Virus vs Bacteria

I played a couple Deadzone games yesterday. Both games were Plague vs Veer-myn with two different point sizes and scenarios with hidden objectives.

My two lists were:

150 points scour mission:
Stage 3A leader with energy shield
2x Stage 2A
2x Stage 3A, one with frag grenade and one with smoke grenade

3x Stage 3Z zombies
Stage 3A specialist with grenade launcher and smoke grenade
Plague Swarm

Hidden objective was a reminiscent of infiltration missions that I had come to fear in last edition of Deadzone.


200 points search and destroy:
Stage 3A leader
2x Stage 2A
2x Stage 3A, at least one with smoke grenade
5x Stage 3Z zombies
Stage 3A specialist with grenade launcher
Plague Swarm
Helfather with holo sight (should read them crazy rules a little better...)
Plague Strider with flame thrower

Hidden objective was to kill enemy leader. Only 2VP area scored point for me.


In the first game opponent had pretty much full melee Veer-myn army. And gosh, were they fast!

In the first 150 point game there were at least two nightmares and night terror, piper (some kind of kickstarter exclusive?) and an assortment of troops.

My side of the board had a lot of items tokens that you're supposed to pick up in scour mission. I had won initial recon check and was able to leave one Stage 2A to ambush.

But before I remembered to take a second picture, the ambusher had already died without accomplishing anything at all. Two big rats equipped with drills exposed themselves next on the left side of the board, and I somehow thought that Stage 2A and Plague Swarm would know how to fight in melee. They had completely forgotten how to wield their own claws. Perhaps they were baffled by the extra ammo crates they were carrying and tried to shoot the nightmare rats by squeezing a single bullet into their hide one at a time.

The grenade launcher Stage 3A specialist scored a kill with an indirect shot. A courageous trooper rat tried to challenge my leader in melee, but was overrun by zombies.

I think I got a third kill somewhere, but I really can't remember where it was. Some rat swarms did die here and there, but who counts rat swarms? One Stage 3A trooper infiltrated via enemy deployment zone before just about everything I ever held dear was dead or dying.

Last picture is just before the Stage 3A ethereal leader flees the scene. Injured, both physically and emotionally. I think I got to ten victory points or something.

Game 2:

In the second game veer-myn were lead by a Brood Mother. There were still a ton of huge melee rats, but this time they were supported by things like chem-fire throwers and grenade launchers of their own and what else.

I forgot to take pictures for quite a while. So far the chem-fire thrower in melee with plague swarm has shot Stage 3A leader and another random muton dead (or perhaps it was the melee trooper, who went to hunt the grenade launcher muton who isn't quite there in the picture.)

Sectopod Strider is already a smouldering wreck. It got a clear charge to enemy leader model, yet whiffed every roll it was called to make. The fact that it took damage from a non-armour piercing 6+ shooting attack with it's armour value of 4 and survival 4+ tells everything one needs to know about the Strider's performance.

Stage 2A's were also failing their miserable existence. Looked like the only proper soldiers I had were the zombies. They scored almost all of plague's kills.

Plague Swarm was at least doing something - it took out the chem thrower and assassin-like trooper rat. But I believe that was just because it had been fixed up by a zombie medic - it must have poured a little bit of it's own essence into the surgical field operations on plague swarm!

I had lost my faith in actually killing veer-myn models, so Helfather started to climb up the tower where was the objective that gave two victory points.

A couple of zombies were completely tying up Brood Mother and other hulking rat beasts. One of the nigtmare rat monsters that had dispatched Stage 2A on the left had started to climb up the victory point tower, but plague swarm has already killed it in the picture. Helfather starts to shoot veer-myn broodmother and a lucky fire damage roll deals two damage before Brood Mother manages to take it out.

Then Helfather slowly grind enough victory point to give win for Plague.

What a weird game. It had looked such a game-over only a few turns earlier. I guess the Strider rush and useless Stage 2A brawls slowed and tied up veer-myn to get some time for the real heroes to show up - the zombies. And of course the plague swarm. Some kind of a veer-myn with grenade launcher was also continuously missing grenades against Helfather, which immensely helped to get those few remaining victory points.