Warzone Ressurection, Bauhaus vs. Brotherhood once more

The other weekend Ingo came around for a match of Warzone again, this time outside our mini league. Just as with our league games, this too was played using the advanced game rules, at 1000 points using the standard OOB. We rolled a Delta Mission which meant in addition to the Primary Mission (Reconnaissance) we also had a Corporate Agenda Mission each. The former meant that we would have to control three table zones for a win or two for a minor victory by the end of turn 5. The Corporate Agenda Missions were different for both of us. Ingos mission was for more than 50% of the members of one of his squads to survive (he chose the Sacred Warriors) while mine meant that one of my squad leaders had to cause more wounds than any other squad leader (I chose the Venusian Rangers, although I am not sure why in retrospect).

The table was a large hillside rolling down to the Bauhaus left, with a small hilltop valley on the centre right. There were two small woods in the left corners and a larger one on the right flank, with another woods and two bunkers in the centre. Since the Primary Mission called for set-up in opposing corners, this meant, that one of us would have to set up in the open, while the other got the woods. To be fair, we rolled for this. I won and decided to set up in the open.

Table set-up

So what did we field?

I decided to go a new direction with my troops. So this time they were led by a custom Juggernaut close combat Warlord, with two squads of Hussars (one with six men and one LMG the other with just five men and no support weapon), two five-women squads of Etoiles Mortants with a flame thrower each, one five-men squad of Venusian Rangers with one rocket launcher and a three-men squad of Vulkan suits (all with Rapid Deployment, one of them in close combat configuration).

Ingos force was led by a custom Sacred Warrior Warlord. There were two Trooper Squads, both with two snipers each and an Inquisitor Squad Leader, one squad of Sacred Warriors led by Lukas and a squad of Mortificators. To round things off there were two three-men squads of Inquisitors.

When the regular troops deployed, I put my two squads of Hussars in my deployment zone, with the Warlord being sandwiched in between them. Ingo put his troops into the woods (left to right from his view) Inquisitors, Scared Warriors, Troopers, Inquisitors, Troopers. Up next came the infiltrating troops and I put my Venusian Rangers in the larger woods on my right flank facing the Brotherhood deployment zone. Ingo found a small spot in said woods that was far enough from my troops to deploy and put his Mortificators and Warlord there. My Etoiles Mortant and Vulkans remained in reserve.

Brotherhood forces emerging from the forrest

I activated first and chose to activate my Venusian Rangers, to turn them around and fire at the Mortificators. But this was not to be, since Ingo played one of those fine Brotherhood cards on them that prevented them from firing (am starting to hate this card). So they just moved to bring them closer to the Hussars and Warlord and cut off an easy route of retreat for the Mortificators. Not that this would have been neccessary, since the Mortificators instantly charged my Rangers cutting them all, except for the Ranger with the Rocket Launcher, to pieces. I had previously played an Arachnid Infestation on the woods, but the Mortificators managed to dodge all poisonous spider attacks and took no harm. Same went for the Brotherhood Warlord. Otherwise not much happened that round. Both of us advanced our troops some more, with my Hussars shooting at the enemy Warlord, who always transferred the damage to the Mortificator close to him, who managed to dodge every single one of the attacks. My Rapid Deployment troops decided not to deploy just yet.

Hussars attacking towards the forrest

The next round started with the Mortificators killing he remaining Venusian Ranger. They then stormed towards my troops lobbing grenades at them. While two of them fumbled (unfortunately we played this wrong did not have them explode in their hands), the others still managed to kill of four Hussars in the smaller squad. Again, they managed to simply dodge the return fire. It is amazing how Ingo managed to succeed on all dodge rolls those two first rounds, even though he only had a 50% chance! 😦
But the real action this round was around Ingos deployment zone. Here the first unit of Etoiles Mortants Rapid Deployed into the back of one squad of Troopers. The flame thrower managed to kill all troopers except for two and their Inquisitor leader, but those were easily dispatched, when the rest of the squad charged them in the rear. One of the ladies had so little to do, she even managed to fire her pistol at the nearby Inquisitors (who had already activated and could thus not fire back), but failed to do damage.

1st Etoiles Mortant drop

The other squad of Etoiles Mortants wanted to Rapid Deploy at the other edge of the woods, but their drop went slightly wrong and they scattered into the open fields. Their flamethrower could get into position, but not as good as anticipated, and only killed one Inquisitor and wounded another, plus two Scared Warriors. The other members of the squad were too far away to engage the enemy so just fired their pistols at them, but failed to make an impression, due to the heavy armour of their targets. This squad was subsequently cut up by fire of the Inquisitors and a charge by the Scared Warriors.

2nd Etoiles Mortant drop

This round also saw my last unit, the Vulkans Rapid Deploy, but their drop went really bad. They scattered into the woods and could not activate this round. The squad leader even dropped right into close combat with the Mortifocator leader.

Next round, I was lucky enough to win the initiative and active my Vulkans first. Their squad leader picked his Mortificator opposite up and through him through the air, killing him on impact (I rolled a natural one). The next Vulkan moved out of the woods and fired his heavy flamethrower at two Mortificators killing them both and ridding the Warlord of his protection. The Warlord was now charged in the back by the remaining Vulkan in close combat configuration, who caused the Warlord one wound. This was on account of his ridiculously high ablative armour rating. But as more and more armour panels exploded defeating these attacks, his armour grew weaker.

Vulkan attacking Brotherhood Warlord

The remaining two Mortificators now charged my Warlord, almost killing him. The Hussars charged them in turn to protect their chief, but again all attacks were dodged or sucked up by their armour. Those Hussars too far away decided to fire into the melee with the enemy Warlord to reduce his armour, but only hit the Vulkan (luckily they did him no harm). The Brotherhood Warlord turned to face his assailant, but though he slashed him seven times with his sword only did one damage, which the Vulkan auto repaired. On the other flank the remaining squad of Etoiles Mortant were attacked by the Inquisitors, but suffered only one killed by some kind of dice god miracle. In turn they annihilated said Inquisitors through a combination of flamethrower fire (which also caused massive damage to the other Trooper squad) and close combat attacks.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

The next round saw Ingo win initiative and his Mortificators promptly killed my Warlord and one of the Hussars in close combat with them. Now things did swing back to my Vulkans. While the Warlord managed to safe the first hit from the Vulkan, the other two were able to defeat his now weakened armour and killed him. The other Vulkan managed to kill the remaining Mortificators by firing his flamethrower into the close combat (unfortunately killing one of the Hussars as well. On the other flank, the remaining Etoiles were killed of as well by the remaining Inquisitors and Troopers. So essentially this meant, that both of us had cleared their deployment zones with more or less losses and both had lost their Warlord.

Now we would both have had to maneuver our troops into position for the next phase and probably to secure those target areas. But it Was clear that we would most like each take one and contest the other. Already having played six hours (no idea why it took us so long to play those three rounds) it was already well into the evening, we both decided to call it a draw and end matters here.