left with nothing on the table. Moral of the story:  don't split the party or the cannibals will eat you.




For game three, I was up against Brood again,  but this time a more power focused force (Murtros, 2 ratchets, broodhound, spray guy). We had to control the center of the board, so this would be a brawl in which positioning was even more important.  We both raced for the center, as his picketing hound was quickly put down by the vaulting Stinger. However, the pup slowed me down just enough to enable the rest of the Brood to make it to the middle first. This left me in a tough spot, needing to get models into the objective zone, bit at the cost of support from my other figures. A well-placed acid burst further reduced my numbers.  My necessarily piecemeal attack left me unable to put down the regenerating brood,  resulting in defeat.

Last up I had to face some Dragyri, the honor - bound original inhabitants of the planet. The enemies were 3 towering Death's Devices and 5 slave caste. In this scenario,  a large explosive device sat in the middle of the field, and we needed to push it closer to the opponent's side of the board. Of course, there was a good chance when pushing it that the bomb would blow up in your face. We rapidly advanced, with his slaves moving to tie me up. An early push from a Death's Device put me behind the 8 ball on points, so I had to move quickly to recover. I was able to kill all but the last device, and move the bomb back to the opponent's side and force a draw.

THE AFTERMATH

At the end of the day, it was a very fun event.  We had a great diversity in forces and a lot of of good players. I felt felt my force was fun, but needed more concentration of squad linkable figures to enable a more effective 'alpha strike,' so to speak. my round two opponent went undefeated on the day and took the event.

Thanks Games and Stuff for hosting!

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